“Of course, being pro-marriage was also a big issue for the Thatcher government. In a decade, her policy unit came up with no substantive policy attempt beyond the rhetorical?

So, clearly, it wasn’t such a big issue for them after all.

It certainly wasn’t for Thatcher, who rarely bothered about the private lives of MPs and was, herself, married to a divorcee.

Like you, Sunder, I have no faith in the liberal credentials of the next Government- whoever
that may be.

On a personal level, I would no more dream of ticking the box on a form enquiring into my marital status than I would answering a question about the ethnicity of my children or the name of my dog.

Grayling’s point that marriage has become a “non-official institution” under Labour strikes me as silly and absolute nonsense.

For example, there is a legal requirement to give intention of your notice to marry in person, and the information is then publicly displayed before you can get married. These arrangements were still in place in 2001, when I got married, and I am not aware of any proposal to abolish them.

Moreover, Labour has happily extended the institution of marriage by making official legal provision for civil partnerships. A good number of pro-marriage Conservatives now welcome this, though some do not.

So Grayling means something else: he seems to argue that there should routinely be a focus on marital status in all bureaucratic transations, whether it has relevance or not, for the sake of the state demonstrating its official commitment to being interested in marriage.

He should identify forms where it has disappeared, when, and where he will bring it back.

There are clearly many areas where marital status is relevant. If I was seeking to adopt, for example. Though single people and unmarried couples can also adopt,
all would expect to be asked in detail about my life so an assessment could be made about my ability to successfully adopt a child.

The gist of Grayling’s proposal appears to me to be that one should also be asked this if applying for a driving licence or a library card. That will strike most people as odd, pointless and intrusive.

A useful factual discussion of the introduction by the Conservative government of independent taxation for husbands and wives, and current debates about transferable allowances, can be found in this House of Commons research paper
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/briefings/snbt-04392.pdf

Firstly
“Of course, being pro-marriage was also a big issue for the Thatcher government. In a decade, her policy unit came up with no substantive policy attempt beyond the rhetorical”

Being pro-something and doing nothing about in your time in office is not a trait displayed only by Thatcher. All governments across the world promise many things and deliver barely any of them. Someone with the experience of politics that you have ought to know this.

Secondly
Grayling is a tit. I’ve always thought so. The only things he has going for him is that he isn’t as much of a tit as the Labour front benches, but he’s not far off. Fortunately, the civil service will be there (much as in Yes, Minister) to prevent any of his ideas getting off the ground.

Allow me to pick a bone.

Sunder’s thread header somehow suggests that Grayling is a naive, bureaucratic nutter, with social engineering tendencies, for believing that forms seeking information from applicants on marital status will strenghten matrimonial bonds.

IMO this is really a decidedly sinister development as the undeclared intent is to exert pressure to conform with the Conservative prescription for social harmony and personal responsibility.

It’s a way of putting “family values” firmly back onto the political agenda with less prospect of that rebounding when the steamy extra-marital activities of Conservative politicans make the news. To avoid replays of the recent sad events in a Norfolk constituency, I think all applicants seeking adoption as prospective Conservative parliamentary candidates should be required to submit resumes of their sex-lives outside matrimony for the previous 10 years.

Bob B: couldn’t those two interpretations of this be complementary?

At least Cameron’s wife hasn’t told us how many times Dave can get it up in a night, unlike the charmless Cherie Blair and her super-potent husband.

#7

This is relevant why?

Who said it was relevant? I just felt like taking another pop at motor-mouth Cherie. You can just ignore it if you like. It doesn’t take much effort. Or will I get reported to the ‘not relevant’ sub commitee of the comments commitee at LibCon? Jeez!

I tease. But you didn’t take the bait.

Actually, my comment was perfectly relevant – to this from Bob B: I think all applicants seeking adoption as prospective Conservative parliamentary candidates should be required to submit resumes of their sex-lives outside matrimony for the previous 10 years.

Dear Mrs Blair delighted us with a short resume of the sex life of her and her husband, presented in the charming surroundings of the Number 10 garden.

Same old Right wing tosh.

As soon as you move onto so called social issues the Right’s pretend concern for the individual just vanishes up in smoke.

Trust the individual, er, except on social issues.

“Same old Right wing tosh.”

C’mon. Consider the entertainment angle.

I do so love reading all the stuff about family values in the Conservative Party:

” . . . Lady (Bienvenida) Buck, the wife of Conservative MP Anthony Buck. . . ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Harding

“Pelling was married to Japanese citizen Sanae for 16 years, and the couple had three children. Pelling met Lucy Slaytor, who assisted his campaign team, during the 2005 General Election. After the election Sanae visited her dying father in Tokyo, and on her return released a statement to the press revealing Pelling’s affair with Slaytor, saying at the time: ‘He treated me like a doormat. As far as he was concerned I was there to raise his children and cook his food. His only love is politics.’”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Pelling

“[Mark Field] is married to celebrity agent, Victoria Elphicke, with whom he lives in Westminster and Majorca. Their first son, Frederick William Crispian Field, was born on 19 December 2007. Field’s first marriage ended in divorce in 2006 following his affair with Elizabeth Truss between 2004 and 2005 which, in October 2009, caused Truss, shortly after being selected as a Tory parliamentary candidate, to be considered for deselection.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Field

“Johnson was dismissed from these high-profile posts in November, 2004 over accusations that he lied to Michael Howard about a four-year extramarital affair with Petronella Wyatt, The Spectator’s New York correspondent and former deputy editor. Johnson derided these allegations as ‘an inverted pyramid of piffle’, but Howard sacked Johnson because he believed press reports showed Johnson had lied, rather than for the affair itself.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson