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The Government is now looking more decisive on gay marriage. A bill to allow a change in the law may be put to Parliament within weeks; it could potentially become law quicker than implied in the original timetable. This is one measure where both Nick Clegg and David Cameron are as one. With the support of most Labour MPs, the bill should encounter relatively little serious opposition in Parliament.
This is an example of clear leadership, an area where the Prime Minister has sometimes been found wanting. He feels strongly about the issue in principle and has persuaded most of his party to back the move. He has made the arguments and he is now acting on his convictions. There has been public consultation but it cannot go on endlessly; at some point, the measure must go ahead. By putting the measure on the statute books, the PM will neutralise its capacity to divide his party: there will thereafter be little point in arguing about it. He can then get on with the Government’s other priorities.
Mr Cameron believes that the interests of society are best served by commitment, whether between heterosexual or homosexual couples. Stable relationships are given public recognition in marriage and extending the status of marriage to gay couples could help shore up support for what is, increasingly, a beleaguered institution. In this sense, gay marriage does not undermine marriage but simply makes it more widely available. Accelerating the timetable for the bill is a measure of the Prime Minister’s seriousness about reform. He should get credit for being prepared to give a lead towards change.
Brussels’ budget
The seven-yearly negotiations over the EU’s budget are rarely a consensual affair, with 27 member states fighting their corner, but in austere times they promise to be more acrimonious than usual. The British position, which David Cameron advances today, is that there should be a real-terms budget freeze — though even that is unlikely to satisfy many Tory backbenchers, some of whom last month rebelled against the Government to vote for no absolute increase at all. The political fallout from tonight’s negotiations could be serious. The European Commission, meanwhile, is arguing for a five per cent real-terms increase.
It is, or should be, unacceptable that the EU should spend more when its own member states are struggling to cut budgets. Cuts in the amount Brussels spends on its own bureaucracy should come first, which may not be much in percentage terms but which would mean much symbolically. Proposed infrastructure spending could also be reduced without undermining critical subsidies.
On this, Britain should not stand alone, nor try to. It is the business of the Foreign Office to forge alliances with like-minded member states. It does our diplomacy little credit if David Cameron is left to fight his corner alone. Germany is no longer the willing paymaster it was, now that its taxpayers are paying the biggest share of bailouts for struggling eurozone economies. Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands are also robust in their critique of wasteful spending. The UK should have willing allies in its bid to restrain the EU budget; let’s make the most of them.
Narnia in the Abbey
Next year CS Lewis will have a plaque in his honour in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey. In fact, he was not much of a poet but he was a wonderful medievalist and literary critic and his Narnia books transformed children’s literature. They will, in fact, be his lasting memorial.