Michael Gove is not having a threesome with me!

Just what is it about Tories and “families”? I for one recognise that having “family friendly” policies is both desirable and important but while Labour take that as a green light for interference, the Tories become obsessed with moralising. And interfering.

So it is that while David Willets is claiming that family breakdown is due to women becoming too big for their boots (er, the Bridget Jones generation was like 10 years ago), while Michael Gove goes one step beyond.

I don’t have a problem with increasing the number of health visitors per se (although I do have a big problem with yet another national politician seeking to micro-manage the NHS yet again), but what on earth is all this stuff about offering “counselling to couples about to get married”?

Apparently “people should not have to feel they were on their own when building a relationship” – er, excuse me but while polyamory is a perfectly valid lifestyle choice, I’m quite happen being “on our own” in my personal relationship thank you very much. I don’t need a state-sponsored person from a voluntary organisation on hand to proffer advice. Sheesh!

Who walks around saying “if only there was a third person in our marriage” (apart from Prince Charles of course)? If society really has collapsed to such an extent that people lack anything resembling a support structure via friends and family, we really do have much more fundamental problems than are being indicated here. If it hasn’t, then it is a non-issue. Which is it?

This sounds distinctly like one of those things like anti-social behaviour 12 years ago – an issue you never knew existed which politicians magic out of the air to have something to say but which soon becomes an “epidemic” and the subject of a moral panic. If you get to the point of getting married and have no idea of what you are letting yourself in for, a couple of counselling sessions are unlikely to help you. By contrast, if you think you need counselling you probably don’t – the path to wisdom is found acknowledging ignorance and all that. The voluntary sector already provides this sort of hand holding and there appears to be little evidence that, at this time of insecurity, this is even a real problem let alone a priority, so why bang on about it now?

What next? Hen and stag weekend planning services on the state? Free cake for every couple? An official to intervene if the father of the bride is not able to give her away for any reason (subject to a waiting list – with targets!)? If Gove doesn’t see this is an area for the state to back off, there’s no helping him.

But it does tell you all you need to know about the Tories’ attitude to love: one part financial arrangement, one part psychological disorder. That’s Eton for you.

4 comments

  1. Not sure that David Rendell/Jo Grimond et al would say that that was Eton for you! Thatcher/Tebbit was the greatest moraliser of all….

    I can’t vote on your poll for some reason, but Andrei Rublev is wonderful.

  2. Far be it for me an apologist for Thatcher and Tebbit but I genuinely doubt either of them would be in favour of presumptive relationship counselling on the state.

    As for the Eton jibe, it was low abuse, pure and simple. Of course some people escape less affected than others. 🙂

  3. haha- I figured as much!

    The question of how we engage with the ‘cultural politics’ that the Tories have started taking a lead on is something that I think still hasn’t been talked about enough. Normally the left points to economic factors, Tories point to cultural malaise- what should liberals do? My suspicion is that we should talk about spreading opportunity in an economic sense and that we are sure that this will help with social norms but that it isn’t politicians’ jobs. We have not been calling out the Tories for moralising enough yet, though, IMHO…

  4. I quite enjoy threesomes, but I’d rather pick my own partners, not have one foisted on me by the state, and certainly not that rat-faced little tit Gove

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