Burning bridges

Sally Chatterjee

Looks like a double-edged support. Support from the media is good but as a liberal sort (small L!), I don't like being told how to behave. I happen to think marriage is great but regret the state using the tax system to promote any kind of behaviour. Shouldn't we be left alone?

TrevorsDen

Don't countries all over the world support marriage with tax breaks? Whats so controversial about it?

Grumpy Optimist

I agree with you Sally. What we want is as much neutrality as possible in the tax system.
But I fear that we are in a very small minority. We just cannot be trusted.

Trebor

There are single parents out there that want to marry but can't afford to lest they lose their tax credits!
We aren't left alone.

Alanbrooke

Given some of the Spectator's recent "support", you are hardly in a position to point the finger at the Mail.

Pot, kettle

Glasshouse, stones etc.

Cogito Ergosum

As a single man, I object to the idea that I am supposed to subsidise married couples.

bert

Cogito, don't be so naive. Every tax pound you earn goes towards some kind of subsidy. Think about Labour's client state, the billions of pounds spent on ensuring millions of people never work - and the billions wasted over the last 13 yrs.

There are many reasons to get annoyed about subsidising certain groups of people - but married couples are not one of them.

John David Barnett

Since marriage makes for a more stable society, with less crime and deprivation, it ought to be supported.

I have always been single, so have no axe to grind.

Holly ......

I have just dipped into the Sky news site and the first six headlines struck me.
FEARS over FORCE in schools
Army chiefs FEARS over spending
Cash VICTIMS of FOREIGN TERROR
TERROR suspect to claim DAMAGES
blair/Bush IRAQ WAR pact in 02
N Dubz Rapper sorry for text THREAT.
fear,terror,war,threats,victims,foreign terror.
Nothing like subliminal messages to set you up for the day.
Would these 'key' words have registered in my conscience if I had read them later today?
Do we read all these words but are not really conscious of them? They 'sit' in our minds and 'grow',so that we feel bombarded?
Is the country is full of murdering terrorist thugs?
Going by the words used for headlines,maybe it is.
Funny what you notice when the world is quiet.

Pete-s

Some want neutrality in the Tax system, well then take out the current anomalies that penalise those that are married.

Ian Walker

There would be a more logical alternative to tax breaks for married couples - a) make childcare tax deductible up to a reasonable level, and b) allow spouses to register as childcare providers (without CRB checks or similar).

Vulture

I've got some experience of being inside the Mail ( rather like being inside the whale) and I can tell you where Dacre is coming from.

1) The Mail is basically a Tory paper and I cannot imagine it ever recommending that its readers vote Liebour- it viscerally hates socialism in all its guises.

2) Dacre, the Mail's Duce-in-Chief, likes pols. much like himself : self-made men (apart from Mrs T. women don't really count in Mail-land unless they've recently had botox and/or been photographed on a beach looking porky); pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps; overcome obstacles to reach the top: this explains his misguided fondness for Blunkett ( who disappointed him sexually - PD is also something of a Puritan); which has inexplicably been transferred to Bruin. Somewhere in his withered heart PD believes Bruin is a rough-hewn man of the people with the morals of an elder of the Kirk who has overcome...etc. ( one eye; death of child etc.)

3) By the same token as (1) and (2) PD hates smoothie chop toffs born with silver spoons sticking out of mouths and nostrils who have never done a real job (PR & the Law don't count); have oodles of unearned wealth and have liberal social and sexual attitudes. That's why he hated Bliar and loathes the heir to Blair.

It's all very inconsistant and irrational (PD sent his own sons to Eton; Dave also lost achild;) but hey!
- That's the nature of the Beast.

Bottom line: The Mail would be much happier if the Tories were led by a hard-nosed man of the people. They will recommend a vote for Dave but with extreme reluctance and only because anyone would be better than Liebour - a position shared by many Coffee Housers.

AndyinBrum

Vulture, and if the mail got it's way and the Tories ellected a leader that they fully approved of, they would never be elected to government. Which isn't a bad thing IMHO. My rule of thumb on MOST things is that if the Mail/Express are against it, then it's actually a good thing. Don't start me on their hypocracy on hysterical overreactions. Right back to the Morning Star

Liberty

The one thing that would stimulate marriage is the abolition of means testing. Now, if a man moves in with the mother of his child the household income and tax increases and benefits fall creating the poverty trap. The obvious solution is to abolish means testing so that a couple with a child is better off together. This means paying out to the rich but this would be offset by adjusting the tax bands. Add in a fixed rate child benefit paid on the birth of the last child for the over 18s and we stop women having more babies than they can care for or having them at 15 to get out of school and work. Politicians can then get out of the issue of marriage and leave it to us to work it all out. It’s a no-brainer.

General Zod

Great insight, Vulture.

2trueblue

Liebore really just do not get it. It is better to encourage people to continue creating a stable relationship that helps society than to encourage people to live separately, with their own agenda, funded by us. Life is full of choices, but at least encourage what is accepted ar preferable.

Vulture

@AndyinBrum: Ummm..I don't think your analysis is correct,actually. It all depends on prevailing political moods and zeitgeists.

Thatcher got elected three times on a hard-nosed platform you would disapprove of. Bliar got elected three times on a soft-nosed platform that Dacre definitely disapproved of. (On election night '97 he turned aghast to the newsroom as the extent of the Liebour landslide became clear and gasped: "But these people are Mail readers!")

If the Tories were led today by a hard-noser - David Davis, say ( although he's more of a broken noser) I think they would be heading into landslide territory, not the wafer thin win Dave is looking at.

People are harder, meaner and poorer than they were in 97-2005, and their votes will reflect this.

@Zod: We can't go on being nice to each other like this. You'll be cuddling up with Verity next!

Archie

AndyinBrum: Well, up to a point, but that was then and this is now!

Simon Stephenson

Vulture : 8.48am

your comment:-

"The Mail is basically a Tory paper and I cannot imagine it ever recommending that its readers vote Liebour- it viscerally hates socialism in all its guises."

is an interesting contrast to Robin Cook's recollection* of the exchanges in Parliament following the Mail-led story about the Euan/Cherie Blair/Bristol flats affair:-

"At Business Statement, Eric Forth banged on at considerable length about Cheriegate. He did not even bother to make it appear balanced by including a question about anything else ...

After the exchanges, I had Eric round to talk about various items of housekeeping, such as the questions rota. Before we got down to business, I twigged him about the decision of his party to run with the Cheriegate allegations. As always, Eric was engagingly frank. They have never forgiven the Daily Mail for backing Blair in '97 (my emphasis) and, now that illicit affair is over, they are ruthlessly determined that there will never be any daylight again between them and the Mail. Few people outside Westminster will understand that Paul Dacre has exercised more influence over political positions over the past decade than any politician elected by the public.

* in The Point of Departure, from the entry for 12th December 2002.

AndyinBrum

Vulture, I don't remember Maggie being rabidly Daily Mailesque, whatever the far left would have us believe. Also I feel the same about Davis.

For what it's worth, my Mail/express test is also used on Polly Tonybee and Jaquie Ashley

Vulture

@Simon: Thanx for drawing my attention to this. I should be interested to read the editorial in which the Mail backed Bliar.

I can certainly attest to Dacre's horror at the Liebour landslide on election night as I was there.

Possibly the late Eric Forth interpreted anything less than a full-throated Mail order to vote for John Major as backing for Liebour. It must be remembered that Major in 97 was so unpopular ( about as unpopular as Bruin is today) that even Tory support for him was distinctly muted. Like the Sun the Mail likes to back winners.

General Zod

I still don't agree, Vulture that the Tories would be riding higher in the polls under a more right wing leader.

The support of the 10% or so who made all the difference for Labour in 1997 will not go to a right wing agenda. These people are still vulnerable to the siren voices of those beauties, Brown and Balls, calling them over towards the rocks with their refrain of "the Tories will abolish free healthcare and push private education at the expense of state education".