The false promise of ‘equality’’

The Pope certainly knows how to make an entrance. As he prepares for his visit to Britain, the Holy Father has not sent the usual diplomatic advance party but an Exocet missile aimed at the government — and specifically at Harriet Harman’s Equality Bill. It is a worthy target. The Bill itself is an appalling piece of legislation, but most of all it is based on one of the most pernicious ideas in modern politics: that equality should be pursued for its own sake.

It is hard not be outraged by the examples of inequality in Britain: the drug-addled sink estates next door to opulent mansions; the fact that more Eton boys leave school with three As at A-level than do all the boys who qualify for free school meals in the country. Yet the appalling truth is that this government’s attempts to reduce inequality has only made it worse. Welfare has bred dependency, which has meant the gap between rich and the poor has widened under Labour.

The Pope was taking issue with a separate aspect of Harman’s bill. He worries that an extension of state powers will mean the Church is obliged to hire people who disagree with its teaching on fundamental issues, including homosexuality. He advanced the rival concept of ‘natural law’, whereby the platoons of civil society — including churches — are free to arrange their own affairs as they see fit. The offending proposal was dropped in a day. The Vatican had engaged in a stunningly effective piece of opposition politics.

There is a lesson here for the Conservatives: that politics is, above all, a battle of ideas — and that this government is at its weakest when faced with a competing set of principles.