Video from the Guardian website
‘Nom nom nom’, the sound of Polly Toynbee eating IDS (a person, not an embarrassing disease) for breakfast. IDS, with his rather ironic notion of combining Conservatism with social justice, has decreed that marriage must be promoted as a way to end entrenched social disadvantages. He says this because of the indisputable correlation between social disadvantage and broken homes. The problem is that he seems to have decided that entrenched disadvantage is caused by broken homes, not the other way round. This, I would suggest, is enormously indicative of how well the Tories don’t understand the problems facing so many people today.
Incidentally, I think this is why we need more people in politics who have actually experienced severe disadvantages. Empathy and imagination help, but they really aren’t any sort of substitute for intense practical experience. It would be nice to see someone with real practical experience of social disadvantage take on IDS, rather than a journalist born with a silver spoon in her mouth (however good she may be).
