The Tory-Mail relationship hasn’t been great of late so there’ll have been a few smiles within Team Cameron at this morning’s Daily Mail front page splash…
The Mail’s enthusiasm for Iain Duncan Smith’s likely recommendation that action is taken to reduce the disincentives to marry within the tax and benefits system will be a test for Gordon Brown. Our new Prime Minister has courted The Sun and Mail ever since he set his eyes on Number Ten. He will be concerned that he may lose Paul Dacre if he goes too hard against the Tory marriage policy although Harriet Harman et al will be pressing him very hard to do so.
This is how today’s Mail leader column concludes:
"Duncan Smith’s report is a welcome challenge to
political correctness. Though some of his proposals may prove
contentious – for example, swingeing taxes on alcohol to fund
treatments for drug addicts – his case for strengthening family
structures is compelling. As David Cameron says, mending Britain’s
‘broken society’ is the biggest issue of our times. It will be
instructive to see how other parties respond."
Ms Harman’s political correctness means she despises any hint that one form of family structure is usually better for children than any other. That political correctness forces her and her ideological Labour colleagues to ignore the evidence that poverty is almost certainly unbeatable if public policy does not support two parents and marriage.