Consorting With Chaos

There is now talk of a courtesy title for the same-sex spouses of peers and knights, and presumably also therefore for the husbands of women peers (peeresses are the wives of peers) and for the husbands of dames. Either that, or the style of "Lady" for peeresses and for knights' wives will be abolished, even though, in this as in all past ages, many a man has accepted a peerage or a knighthood specifically so that his wife might call herself "Lady".

But that is hardly the start of it all. Whether or not we are currently admitting it where the Duchess of Cornwall in concerned, the wife of His Majesty the King is Her Majesty the Queen Consort. The husband of Her Majesty the Queen is His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, even if he is given another title by his wife or, as in the present case, already held another title prior to her accession. Oh, and two persons of the same sex may already now be listed as the parents on a birth certificate, making them the only legal parents of the child. Consider that, on this Parent B's Day. Indeed, consider it all. Obviously, no one else has bothered to do so.

That said, there has been a distinct silence from the Labour Party, as such, on the redefinition of marriage. Opposing things like the abolition of national pay agreements in the public sector, while at least declining to support, as a party rather as individuals, moves such as the redefinition of this most fundamental of institutions in the metrosexual interest, may or may not be enough to win a General Election outright. But it is certainly enough to deny the Conservative Party an overall majority for the fifth time in a row.

It is difficult to see how that party, which, as such, exists purely in order to be in government as the end in itself, could possibly survive that fifth successive denial of a clear mandate to govern. Disgruntled Tories out here in the shires and the provincial cities, don't register your protest by voting UKIP. Make a real difference by voting for the only party that can actually defeat and destroy the one that that you have rightly come to despise.

If you still felt the need, then you could start again from scratch after that. But with Labour visibly dependent on you rather than on the imaginary or disagreeable "centre ground", who knows what you might be able to achieve within and through a party largely created by your sort of people in the first place and, with the Blairites as good as gone, far more open to the central and local government action on which your social and cultural aspirations depend for realisation?