Truth be told, I’m not totally convinced that the number one cause of divorce is really financial problems, which is why I put it in quotation marks – I suspect it’s more complicated than that. The number one cause of divorce to my mind is people falling out of love, or people never having really been suited to each other in the first place. Financial problems may cause more arguments and stress and so cause a tipping point to be reached, though, which is probably what the “number one cause” stuff is getting at.

But yes, I can see the argument that if you throw money at people who are married it might stave off that tipping point and keep divorce at bay. It just strikes me as a fundamentally illiberal (David Davis, are you watching?) thing to want to do, to try to artificially sustain a relationship that’s had its day, as if children living with people in a shaky relationship is better than children living with one dedicated and happy parent.

If people love each other and choose to get married, that’s their choice. If they agree they should divorce, ditto. Chucking a bit of money their way to try to interfere just seems bizarre.

And my parallel point then is that money should be targeted where it’s needed most, by those who are the least well off, which is nothing like this proposal either. It seems to fail on both counts.

As for the traffic light label thing, I can’t believe this government’s cowardice on that front, refusing to make it a mandatory standard and so allowing many manufacturers and Tesco to adopt a confusing numerical system instead. But not to even *recommend* that traffic lights are a good idea is a huge step even further from the sensible one. I suppose that’s because it’s fat people’s own faults, and certainly has nothing to do with the food manufacturers whose votes and funding the Tories are wooing.

I’m no defender of *everything* this government has done (though I’ll happily defend quite a bit of it), but the people who class themselves as broadly on the left who seem delighted by the idea that the government will get kicked out but ignore the fact they’ll be replaced by the Tories do seem a strange bunch to me. There’s pretty much nothing they’ve complained about this government doing that the Tories wouldn’t also have done, and in most cases they’d have done it in an even more objectionable manner. Traffic lights on food not being mandated? The Tories won’t even recommend it. Of course it’s a valid criticism of the current government, but that doesn’t make Cameron’s mob the solution.

“…and so avoid the “number one cause of divorce”, financial stress?”

So lack of money causes divorce…

“…it seems unbelievable that the Tories would seek to claim that however many pounds a week their bonus will represent could also do so.”

… but giving the married couple more money won’t prevent divorce?!

Incidentally, the most revealing Tory moment this week I reckon is their pledge to stop using traffic light labels on food following consultation with the big name food manufaturers. Typical.