Warning - marriage can be bad for your career

If, as Culture Secretary Maria Miller says, the Conservatives think marriage is a good thing, they should be getting on with their manifesto promise to introduce tax breaks for married couples, not trying to destroy the very concept of marriage by stretching the definition to include relationships it was never meant to cover. Marriage is, by its very nature, not inclusive - it is the exclusive life-long relationship between a man and a woman who have promised to have and to hold until death parts them. That is not to say that other sorts of loving or committed relationships are not possible - they are just not marriages. Rumour has it that David Cameron's wife is pushing her husband to bring in same-sex marriage legislation. If so, she may well be seeing a lot more of him after 2015 and he might have the distinction of being one of the few politicians whose career was ended by his marriage, rather than the other way about.