Should the tax system encourage marriage?

Well, it certainly shouldn't discourage it, and if David Cameron thinks that's currently the case, then maybe he has a point. But I honestly don't think the tax system should encourage marriage either.

It's not that I don't believe that marriage provides the most stable environment for children to be brought up in. It quite clearly does. But is providing tax incentives to get married really likely to provide more stable, loving homes - or might it actually achieve just the opposite?

Okay, so I probably move in rather traditional social circles compared to some, but most people I know got married because they believed they had found their soulmate, not because they wanted to find a way of knocking £200 a year off the income tax bill.

If there really is anyone out there who got married for those sorts of reasons - and that I rather doubt - then they are probably three quarters of the way to the divorce court already.

Comrade Digby

Excellent post here, as ever, from Skipper. While sympathetic to the concept of governments-of-all-the-talents, I think the protesting Labour MPs may well have a point here.

Ripples do come back....

There is music, and then there is Genesis music. I've been into lots of other bands at various times in the last 44 years, but none that have engaged my emotions in quite the same way as Messrs Banks, Collins and Rutherford - and as Saturday night's comeback gig at Old Trafford showed, the old magic is still there.

Nothing is ever as good as the first time, and in terms of my Genesis experience, nothing will ever quite match the first time I saw them, but that was partly down to the company. Musically speaking, this was the best performance I have ever seen them give - and that is saying something.

It was an advantage that with no new material to perform, they could concentrate instead on crowd-pleasing. The whole show was an exercise in unashamed nostalgia, with images of their old album sleeves and old 70s long-haired photographs flashing across the giant pixilated screen at the back of the stage.

Phil Collins said in a notorious interview in 1981: "I can't expect people who liked us ten years ago to still like us today." In those days, they were trying too hard to ecsape their prog-rock roots. On Saturday, it felt for the first time as if Genesis have truly come to terms with their past

It was significant that the 24-track set featured nothing from the controversial 1981 LP Abacab, the one which alienated the old fanbase to such an extent that the band were booed at several concerts during the subsequent tour, most notoriously at Leiden, Holland.

Instead, they took us on a sentimental journey through their extensive back catalogue, with stuff dating back as far as "Firth of Fifth," from the 1973 album Selling England by the Pound, and Abacab aside, at least one track from every subsequent LP.

The set was more instrumental than usual to save Phil's voice a bit - but that was fine by me as many of the band's greatest efforts have been instrumentals. And in any case, during the "Duke's Travels" section of the "In the Cage" medley, the crowd did the singing for him.

If I have one slight criticism it is that while the merchandise featured images from the early 70s albums Foxtrot and Nursery Cryme, there was no material from these LPs performed. "Fountain of Salmacis" and "Watcher of the Skies" would have been nice additions, maybe at the expense of some the later stuff.

For me, though, the big highlight of the show was "Ripples," the haunting track from the 1976 album A Trick of the Tail. This one has not been a regular feature of their live set since the Seconds Out tour in 1977, and was the one genuinely unexpected surprise for the old fans.

"Sail away, away, ripples never come back" says the song. But as my mum once told me, new ones start.

Trust me, I'm not Tony

I passed up the opportunity to blog on the details of Gordon Brown's constitutional reform proposals this week because I wanted to save it for my weekend columns (for which I get paid!) Anyway here is my preliminary verdict, as published in this morning's Newcastle Journal. Some of it may be of particular interest to readers of Anglospheric tendencies.

***

During the course of the long debate over whether the North-East should have an elected assembly, one of the most oft-heard criticisms of the idea was that “it isn’t what they’re talking about down the Dog and Duck.”

If the truth be told, it wasn’t, as the November 2004 referendum result seemed to demonstrate.

Today, you can hear the same arguments being made about the wider constitutional reform agenda – that it isn’t a subject uppermost in people’s minds, that it “butters no parsnips” as Tony Blair rather unkindly put it.

Maybe so, but one issue they are certainly talking about down the mythical Dog and Duck is trust in politicians - or rather the lack of it.

So it is against that backdrop that Gordon Brown’s decision to make constitutional reform the subject of his first Commons’ statement as Prime Minister on Tuesday has to be seen.

It was always likely that Mr Brown's first big political initiative as premier would be designed to tackle the "trust" issue, for the simple reason that it was fundamentally this that forced his predecessor out before his time.

By handing over power to Parliament, and ultimately the people, Mr Brown thinks he can restore the public’s confidence in Labour after the spin and sleaze of the Blair years.

So the underlying message on Tuesday was not so much "I am a political anorak who sits up at night worrying about how to change our system of government," but simply "I am not like Tony Blair."

Mr Blair, of course, never had any time for constitutional matters. The Scottish and Welsh devolution agenda was the legacy of John Smith, and Mr Blair had little alternative but to implement it.

English regional government was an anathema to him and he actively sought to hobble the project by refusing to grant the proposed assembly anything like enough power.

Meanwhile House of Lords reform was left unfinished, and the House of Commons largely marginalised during his ten years in office.

And far from giving away powers as Mr Brown is now attempting to do, he positively revelled in the exercise of them, from waging war to appointing Church of England bishops.

The most predictable element of Mr Brown’s statement on Tuesday was that the power to declare war would be handed to Parliament – but in effect, this change has already taken place.

After the last time, if Mr Brown were now to try to wage war without a vote in the Commons, there would undoubtedly be rioting in the streets.

Potentially much more significant, in my view, is Mr Brown’s proposal to give up the right to recommend a dissolution of Parliament – namely, to decide when a general election should be held.

In a majority government situation, it is unlikely to mean much. But in a hung Parliament, it could dramatically limit a Prime Minister’s room for manoeuvre.

Among the other main proposals, moving election days from Thursdays to the weekend and lowering the voting age to 16 may or may not boost the percentage turnout that has steadily declining since 1992.

A more interesting way forward here might have been to announce a further pilot project on electronic voting, or, God forbid, reform of the electoral system itself.

But on the plus side, holding US-style hearings on key public appointments like the Governorship of the Bank of England is surely an idea whose time has come.

And by giving up the power to appoint bishops, Mr Brown has moved to address one of those peculiar British anachronisms that somehow seem to survive all attempts at modernisation.

For me, though, the most disappointing aspect of the package was the rather dismissive air that the new Prime Minister adopted towards the plight of four fifths of the UK population – the English.

Mr Brown was right to say that the Tory proposal of “English votes for English laws” makes little sense, but neither does the current status quo of Scottish votes for English laws.

An English Constitutional Convention to examine ways of tackling the English democratic deficit is the obvious way forward, and it is disappointing that Mr Brown hasn’t established one.

He did announce the creation of Commons select committees for each of the English regions – but if he sees this as the way of rebalancing the constitution in the wake of Scottish and Welsh devolution, he is in for a rude shock.

Don’t get me wrong – the committees are a positive step, and together with the dedicated regional ministers, should ensure that issues of regional importance are taken more account of at Westminster.

But essentially, they are a means of helping to address regional economic inequalities, no more.

What they are emphatically not is an answer to the so-called West Lothian Question – namely why do Scottish and Welsh MPs still have a say over English-only issues when the reverse is no longer the case?

And I cannot help worrying that Mr Brown is getting into regionalism at just such a time as people are starting to think less about regional identity and more about Englishness.

What, briefly, of the rest of the week’s events? Well, Health Secretary Alan Johnson’s announcement of a moratorium on further NHS restructures will certainly help restore staff morale.

And giving local people in cities like Newcastle and Sunderland more say over council budgets is further proof of the new government’s determination to devolve power.

Attention over the past couple of days has focused on Mr Brown’s rather lacklustre performance at his first Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday - but that was never going to be his strength.

Launching a serious and policy-rich agenda was. And on that score, he is so far delivering.

Genesis 070707

As a Derby County fan with Arsenalesque tendencies, Old Trafford is not somewhere I would normally frequent, but I'm making an exception tomorrow for the return of Genesis to live performance after a break of 15 years. I've followed the band through thick and thin since the 1970s, despite - or perhaps because of - the fact that for most of that time they've been the most deeply unfashionable band in the world.

Like most of the "old" fans, I'll be hoping for a fair bit of "old" stuff tomorrow, and with the re-releases of the 1976-82 material currently on the market, that's a distinct possibility!

Of course, this tour featuring the Banks - Collins - Rutherford line-up is being viewed by many as merely a curtain-raiser for the long-awaited reunion of the "classic" 1970-75 line-up incorporating Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett, rumours of which continue to persist among the Genesis online community.

Be that as it may, I'll be making the most of the chance to see musical heroes live once again tomorrow, rain or no rain!

Brown and the Church

It was always clear that Gordon Brown's first big political initiative as Prime Minister was likely to be in the area of "trust," for the simple reason that it is the loss of trust in politics, and specifically in New Labour, that forced his predecessor out of office before his time and threatens to force him out of office at the next election unless he can tackle it.

So the constitutional reform proposals announced by Mr Brown yesterday have to be seen in that light. The underlying message was not "I am a political anorak who sits up at night worrying about how to change our system of government," but simply "I am not like Tony Blair."

To that extent, I think it succeeded in its aim and I look forward to what else comes forward - particularly on the "English/West Lothian Question" which was rather dismissively glossed over. But for now, I want to focus on one specific proposal, namely ending the Prime Minister's role in the appointment of Bishops.

The question of the relationship between Church and State has always been a vexed one, and Tony Blair's answer on this at his final PMQs when he told the Lib Dem MP Richard Younger-Ross that he was "really not bothered" about it was as spectacularly disingenuous as anything he said in office.

In fact Mr Blair was deeply bothered about the church-state relationship during his time as premier. On at least two occasions, he used his Prime Ministerial power to promote his own brand of muscular Christianity, appointing James Jones to the Bishopric of Liverpool within months of coming to office, and making Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury in the belief that he was the man to bring about a spiritual revival.

He wasn't the only recent Prime Minister to take a keen interest in church affairs. In 1990, Margaret Thatcher famously rejected the church's preferred candidate for Canterbury, John Habgood, and chose the second name on the list, George Carey. Ironically this turned out to be a smart move as Habgood was an exponent of the wishy-washy liberalism which is slowly driving the CoE into the ground.

Under Brown's proposals, the Prime Minister would be presented with only one name, selected by the church's own appointments commission, which he would then recommend to the Queen. I am not sure however that letting the church effectively elect its own leaders makes any more sense than letting politicians chose them. Some sort of independent scrutiny would still, in my view, be required.

On the whole I think Mr Brown is right to want to give up the power - but the question of who or what he gives it too is a matter that needs further careful thought.