The Mandatory Miracle of Life

David Weigel | June 19, 2006

The nannification of Britain's once-proud Conservative party continues at warp-speed. In a speech tomorrow, party leader David Cameron will take a bold stand in favor of fathers attending their kids' births.

Mr Cameron, 39, will say in a speech on Tuesday that childbirth can be a key bonding moment or a "missed opportunity which leaves a couple drifting apart".

He will propose a policy review group looks at how to help new parents.

Mr Cameron will also reportedly say gay partners who have had a civil ceremony should enjoy the same tax breaks as heterosexual married couples.

Mr Cameron, a father of three, will say "making sure both parents are really engaged at the moment of birth is therefore important".

"Our policy review will be looking to learn lessons from successful projects around the world addressing this specific aspect of the couple relationship," he will tell the National Parenting Institute.

In 19 years the world's oldest conservative party has gone from "there's no such thing as society" to "the government wants you to cuddle." Was the lack of fathers at births even a problem before? I mean, assuming the NHS could let them into a hospital?

Comments

|6.19.06 @ 10:06AM|#

The Tories are doing this cause they actually want to win an election this century -- their change reflects a change in British society.

Also, when have the tories ever been 'proud' from a reason/libertarian view?

The Brits are weird, the only folks I see opposing the nanny state over there are marxists at spiked-online, the Lib Dems to a lesser extent, and a rogue Tory or two...

Kara|6.19.06 @ 10:38AM|#

Why is it any of his business in the first place?

|6.19.06 @ 10:47AM|#

Hey, before you start knocking NHS childbirth care, you should check out UK infant mortality rates. Better than they are in the US. Just saying...

|6.19.06 @ 11:31AM|#

This is irrelevant to the topic at hand, but as a father who was present all three of my kids births, I'm always surprised at what total chickens men are about this. Especially the uber-manly "Greatest Generation", who all act like they would have fainted if present during the big moment.

|6.19.06 @ 11:50AM|#

The article has seven tiny paragraphs. Two of them are:

Mr Cameron will also reportedly say gay partners who have had a civil ceremony should enjoy the same tax breaks as heterosexual married couples.

and

According to previews of the speech Mr Cameron, who told the Sunday Times that his family was more important to him than being prime minister, will also warn against trying to force people into conventional lifestyles.

Those two goals are attractive to this libertarian, even though I think the tax breaks that married straight couples and civil serviced gay couples should be zero.

Another paragraph is

"Our policy review will be looking to learn lessons from successful projects around the world addressing this specific aspect of the couple relationship," he will tell the National Parenting Institute.

That's not unqualified good news, but it's still better that they're ostensibly looking to model programs on ones that have been successful elsewhere. Who knows, maybe they'll find some free-market solutions that they can bring in. The cynical side of me says that the policy review group he's proposing will know in advance what they're looking to recommend, but I still applaud giving lip service to reviewing the status of previous experiments before embarking on a new one.

I'm not a British citizen (or subject). I don't follow UK politics much, but this sounds like good news, overall. Perhaps it's old news and the Conservatives have been for equalizing tax burdens between different types of legally committed pairs and for not forcing people into conventional lifestyles. If so, I can see how the perception of increased nanny-statism would be newsworthy portion of DW's post. If not, perhaps DW missed a chance to (p)raise the half full glass. Either way, thanks for bringing it to our attention.

|6.19.06 @ 11:59AM|#

Todd,
Chicken has nothing to do with it. I just have no desire to see my wife's vagina stretched out the size of a watermellon and having some slimmy, shrivled, screaming kid pop out of it. If that gets you off, more power to you. Go on Ophra and have all the hausfraus praise you for your "sensitivity". Me? I'll be hanging out in the waiting room with a stogie, like my father did, and his father before him.

|6.19.06 @ 12:58PM|#

This is hardly the most nanny-stating thing that Cameron has done; however, I'm happy to see them talk left if they practice classic-liberalism. Thatcherites have lost the past three elections. A kinder, gentler party is a welcome thing, both for winning elections and policy (see: horrid "are you thinking what I'm thinking" campaign).