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Enough with the chaos already

• Tim Sculthorpe
• 25 Jan 2007 15:00

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary is having a busy day – by lunchtime he's already managed to weigh in on whether or not schools should teach 'Britishness' and insisting that Catholic adoption agencies should not secure an opt out from equality legislation that says they would have to consider homosexual couples wanting to adopt a child in the same light as heterosexual couples.

It's all symptomatic of the chaos at the top of Government with ministers spitting out statements on anything and everything, usually because they're one of the many contenders for Prescott's job. For six months, there's been no unified message – the odd Home Office crisis here, an arrest in the cash for honours investigation there.

While this is all very entertaining for those in the opposition, random chaos does not governing make. Where is the policy, the legislation, the ideas, all promised in the Queen's speech? Brown's off touring India trying to make himself look Prime Ministerial, presumably while presumably leaving the likes of Ed Balls to practice actually running the Treasury.

Amusing as it is to watch the Government self destruct like this, surely it's time to get back to pummelling them on the issues? We might end up with an election in the next twelve months, and but nobody's fired the starting gun on the policy debate. It's surely time for Cameron to step up with some of these policy reviews – there's a decent chance there's going to be some good stuff in there, and he can leave the government in his wake.

As far as today debate goes; 'Britishness' is what you learn when you study history: it's not an abstract concept that can be taught in a specified period. Study and learn about the past to see forwards. And it's surely just common sense that adoption agencies should be compelled to look at application from all couples seeking children, and to look at them objectively as potential parents. Taking a partisan line that rules out an entire class of people just because a group doesn't like the way they conduct their private lives sounds ridiculous to me: of course there shouldn't be opt outs.

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