Harriet Harman's Equality Bill puts her on collision course with all major religions

The Christian campaigning charity CARE has issued a new report today to coincide with the Committee Stage in the Lords of Harriet Harman's Equality Bill. It concludes that urgent changes are needed to the Bill to prevent a serious clash with the Catholic Church and other religions over a number of issues.

CARE is concerned, amongst other things, that the Bill would:

• Make it illegal for the Catholic Church to bar women from the priesthood and insist that priests are celibate; and
• More generally, make it impossible for all religions and faith-based charities to insist that their senior staff live private lives in accordance with their religious beliefs.

The report highlights the fact that equality legislation backed by Harriet Harman in 2007 forced the closure of two Catholic adoption agencies - because they refused to comply with new laws requiring them to place children with gay couples.

It also raises concerns about inconsistencies in the Government’s approach, with, for example, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender charities being able to restrict their services on the basis of sexual orientation but not Christian projects.

Click here to download the full report, A little bit against discrimination?

Meanwhile, in a related story today, the Telegraph reports that faith schools are increasingly being robbed of the power to select children on religious grounds due to new guidelines that the Government introduced in 2007. Click here to read more.

Jonathan Isaby

Harriet Harman fined £350 after pleading guilty to driving without due care and attention

Sky News are reporting that Labour deputy leader and Leader of the Commons Harriet Harman has pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention.

A second charge of driving while using a mobile phone was apparently withdrawn.

She was not in court for the hearing.

Since the Telegraph reported that the maximum penalty she could face was £6,000 in fines and being disqualified from driving, she would appear to have got off lightly, with her actual punishment being a £350 fine, 3 points on her driving licence and the payment of £75 costs.

Jonathan Isaby

Harriet Harman grotesquely distorts Tory support for marriage as "rewarding philanderers"

Today's Sunday Times reveals that Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman's latest attack on the Conservatives will be to grotesquely distort the party's backing of marriage as rewarding "philanderers on their second or third marriages with tax breaks, while stigmatising former wives left to bring up the children."

The piece states:

In an early salvo in the run-up to the general election, the deputy Labour leader will argue that the Tories, who plan to reward married couples with tax breaks, will make single people and divorced women feel as though there is something wrong with them. She will also accuse Cameron of implying that people whose personal relationships fail are responsible for the breakdown of society and for wrecking children’s lives.

Harman will use a wide-ranging speech on family policy to say Cameron is stigmatising people who are not married, including single women, while rewarding men who leave wives and marry again. “[The policy] would give tax relief to the man on his third marriage but deny it to his first and second wives bringing up his children,” she will say.

She will be giving the speech later this week to the IPPR.

Jonathan Isaby