Ed "all your children are belong to us even if you don't want to send them to nursery or school" Balls has accused the Tories of 'social engineering' because they are planning tax breaks for married couples.

Well, yes, I can kind of see how this might be loosely described as social engineering; perhaps some couples will indeed be persuaded to change the status quo and marry by the prospect of keeping a little more of their hard earned cash. Will they be more likely to stay together? Probably not. Is it even desirable when two people are living together in misery? Who knows?

But some small solace is that the Tories won't be resorting to Ed's bully boy tactics and forcing anyone get married. As someone who is happily unmarried to the father of our two children, I feel pretty confident that we will be left free to pursue our unmarried lifestyle, if we so wish, without undue harrassment from anyone other than a few disgruntled relatives.

I am certain that no arsehole from the council will come round to our house, assess us according to some deeply unpleasant and questionable standards, and then demand that we submit 2 A4 sides of wedding plans within a certain timeframe. Likewise, said arsehole will not return and insist that we produce our wedding certificate to demonstrate that we have indeed acted in accordance with our submitted plans, or else be forced to split up and live in separate homes for the remainder of our years.

No, that's what Ed would do, isn't it? Perhaps he got confused.