Media

There’s an intellectually enriching debate going on at the moment between Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan over gay marriage. It was all started by an eloquent and heartfelt column by Ross arguing that the idea that “lifelong heterosexual monogamy at its best can offer something distinctive and remarkable — a microcosm of civilization, and an organic connection between human generations — that makes it worthy of distinctive recognition and support” and that is incompatible with gay marriage. Andrew Sullivan, who along with Jonathan Rauch, deserves a huge amount of credit for moving the argument for gay marriage into the mainstream, wrote a powerful set of rebuttals.

David Cameron’s just launched his benefit cheat crackdown (Con Home has a little footage). There were two notable occurrences. First, Cameron agreed that tax evasion was as serious as benefit fraud and vowed to tackle it – this defused the slightly absurd criticism from the left about not challenging tax avoidance whilst hitting benefit cheats – tax avoidance is legal, benefit fraud and tax evasion are not. Tom Harris attacks his party’s attempt to draw any equivalence between tax evasion and benefit fraud, saying it misses the point: tackling fraud is to the benefit of all. Second, a Mancunian woman called Sharon Reynolds has a crush on our Dave, a friend informed the Prime Minister.

Nick Robinson's documentary on the coalition negotiations is just under four hours away, but I suspect we've already heard about one of its key moments. As various outlets are reporting this afternoon, Nick Clegg tells Robinson that he had changed his mind about the pace of spending cuts sometime before the coalition agreement. Or as he puts it: "I changed my mind earlier than that ... firstly remember between March and the actual general election ... a financial earthquake occurred in on our European doorstep." This matters because the Lib Dem manifesto said that spending shouldn't be cut (above and beyond Labour's plans) this year – and that the squeeze should wait until next year.

The British press has worked itself into a gibbering mass of excitement about Cameron’s visit to India. The Indian press has barely noticed it. There is no mention of Cameron on the front page of The Times of India’s website, which is dominated by the spat between cricketing legends Bishen Bedi and Muttiah Muralitharan – in fact, those two are all over the press. Also, the Hindustan Times leads with a scintillating description of a parliamentary point of order; the Calcutta Telegraph splashes with an account of army operations against Maoist rebels in northern Bengal. India Daily has coverage of the Wikileaks saga.

Crispin Blunt has been unceremoniously slapped down by No 10 for saying that the ban on parties in prisons will be lifted. The Coalition is following a liberal line on criminal justice but it has no desire to pick a fight on the question of whether prisoners should be allowed to party in jail. A look at The Sun and The Mail this morning show why Downing Street dumped on Blunt so fast. The Mail followed up yesterday’s critical coverage of the Coalition with a devastating front-page assault on Blunt and his arguments. The Sun, which has been extremely supportive of the Coalition, also went for Blunt.

Anne McElvoy’s report for the Today Programme on the Labour leadership this morning is well worth listening to. It featured all the usual suspect and some classic moments—Tessa Jowell damming Ed Miliband with faint praise and Ed Balls’ henchmen Charlie Whelan going out of his way to praise Andy Burnham—but the really memorable bit came when McElvoy asked Abbott about her decision to send her son to private school. As with her infamous interview with Andrew Neil, Abbott simply refused to answer. There was just a period of dead air.

Auntie has been warned, and in no uncertain terms. Jeremy Hunt, the innocuous-looking Culture Secretary, has used an interview with the Telegraph to threaten the BBC. He said: ‘There is a moment when elected politicians have an opportunity to influence the BBC and it happens every five years. It is when the licence fee is renewed. That will be happening next year. That will be the moment when I use my electoral mandate to say to the BBC now, going forward for the next five years, these are what we think your priorities need to be and there are huge numbers of things that need to be changed at the BBC. They need to demonstrate the very constrained financial situation we are now in.

Asks Jeff Randall in a pugnacious column for the Telegraph. The memoirs, Randall argues, have finally exposed the conceit that Mandelson was a tactical genius. Randall says that Mandelson was a devious and divisive backroom spinner. Well, he ain't the Prince of Darkness for nothing. But Mandelson’s career and political persona were fashioned in a bygone era. Today, ambitious homosexuals climb the greasy pole out in the open – both in terms of their careers and their sexuality, (David Laws was an exception in the latter case). Mandelson’s modus operandi was determined by the conclusion that the 1980s were not an era for gays in politics, whether preening or discreet.