How doing a ‘Good Thing’ can make ministers mess up

One of the few bits of legislation that the government thinks it can get past MPs is a domestic violence bill, which was announced as a draft bill in the Queen’s Speech. Yesterday the minister responsible for taking the Bill through the Commons, Sarah Newton, held a meeting with MPs, campaigners and survivors of abuse to talk about what the government is planning to do.

Now, you’d think that the government might be pursuing this Bill because everyone is opposed to domestic violence and therefore no MP will vote against it. But as I’ve explained before, it’s a bit more complicated than that – both in terms of certain political beliefs about ‘meddling’ in families, civil liberties and new criminal offences as well as the fact that it’s all very well spending months talking about your fancy bill, but you’re not going to make much difference to those women trying to flee abusive partners if you don’t allocate enough funding to help those victims, or indeed ensure that the police understand what domestic abuse is (clue: it’s not just about cavemen hitting women in council houses).