What Miriam Cates gets right – and wrong – about declining fertility

Fulfil your civic duty. Get married. Have children. That was the message from Miriam Cates, the increasingly prominent Conservative backbencher, to guests at a drink reception earlier this week. In what even her fiercest critics would have to concede was an impressively bold speech, Cates suggested that many of her female constituents want to work less and spend more time with their children. She claimed that politicians belonged to a class that had been protected by marriage and family, insulated from family breakdown to such a degree that they fail to realise how important it is.

Few politicians can ride out a Twitterstorm without some sort of retraction, and Cates is no exception. She has since penned a piece for Politics Home arguing that her comments had been misreported and taken out of context. Her objective, she says, was to stimulate discussion. To be fair to her, it worked. 

The MP is right that declining fertility in the West should worry us all.