When party leaders depart from the script, all hell breaks loose

It is within the experience of even the humblest of MPs that those who oppose what you do will berate you with a great deal more passion than you will ever attract from those who support your plans. Any help you can give may be treated by its beneficiaries as no more than your duty; but the people on the other side will treat your unhelpfulness as a massive personal injury. And if this is true of minor political players, how much more is it true of serious policymakers. As the second Lord Falkland remarked on losing a bill in the upper chamber because not all his supporters had bothered to turn up at an evening sitting, ‘Those who hated it hated it worse than the Devil; while those who loved it loved it not more than their -dinner.’

I mention this because I think somebody ought to thank David Cameron for his steadfast efforts to get gay marriage through parliament. It was a good idea, a brave idea, and the Prime Minister showed quiet valour in his refusal to be panicked out of it.

I don’t plan here to reopen the arguments on the merits of the measure. I know well that some who have opposed what is now the Equal Marriage Act have been motivated by a sincere and public-spirited conviction that same-sex marriage will be bad for society; others by a genuine belief that it is against the declared will of God; and yet others by the honest assessment that Britain is not ready for this step and Mr Cameron would permanently damage his own party’s morale, and suffer an irrecoverable loss of support in the more important things the Conservatives are doing, by persisting with it. Obviously I don’t agree, but they had every right to their opinion, it was a perfectly arguable point of view, and they argued it with something little short of ferocity.