Johann Hari takes apart one of Cameron’s treasured policies, marriage and his plans to mend Britain’s broken society by handing £40-a-week to married couples. As Hari points out recent surveys suggest that children of parents who stay together for the kids actually fair worse than single-parent families – whilst all surveys should be treated with scetism as a child of such a family I can’t say I’m surprised as soon as my younger sister left school my parents divorced, which came as no surprise to us – anyway back to th point. Hari rightly points out the Tories would actually do more damage and particularly their policy of opting out of the European Social Chapter.

Cameron’s plans for married couples create a false “pro-family” sheen that prevents us from seeing how he will actually make life more stressful for parents in very tangible ways.

The one thing every mum and dad I know wants is more time to spend with their children. But Cameron is committed to pulling Britain out of the European Social Chapter as a “top priority”. Britain’s ten million part-time workers only have the right to paid holidays and other basic rights because of the Chapter. When it goes, so do the rights – and lots of stressed parents will suddenly have less time to spend with their kids. The Tories’ market fundamentalism and anti-Europeanism trumps their warm rhetorical commitments to the family every time.

For all his upbeat let-the-sunshine-win flim-flam, Cameron’s policies would simply shift more power and money towards those who already have it. The Married Couples Allowance would be a big redistribution of wealth to people who don’t need it, paid for by slashing help to the poorest people who really do – from Tax Credits to SureStart to the Educational Maintenance Allowance. And all for a dysfunctional outcome.

That’s the Britain we are sleep-walking towards, while we inanely discuss Gordon Brown’s smile and David Cameron’s bike. Isn’t it time we started to scrutinize his policies, before Cameron has the power to start imposing his right-wing regression on our country? Johann Hari.

I repeat stop sleepwalking.