It's Harriet vs the Pope in the Great Equality War ; the Deputy Labour Leader and the Head of the Roman Catholic Church Are Two Very Different Missionaries

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ELL, you have to admire Pope Benedict's timing.

WThe Vatican's intervention in Harriet Harman's equalities bill is one of those meteors which occasionally strikes the placid progress of lawmaking. Three months before the election is a pretty good time to do it.

Ms Harman's last-blast equalities legislation has been criticised by modernising Cabinet colleagues as a ragbag of ideas which assume the state is best placed to foist more equality on the country. Public sector reformers regard it as an extra burden: surely their primary purpose is to improve schools and hospitals, not undertake audits of which class is being best catered for by which service? The Harman …