A wedding present from the Home Office

Hard to imagine many worse ways of starting a marriage: eighteen months of separation enforced by the whim of the state. As so often these days it's a whim compounded from a lethal cocktail of plain incompetence, mendaciousness and political correctness.

It seems no time since the government was in denial over forced marriages. Not a problem. OK, maybe a teeny weeny problem in a handful of cases, but nothing that existing legislation can't deal with.

Then somehow the balance tipped, and now we're in the next phase - the one where they try to find a fix that will let them off having to come clean about what the problem is.

For we do all know, don't we, that forced marriages are not a prominent feature of traditional Canadian or Welsh culture. And the Person from the Ministry knows that we know. But in order that he and his masters and mistresses may avoid pronouncing the 'M' word and/or the name of the country that separates India from Afghanistan, two newly-weds must be punished for a crime that everybody knows neither of them has committed. And just to add insult to injury, they get a lecture from the Person from the Ministry about what an evil crime it is that they haven't committed, and how admirable it is that the government is 'tackling' it (at their expense).

No doubt Rochelle and Adam will spend large parts of the next two eighteen months celebrating diversity. Unless, that is, they're too busy organizing Adam's permanent relocation to Canada.

Here's another take on the story. Note particularly the government's forced marriage poster: does either of those shackled hands look as if it comes from that mysterious anonymous space to the left of India?