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23 September 2010updated 27 Sep 2015 2:12am

Breaking up is hard to do

Likening the British economy to a marriage is a sure way to D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

By Patrick Osgood

After all the civil partnership jokes, we are getting marriage one, this time at the teller’s expense.

Matthew Hancock MP in today’s Times:

Some people who oppose the cuts keep asking: what is Plan B? But would you go into a marriage talking about Plan B? Who gets down on one knee and says: “Darling, let’s talk about what happens if this doesn’t work out”? Like a marriage, the surest way to end up on Plan B is to start talking about it.

This is an astonishingly daft analogy, given the UK’s high divorce rate and the meteoric rise — accelerated by the downturn! — in the use and status of the marital “Plan B”: prenuptial agreements. Reading Hancock on his own terms, I think a Plan B would be a very good idea.

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