MAIL COMMENT: Good speech. Pity about the 'm' word

How very refreshing in these febrile days of summer, with the Government awash in leadership plots, treachery and the overweening vanity of pygmy mutineers, to find that the Tories at least are concentrating on issues that really matter.

Yesterday's speech by shadow children's secretary Michael Gove to a Left-wing think-tank marked another significant milestone in Tory social thinking.

At its heart is a challenge to Labour's belief in an all-powerful state that controls everything, right down to the way parents raise and educate their children.

Instead, Mr Gove sets out the core Tory belief that families create a stronger society than anything achieved by state control, that they know what is best for themselves and their children, and should have more say over their own destiny.

So under the next Tory government, we can expect more support for the family, tax breaks for married couples and a new emphasis on the importance of fathers.

Yet not so long ago, the party, to its shame, was so politically correct that - like Labour - it lost no opportunity to skew the tax and benefit system against married couples and in favour of single parents.

For the best part of two decades, Tories turned a blind eye when this paper argued (with plenty of supporting evidence) that the greatest single cause of so many problems besetting Britain - from drug abuse to welfare dependency - is our tragically high rate of family breakdown.

Only recently has the penny begun to drop.

Iain Duncan Smith's searing analysis of Breakdown Britain...an increasingly visible underclass...the way the state undermines the family...all these encourage what Mr Gove calls 'a new seriousness' in the Tory approach.

Fine. But for all his warm words about the family, isn't there something ever so slightly wet about Mr Gove?

Significantly in his speech, the word 'marriage' gets just one mention, while he uses the word 'commitment' eight times.

This despite the fact that his own leader has made a commitment to marriage and the fact that married couples are far more likely to stay together than those who simply cohabit.

So why is Mr Gove so frightened of the 'm' word?

Again, presumably anxious to prove his credentials as a modern man, he tiptoes round the issue of single mothers.

'We need to recognise it's those fathers who've abandoned their responsibilities, not mothers left holding the baby, who should be challenged about their behaviour,' he declares.

But hang on a minute. While feckless fathers are certainly culpable and nobody wants a witch-hunt, doesn't his determinedly non-judgmental approach help explain why Britain has vastly more single mothers than any other EU country?

Why do councils still give them priority on housing waiting lists? Why are single parents fiscally better off than married couples where the wife stays at home?

Yet despite these caveats, Mr Gove's speech is a worthwhile contribution to this vital debate.

He is right to point out that children from broken homes are twice as likely to live in poverty as their more fortunate friends.

He is right to identify the growing gap between rich and poor. And he is right to say that schools are failing to help those at the bottom of the heap despite the extra billions poured into the system.

The Tories have come up with an accurate diagnosis of the problem.

With their ambition to strengthen social relationships, starting with more support for the family, they have a solution within their grasp.

All they need now - and it may prove hard to find - is the determination to make it happen.