Gordon Brown on Family Values

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's maiden speech at the Labor Party conference mentions family and particularly children quoting the Bible:-

And the Pre Budget Report will set out our next steps because our goal for this generation is to abolish child poverty and let me reaffirm that goal today.

And I say to the children of two parent families, one parent families, foster parent families; to the widow bringing up children: I stand for a Britain that supports as first class citizens not just some children and some families but supports all children and all families.

We all remember that biblical saying: "suffer the little children to come unto me." No Bible I have ever read says: "bring just some of the children."

Because no child should ever be written off, for mothers of infants, we will expand the help of nurse-family partnerships.

And for families and teenagers in trouble, new one-to-one support led by the voluntary sector that, up and down the country, we know can make all the difference.

And because its unfair to the children that fathers walk away from their responsibilities, we will insist on new powers to name absent fathers on birth certificates and to pay their share: maintenance deducted from benefits as we return them to work.

Ekklesia has the commentary.