The book thus far has made an argument supporting a more clearly framed, informed and creative conjoining of government and morality. It has made the case that government should no longer ‘not do morality’ in the same vein that Alastair Campbell, the New Labour public relations adviser, once said of his political masters that “We don't do God.” Of course Campbell's assertion of the parameters of government was in many ways wise. The risk of alienating those who have a different stance in the stratosphere of belief systems and annoying an electorate sceptical of politicians with preaching and top down exhortations is real enough. But a reality check will flag up the following reasons for active government engagement in the moral sphere.

Government handles morality as of necessity; it is the very stuff of its existence as it legislates on criminal justice matters, family relations, scientific advances and indeed the panoply of socioeconomic relations. The question then is not whether it should engage with moral functions, but rather how it should do so. And this query is not about whether it should plump for this or that side in a moral tussle, but rather the mode of its considering the operation of morality's interface with public policy.

The current deficiency is one of sweeping the awkwardness of the term and its connotations under the carpet, avoiding questions of population attitudes and behaviour, and failing to get a full grasp of the issues. As a consequence the policy changes demanded by the natural and inevitable movement of social mores have been ill managed and delayed. The integration of cultural and conceptual differences has suffered as a result of this default route. The public has been ill served as government has waited for its hand to be forced, reliant on private members’ bills and turning a blind eye to legal processes that are insouciant of need and behind the times.

The fraught and long drawn out divisive battles over the legalisation of homosexuality, abortion and assisted dying have all followed aspects of this trajectory as has the protection of children, women and the elderly from physical, mental and material abuse.