Can politicians fix family life? If so, how? These kinds of questions will factor heavily in Britain’s next general election.

Both Britain’s Conservative and Labor parties have pledged to make family life a central issue of 2010’s general election. “Evidence shows marriage is a good institution which helps people stay together, and commit to each other,” said Conservative Party leader David Cameron in an interview with the Daily Mail. “A society that values marriage is a good and strong society.”

Initially, the Labor Party strongly criticized Cameron’s remarks and downplayed the importance of marriage. The secretary of state for children, schools and families, Ed Balls, called the Conservatives’ message harmful “preaching.”

“The Tory policy is that marriage is first-class and any other relationship is second-class,” he said. “That is fundamentally not in the interests of children.”

Labor’s deputy leader Harriet Harman also condemned “dictating family structures” and said that “families come in all shapes and sizes. We don’t favor one way of family life over another.”

The Family and Parenting Institute, a government-funded organization established by the Labor Party, also criticized the Conservatives’ plans. “What policy-makers must not do is fall into the trap of investing large sums of money trying to reverse the tide of trends by trying to encourage more ‘traditional’ families,” said Dr. Katherine Rake, the institute’s head.

But now Labor seems to be changing its mind. “In a shift in strategy ahead of the general election, the government is abandoning its long-standing ambivalence towards wedlock, conceding that children fare better if their parents are together,” wrote this week’s Sunday Times.

“Since 1997 Labor has directed resources at children rather than their parents, fearing voters would see attempts to shore up the declining traditional family unit as discriminatory or judgmental,” it wrote. “Ed Balls, the schools secretary, now admits the strategy was a mistake.”

Labor has now pledged to try to encourage couples to stay together—though it still will not say that marriage is “superior” to other relationships.

Both parties are busy preparing papers on the subject. Labor has promised to ensure that children are taught about the “nature and importance of marriage and stable relationships for family life and bringing up children.” It said it will change the focus in public services from “mother and baby” to “mother, father and baby.”

Conservatives plan to go a step further and actively promote the institution of marriage. “I just think as a society, saying that marriage is a good thing and celebrating it and encouraging it, including through the tax system, is something that most societies do in Europe,” Cameron said. “It’s very sensible for us to do as well.”

Apart from Britain, the only other major industrialized countries that do not recognize marriage in their tax system are Turkey and Mexico, according to Tory David Willetts.

Politicians and the public are starting to wake up to the fact that Britain has some serious social problems.The Home Office has published a survey stating that 73 percent of council officials believe drunkenness and rowdiness is a “significant problem” in their area.

At the same time, the institution of marriage has been attacked—a trend the Trumpet has watched closely. The marriage rate has collapsed to its lowest point since the government began keeping records in 1862. The teenage pregnancy rate has soared to the highest in Europe.

Finally, some Britons are starting to acknowledge that stable families are the foundation of a stable society.

Fixing families is critical. But will Labor policies fix Britain? Will Conservative policies? No. Giving married couples tax benefits comes nowhere close to solving the problem.

The fact is that people generally do not know how to have a happy marriage and family life. Without this knowledge, Britain’s decline will continue.

Does marriage really make a difference? Does it matter whether or not a husband and wife really commit to each other? Is there any purpose for marriage? Are there specific roles that the husband and wife must fulfill—or is that idea out of date? Britain is confused on all of these questions.

Its scientific studies go backward and forward like a ping-pong ball, as experts contradict each other and bounce family policy all over the table.

But you can know the way to have a happy family right now. The answers to these questions can be found in our free book The Missing Dimension in Sex. Read this book to find out the only real way to fix Britain’s society.