1 APRIL 2000, Page 34

Prudence and the Pill

GORDON BROWN has cracked it. Sex, so I noted at the time of his Green Budget, is one of the few human activities for which he had yet to provide an incentive, a regime, a hotline or a scanner. Now the Prime Minister is thinking of taking pater- nity leave, and his mouthpieces hint that the scheme will be extended so that fathers (not him, of course) will be paid an allowance. Thus, for the first time in fiscal history, the state will give men an incentive for sex — provided, of course, that they do not take precautions. The Chancellor will have a slogan ready-made for it: impru- dence with a purpose.