The press briefing was a model of obfuscation, apparently:
Sometimes the prime minister's spokesman uses the lobby briefing to deliver a clear, newsy message to journalists. And sometimes he uses the briefing to block questions, shut down lines of inquiry and avoid conceding anything embarrassing. Today we were firmly in the second camp. I'm not particularly complaining - press officers are expected to do this - but it did make the whole encounter rather frustrating.
Here are the main points.
• David Cameron will be voting against the Tim Loughton amendment, the prime minister's spokesman said. But the spokesman refused to rule out using the amendment, if it gets passed, as an excuse for dropping the bill, and he refused an invitation to say that the government was willing to use the Parliament Act to get the legislation through the House of Lords. The spokesman kept stressing that the amendment would introduce "complexities" and that he did not want to speculate on the outcome of an vote that has not yet taken place. Nothing he said suggested that there is a strong likelihood that the bill will be dropped, but equally the possibility was left open. Separately the BBC's Norman Smith says that he's been told that passing the amendment would lead to the gay marriage legislation being delayed until after 2015.
Ministers have said that allowing heterosexual couples to obtain civil partnerships, as the Loughton amendment proposes, would increase the cost because of greater pension liabilities to the state. But they have also said that very few heterosexual couples actually want civil partnerships. At the briefing the spokesman was unable to reconcile these two apparently contradictory arguments.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2013/may/20/mps-debate-gay-marriage-live#block-519a09f4e4b0c8e5709f39ab
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