Who put Fitzpatrick on the guest list?

What's minister Jim Fitzpatrick up to? He's invited to a wedding of Muslim friends and when he gets there he doesn't like the seating arrangements so he storms out. Well, he says that he and his wife "left so as not to cause offence." Whereas going to all the papers to denounce the wedding he was invited to is the kind of wedding gift we'd all love to receive, don't you think?

The Labour MP arrived at the wedding to find that men and women were to be seated in separate areas, which is the custom in some Muslim ceremonies and not in others. He then decided that the wedding arrangements were not to his satisfaction and left, no doubt ringing his press officer as he stalked away.

He's quoted everywhere as saying "We are trying to build social cohesion - this is not the way forward." I agree. Insulting your hosts is not the way to build community cohesion.

It's their wedding and the arrangements are theirs to make. Who hasn't been to a wedding where they've had to contend with sitting through drunken embarrassing speeches, being seated next to a boorish relative or some other less than ideal arrangement?

When you're a grown up you recognise that you've been given the privilege of attending a ceremony that's very special to the bride and groom and you take it all in your stride. You don't spit your dummy out.

The minister has a different opinion and says that "I’m not pandering to any minority opinion." Why not? He panders to Rupert Murdoch. He pandered to Blair. More importantly complying with the family's wedding arrangements isn't "pandering" it's more commonly called manners.

Why Fitzpatrick has chosen to demonstrate to his constituents that he has the manners of slug is his own business I suppose, but I would not expect the episode to be what we call in the trade "a vote winner".