While the Indian government and society in general agonise over whether the time has now come to decriminalise homosexuality between consenting adults, matters have progressed to such an extent in Britain that a woman minister yesterday felt able to marry her lesbian lover openly in a civil partnership ceremony.

In the middle of combating the worst financial crisis the world has seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s, Britain’s treasury minister Angela Eagle yesterday “married” her partner of 18 years, Maria Exall, a British Telecom engineer, at Southwark Register Office in south London.

Eagle, the only openly lesbian member of the House of Commons, wore a white tailored jacket and black trousers for her big day.