8th January:

For some reason, the people of Britain expect their politicians to be model citizens. Granted, some of our elected representatives are sufficiently wooden to fit the bill superbly well, but perhaps we should be a little more tolerant of those who are not?

Today we learn that ex-Education Secretary Ruth Kelly took the decision to send one of her children to a fee-paying private school. This seems to have upset a few people. The same people, presumably, who feel that our politicians should be clean living bastions of morality who have long, happy and monogamous marriages, take their summer holidays in Dorset, use their local NHS hospital when they are ill and send their kids to the local comprehensive school. Whereas in reality the average MP's salary puts them in an income bracket where they can afford to have affairs with secretaries, holiday in Tuscany, get that exotic rash treated through BUPA and send little Ollie and Emma to a mid-ranking public school where they will have a miserable time fagging for future captains of industry and knights of the realm.

Professional politicians may have images and reputations to feed but they are also, lest we forget, human beings. Apart from Prescott. They drink, they smoke, they join ultra-conservative religious cults and they want the best for their kids. And who can blame them?

Apart from their constituents, of course.