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The role of young families in modern politics

Michael Crick | 12:22 UK time, Tuesday, 28 September 2010

I blogged earlier this year about the trend of having a lot more high-rank politicians these days who have young children. We've got all three party leaders with young kids, the last two Prime Ministers, and so on.

There are at least three important trends at play here - the decline in age of our leading politicians, who now reach the top in their 40s (or even 30s); the fact many people have children a lot later in life; and the fact men are expected to have a much bigger role in childcare.

In the past politicians had kids when they were ordinary MPs, and the children had become teenagers, or even left home, by the time their parents reached the highest levels. If they did have young kids then their wives, or nannies, would look after them.

When Gordon Brown was in Number 10 his youngest son used to climb into the prime ministerial bed in the middle night. What effect did that have on a man who was already famous for going without sleep? And what was the effect on the way we were governed by Mr Brown?

If David Miliband steps down from the Shadow Cabinet then family commitments will undoubtedly play a major role in his decision. He's endured years of highly intense activity - from being Foreign Secretary, then the election, then the leadership campaign.

His family have been the victims, and it's not unreasonable that he might want to devote more time to them - even if other family pressures draw him in a different direction.

The role of young families in modern politics needs further attention.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    They're pretty good at destroying the family lives of the rest of the population as well!

    Remember 'no more boom and bust'?

  • Comment number 2.

    If I was David then I would consider my family, he is only young but he has been in frontline politics for twenty years and he should leave the stage for his brother because if it all goes pear-shaped he can absolve himself of any blame also he will make his wife happy.....so as the song says////'we don't want to lose you, but we think you ought to go.....'

  • Comment number 3.

    I guess that is the reason why our female German leader Angela Merkel doesn't have children. However, Germany's current minister of labour, Ursula von der Leyen, raised 6 children and still had enough energy to persue her career in politics throughout the years.
    from Germany

  • Comment number 4.

    BABY BOONERS

    As I posted recently: Dave is milking his baby.

    'SPEAK FIRMLY AND CARRY A SMALL CHILD'.

    They are all without honour.

    Ed'll fix it.

  • Comment number 5.

    In 1997 my late mother-in-law voted Labour as she thought Tony Blair was a nice family man. Fortunately for her she died in 2001.

    Nice family men can be dangerous.

  • Comment number 6.

    The image of Gordon Brown walking away down Downing Street with his wife and small sons will endure: it set the loss of office in perspective. The humanity of our most senior politicians - the short-lived joy in Gordon Brown's face when Jennifer was born, the solidarity with David Cameron when Ivan died - helps us to connect with them at a time when abuse of privileges has done the opposite.

  • Comment number 7.

    "The role of young families in modern politics needs further attention."

    True, but note - whilst Fabians had good breeding in mind, their opponents didn't. They wanted more workers (consumers)..

  • Comment number 8.

    Ed, the self-proclaimed Socialist, forgot to mention in his speech’s autobiographical passages that his parental grandfather Samuel, a hardened communist, had to flee Poland and go to Belgium because (the loyal Pole that he was) he had joined the Red Army to fight against the newly born Poland when the Soviet Red Army had invaded Poland in 1919-1920. Thankfully, the Soviets got decisively defeated then (hence, Samuel got kicked out of Poland). Notwithstanding the soviet-type loyalty that seems to run in Ed’s blood to this day, let’s hope the Socialists, under his leadership, keep being defeated on the British political scene for a long, long time ...

  • Comment number 9.

    "NEW GENERATION" - OLD CLAPTRAP (Limited Ed's speech)*

    How they must have struggled to tag Ed's Gang, and all they came up with was the same old 'New'! (New Generation)

    Ed BELIEVES his own rhetoric - for now - SO DID TONY.

    Oh - it's all going awfully well. *Anyone know whose words he spoke?

  • Comment number 10.

    "5. At 2:27pm on 28 Sep 2010, stanilic wrote:
    In 1997 my late mother-in-law voted Labour as she thought Tony Blair was a nice family man. Fortunately for her she died in 2001.

    Nice family men can be dangerous."

    Surely what this really shows is that populist, 'grass-roots', democracy is dangerous, as it expertly targets what most people think rather than what works best for most people regardless of what most (generally poorly educated and easily distracted by trivia) people believe? The main reasons that most people don't see through this are a) it takes a long time for populist democracy to descend into anarchism and bring down a nation and b) most people die or drift into dementia before ever finding out how they played a hand in bringing that about.

  • Comment number 11.

    As per those celebs who use their children for photo-ops when it suits them, then so to do politicians. But when it has an opposite affect i.e. a wayward child bringing bad press, they simply can't choose to switch it off! But it belies the truth that these are just like most ordinary folk, they are not in the real sense of the word FAMILY, I suspect that some see the FAMILY element as an optional extra......

  • Comment number 12.

    as the whole of Europe goes on strike, against pension theft, mass unemployment and banker greed, Spain with 20% unemployment and Greece with it's fiscal deficit the European leaders have not got a single idea as to what to do....just like the homegrown coalition....

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