Newsnight called the other day to ask if I fancied coming on to talk about David Cameron’s new idea of parenting classes. They stood me down in favour of Kirstie Allsopp in the end, which was understandable, particularly as I couldn’t figure out whether Cameron’s idea is a good one or not. I just kept thinking about how he’d exploit it come the next election. He’d be there with his kids, wouldn’t he? With a big frown on his shiny red face, as he pretended to learn about CBeebies and the naughty step. Awful.
I am not balanced about this stuff. I’m just not. Florence Rose Endellion Cameron is doubtless an adorable baby, and I’m sure she sicks up that glutinous white stuff onto her father’s shoulder most prettily. But it’s just not right that I could probably pick her out in a line-up. As could most of the country. Especially when she’s had no say in the matter one way or another. Especially when she’s still at an age where they all basically look the same, anyway. One of the nicest things about Gordon Brown (maybe the only nice thing about Gordon Brown) was the way his two boys were always off limits. I can only remember them being paraded in front of the cameras once, as they waddled hand in hand down Downing Street after the nation kicked him out.
This one comes from the heart. Whenever people ask me what it was like being a political brat, I always say I don’t know, because I wasn’t one. The archives do not hold a photo of me as a toddler in a blue rosette. My sister and I did not have pride of place in electoral literature, nobody ever filmed us eating burgers, and we were not expected to knock on doors. Never, in my early years, did my parents confuse the fact that they had chosen a political life with the presumption that I had chosen one, too. For this, I have always been grateful. I think it left me fairly normal.
‘Hold on,’ I hear you cry. ‘You aren’t normal at all. You’re as shameless a media whore as any in the whole media brothel!’ And you’re right, of course, and I shan’t bother to dispute it (and I’d like to do a lot more telly, if you know anybody who commissions; do ask around) but the point is, I didn’t have to be. My head is above the parapet because I chose to put it there. Frankly, I like the view.
All my adult life, doubtless as a result, I have felt shudders of antipathy towards any politician who trades off his young, and instinctive fondness for any who is at pains not to. Some surprise you. Only the other month, I read an interview with Ed Balls, a man whom I’d always had down as the sort of fellow who would cudgel his own grandmother to death with a clawhammer if he felt there might be a favourable opinion poll in it. But no. ‘Their three children — whom they are not photographed with, nor talk about in detail — go to local schools,’ wrote Ann Treneman, of his brood with Yvette Cooper, and I was suddenly flushed with a wave of such warmth towards the pair of them that I very nearly sent them an email. ‘We’ve never met,’ I’d have written, ‘and you’d probably hate me. But as the ghost of your kids’ future, take it from me. You’re doing the right thing.’
It’s not only politicians, actually. At any demonstration, be it anti-war or pro-foxhunting, the spectacle of a facepainted toddler, on shoulders and waving a banner, sends me into a rage. People only ascribe views to children if they confuse what they believe with what actually is, and the only people who do this are horrible maniacs. Modern life is in thrall to the cult of children; I have my own and I’m no different. But there’s a difference between child and self, and I cannot ever trust a politician — or, indeed, a human — who fails to grasp it. Maybe parenting classes are a good idea, maybe they aren’t. But a great tip that some politicians might learn in them is that it’s rather poor parenting to harp on in public so much about being a bloody parent.
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In South Africa, years ago, I visited a few ostrich farms. Have you tried ostrich? Less like giant chickens. More like bipedal, bird-brained cows. Here and there, particularly around the town of Oudtshoorn, you’ll find what they call the ‘feather palaces’ — vast mansions built at the time of first and second ostrich booms, between 1870 and the first world war. The point then was not meat. Several millionaire ostrich farmers, indeed, were Jewish, and wouldn’t have touched the stuff. The point was the feathers. People went nuts for them, for hats.
A day’s drive to the north you’ll find Kimberley, where, at the same sort of time, the South Africa diamond industry was gearing up. Diamonds are harder to come by than ostrich feathers, of course (provided you’ve got access to an ostrich) but the principle is the same. They’re decorations, and essentially worthless. Yet the diamond industry still thrives.
This, essentially, is the question about Facebook, suddenly and bafflingly the 40th most valuable company in the world. Obviously, the service it provides isn’t really worth anything. But how long will the conceit last? Some reckon it’s a diamond. I’d say the backside of a bird.
Hugo Rifkind is a writer for the Times.
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