So one the possible, future prime ministers is claiming that she cares more because she is a mother.

Oh great, just what mothers need, someone like that putting their foot in it. It is already too easy for the world to completely discount all the skills you learn raising kids as having any relevance to the outside world and then an idiot comes along and pretends that I'm a mother arguments make them superior. Being a mother doesn't give you superior rights to caring but it does teach you a lot about many different subjects very quickly indeed.

The trouble is that, as with any other job, you need to outline and prove the relevant skills and experience. I expect that if you wrote a job description for the perfect people to run a country it would include such key issues as conflict resolution, managing your money, working out where it is going to come from and not running out, making sure everyone gets food and clothing when the need it, understanding in great detail what happens when people get bored and fed up, the importance of clean water and basic hygiene, what happens if too many people end up crammed into small spaces. Forward planning in the areas of housing, health, education and employment. THERE WAS A REASON THAT YOUR MOTHER HOPEFULLY TRIED TO TEACH YOU HOW TO SHARE NICELY AND NOT BE GREEDY.

Also carrying on when the world gets difficult because people are depending on you for their survival because simply resigning and saying sorry will only make things worse and it not an option.

I must say that as a mother I have yet to find a use for an in-depth knowledge of classics (and that is with two kids with a Greek background), how to run a good war and what makes a great general have also not been needed.

Do you need to be a mother to have all these skills? Of course not!

My point is that the skills of being a mother have long been ignored or derided (our economy is based on the work of Adam Smith who spent a long time looking at the production of a loaf of bread but forgot to mention that someone bought it, sliced it, cooked it and served it (can't remember where I read this but great illustration)) while we soul search about where our classically trained politicians have gone wrong. They have gone wrong because they haven't a clue how to run a household budget, probably haven't lived at home since they were 7, saw nothing about caring for other people beyond knowing if there was enough money to pay the school fees or hire a nanny. If they wandered around a dilapidated council estate they would find a lot of women who had more relevant experience on how to run a country than the whole of parliament put together.

Note, this is not an endorsement for any Tory politician, just fed up with the stay at home mum stereotyping that I see