I've had a direct involvement in politics of one form or another for approaching 13 years now and I can't remember a time of greater shallowness and opportunism in that world than at present.
However, yesterday's scenes in the House of Commons when Gordon Brown, William Hague and Vince Cable rose to speak in response to the death of Ivan Cameron brought a huge lump to my throat.
I won't pretend to like Gordon Brown but the death of his 10-day-old daughter Jennifer seven years ago was clearly as big a tragedy for him and his wife as that suffered by David and Samantha Cameron today. The Prime Minister therefore spoke with genuine emotion and understanding and what he said was extremely powerful. Mr Hague and Dr Cable's contributions were delivered with the level of class you would expect of the two best active politicians - aside from Cameron himself - in this country at present.
Afterwards, I had two overriding thoughts in my head. First, as David Cameron has always readily acknowledged, the Cameron family are backed by wealth and were therefore able to offer much better quality care for their son than many other parents of children with similar conditions to Ivan. I do hope the Conservative Leader remembers this and does something to help those less fortunate when he gets into Number Ten. I would be very surprised if he doesn't.
Secondly, I felt the same emotion yesterday that I first wrote about some months ago when details emerged about the death of Baby P: I just wanted to come home and give our own little boy a hug. Thankfully, some hours later, I was able to do just that.
I can't begin to imagine what David and Samantha Cameron are going through at the moment but, as a parent, my heart goes out to them enormously.
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