I don't know about you (because I don't ever listen), but I couldn't give two hoots if the PM, Deputy PM or Minister for Paperclips and Ring Binders takes a holiday. I'm rather bored with the "PM sun tans whilst Rome burns" stories, though I enjoy the wordplay.
Two reasons here - firstly, people need rest to operate well; secondly, in today's world of technological/communications advances, out of sight is no longer out of mind. Churchill used to take holidays in Italy during World War II - Lake Garda, more specifically. No-one gave a crap. Bit of painting, lots of champagne. Won the war though.
People require rest to function. This includes politicians, weary though they are from filling in their expenses claims. So, let's not carp on about Clegg taking two days on the slopes with his family (as if we would have felt safer if a social anthropologist from somewhere in the comfortable middle of the political spectrum was running SAS Black Ops in Libya) whilst the Middle East was taking a lamentable, it predictable, turn for the worse.
So let's get a bit of perspective and report on some actual news for once, shall we? Ultimately there will always be something going on in Government, be it foreign uprisings, aid for natural disaster-struck countries or just getting oil companies to stop doubling the price of your tank of petrol because a country where 2% of the world's oil production originates is in political tumult. Politicians need to grip this pathetic nannyism - love them or hate them, they still have a right to a life, and rest assured they will only be a Blackberry Messenger away.
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