DUNCAN BARKES Aisle be seeing you Ed before next general election comes

Red Ed has two children and lives with a lady called Justine. A dad of two, it has also been widely reported his name is not on the birth certificate of his first son.

Apparently he was too busy to find the time to do this. Sometimes I am too busy, but this excuse is normally the one I trot out when Mrs B asks me to empty the dishwasher or put the rubbish out.

But once again, does this really matter? Life in the twenty-first century has seen so-called ‘traditional values’ become diluted and, in some cases, almost extinct. For those of us who find this frustrating, maybe we just need to face the reality of modern life.

Milliband is a high-profile politician. He is the man who will ultimately tell his MPs how to vote on any piece of legislation. The question has to be asked whether or not his personal situation will influence what his party will support when it comes to welfare reform or changes to family law. Undoubtedly the answer has to be yes.

In the interview, Morgan also lobbed various terms at Milliband regarding how he refers to Justine. Ed replied that the term ‘girlfriend’ sounded too temporary and that he prefers the word ‘partner’.

He must be the only one who does. The word is totally devoid of any warmth or passion. It sounds clinical and sterile, and should be put in the same bracket as that other weightless word: ‘nice’.

Milliband has received much flak for being the first leader of a major political party to live over the brush as a family man. That said, we can all think of prominent politicians who appeared to be ‘happily married’ but were bonking their diary secretary or a dollybird.

Even former prime ministers have dabbled outside the marital bedroom. He was not in office at the time, but who can forget John Major’s four-year affair with Edwina Currie? Actually, I would absolutely prefer to forget it.

Ed Milliband remains unmarried, despite being the father to two children. As long as the coalition can hold itself together the prospect of a general election is years off. Until then I doubt it will matter a jot to the electorate whether Ed becomes a husband or not.

However, I’ll put a fiver on the fact that if he is still Labour leader as we head towards a 2015 general election, he’ll get spliced before then. Ultimately I suspect he knows his unadorned wedding finger is his Achilles’ heel.