Kitchen-sink drama: A new home front opens in the battle for the general election

Just as there are people who obsessively pursue a tidy desk policy, so, it seems, there are those who follow the doctrine of the tidy kitchen.

In recent days, in one of the more remarkably banal twists in the phoney war before the election campaign proper, the Milibands’ kitchen – or kitchens, as apparently they are blessed with two – has been widely discussed. So now Ed “Two Kitchens” Miliband joins John “Two Jags” Prescott in the pantheon of double-barrelled hypocritical excess.

Is it possible to be neutral on such a charged issue as this? Two kitchens are better than one, obviously, though it has to be said that most of the population, including the catering trade, usually make do with just the one. Thus are the Milibands unusual and, so it might be said, “out of touch” with the single-kitchened masses.

On the other hand, their little one, at any rate, seems unpretentious. We all know where this is heading , of course: demands to see the Camerons’ various kitchens in Downing Street and their constituency; then the same for the Cleggs; for Nicola Sturgeon, and all the other party leaders. Who has the best taste in tea towels? The nice Poggenpohl work surfaces? Santoku knives? A £30 granite pestle? The battle of the kitchens has only just begun.