Anne Perkins at the Guardian muses on the fact that new Labour Party leader Ed Miliband’s private life is no longer so private:

Hardly had the world learned the non-secret information that Ed Miliband’s partner, the barrister Justine Thornton, was not also his wife, than a trawl through the birth certificates of their London local authority revealed the even more astonishing news that Miliband is not named on the birth certificate of his 15-month-old son, Daniel.

This is not some matter of minor prurience. The elevation of psychodrama over policy in the way politics and politicians are reported and discussed imbues this entirely personal matter, a minor question of bureaucracy, with a terrible significance.

The Daily Mail story:

Although the section headed ‘Father’ is blank, Daniel’s mother Justine Thornton is named, along with her Manchester birthplace and profession, barrister.

Daniel was born on June 2 last year and the birth ­certificate was signed by Justine in Camden, near the couple’s London home, five weeks later on July 9.

There is no suggestion that Ed Miliband is not Daniel’s father and when asked why his name is not on the register, a spokeswoman for the new Labour leader suggested he simply had not had time to fill in the form.

The Guardian might call that ‘a minor question of bureacucracy’.

I call it obnoxious, an abdication of elementary family responsibility.

One’s birth certificate is after all a defining document in one’s life. You only get one of them. For E Miliband to be ‘too busy’ to complete the formalities needed for his own baby son’s certificate is a disgrace.

It’s so New Labour: Me, I rise far above stuffy paperwork and all that tiresome bureacracy to soar far, far above the mere masses, the sunlight reflecting off my gleaming Wings of Leadership.

If this is how casually disrespectful he is towards his own child and partner, how will he treat the rest of us if, heaven forbid, he ever becomes Prime Minister?