By Sara Milne

@clareville

There are strict guidelines and regulations in the UK when it comes to marketing to children – but we don’t seem to have any guidelines for our MPs when it comes to them doing a spot of political marketing with their children.

‘Family Man’ is a votes winner and gives off an aroma of caring, sharing ‘oneness’ with the vast majority of the UK population.   Which is why, in the run up to the Labour Party conference Ed Miliband was photographed with his two sons on his way to Liverpool http://bit.ly/pzS04A.  It’s also the reason why David Cameron was pictured with his son watching an Aston Villa match the day after the Miliband ‘photocall’http://bit.ly/p5MZ0p.

There are two sides to the ‘children being photographed’ coin – one is that they are being used by their #parents for publicity purposes and to further their careers or increase their public appeal.  The other is that as a family they are just simply getting on with their lives and doing things they would normally do with the knowledge that they will be followed by photographers.

As most MPs and celebrities know when they and their children are being snapped, it would suggest that their level of covert co-operation with photographers is far greater than the level of press intrusion into their privacy.