HERE'S an exercise for the parents among you. Imagine you're in a pub talking to a friend. (I appreciate this is quite a leap of imagination for many parents. The only reason I'm likely to go into a pub these days is if I need directions to somewhere more kiddie-friendly.)

Anyway, your friend is lecturing you about the way you should be bringing up your children, and pointing out all the things you're doing wrong. But you can't help remembering that your friend works out of town and spends four nights a week away from his own or her own kids.

You'd probably be inclined to tell your friend to mind his or her own business. And yet we are increasingly being lectured about how to bring up our children by people who know very little about doing it full-time - politicians - people who have made a decision to be in London most of the time and whose family life, if they have one, has to fit around other interests.

I'm not saying politicians can't be good parents, because a lot of them do try hard to play a part in their kids' lives. And I'm not saying that they shouldn't have an opinion about how the rest of us bring up our families - but they ought at least to tread carefully and display a bit of humility. Unfortunately, as we've seen in the last week or so, it's easier to lecture parents than to do something to help them, like tackling long working hours or the fact that many parents are forking out hundreds of pounds a month in childcare just so they can keep working.

But if politicians aren't prepared to do big, bold things for parents, maybe they should do little things instead. In which case, here's my suggested manifesto for parents:

Zero VAT on all Bob the Builder products.

An end to free gifts with burgers - and the introduction of free gifts with broccoli.

Tooth fairy rewards to be reclaimable from the Exchequer.

A siren to sound at 7pm daily to indicate that children must be in bed because the monsters are out.

The banning of ads for expensive toys that kids might suddenly decide they want when you've already bought their Christmas presents.

All supermarket aisles to be comfortably wider than a double buggy.

The restitution of the death penalty for people who park on pavements so that pushchairs can't get past, or leave their wheelie-bins on the pavement all week; people who look disapprovingly at you when your child throws a tantrum in public; for childless people who park in parent-and-child spaces... Stop me before I get irrational.