Call their bluff
(Filed: 22/12/2001)

THE BBC ought not to be worried by the threat of the Health Secretary, Alan Milburn, to boycott the Today programme. Mr Milburn is upset because John Humphrys had the temerity to ask one of his junior ministers whether she consented to the MMR vaccine being administered to her two young sons.

He now alleges that the BBC has infringed its own guidelines on the privacy of patients and children. His indignation mirrors that of Tony Blair, who responded tersely when asked whether baby Leo had been inoculated in line with government advice.

The BBC should call Mr Milburn's bluff and test whether the public will miss him unduly. It also has the moral high ground. The Government is asking the public to take a risk with MMR. Since New Labour frequently invokes "the kids" as evidence of its caring qualities and "normality", it has opened the door to such questions. But there is nothing wrong with asking, any more than there is anything wrong with declining to answer. If it does emerge that ministers' children are not receiving MMR - even for the best of reasons - then that surely is a story.

The best known example of this is the frequent parading of Mr Blair's own family. After all, Michael Brunson, the former ITN political editor, has revealed how, in 1994, Mr Blair allowed him to film young Euan playing the piano, in exchange for cutting potentially embarrassing comments by Cherie about what it might be like to live in Number 10. Mr Blair has also used his children as the litmus test when he decided to give approval for the Dome (the "Euan Test") and revealed to British troops that one of his boys wanted to join the forces.

None of this is offensive per se. This newspaper has reported these matters. But what Mr Blair cannot then do, having excited interest in his family, is to say that his child-rearing practices are of no public concern. There are two solutions. One was pioneered by John Gummer, who as agriculture minister sought to reassure the public about BSE: he displayed his confidence in scientific advice by publicly buying his daughter a disgusting looking beefburger. An alternative approach was recently adopted by Iain Duncan Smith: his children are not public figures and will therefore not be on display at any time. But we are surely entitled to inquire if ministers are running a "two-tier" system of inoculation - one for their children and another for the rest.