Is it good for politics that we are in the habit of calling our leaders back from holiday when a crisis breaks?

"Although we all know that at some level this is nonsense, it kind of reflects the lives of voters too," according to David Rennie, of the Economist magazine.

"We're all tied to our Blackberries, we're all theoretically emergency surgeons rushing back to our vital lives.

"If [politicians are] the only people still by the pool with the glass of white wine, they do run a risk now."

But Jean Seaton of the University of Westminster said that the family holiday was essential to keep our leaders human.

"Politicians need to read books, I think they need to manage their children in the back of their cars as they fight, they need to negotiate the ice cream - cathedral ratio. They need to go through that horror which is the British family holiday.

"We all need politicians actually to be sane, and that means immersion in the insanity of the family holiday."

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