It may not seem like it, but being a politician's wife is a job in itself, as shown by Sarah Kennedy post-delivery.

SO who'd be a politician's wife? Especially in an election. Especially when you've just given birth. Those mothers of you out there, cast your minds back to around 12 hours after you'd had your first baby. How did you feel?

Euphoric, no doubt. But also shattered, uncomfortable and definitely not looking at your sparkling best. Certainly not up to walking out of the hospital and posing for banks of cameras.

But Sarah Kennedy, wife of LibDem leader Charles, did her hair, dressed smartly, put on some slap and posed with baby Donald and good grace. Don't know about her husband but she'd certainly get my vote. The woman's a hero.

Then Michael Howard's stunning wife Sandra is, even though she was once a model, apparently painfully shy. She also has a slight stammer so public speaking is inevitably an ordeal.

Yet there she is, looking wonderful, pounding the campaign trail, smiling and being interviewed as if it was the thing she liked best in all the world.

And Cherie Blair, for all her idiosyncrasies, has made a decent fist of an impossible position. She's redefined the job title of Prime Minister's wife - and although she has made some spectacular blunders, a lot of the time, she's got it right.

Now all over Britain there are wives who thought they'd married men who could get on with their jobs on their own, and suddenly they've found they're after a career change and they've been drawn into it too.

Men too. As their wives campaign for election, you see them unconsciously modelling themselves on the late great Denis Thatcher, one step behind, watching out for trouble and beaming genially at all and sundry. There are very effective single MPs of both sexes. But we still, somehow, expect to get a spouse in the package as well - two for the price of one and they'd better scrub up smartly.

Young Donald Kennedy played an absolute blinder - even if all we could see of him were some startled eyes and a blanket. But let's hope he and his mum can retreat into that closed off, milky world of new babies - and let Daddy get on with his job without them.

THE new Duchess of Cornwall is a clever woman. She had a rather nice coat with tartan trim to go away on her honeymoon to Scotland in. She wore it again to church the next day. And again a few days later to open a playground in Ballater. The Queen is known to admire thrifty living and would surely approve of her daughter-in-law getting plenty of wear from her coat. And as Prince Charles once complained that people weren't interested in him, just what his then wife, Diana, was wearing, no doubt he's glad to have a bit more of the limelight rather than sharing it with yet another designer label. We probably haven't seen the last of that coat.