Labour election campaign manager Alan Milburn is in trouble over a poster portraying Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin as flying pigs.

Critics say this is anti-Semitic. "Pigs might fly" is a pitifully common saying. And since the only link between Jews and pigs is they don't have anything to do with each other, I can't say I understand their point.

Another poster showing Howard waving a watch on a chain is criticised for making him out to be a Fagin or Shylock-like racial caricature.

But he looks more like a stage hypnotist, the "look into my eyes, look into my eyes" character from the cult TV show Little Britain.

Mr Milburn's advertising team isn't guilty of anti-Semitism, just lack of imagination and creativity.

This campaign was surely dreamt up in the pub at lunchtime by a bunch of beery blokes who were once school bullies, sniggering over the sort of nasty graffiti they used to scrawl over the walls in the boys' toilets.

A new TV advert for a car (which I won't name) bothers me much more than the Labour campaign.

A dad is pictured driving his son to rob a bank to steal enough money to buy a new car. The boy, aged about ten, waves a gun and comes away with bags of loot, just as the dad realises the car is more affordable than he thought.

My children laugh when they see it. But, given the reality of increasing gun crime in our towns and cities, it isn't for me at all.

"You don't have to rob a bank to buy this," sounds like another slogan that seemed like a good idea in the pub.

It is sad that a third of couples in Britain say they can't afford to have as many children as they want, bringing the average family down from 2.4 to 1.73 children.

But I am reminded of the neighbour I had once who told me she was having a termination because she and her husband couldn't afford a third child.

All my sympathy quickly evaporated three months later when she proudly showed me her new kitchen, costing several thousand pounds. And I didn't even want to know about her foreign holiday later in the year.

How can anyone be so heartless as to pester a couple in their forties, married for years, about when they are going to start a family?

We can only imagine what pain they may be going through if they are trying without success. Yet a hack from a national newspaper chose to put William Hague on the spot yet again at the weekend. "I have not got an announcement to make. But we would like to," he answered, much more politely than the reporter deserved.

Tony Blair has probably won more women's votes with his admission he doesn't send Cherie flowers, but is "romantic in other ways".

Too many men think phoning Interflora and typing in a credit card number, or buying a bunch of blooms from the garage is enough. Perhaps Tony could give them a few ideas.

Carol Vorderman was clearly miffed at being questioned about her four-hour visit to a botox clinic, saying she was merely "having a facial".

Maybe she thinks it's none of our business. But as long as she takes our money for her detox diet and exercise videos, aren't we entitled to know if she's getting some extra help?