Some might say the key to success in politics is to sneak your way into the hearts of the public. By this token, Department for Constitutional Affairs minister Baroness Ashton - or Cathy, as she prefers to be called - must be very sneaky indeed. She had delegates purring like kittens with the following story at the launch of Mediation Week last week:


'When she was seven, my daughter was the youngest daughter of a living baroness,' she explained. 'After I was made a baroness, she went to school, and her teacher said to her, "Something has happened to mummy, hasn't it?"



"Yes, Miss - she's going to the House of Lords, she's going to be a baroness. "



"Do you know what a baroness is?" the teacher inquired.



"Oh yes," she replied. "It's half-way between an MP and a princess."'



'Ahhhh,' cooed the audience.



Obiter wonders whether we should test the theory by putting a pea under Cathy's mattress.