Party leaders and leading politicians, among them Chancellor Gordon Brown, have been keen to be photographed in nurseries and around children as the general election approaches, each of them trying very hard in the run-up to 5 May to convince the electorate that his party has the most family-friendly policies.
Until recently that phrase covered issues such as tax, child benefit, schools or home ownership, but not childcare. How parents coped with working and looking after their children in the pre-school years just did not register on the political radar. No longer.
The early years sector has become an election issue in its own right.
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