Keir Starmer must address plunging fertility rates (Image: PA)

Just in case we don’t have enough to worry about, let me point out that the UK’s fertility rate is falling faster than any other G7 nation. This matters. If we don’t go forth and multiply, we’ll have a dwindling workforce, drowning in debt and doing its utmost to shore up the frail and long-in-the-tooth.

We need young people to procreate. Our survival as a nation depends on it. The problem, of course, is the near-total annihilation of what used to be called the “feelgood factor”. You may remember this idea: that when we feel good, we do all manner of economy-boosting stuff like buy a zingy lampshade, trade in shabby boots for shiny ones and – if we can get our relationship ducks in a row – splash out on a new baby or two to put in the freshly papered nursery.

Populating this green and pleasant land only happens with conviction when we confidently believe we have a future which includes clean air to breathe, a safe roof over our heads and affordable childcare.

If you’d been listening to my phone-in show on LBC this Sunday, you’d have heard caller after caller enumerating the myriad reasons why childbearing and rearing are emphatically out of the question. Twenty-and thirty-somethings are marooned in their parents’ homes. They see no way out. Rents are prohibitive.

However hard the young slog they’ll never raise the cash for a deposit on a property. They’re crippled by student debt. They can’t contemplate becoming parents while they lodge like trespassing magpies in their mum and dad’s nest. Couples dread the expense of childcare. Britain’s sky-high costs eclipse all European countries.

Women anticipate discrimination in the workplace if they request maternity leave. Social media reverberates with tales of jobs mysteriously disappearing, demotions and careers stalling when pregnancy is announced. Reports of failures of care in Britain’s maternity units abound. Some women fear the trauma of mismanaged birth so acutely they’d rather be childless. Others are so traumatised by one botched delivery they refuse to have more than one child.

Add to this dread mixture the ominous spectre of global warming and eco-implosion – not to mention warfare erupting with frightening consequences – and it’s easy to see why fertility is tanking. The Government must urgently expedite many more affordable homes, tighten employment law for new parents, improve maternity services and reduce the astronomical price of childcare – or woe betide us all.

A hail of criticism directed at her comedic skills on Celebrity SAS Who Dares Wins was water off a duck’s back to Shazia Mirza. As she says: “I thought: ‘You’ve never had Asian parents. They did this all the time – tell you how fat you are, how ugly you are, how you’re never gonna get married and what a failure you are.’”

Shazia sums up my own parents’ approach to child-rearing exactly. I was told that I “walked like a duck”, that if I didn’t take up tennis “no man would want to marry me”, and was dressed down daily for being “too fat”, for making “that face” and for being “politically illiterate”.

I’m not sure of the purpose of such poisonous parenting but I do know one thing. When my girls were born my instinct was to do precisely the opposite. I adored them on sight and was so suffused with unconditional love, I couldn’t have bombarded them with anything but compliments.

Adam Brody plays a ‘hot rabbi’ in Nobody Wants This (Image: Getty)

Two days after the most solemn festival in the Jewish calendar, the Day of Atonement, I don’t suppose it behoves me to debunk the current swirling obsession with Adam Brody, star of Netflix’ hilarious hit comedy Nobody Wants This.

Adam plays a “hot rabbi” who falls headlong in love with sassy gentile sex-podcaster Joanne, played by Kristen Bell. In doing so, Brody has overnight knocked Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “hot priest” Andrew Scott off the Most Desirable Cleric top slot.

Rumours abound that hordes of hot-blooded women are planning to descend upon synagogues to sweep smouldering rabbis off their feet. Sorry to burst your bubble ladies, but I’m going to tell you the truth. I’ve met gentle rabbis, wise rabbis, brusque rabbis, intellectual rabbis, comical rabbis and the previous and incumbent Chief Rabbis.

Not only are Rabbis married off, usually in their teens, but with the best will in the world I couldn’t call any of them lukewarm, let alone “hot”.

Barack Obama says Kamala Harris wants to “make it easier to afford… diapers”, adding “I remember changing diapers. Do you think Donald Trump ever changed a diaper?”

Is nappy changing the great leveller? Do we automatically think men who have managed this challenging feat are grounded, approachable and decent while those who delegated dirty-diaper duty to their wives or paid underlings are autocratic egomaniacs?

Barack’s an astute judge of crowd-pleasing pressure points. He knows that women warm to nappy-changing chaps, and that men who’ve been dragooned into baby-bottom wiping are contemptuous of those who escaped the chore. Visions of Trump striding carefree across the fairway while his respective wives Ivana, Marla and Melania kept his children clean and fragrant are surely enough to keep him away from the White House – aren’t they?

Who hasn’t shared Sir Elton John’s ruminations on mortality? We all know Elton is a turbo-charged shopper, renowned for snapping up container-loads of art, antiques and couture fashion. In the new documentary Elton John: Never Too Late he looks ruefully around all the items clogging up his dressing room and muses: “I wonder what is going to happen to all of this stuff when I finish. I don’t know how much time I have left.”

The answer Elton, is a car boot sale – and I guarantee your boys Zachary, 13 and Elijah, 11 will all have a ball. Make sure you have plenty of small change, a comfortable stool to take the weight off your feet and marker pens and labels galore. You can sip coffee and eat a breakfast bap while the boys have enormous dollops of fun disposing of your worldly goods. When you get bored, cold and tired draw up a sign saying: “Don’t Ask the Price – It’s £1”. Give the takings to a worthy cause. Car boots are bonding, bracing and the ultimate in eco-friendly recycling. Give it a whirl Elton, you’ll never look back.

Miranda Hart is a blushing bride at 51. She was swept off her feet in lockdown by the man who came to manage the mould sprouting on her walls, and she’s ecstatic. She’d been single for most of her adult life and didn’t want to be alone forever. She found Mr Right, in her sixth decade, when she was least expecting it.

What’s fascinating about Miranda’s happy tale is the eager way in which women of all ages have appropriated it. Instantly, Miranda’s story isn’t simply hers, but has morphed into tangible public proof that anyone, of any age, can be blessed with true love if they just manifest their desire for a partner. Thus has Miranda’s marriage become a national comfort blanket.

I am among the thousands of reluctant singletons rejoicing at Miranda’s union. Why shouldn’t we enjoy it? Logically, I understand there’s no link between her romantic destiny and mine. In my soul, however, I feel a definite connection. If she can, I can and we jolly well ALL can – and will.