Just when you think all politicians are monsters, one of them goes and says something quite endearing.

Labour leader Ed Miliband has revealed he dreamed of being a London bus conductor when he was a boy.

A fascination with the ticket machines on the capital’s old buses made him want the job, he said.

The admission giving new meaning to the name Red Ed came when Mr Miliband was campaigning in County Durham and was asked by a boy what he wanted to be when he was seven years old.

He replied: "I wanted to be a bus conductor. I tell you why, because on the London buses there used to be these things where you used to turn around the ticket machine. I was particularly fascinated by that."

Life on the buses is a cross-party ambition, with Conservative former prime minister Sir John Major once failing a test to become a conductor.