The first few hours matter most. The roads may be jammed, the heat oppressive and the squabbling in the back seat infuriating. But when the first child to see the sea calls out, you have arrived - on holiday. The mind and the body exhale. No suits or commuting. No meetings, reports or e-mails. No traipsing to the supermarket or struggling with the family wash. What matters over the next two weeks is the temperature of the water, where to find the ice-cream kiosk and who is up for a game of beach volleyball.

That, at least, is how holidays ought to be. That is what Southwold can promise the Prime Minister, or Cornwall the Leader of the Opposition. But where has leisure flown in this age of leisure? Even the rocky headlands of the Lizard or the windy shores of East Anglia now echo to the mobile ringtone. Gordon Brown should be strolling down the pier to show his children the rude water-clock, sitting outside the Lord Nelson or the Red Lion with a pint of Adnams in his hand or rambling with his family across the common to follow the old Southwold railway trackbed. Sadly, he has signalled that even in shorts it will be work as usual: the BlackBerry switched on, the early morning call to ministers, the briefing papers brought up from London and plotting sessions to outwit the Labour plotters.

Politicians need holidays. Even Barack Obama is to take a break from campaigning. He told David Cameron that work should have “big chunks of time when all you are doing is thinking”. That is still too ambitious for a holiday. It should be beach, sun and fun - and in Italy you can even go to church on the beach. And come back refreshed: the country needs you fit again.