IT’s that time during a General Election campaign when politicians, for some reason, try to portray themselves as just like ordinary people.

Back in the day, the chosen question was always to ask the next PM how much a pint of milk is and then folk would get outraged when they couldn’t answer.

But why on earth would a Prime Minister know the price of a pint of milk?

You can’t really expect Rishi Sunak or any other previous PM to suddenly dash up Whitehall in their jogging bottoms looking for a local grocery shop.

It is also true that most voters could not name the price of milk if asked, we could all have a decent stab at it but the answers would vary.

Politicians are not really like us, particularly those in high office, and most of us are happy enough to let them get on with it as we would never even contemplate running.

But this week we saw the unedifying spectacle of politicians trying to out do each other on how bad they’re childhoods were.

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Rishi Sunak started it when he said he went without “lots of things” as a child, including Sky TV.

In an interview with ITV News, the PM, who attended the fee-paying Winchester College, said his parents “wanted to put everything into our education and that was a priority”.

Mr Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty are estimated to have a personal fortune of £651m.

Asked if he had ever gone without something, the PM told ITV: “Yes, I mean, my family emigrated here with very little. And that’s how I was raised. I was raised with the values of hard work.”

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Mr Sunak’s father was a GP, while his mother ran her own pharmacy.

Asked what sort of things had to be sacrificed, he said: “All sorts of things like lots of people. There’ll be all sorts of things that I would’ve wanted as a kid that I couldn’t have. Famously, Sky TV, so that was something that we never had growing up actually.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he did not want to comment but when pushed said he had previously spoken about his family having to cut off their phone when they could not pay the bills.

But he said he was not “pleading poverty” and that these were just normal things growing up in a working-class household.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “I lost my father when I was four and my mum was so fantastic she managed to make up for that.

"She didn’t have that much money... and I remember my mum making me walk up the hill to go to Costcutter where coffee was two pence cheaper.”

All very unedifying I’m sure you’ll agree and does nothing to adhere them to voters.

Being raised in poverty does not make you any better a candidate to be Prime Minister but can certainly put off voters who will feel patronised.

Frankly, questions like these do not have a place in elections any more than the price of a pint of milk did.

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There is no doubt that all the main party leaders had a very good upbringing regardless of wealth and shouldn’t be a factor in the race.

The fact that Rishi Sunak rose to became PM after his grandparents arrived in the UK with very little is testament to his upbringing and matters more than whether he could watch football on TV.

It should be applauded and not ridiculed to score cheap political points.