 What self-possession they have, these delegates in the UK Youth Parliament. The ease on their feet. MP Sir George Young was chatting to one at lunch. "You spoke didn't you? Well done. Was it an ordeal?" The young man did not even consider this: "No, not really."  We closed our mouths again. He explained that they did it all the time. The House of Commons Chamber was impressive, but they were used to campaigning. a hostile audience might have been more alarming, but they all knew each other. "We keep in touch on Facebook," he said. What used to be Bugsy Malone for politicians is now a training camp for the political class.  I saw a group of four or five on the platform at Paddington and immediately clocked them. Not just by the way they were embracing and welcoming each other, not just by the underarm document wallet one carried or the clever hair and glasses of another, and not just by the 12-year-old boy wearing a suit. But by the whole package - a combination that could not be anything else that day.  You have to start early these days, and these children are laying the foundations for a lifelong career. Personally, I'm very much against it - and not just because I'm old and envious. I ask, again, that young people consider the merits of heroin addiction instead of "passionately working to make the world a better place".  Having said that, let me report the positive side. They are more attractive than you would expect politicians to be. They look much older than their years - some, indeed, seemed 30. The facial metal is discreet. Not one fiddled with his or her mobile in the chamber.  When one of them went on too long the rest didn't shout: "Sit down! Too long! Drivel!" - they just laughed and applauded when he left a gap. No one used the phrase "Shame on you!" and, being elected on a regional basis, there wasn't a particular party-based antipathy between them. The speeches were short. There was no jeering, heckling, or any obscene gestures - even from Wallasey MP angela Eagle, who addressed them early on.  In delivery, the front bench speeches weren't at all bad. Harrison Carter had a textured voice and intimate manner that gave him weight beyond his years; alec Howells, who lives in Tory MP Jacob Rees Mogg's constituency, had been well-schooled there. Mu-Hamid Pathan stood for mayor in the East Midlands at the age of 18, and will probably get somewhere as he has no idea when to stop. alex Huston had a good crack at demanding that MPs pay back the cost of their university fees.  From the floor, the best received speech came from a tall, mature-looking student in Islamic dress who th 