A months paternity leave for new dads? Where does Red Ed get the idea that the men of Britain are demanding to spend MORE time changing nappies, boiling bottles and wathcing CBeenies? By RICHARD LITTLEJOHN PUBLISHED: 01:18, 17 June 2014 | UPDATED: 04:21, 17 June 2014 13 shares 7View comments To coincide with Fathers Day, Labour revealed it is looking closely at plans to double paternity leave entitlement. New dads would be able to take a month off work and receive £252 a week, twice the current rate. They would also be given the right to claim paid leave to attend four ante-natal appointments. Forget Wayne Rooney, Ive no doubt that wherever young men are gathered in the pubs and clubs of Britain, they are talking of little else. +1 Labour leader Ed Miliband revealed his party is looking closely at plans to double paternity leave entitlement What do we want? A months paternity leave and time off to attend four ante-natal appointments. When do we want it? NOW! Where does Labour get the idea that most men are crying out for more time to spend with their newborn babies? Before unveiling this latest masterplan, Miliband should have read the report in Saturdays Daily Mail about the number of new fathers queuing up to take advantage of Nick Cleggs brilliant scheme allowing them to take up to 20 weeks paid leave to allow their wives to go back to work. Additional Paternity Leave, introduced in 2011, was designed to revolutionise family life. The Deputy Prime Minister declared it would sweep away Edwardian attitudes to parenting. So how many do you think have applied for this exciting entitlement? Fifty per cent? Twenty-five per cent? More from Richard Littlejohn... A months paternity leave for new dads? Where does Red Ed get the idea that the men of Britain are demanding to spend MORE time changing nappies, boiling bottles and wathcing CBeenies?17/06/14 RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Why a modern Britain where a husband is arrested for easing his wifes pain is no country for old men13/06/14 RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: So when will being white British become a crime?10/06/14 RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Not so much breeding for Britain, more like breeding for benefits05/06/14 RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Sergeant Macca’s anti-fracking band: the conga line of luvvies and Lefties from Michael Mansfield to Vivienne Westwood who oppose fracking – but don’t have to worry about paying the bills03/06/14 RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: When did we become the Fat Man of Europe?30/05/14 RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Think a change is going to come after Farages stunning success? Dont bet on it27/05/14 RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: The real problem with benefits is not White Dee but Red Ed - and the other politicians who have encouraged people to believe the world owes them a living23/05/14 RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: If you really want to know, Ed, look in the mirror...20/05/14 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE Not quite. Only 1.4 per cent have taken advantage of the scheme. From next April, new fathers will be able to take a whole year off to change nappies, boil bottles and watch CBeebies. How many will sign up for that? One per cent? 0.5 per cent? Nobody? Rather than admit that the scheme is an abject failure, the politicians blame cultural prejudice which discourages men from staying at home minding the baby. Typically, they think the solution is to throw more money at the problem. Labours childcare spokesman Lucy Powell suggests paternity pay should be linked to salaries. She also thinks fathers should be more angry at the level of entitlements they receive now. Admittedly, its a long time since I was a new dad. But what makes me angry is the patronising, condescending attitudes of politicians seeking to impose their fashionable cultural obsessions on the rest of us — and using our taxes to do it. We are told that in Norway, where fathers are entitled to 12 weeks state-subsidised paternity leave, the take-up rate is 92 per cent. Of course it is. When you pay people not to work, theyd be stupid not to bite your hand off. Thats what went horribly wrong with our benefits system under Labour. Norway is a small, rich Scandinavian country with a budget surplus. Britain, on the other hand, is in debt to the tune of £1.4trillion. Why should taxpayers money be used to bribe new fathers to stay away from work for a month or more, simply to conform to a largely middle-class, metropolitan notion of what constitutes proper shared parenting practice? Does anyone really believe todays generation of interchangeable, identikit male politicians play as much of a hands-on role in bringing up baby as they like to pretend? Most of their wives earn such large salaries they can afford to employ nannies to shoulder the childcare burden. Boasting about doing the school-run and being photographed ostentatiously pushing a buggy is a fantasy peddled for public consumption because they think it appeals to women voters. Out in the real world, the famous work/life balance is about going out to work to balance the family budget. Its not about paying daddy to stay at home so that mummy can swan off for a ladies lunch at The Ivy followed by a little light PR consultancy. Men arent taking Cleggs revolutionary extended paternity leave because they simply cant afford to. And, as a nation, we cant afford to pay them to change nappies, either. Then theres the impact on employers. If any of the leading players in our pampered political class had ever run a proper business, which they havent, they might understand why small firms in particular will be hard hit by this policy. There have been five changes to paternity entitlements over the past decade, all of which have added to the financial pressures faced by companies. Small businesses cant manage without key staff for prolonged periods of paternity leave, or pay and train temporary workers to take their place. And I wonder where this leaves the self-employed, the biggest growth sector in the economy. When a one-man band discovers his wife is pregnant, does he have to hold a board meeting to decide whether he can down tools for a few weeks to meet the Governments shared parenting diktats? Sorry, Reg, I know I promised you the job would be finished by Friday, but the missus is up the duff and Ive had to take four afternoons off in the past fortnight to attend ante-natal classes. I would have asked young Jason to take care of it, but his birds just had twins and I dont expect him back for a year, by which time Ill probably have gone bankrupt... I’m still getting emails from readers being given the third degree at Post Offices when they try to send a parcel. The list of proscribed items seems to get longer by the day. But not, apparently, bacon. A company called Cure And Simple is doing a booming trade in sending artisan bacon via first class mail. Each vacuum-sealed pack contains ten rashers. They had, however, reckoned without the dogs of Britain. The company has had to come up with special dog-proof packaging after customers complained their pets were ripping open the bacon and eating it the moment it hit the doormat. It is now delivered in an insulated envelope with a cooling gel and a tough outer skin to minimise smells. Good luck with that. In fact, the firm admits that some dogs chew through the new packaging regardless. Our old lab, Ossie, could smell bacon through Kryptonite, at a distance of 400 yards. If we’d had a pound of streaky delivered by post, he’d have crashed through the front door to get at it. And if the postman had got in the way, Ossie would have had his arm off. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles says housing developments must be concentrated on brownfield sites to ensure Britain remains a ‘green and pleasant land’. Pity someone didn’t think about that when they allowed thousands of hideous, useless, War Of The Worlds windmills to ruin some of the greatest landscapes on God’s Earth. Thats all we need...3m Albanians All you need to know about David Camerons commitment to securing a fair deal for Britain in Europe is that he is pushing for Albania to be allowed to join the EU. That would inevitably lead to three million people from one of the Continents poorest and most crime-ridden countries eventually gaining the right to move here. Could he please explain precisely why he thinks this is in Britains best interests? Surely, if he was serious about renegotiation he wouldnt even have agreed to the accession of Albania being on the agenda. I can think of no single issue more likely to drive millions of former Tory voters into the arms of Ukip. This would tend to suggest that Cameron knows the British people will never be given the chance to vote on our EU membership, since he doesnt expect to be Prime Minister after the next election. Boris Johnson yesterday announced that he had come to the conclusion that Tony Blair had ‘finally gone mad’. What’s with the ‘finally’, BoJo? Where have you been the past 15 years? Some of us worked out that Blair had gone stark staring bonkers halfway through his first term. Next week, Boris reveals that Gordon Brown may be a bit odd. Dont grieve for Orgreave After Hillsborough, Labour now wants an official inquiry into police malpractice at the siege of Orgreave coking works in Yorkshire during the miners strike 30 years ago. Ten thousand NUM pickets clashed with 4,000 coppers. There were hundreds of injuries and 95 miners were arrested. Some are drawing parallels between Hillsborough and Orgreave. There is no comparison. What happened at Hillsborough was a police cock-up which led to the tragic loss of innocent life and was then covered up scandalously. Orgreave was the biggest battle in an attempted revolution to overthrow an elected government by violence, disorder and intimidation and replace the ballot box with brutality. There may well have been a police cover-up after Orgreave, too, but to mention this riot in the same breath as Hillsborough is an insult to the families and the memories of those Liverpool fans who died that day. Why is anyone surprised that the Iraqi army has run away from the ISIS terrorists? Remember how Saddams elite Revolutionary Guard went missing at the start of the Gulf War? Running away is what they do. Share or comment on this article 13 shares Ads by Taboola FROM THE WEB WOW! WATCH WHAT HAPPENS! 4D Magazine What Happens To Your Workplace Pension if y… Department for Work & Pensions How People are Paying Next To Nothing For Ne… ConsoBlogger Top 5 Kitchen Cleaning Tips That Will Save Ene… British Gas Top 5 World Cup Conspiracies Dailymotion Dating Legends: Tips from Marilyn Monroe Cupid UK Read more: dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2659621/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Just-wait-till-mother-comes-home.html#ixzz34sV4EXXu Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Posted on: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 07:09:42 +0000
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