A piece by Kate McCann, ‘senior political correspondent’ – what times we live in! – at the Telegraph, once a fine newspaper, now a feminist-compliant cat litter liner. The start of the piece:
MPs could be allowed to nominate someone to vote on their behalf [J4MB: While the MPs in question draw their full pay, presumably] after plans to help new parents were passed in the House of Commons yesterday.
In a unanimous decision [J4MB emphasis] politicians backed the idea of baby leave to ensure communities are represented when their MP has a baby or adopts a child. A committee will now draw up proposals to make it happen.
Conservative former minister Maria Miller, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, said: “It is 100 years on since the first woman sat in this place but it can, for many of us, still feel like we’re operating in an 18th century model of work – and that is something that really does need to change.” [J4MB: Ah yes, the 18th century model of work – when workers were expected to be present in the workplace.]
Well, Maria ‘Manatee’ Miller MP has said it “really does need to change”, and so it must, so female MPs popping out sprogs don’t have to bother with silly things like being in the House of Commons when votes are counted.
Justice for Men & Boys 
Absolutely not. What about the other aspects of the role? It leaves a huge democratic deficit in the constituency and that is unacceptable.
A sick man should be a valid comparator for a pregnant woman. If the absence cannot be sustained then they can be put onto an attendance management scheme and eased out. I rather suspect the reason why “compensated no fault dismissal”, ie person redundancy, got nowhere was that it it could not be used for issues arising from a protected characteristic – unfortunately they are the people most firms would like to be able to pay off.
Pregnant women, lengthy ill health absences, florid manifestations of mental health, dress code, etc.
And a pregnant MP should be expected to resign immediately as one on long term sick leave is. It’s undemocratic and disenfranchises people.
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“Ah yes, the 18th century model of work – when workers were expected to be present in the workplace” And of course the model “workshop of the world” that allowed us to have all the “goodies” we now enjoy including welfare state, leave etc. All the time we encourage people to not work as much we lose in the productivity race and our level of national and personal debt propels us towards another “credit crunch”. The point isn’t that it was “masculine” ways of working but that it they were ways of working essential to wealth creation. In the senseless seventies when doing Economics at University there was much talk of lots more leisure for all as mechanisation reduced the need to work so hard. Of course by the early 1980s the theories went out of fashion as there was far too much “leisure” as inefficient industries folded one after another. “I am the one in ten” A song about a time when it turned out being uncompetitive was not such a good idea.
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Clearly then Parliament should stop having debates. As one can know how one is going to vote without attending to the speeches in the debate. This would save on having two debating chambers “houses” in the refurbished Parliament Building. In fact why on earth pay for them to be all in one place at all? No second homes, no travel expenses etc. they could just “whatsapp” their votes. Loads of savings there.
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MPs in the main stopped making up their own minds on how to vote long ago so I can’t see that this is important except to demonstrate again, as though further evidence were necessary, that parliamentary democracy in the ‘United’ Kingdom is nothing more than theatre for tax paying proles and general elections no more than an opportunity to tell the cast how good we thought they were.
If allowing women, and presumably men on the inevitable paternity leave, to send in their unelected friends to vote on their behalf stirs the average hard of thought elector to utter even faintly revolutionary sentiments in favour of substantial change the measure is no bad thing.
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