OF course fathers should be given time off to attend the birth of their child. Any employer so callous and heartless that it can even consider sacking an employee for attending the great event deserves to be taken to an industrial tribunal and shamed.

The birth of one's child is a truly momentous, even life-changing, event. Of course fathers, if they wish to, should be allowed to be there to share it with their partners.

If society is serious about its desire to support and promote the family, it is right that the state encourages businesses to play their part. As Sunderland bus driver Dean Matthews said yesterday: "Modern fathers have more responsibility for the care and welfare of their family and employers should accept that."

Employers should also be sensible enough to see that adopting family-friendly policies is good for their business. An employee prevented from attending the birth of his child is unlikely to be a productive one.

Mr Matthews has indeed struck a blow for fathers and set a valuable precedent. His union, too, should be congratulated for enforcing a valuable principle.

But it is hard to believe there are many employers who are so unfeeling that they would sack a father for attending the birth of his own baby, particularly when, as in this case, the father had the decency to explain his predicament.

Stagecoach North-East, the villain of this piece, points to Mr Matthews' attendance record which in the previous eight months had caused him to go through every stage of the formal disciplinary process.

As Mr Matthews' solicitor said, employers must be aware of the new rights of parents - and few of those rights can be more valuable than the father's right to attend the birth of his child. But employees must also be aware that with those rights come responsibilities.

Political pawns

THE issue of asylum-seekers is, according to the polls, the only one on which the Conservatives consistently out-score Labour. Naturally, therefore, the Conservatives wish to exploit it and, equally naturally, Labour wishes to be seen as even tougher than the Conservatives to win back support.

But this doesn't necessarily make good government. It is to be hoped that amid all the pre-election hullabaloo, the fundamentals of the asylum system are not overlooked: it should be humane to the individuals concerned, fair to both Britain and the asylum-seekers, and its processes should be fast and efficient.

Political posturing is not one of those fundamentals.