Too much of a good thing

Maternity leave has been one of the great triumphs for women – the chance at last to combine motherhood with a career (and total exhaustion too, but we’ll leave that for another time) but now, inevitably the backlash has started. Partly, it has to be said, because it was turning into too much of a good thing.

One of the highest flying women in the financial world has just told the Treasury select committee that if mothers start taking a whole year off, the entire scheme will backfire.

Instead of the brave new world we dreamed of, employers will become reluctant to employ women of childbearing age and women will end up with fewer opportunities than they had in the bad old days.

Then a survey of working women – presumably those left doing the work while the mums are at home holding the babies – said that they too would like some time off work please, but without the inconvenience of actually having a baby.

Mmm… they seemed to have missed the point a bit there. But maybe not.

If everyone had a legal entitlement to, say, two years off in an entire working life with some basic pay and guarantee that their job would be kept open for them, then they could do what they like.

Mothers would have babies, fathers could be hands-on dads. Other people could care for elderly relatives, go travelling, do something voluntary, build a model train set in the attic or just spend a few months doing absolutely nothing except sending smug texts to those back at work.

No one could feel jealous or resentful or hard done by, because they could all take their turn. Instead of a few measly weeks’ holiday, how cheering to know that you’d have a great chunk of time.

And maybe if we all felt happier and cheerful and less bitter, twisted and hassled and resentful of the perks other people seemed to have, then the workplace would be happier, and productivity would soar.

Just a thought.

GORDON Brown took 24 hours to respond to a simple question about which is his favourite biscuit. Don’t mock. If only Tony Blair had been such a ditherer – then we’d still be deciding over whether to go to war with Iraq.

IT was always one of the best moments of the day – children bathed, in bed, story read, Lego tidied away and time to collapse with a large glug – or two – of wine.

Bliss.

But now a professor is warning mothers that the regular evening wind-down wine could lead to liver disease and early death.

Yes, well.

Doing without it might occasionally lead to murder.

Which would he prefer?

Honestly, it’s enough to drive you to drink.

Keep smiling, Katie

KATIE Piper was 24 years old, a bubbly model, TV presenter and four-nights-a-week clubber, when she was the victim of an acid attack which burnt away her face, not just the skin, but most of the flesh beneath it.

Eighteen months and more than 30 operations later, she is still very scarred, still has to wear a pressure mask 23 hours a day, yet has taken part in a documentary about it all.

Her face has been rebuilt. There is still some way to go, but she has now some movement in it. “It’s amazing to be able to smile,” she said happily in a TV interview. At which point I wanted to cheer.

Not only that, thanks to the care and brilliance of the surgeons and the revolutionary techniques they used, she not only can smile but she actually wants to.

She is a remarkable young lady, grounded and grateful and apparently as bubbly as ever. Ironically, she made her name principally because of her looks.

Yet now her looks have gone, you can see more clearly just how remarkable she is. And that smile is terrific.

■ Katie: My Beautiful Face, Channel 4, Thursday, October 29, 9pm

Sam and that M&S dress

LOOK, we know Samantha Cameron is posh.

We don’t mind that. She can’t help it. We’re not snobs. We know she normally dresses in clothes that would cost us a month’s wages. Fair enough. So would we if we had her money. And for all her wealth and glittery job, she always seems down to earth somehow, no airs and graces.

So when she turned up at the Tory party conference in a £65 M&S number, pictured, and Primark shoes we thought that was probably a nice down to earth touch. We had visions of her going along the racks at Marks like the rest of us, looking for something likely and queuing up for the changing room with those plastic tags saying how many items she had.

Not a bit of it. It turns out she had the big bosses of Marks & Sparks scouring their stores for this particular dress and when it wasn’t available in her size they altered one especially.

Would they do that for the rest of us? Exactly.

So what was a nice touch, turns out to be a calculating and patronising move. Somehow, a dress that cost ten times as much would have been more honest.

Backchat

Dear Sharon,
YOU posed the question “what happened to public service?” Permit me to try to answer.

Public service, that is people who are dedicated to making life better for their communities, is alive and well right across this country. Public service includes local councillors of all political shades and none who are dedicated and committed to working hard for and supporting their communities and council officers who go that extra mile to solve problems and help people out.

Public service is embodied in the many thousands, possibly millions, of volunteers who give up their time and who do not want to and do not expect payment in return. Permit me to single out school governors – the largest volunteer workforce in the country who are ultimately responsible for budgets of many millions of pounds, for raising educational standards and improving the life chances of children and young people.

There are also magistrates, volunteers who visit the elderly and lonely, volunteers who help out in their local hospital and neighbours who help one another. All perform valuable services and all are dedicated to public service.

Public service is alive and well.

Alan Macnab, Darlington Dear Sharon,
YOU wished that your infants’ teacher would sort out the House of Commons. I wish my old maths teacher, Don Middleton, would sort out schools. He was well over 6ft tall, ex-Army and an excellent rugby player. In the days when many teachers resorted to the cane to keep teenage troublemakers under control, Don never had to. The suggestion of what he was able to do if he wanted was enough to have us quaking. He seemed to keep order by sheer force of personality.

One of the problems in schools now is that there are not enough teachers like Don and his ilk to provide a role model for boys. If the Conservatives persuade former soldiers into the teaching profession, this might change.

Peter Bennett, Darlington