Boris Johnson, paternity leave, losing to Australia & missing socks
Boris Johnson is reported to be taking some paternity leave after the birth of his latest child with his current partner Carrie. Ministers don’t actually get paternity leave, anymore than ordinary MPs get maternity leave such as is the archaic nature of Westminster. Johnson has claimed he is also keeping an eye on his Prime Ministerial duties (in so far as he ever does). Unfortunately that didn’t stop Gove from chairing a COBRA meeting on Friday.
When he was a Telegraph columnist Johnson regularly complained about paternity leave. @g_gosden on twitter has found quite a few examples.
Perhaps Johnson has had a change of view (after all he has very few set views it would seem) but the context of his dislike of paternity leave seems to remain. According to his biographer Sonia Purnell when he was married to the lawyer Marina Warner, Johnson had to look after one of his earlier babies (no doubt with the help of a nanny). He complained that such things were the result of an undesirable feminisation of society the effects of which were things like losing to Australia at cricket (cricketers do take paternity leave these days) and his inability to find a pair of matching socks (because his partner had not found them for him).
If he wasn’t Prime Minister this might all be quite amusing, if reactionary twaddle. As it is…
Leave a Reply