Letter: No time for leave

YOUR reader's disappointment (Letters, 19 January) over the hard-nosed opinions expressed about the paternity leave proposals chimes very much with Nick Clegg's views on the subject.

Indeed, if Britain existed in isolation from the vigorous emerging industrialised countries in the southern hemisphere those pie in the sky ideals would all be very laudable.

However, the hard fact is that "Edwardian" employment laws and working conditions are the norm in those countries with whom we are directly competing.

Britain is already world- renowned as the country which pays people for having a sore back, for giving the obese extra money to buy more food and a new family-sized saloon car when they are too fat to use public transport.

So, when our country is already struggling for its very existence, the last thing our exporters need is to be burdened with more of this silly immature student socialism.

Irvine Inglis

Reston

Berwickshire