In his latest blog for Caerphilly Observer, Caerphilly AM Hefin David discusses fatherhood, the Cardiff Capital Region City Deal and implications of the general election result.
Challenging but rewarding
It’s been a busy time for me as my second daughter was born on May 22. As a father of two children I appreciate raising a family can bring challenges, but it’s ultimately the most rewarding experience in life.
Paternity leave enabled me to spend special time with my new born daughter and I cherished every minute of it. Those early weeks are when the baby is most dependent on its parents to provide the basic necessities in life.
Paternity and maternity leave enables an essential period of bonding between a baby and her or his parents and the continuation of paid paternity and maternity leave should be protected by any government.
Fathers can now share paid parental leave with mothers but recent research shows that limited numbers of fathers are taking up the opportunity. One of the ways to change this is to continue to fight to equalise earnings between men and women.
Back to business
Having returned to work, I’ve been getting back into things with various casework and committee business. This month I travelled to Glasgow with fellow members of the Economy, Infrastructure & Skills Committee to find out how the Glasgow City Deal works.
We will benefit from a similar billion pound deal in South Wales over the next ten years. One of the key findings of the visit was the importance of engaging with local businesses and residents in the development of local projects as part of the deal.
Turbulent times
It would be remiss of me not to reference the recent general election. The Prime Minister called the election to receive a stronger mandate from the British electorate and she failed. In losing her commons majority, Theresa May now enters important Brexit negotiations with her hand weakened and her personal reputation damaged. These are turbulent times in British politics and what happens next is anyone’s guess.
Finally, the Welsh Assembly will be renamed the Welsh Parliament, possibly next year. My commitment is to continue to be the voice of Caerphilly constituency in the Welsh Assembly and soon to be Welsh Parliament to the best of my ability.
Just like to point out to Mr David that although Comrad Corbyn and his deluded band of left wing socialist loonies are claiming victory, Labour did in fact lose the election, their third general election loss in a row.
Following the disaster at Grenfell Tower television footage of Corbyns Labour protestors carrying placards bearing the words “Organise;Resist;Strike” – a clear indication that Corbyn and his lefties would take us back to the 70’s and plunge us further into debt.
In fact he would lumber us with far more debt than the Tories are trying to clear with austerity measures.
His party have no real policies – they can only try and score political points by slagging off the Tories.
Very true, I found it utterly disgraceful that Corbyn’s Socialist Worker troops were quickly mobilised and armed with placards within a matter of hours, and used the appalling deaths of innocent woman and children to score political points against the Tories.
Corbyn and his socialist worker troops will use every trick in the book to try and win power and favour.
We saw the true side of him, when he attended the Glastonbury Festival – in an attempt to woo further numbers of potential young voters, rather than to attend an Armed Forces day to thank our troops for helping to keep our country safe.
He’s gaining favour with the poor young students by promising to abolish tuition fees, what these poor brainwashed fools don’t know is that it was Labour who introduced tuiton fees, and if these poor young students fulfill their potential, gain a good education, bag themselves a well paid career, they will become the ‘rich’ that they themselves are now protesting against, idiots!
Well said, Corbyn is a master of propaganda. When will people see he is a fake and is only out for what he can get. Underneath his Labour coat the man is a communist.