Must be confident he isn't going to even get his wrist slapped.
I honestly though that was going to be the politically convenient fudge for everybody. Plod say looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules. Then, Starmer gets to play man of integrity card.
Apologies if I'm getting my scandals mixed up, but surely that won't wash since, I believe, plod were there?
Yes. Security detail were at Partygate and Beergate. No one can get away with lying.
Except possibly the police.
“ looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules.”
so what you thinking was the minor breach? Rules for mixing indoors not same as partygate, all they need to at currygate is isay they worked through takeaway and on afterwards, they don’t even have to prove it, it had to be proved they didn’t - sounds like they did or they didn’t, what can be a minor breach of those rules? Not keeping two poppadoms apart?
It had to be reasonably necessary for work. They could, for example, have given everyone an hour to go to a takeout or eat alone outdoors at a pub etc. Inconvenient, but that's what the rest of us were stuck with. Hence they needed to be doing something as part of the 15 person meal workwise that required them to all be there. 'It wouldn't have made sense to all go off on our own' is not an excuse. Which is the point- the rules he eagerly supported were complete bollocks
Still doesn’t answer the question though, what exactly are you proving they did wrong, even for just an advisory note?
They need to show the meal and being 'gathered together we 15' was reasonably necessary for work purposes, or rather the police merely need to say they do not believe it was and a breach of the guidelines and law, technical or otherwise, has occurred
Edit - 15 people were not allowed to eat together indoors except where reasonably necessary for work. 15 people did, the onus is on them to show it was reasonably necessary
Shouldn’t be too difficult that? Top politicians in election campaign wouldn’t expect to be standard hours, and to make the most of all in one place opportunities for wash up and planning. Especially as they passed police phone and server logs to prove they were working, can’t really leave police with much of a doubt?
Well, given witnesses present have said no work was done and some of them were pissed there's clearly some doubt from some that it was necessary, dilligent work. And 'wash up and planning' do not require you to breach the rules on numbers indoors together. It can be done remotely, via zoom etc. 'Making the most of all in one place opportunities' was indeed explicitly against the guidelines for campaigning during Covid. In person meetings were to be minimized.
I believe the whistleblowers only went as far as saying some people didn’t do much work, treated it more as a social, and this has in turn been disputed. Can the police actually use that to prove guilt on anyone? Trusting so much on testimony of a whistleblower has caused police so much grief in other cases hasn’t it, they are bound to be cautious, or even have a different take direct from whistleblower witnesses than we have via the media?
Well, we will see what they have gathered I guess but essentially if there's enough 'doubt' they can fudge it, say it looks like there may have been a breach, that they aren't issuing retrospective fines but have spoken to all concerned to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities 'should such a situation arise in future'. Or 'spoken to everyone about the importance of following the law in its entirety' And Starmer is left with a tricky choice. Also note there is no need to 'prove guilt' for a FPN, they just need to be reasonably sure it would hold up if taken to court in dispute.
Edit - and from a public perspective, it remains the case that we all had to jump through stupid hoops, so there is simply no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps, but it would have been convenient for a lot of us to do a lot of things we couldn't
“ Starmer is left with a tricky choice.”. Tricky choice? I think he would declare himself exonerated if the outcome was as you described.
With Partygate, where there was no excuse to be socialising indoors with a beer, but they paid taxpayers money to a photographer to show them socialising indoors with a beer, open and shut case not likely to go to court. Anyone at beergate though, as it’s not so obvious to show wrongdoing, might feel aggrieved enough to take it to court, police will have to be very “reasonably sure” they wouldn’t lose in court.
“no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps”. Absolutely right. But it’s not what they did though, they worked, grabbed takeaway whilst working. 100% smack bang in middle of rules at the time.
He declares himself a lot of things. Others will differ. And it will taint him in the eyes of many.
They did not 'grab a takeaway', the meal was pre-planned, it does not state on the plan that it is a working meal, some have said no work took place, others differ. Time will tell, but it's certainly impossible to conclude either it was legal or not at this stage as we weren't there, we can only believe what we believe to be the case.
The video of him stood up drinking beer with people wondering around with no covid precautions being followed does not look good and such "work events" were not happening at that time.
I would be very surprised if Durham Police approve the event and make a statement to that effect. i think the minimum will be "it should not have happened"
At least we are arguing beergate again. I had missed it 😆
I am surprised as SKS's confidence that the event was OK and in line with the Covid rules at that time.
Perhaps he doubts your confidence in the Daily Mail for truthful and accurate reporting.
Big day in Sweden, and a lot of politicians here are making memorable statements. The atmosphere is grave.
Our foreign minister Ann Linde just said on the SR P1 NATO special (think BBC R4 abandons whole schedule and dedicates channel to the NATO application):
- “… är det en ökad sårbarhet för Sverige. Det är helt klart.
… Därför så har vi också varit noga med och se till och fått säkerhetsförsäkringar från de stora länderna som USA, Frankrike, Tyskland, de nordiska länderna och så vidare, för att öka säkerheten.”
- ”… it is an increased vulnerability for Sweden. That's quite clear.
… Therefore, we have also been careful to ensure and receive security promises from the major countries such as the United States, France, Germany, the Nordic countries and so on, to increase security.”
Hmm… sorry Boris, when it comes to selling NATO to the Swedish people, there is one state nobody is boasting about. The “UK” is just an “etc”.
That's because we already have a security arrangement with Sweden independent of (if not entirely orthogonal to) NATO.
Nope. The UK is just one among a very long list of states who have made the same independent interim security arrangements with Sweden. And the UK arrangement is not even deemed significant enough for the foreign minister to even mention it. She obviously doesn’t read PB.
Sweden's government website on some of these arrangements..
"France Sweden has well-established cooperation with France in the area of defence. This cooperation focuses on international operations in primarily Africa, exercises and cooperation in the defence materiel area.
Germany Germany and Sweden have a long tradition of bilateral and multilateral cooperation. In June 2017, Sweden’s and Germany’s defence ministers signed a joint letter of intent to deepen and increase cooperation between the Swedish and German armed forces and other defence agencies through the development of the current cooperation and the promotion of new initiatives.
The United Kingdom Sweden’s cooperation with the UK is of particular importance to security in the Baltic Sea region. Sweden and the UK have significant defence equipment cooperation and, in 2019, the countries signed a memorandum of understanding on Future Combat Air Systems Cooperation (FCASC). Exercises and training as well as research and development are other areas in which there is close cooperation. Bilateral agreements between the UK and Sweden are not affected by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
Sweden has a long-term interest in continued close cooperation between the EU and the UK in the area of security and defence policy, regardless of whether the UK is a member of the EU or not. Swedish-British cooperation should also be seen as an important support function in the transatlantic link."
IIRC there are Finnish and Swedish troops taking part in a joint exercise in Estonia at the moment. I think it is under the aegis of this agreement, combined with NATO?
Anyone listening to the governor of the Bank of England being questioned by the Treasury Select Committee would not be comforted by his comments, as the combination of the Ukraine war with it's effect on the supply of wheat to the world, to the likelyhood of oil and gas price hikes continuing for an inderminnate period as reliance on Russia as a supplier is sidelined, and the looming disaster of the effects of covid and China's zero covid policy, leaves them virtually powerless to mitigate the economic damage in a meaningful way
A take out is, given Covid, Un predicted War, or Brexit to blame, the Bank of England casting a lot of aspidistras on Brexit for the problems 🤔
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
Big day in Sweden, and a lot of politicians here are making memorable statements. The atmosphere is grave.
Our foreign minister Ann Linde just said on the SR P1 NATO special (think BBC R4 abandons whole schedule and dedicates channel to the NATO application):
- “… är det en ökad sårbarhet för Sverige. Det är helt klart.
… Därför så har vi också varit noga med och se till och fått säkerhetsförsäkringar från de stora länderna som USA, Frankrike, Tyskland, de nordiska länderna och så vidare, för att öka säkerheten.”
- ”… it is an increased vulnerability for Sweden. That's quite clear.
… Therefore, we have also been careful to ensure and receive security promises from the major countries such as the United States, France, Germany, the Nordic countries and so on, to increase security.”
Hmm… sorry Boris, when it comes to selling NATO to the Swedish people, there is one state nobody is boasting about. The “UK” is just an “etc”.
That's because we already have a security arrangement with Sweden independent of (if not entirely orthogonal to) NATO.
Nope. The UK is just one among a very long list of states who have made the same independent interim security arrangements with Sweden. And the UK arrangement is not even deemed significant enough for the foreign minister to even mention it. She obviously doesn’t read PB.
Sweden's government website on some of these arrangements..
"France Sweden has well-established cooperation with France in the area of defence. This cooperation focuses on international operations in primarily Africa, exercises and cooperation in the defence materiel area.
Germany Germany and Sweden have a long tradition of bilateral and multilateral cooperation. In June 2017, Sweden’s and Germany’s defence ministers signed a joint letter of intent to deepen and increase cooperation between the Swedish and German armed forces and other defence agencies through the development of the current cooperation and the promotion of new initiatives.
The United Kingdom Sweden’s cooperation with the UK is of particular importance to security in the Baltic Sea region. Sweden and the UK have significant defence equipment cooperation and, in 2019, the countries signed a memorandum of understanding on Future Combat Air Systems Cooperation (FCASC). Exercises and training as well as research and development are other areas in which there is close cooperation. Bilateral agreements between the UK and Sweden are not affected by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
Sweden has a long-term interest in continued close cooperation between the EU and the UK in the area of security and defence policy, regardless of whether the UK is a member of the EU or not. Swedish-British cooperation should also be seen as an important support function in the transatlantic link."
Must be confident he isn't going to even get his wrist slapped.
I honestly though that was going to be the politically convenient fudge for everybody. Plod say looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules. Then, Starmer gets to play man of integrity card.
Apologies if I'm getting my scandals mixed up, but surely that won't wash since, I believe, plod were there?
Yes. Security detail were at Partygate and Beergate. No one can get away with lying.
Except possibly the police.
“ looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules.”
so what you thinking was the minor breach? Rules for mixing indoors not same as partygate, all they need to at currygate is isay they worked through takeaway and on afterwards, they don’t even have to prove it, it had to be proved they didn’t - sounds like they did or they didn’t, what can be a minor breach of those rules? Not keeping two poppadoms apart?
It had to be reasonably necessary for work. They could, for example, have given everyone an hour to go to a takeout or eat alone outdoors at a pub etc. Inconvenient, but that's what the rest of us were stuck with. Hence they needed to be doing something as part of the 15 person meal workwise that required them to all be there. 'It wouldn't have made sense to all go off on our own' is not an excuse. Which is the point- the rules he eagerly supported were complete bollocks
Still doesn’t answer the question though, what exactly are you proving they did wrong, even for just an advisory note?
They need to show the meal and being 'gathered together we 15' was reasonably necessary for work purposes, or rather the police merely need to say they do not believe it was and a breach of the guidelines and law, technical or otherwise, has occurred
Edit - 15 people were not allowed to eat together indoors except where reasonably necessary for work. 15 people did, the onus is on them to show it was reasonably necessary
Shouldn’t be too difficult that? Top politicians in election campaign wouldn’t expect to be standard hours, and to make the most of all in one place opportunities for wash up and planning. Especially as they passed police phone and server logs to prove they were working, can’t really leave police with much of a doubt?
Well, given witnesses present have said no work was done and some of them were pissed there's clearly some doubt from some that it was necessary, dilligent work. And 'wash up and planning' do not require you to breach the rules on numbers indoors together. It can be done remotely, via zoom etc. 'Making the most of all in one place opportunities' was indeed explicitly against the guidelines for campaigning during Covid. In person meetings were to be minimized.
I believe the whistleblowers only went as far as saying some people didn’t do much work, treated it more as a social, and this has in turn been disputed. Can the police actually use that to prove guilt on anyone? Trusting so much on testimony of a whistleblower has caused police so much grief in other cases hasn’t it, they are bound to be cautious, or even have a different take direct from whistleblower witnesses than we have via the media?
Well, we will see what they have gathered I guess but essentially if there's enough 'doubt' they can fudge it, say it looks like there may have been a breach, that they aren't issuing retrospective fines but have spoken to all concerned to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities 'should such a situation arise in future'. Or 'spoken to everyone about the importance of following the law in its entirety' And Starmer is left with a tricky choice. Also note there is no need to 'prove guilt' for a FPN, they just need to be reasonably sure it would hold up if taken to court in dispute.
Edit - and from a public perspective, it remains the case that we all had to jump through stupid hoops, so there is simply no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps, but it would have been convenient for a lot of us to do a lot of things we couldn't
“ Starmer is left with a tricky choice.”. Tricky choice? I think he would declare himself exonerated if the outcome was as you described.
With Partygate, where there was no excuse to be socialising indoors with a beer, but they paid taxpayers money to a photographer to show them socialising indoors with a beer, open and shut case not likely to go to court. Anyone at beergate though, as it’s not so obvious to show wrongdoing, might feel aggrieved enough to take it to court, police will have to be very “reasonably sure” they wouldn’t lose in court.
“no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps”. Absolutely right. But it’s not what they did though, they worked, grabbed takeaway whilst working. 100% smack bang in middle of rules at the time.
He declares himself a lot of things. Others will differ. And it will taint him in the eyes of many.
They did not 'grab a takeaway', the meal was pre-planned, it does not state on the plan that it is a working meal, some have said no work took place, others differ. Time will tell, but it's certainly impossible to conclude either it was legal or not at this stage as we weren't there, we can only believe what we believe to be the case.
The video of him stood up drinking beer with people wondering around with no covid precautions being followed does not look good and such "work events" were not happening at that time.
I would be very surprised if Durham Police approve the event and make a statement to that effect. i think the minimum will be "it should not have happened"
At least we are arguing beergate again. I had missed it 😆
I am surprised as SKS's confidence that the event was OK and in line with the Covid rules at that time.
Yes but that is because you seem to think there were imaginary rules in place at the time.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
St Bart. What do you make of Bank of Englands issues with labour market? Are we getting close to being able to use term Stagflation?
Bailey says Bank of England surprised by large fall in size of labour market Bailey says one factor is that the labour market is now smaller by about 450,000, or 1.3%, now than it was pre-Covid.
He says there has been a 3% increase in the proportion of people economically inactive.
There are more people who are long-term sick, he says.
He says it is not clear why. Some of it is likely to be long Covid, he says. And he says some people might be nervous about going back to work because of Covid.
UPDATE: Bailey said:
We have seen a fall in the size of the labour market; since 2019, we’ve seen a fall of around 450,000, or 1.3%. In the margin of the labour force it’s a very big fall and represents a 3% increase in number of economically inactive people, meaning someone who isn’t searching for a job, unlike an unemployed person who is looking for one. The scale and persistence of this drop has been a surprise to us. We have seen an increase in long-term sickness in that number of about 320,000 people, and so what we’ve done in the main monetary policy report is to lower the projected view of labour participation.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
This is the whole problem with WFT. It's about people isolating themselves in their own little perfect world where they don't have to ever meet anyone they might not like.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
I believe the apparently misinterpreted line about being more honoured in the breach than in the observance would apply to that supposed Conservative mantra.
Once in government politicians tend to find that getting involved with and telling people what to do with their lives is a ok. Indeed, some salivate about how they get to impose their values and preferences on the country because they won.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
I believe the apparently misinterpreted line about being more honoured in the breach than in the observance would apply to that supposed Conservative mantra.
Once in government politicians tend to find that getting involved with and telling people what to do with their lives is a ok. Indeed, some salivate about how they get to impose their values and preferences on the country because they won.
Big day in Sweden, and a lot of politicians here are making memorable statements. The atmosphere is grave.
Our foreign minister Ann Linde just said on the SR P1 NATO special (think BBC R4 abandons whole schedule and dedicates channel to the NATO application):
- “… är det en ökad sårbarhet för Sverige. Det är helt klart.
… Därför så har vi också varit noga med och se till och fått säkerhetsförsäkringar från de stora länderna som USA, Frankrike, Tyskland, de nordiska länderna och så vidare, för att öka säkerheten.”
- ”… it is an increased vulnerability for Sweden. That's quite clear.
… Therefore, we have also been careful to ensure and receive security promises from the major countries such as the United States, France, Germany, the Nordic countries and so on, to increase security.”
Hmm… sorry Boris, when it comes to selling NATO to the Swedish people, there is one state nobody is boasting about. The “UK” is just an “etc”.
Commiserations. Looks like Ireland for you.
Huh? Very cryptic. I’d ask you for clarification, but life is too short.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
To borrow from Abe Lincoln - When I find a man advocating substance farming, I feel a strong desire to see it practised upon him.
Must be confident he isn't going to even get his wrist slapped.
I honestly though that was going to be the politically convenient fudge for everybody. Plod say looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules. Then, Starmer gets to play man of integrity card.
Apologies if I'm getting my scandals mixed up, but surely that won't wash since, I believe, plod were there?
Yes. Security detail were at Partygate and Beergate. No one can get away with lying.
Except possibly the police.
“ looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules.”
so what you thinking was the minor breach? Rules for mixing indoors not same as partygate, all they need to at currygate is isay they worked through takeaway and on afterwards, they don’t even have to prove it, it had to be proved they didn’t - sounds like they did or they didn’t, what can be a minor breach of those rules? Not keeping two poppadoms apart?
It had to be reasonably necessary for work. They could, for example, have given everyone an hour to go to a takeout or eat alone outdoors at a pub etc. Inconvenient, but that's what the rest of us were stuck with. Hence they needed to be doing something as part of the 15 person meal workwise that required them to all be there. 'It wouldn't have made sense to all go off on our own' is not an excuse. Which is the point- the rules he eagerly supported were complete bollocks
Still doesn’t answer the question though, what exactly are you proving they did wrong, even for just an advisory note?
They need to show the meal and being 'gathered together we 15' was reasonably necessary for work purposes, or rather the police merely need to say they do not believe it was and a breach of the guidelines and law, technical or otherwise, has occurred
Edit - 15 people were not allowed to eat together indoors except where reasonably necessary for work. 15 people did, the onus is on them to show it was reasonably necessary
Shouldn’t be too difficult that? Top politicians in election campaign wouldn’t expect to be standard hours, and to make the most of all in one place opportunities for wash up and planning. Especially as they passed police phone and server logs to prove they were working, can’t really leave police with much of a doubt?
Well, given witnesses present have said no work was done and some of them were pissed there's clearly some doubt from some that it was necessary, dilligent work. And 'wash up and planning' do not require you to breach the rules on numbers indoors together. It can be done remotely, via zoom etc. 'Making the most of all in one place opportunities' was indeed explicitly against the guidelines for campaigning during Covid. In person meetings were to be minimized.
I believe the whistleblowers only went as far as saying some people didn’t do much work, treated it more as a social, and this has in turn been disputed. Can the police actually use that to prove guilt on anyone? Trusting so much on testimony of a whistleblower has caused police so much grief in other cases hasn’t it, they are bound to be cautious, or even have a different take direct from whistleblower witnesses than we have via the media?
Well, we will see what they have gathered I guess but essentially if there's enough 'doubt' they can fudge it, say it looks like there may have been a breach, that they aren't issuing retrospective fines but have spoken to all concerned to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities 'should such a situation arise in future'. Or 'spoken to everyone about the importance of following the law in its entirety' And Starmer is left with a tricky choice. Also note there is no need to 'prove guilt' for a FPN, they just need to be reasonably sure it would hold up if taken to court in dispute.
Edit - and from a public perspective, it remains the case that we all had to jump through stupid hoops, so there is simply no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps, but it would have been convenient for a lot of us to do a lot of things we couldn't
“ Starmer is left with a tricky choice.”. Tricky choice? I think he would declare himself exonerated if the outcome was as you described.
With Partygate, where there was no excuse to be socialising indoors with a beer, but they paid taxpayers money to a photographer to show them socialising indoors with a beer, open and shut case not likely to go to court. Anyone at beergate though, as it’s not so obvious to show wrongdoing, might feel aggrieved enough to take it to court, police will have to be very “reasonably sure” they wouldn’t lose in court.
“no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps”. Absolutely right. But it’s not what they did though, they worked, grabbed takeaway whilst working. 100% smack bang in middle of rules at the time.
He declares himself a lot of things. Others will differ. And it will taint him in the eyes of many.
They did not 'grab a takeaway', the meal was pre-planned, it does not state on the plan that it is a working meal, some have said no work took place, others differ. Time will tell, but it's certainly impossible to conclude either it was legal or not at this stage as we weren't there, we can only believe what we believe to be the case.
The video of him stood up drinking beer with people wondering around with no covid precautions being followed does not look good and such "work events" were not happening at that time.
I would be very surprised if Durham Police approve the event and make a statement to that effect. i think the minimum will be "it should not have happened"
At least we are arguing beergate again. I had missed it 😆
I am surprised as SKS's confidence that the event was OK and in line with the Covid rules at that time.
Yes but that is because you seem to think there were imaginary rules in place at the time.
The police must also think that otherwise they would not be investigating
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
I believe the apparently misinterpreted line about being more honoured in the breach than in the observance would apply to that supposed Conservative mantra.
Once in government politicians tend to find that getting involved with and telling people what to do with their lives is a ok. Indeed, some salivate about how they get to impose their values and preferences on the country because they won.
On topic. Boris is spot on with suspicions of home working bringing far too many negatives, and the electorate will support him.
More productive or less productive? Those trying to work from home whilst child minding are obviously less productive than both themselves in office without those distractions and a colleague wfh without those distractions. Also depends on tasks. A task needing face-to-face communication is going to be less productive without it.
don’t call it working from home, call it remote working, for then you have people working remotely since year dot you can compare it to. Back in the sixties there was a study of People out and about working remotely fixing office machinery, each knew a different trick the others didn’t. When they all got together in a diner for a meal they shared all these tricks and productivity shot up. If knowledge share drops off due to remote working, it’s a huge hit on productivity that can only be noticed over longer time spans not shorter ones, why? Becuase most studies have innovation is a key part of productivity, and innovation is now proved to being killed by remote working the earlier studies didn’t pick up.
Unions should be wary about it. It can’t be measured solely as working from home getting tasks done versus in office getting tasks done. If productivity appears up with home workers it may be because workers slip into longer working hours, the pay off is burn out and mental health, not getting their brains or bodies enough break away from work.
Rees Mogg is winning this argument single handedly, though Boris intervention has helped. Mogg said it’s used for long weekends, Mondays, Fridays, is he wrong? Let’s look at the stat for the days people most work remotely…
Are you a Lib Dem or a dyed-in-the-wool Tory? It's confusing. You seem more enchanted with Johnson than you were with Mme Le Pen which is a long way down the rabbit hole
As Lord Gnome would say 'I think we should be told!'
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
Exactly.
It is worth remembering that NATO was designed and implemented as the reverse of the Iron Curtain style stuff. Membership is voluntary - no one really even argued when the French semi-left, back in the day.
The "requirements" for spending are promises that aren't even in the "pinkie promise" range, diplomatically.
Even the "requirement" to come to the assistance of fellow NATO members is vague to the point that you could quite honestly claim that sending a diplomatic note was enough.
It is this total flexibility and lack of enforcement that is actually NATO's strength.
"Voters are getting better educated — this isn’t good news for democracy Graduates excel at motivated reasoning, and that means they are less prone to changing their minds STEPHEN BUSH" (£)
On topic. Boris is spot on with suspicions of home working bringing far too many negatives, and the electorate will support him.
More productive or less productive? Those trying to work from home whilst child minding are obviously less productive than both themselves in office without those distractions and a colleague wfh without those distractions. Also depends on tasks. A task needing face-to-face communication is going to be less productive without it.
don’t call it working from home, call it remote working, for then you have people working remotely since year dot you can compare it to. Back in the sixties there was a study of People out and about working remotely fixing office machinery, each knew a different trick the others didn’t. When they all got together in a diner for a meal they shared all these tricks and productivity shot up. If knowledge share drops off due to remote working, it’s a huge hit on productivity that can only be noticed over longer time spans not shorter ones, why? Becuase most studies have innovation is a key part of productivity, and innovation is now proved to being killed by remote working the earlier studies didn’t pick up.
Unions should be wary about it. It can’t be measured solely as working from home getting tasks done versus in office getting tasks done. If productivity appears up with home workers it may be because workers slip into longer working hours, the pay off is burn out and mental health, not getting their brains or bodies enough break away from work.
Rees Mogg is winning this argument single handedly, though Boris intervention has helped. Mogg said it’s used for long weekends, Mondays, Fridays, is he wrong? Let’s look at the stat for the days people most work remotely…
Are you a Lib Dem or a dyed-in-the-wool Tory? It's confusing. You seem more enchanted with Johnson than you were with Mme Le Pen which is a long way down the rabbit hole
As Lord Gnome would say 'I think we should be told!'
It's possible that you can not be a Tory and yet not express outright hostility to all Tories and all Tory ideas.
I can think of plenty of areas in which I find agreement with people in different parts of the political spectrum. It would be odd if I did not.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
The government is not restricting itself to moaning about WFH among its own employees, though that is their focus. It is quite clear they don't want anyone doing it, as they criticise it in generalities, as a concept, not merely as it relates to government business.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
That’s a very astute point by the Finnish PM. Basically Putin said Choose us or them?
Who in Europe is going to “choose Russia” having seen the rape-krieg across Ukraine? The naked, mutilated girls hanging in the forests?
Russia has descended to barbarism. It will be shunned
“The trade share of GDP has declined, and declined more in the UK than elsewhere” says Gov Bailey eventually, after Holinrake suggests that Bank might be afraid of upsetting someone over Brexit…
"Voters are getting better educated — this isn’t good news for democracy Graduates excel at motivated reasoning, and that means they are less prone to changing their minds STEPHEN BUSH" (£)
Big day in Sweden, and a lot of politicians here are making memorable statements. The atmosphere is grave.
Our foreign minister Ann Linde just said on the SR P1 NATO special (think BBC R4 abandons whole schedule and dedicates channel to the NATO application):
- “… är det en ökad sårbarhet för Sverige. Det är helt klart.
… Därför så har vi också varit noga med och se till och fått säkerhetsförsäkringar från de stora länderna som USA, Frankrike, Tyskland, de nordiska länderna och så vidare, för att öka säkerheten.”
- ”… it is an increased vulnerability for Sweden. That's quite clear.
… Therefore, we have also been careful to ensure and receive security promises from the major countries such as the United States, France, Germany, the Nordic countries and so on, to increase security.”
Hmm… sorry Boris, when it comes to selling NATO to the Swedish people, there is one state nobody is boasting about. The “UK” is just an “etc”.
That's because we already have a security arrangement with Sweden independent of (if not entirely orthogonal to) NATO.
While that's true, it's not a mutual defence alliance.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
Absolutely. WFH is now clearly impacting the government’s work on multiple fronts.
eg foreign tax exemption forms from HMRC used to take weeks to file, process and be returned. Now it can take many months. Nightmare
Covid is over. There is no excuse. It is WFH that’s doing it. And at what cost to the wider economy?
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
The government is not restricting itself to moaning about WFH among its own employees, though that is their focus. It is quite clear they don't want anyone doing it, as they criticise it in generalities, as a concept, not merely as it relates to government business.
Well, to that extent I would disagree with them unless they have clear evidence that it is affecting national productivity adversely. That does seem to be the public sector experience but it is not likely to be universal, not at all. Of course they may be worried too about the adverse effect on the funding of public transport systems, city centre shops etc too. But they need to sort out their own house before they start criticising others who may be doing it better.
"Voters are getting better educated — this isn’t good news for democracy Graduates excel at motivated reasoning, and that means they are less prone to changing their minds STEPHEN BUSH" (£)
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
I live in a settlement of 9,000 people. Always some debate whether that is a town or a village. I mostly WFH (1 day a week in the office at the moment). The "village" has a full size Tesco, a leisure centre with a swimming pool and 2 High Schools (it's West Scotland of course). Hardly the peasant life.
On topic. Boris is spot on with suspicions of home working bringing far too many negatives, and the electorate will support him.
More productive or less productive? Those trying to work from home whilst child minding are obviously less productive than both themselves in office without those distractions and a colleague wfh without those distractions. Also depends on tasks. A task needing face-to-face communication is going to be less productive without it.
don’t call it working from home, call it remote working, for then you have people working remotely since year dot you can compare it to. Back in the sixties there was a study of People out and about working remotely fixing office machinery, each knew a different trick the others didn’t. When they all got together in a diner for a meal they shared all these tricks and productivity shot up. If knowledge share drops off due to remote working, it’s a huge hit on productivity that can only be noticed over longer time spans not shorter ones, why? Becuase most studies have innovation is a key part of productivity, and innovation is now proved to being killed by remote working the earlier studies didn’t pick up.
Unions should be wary about it. It can’t be measured solely as working from home getting tasks done versus in office getting tasks done. If productivity appears up with home workers it may be because workers slip into longer working hours, the pay off is burn out and mental health, not getting their brains or bodies enough break away from work.
Rees Mogg is winning this argument single handedly, though Boris intervention has helped. Mogg said it’s used for long weekends, Mondays, Fridays, is he wrong? Let’s look at the stat for the days people most work remotely…
Are you a Lib Dem or a dyed-in-the-wool Tory? It's confusing. You seem more enchanted with Johnson than you were with Mme Le Pen which is a long way down the rabbit hole
As Lord Gnome would say 'I think we should be told!'
It's possible that you can not be a Tory and yet not express outright hostility to all Tories and all Tory ideas.
I can think of plenty of areas in which I find agreement with people in different parts of the political spectrum. It would be odd if I did not.
The more rabid Tory hatred is becoming more and more a middle class/graduate/luvvie thing, they have detoxified in parts of the working class. Probably because progressivism has moved from redistribution and state ownership ideologies to encompass divisive social issues that see generally less sympathy in the WC, who identify more with the small c conservative side of the debate
Big day in Sweden, and a lot of politicians here are making memorable statements. The atmosphere is grave.
Our foreign minister Ann Linde just said on the SR P1 NATO special (think BBC R4 abandons whole schedule and dedicates channel to the NATO application):
- “… är det en ökad sårbarhet för Sverige. Det är helt klart.
… Därför så har vi också varit noga med och se till och fått säkerhetsförsäkringar från de stora länderna som USA, Frankrike, Tyskland, de nordiska länderna och så vidare, för att öka säkerheten.”
- ”… it is an increased vulnerability for Sweden. That's quite clear.
… Therefore, we have also been careful to ensure and receive security promises from the major countries such as the United States, France, Germany, the Nordic countries and so on, to increase security.”
Hmm… sorry Boris, when it comes to selling NATO to the Swedish people, there is one state nobody is boasting about. The “UK” is just an “etc”.
Highly predictable comment from the most anti UK poster on this site
Many would reject this attitude not least with the current actions of Germany and France enabling Putin's war machine to continue
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
The government is not restricting itself to moaning about WFH among its own employees, though that is their focus. It is quite clear they don't want anyone doing it, as they criticise it in generalities, as a concept, not merely as it relates to government business.
Well, to that extent I would disagree with them unless they have clear evidence that it is affecting national productivity adversely. That does seem to be the public sector experience but it is not likely to be universal, not at all. Of course they may be worried too about the adverse effect on the funding of public transport systems, city centre shops etc too. But they need to sort out their own house before they start criticising others who may be doing it better.
Point of order. Do we know the staffing is the same?
And some of the delay will be backlog from the lockdowns. This is not attributable to the availability of WFH, strictly, in itself - but there is a connection also if the demand is itself a backlog. eg passports suddenly obsolescing en bloc over 2 years.
Of course, this doesn't escuse lack of action of whatever kind needed.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
St Bart. What do you make of Bank of Englands issues with labour market? Are we getting close to being able to use term Stagflation?
Bailey says Bank of England surprised by large fall in size of labour market Bailey says one factor is that the labour market is now smaller by about 450,000, or 1.3%, now than it was pre-Covid.
He says there has been a 3% increase in the proportion of people economically inactive.
There are more people who are long-term sick, he says.
He says it is not clear why. Some of it is likely to be long Covid, he says. And he says some people might be nervous about going back to work because of Covid.
UPDATE: Bailey said:
We have seen a fall in the size of the labour market; since 2019, we’ve seen a fall of around 450,000, or 1.3%. In the margin of the labour force it’s a very big fall and represents a 3% increase in number of economically inactive people, meaning someone who isn’t searching for a job, unlike an unemployed person who is looking for one. The scale and persistence of this drop has been a surprise to us. We have seen an increase in long-term sickness in that number of about 320,000 people, and so what we’ve done in the main monetary policy report is to lower the projected view of labour participation.
No. The whole point of stagflation is two compounding crises of unemployment and inflation. Traditional cures for inflation worsen the unemployment crisis, traditional cures for unemployment worsen inflation, so you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
We have full employment and inflation. That isn't stagflation, since you can try to tackle inflation without worrying about the fact that there are millions unemployed.
People who have voluntarily retired or are otherwise not looking for work are not the same as the unemployed who are looking for work but can't find any.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
Absolutely. WFH is now clearly impacting the government’s work on multiple fronts.
eg foreign tax exemption forms from HMRC used to take weeks to file, process and be returned. Now it can take many months. Nightmare
Covid is over. There is no excuse. It is WFH that’s doing it. And at what cost to the wider economy?
But do we know if this is WFH, or a decade of staff cuts and real pay cuts hollowing out the public sector? Just from my own anecdotal experience of interacting with the public sector in my own life, it has been on a linear downwards trajectory for the last decade.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
I live in a settlement of 9,000 people. Always some debate whether that is a town or a village. I mostly WFH (1 day a week in the office at the moment). The "village" has a full size Tesco, a leisure centre with a swimming pool and 2 High Schools (it's West Scotland of course). Hardly the peasant life.
9000 inhabitants is not a “village” by any standard. Who the heck calls that a village?!
I am right how sitting in a Greek village having a beer. This is what a village looks like
About 30 houses. Maybe 100 inhabitants. Two tavernas and a church
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
I live in a settlement of 9,000 people. Always some debate whether that is a town or a village. I mostly WFH (1 day a week in the office at the moment). The "village" has a full size Tesco, a leisure centre with a swimming pool and 2 High Schools (it's West Scotland of course). Hardly the peasant life.
Hmm, not much different from mine. And of course Wick is only slightly smaller.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
Many people who live in towns and cities yearn for rural life. Hence programmes like 'Escape to the Country'. But those people are at least a little mistaken about Country Life. What they yearn for is the picture perfect villages they visit on a Sunday, possibly at the end of a long walk. Possibly a village in the Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales or the Costwolds. A village which, due the presence of people like them, has pubs and coffee shops and cafes out of all proportion to its size. But most villages aren't like that. Most villages are small and unremarkable and dead. They might have a pub, and it might be a good pub, but it probably isn't. They might have a cafe, but it probably doesn't open very often. They might have a shop, and it might be a lovely little community owned thing where you can buy fudge and artisan coffee and vegetables at three times supermarket prices; or it may be a Happy Shopper in which nothing has changed since the 1970s. And even in the good villages, living there is very different from visiting them for the afternoon or the weekend.
I idealise the Lake District. I've whiled away man a happy hour thinking how nice it would be to live there. But even so, there are only two or three places in the Lake District I'd actually like to live: the towns. And they are only liveable because tourism gives them far more vitality than most towns of their size.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
Absolutely. WFH is now clearly impacting the government’s work on multiple fronts.
eg foreign tax exemption forms from HMRC used to take weeks to file, process and be returned. Now it can take many months. Nightmare
Covid is over. There is no excuse. It is WFH that’s doing it. And at what cost to the wider economy?
But do we know if this is WFH, or a decade of staff cuts and real pay cuts hollowing out the public sector? Just from my own anecdotal experience of interacting with the public sector in my own life, it has been on a linear downwards trajectory for the last decade.
No, it’s Covid and post covid. It’s all fallen off a cliff
On topic. Boris is spot on with suspicions of home working bringing far too many negatives, and the electorate will support him.
More productive or less productive? Those trying to work from home whilst child minding are obviously less productive than both themselves in office without those distractions and a colleague wfh without those distractions. Also depends on tasks. A task needing face-to-face communication is going to be less productive without it.
don’t call it working from home, call it remote working, for then you have people working remotely since year dot you can compare it to. Back in the sixties there was a study of People out and about working remotely fixing office machinery, each knew a different trick the others didn’t. When they all got together in a diner for a meal they shared all these tricks and productivity shot up. If knowledge share drops off due to remote working, it’s a huge hit on productivity that can only be noticed over longer time spans not shorter ones, why? Becuase most studies have innovation is a key part of productivity, and innovation is now proved to being killed by remote working the earlier studies didn’t pick up.
Unions should be wary about it. It can’t be measured solely as working from home getting tasks done versus in office getting tasks done. If productivity appears up with home workers it may be because workers slip into longer working hours, the pay off is burn out and mental health, not getting their brains or bodies enough break away from work.
Rees Mogg is winning this argument single handedly, though Boris intervention has helped. Mogg said it’s used for long weekends, Mondays, Fridays, is he wrong? Let’s look at the stat for the days people most work remotely…
Are you a Lib Dem or a dyed-in-the-wool Tory? It's confusing. You seem more enchanted with Johnson than you were with Mme Le Pen which is a long way down the rabbit hole
As Lord Gnome would say 'I think we should be told!'
It's possible that you can not be a Tory and yet not express outright hostility to all Tories and all Tory ideas.
I can think of plenty of areas in which I find agreement with people in different parts of the political spectrum. It would be odd if I did not.
The more rabid Tory hatred is becoming more and more a middle class/graduate/luvvie thing, they have detoxified in parts of the working class. Probably because progressivism has moved from redistribution and state ownership ideologies to encompass divisive social issues that see generally less sympathy in the WC, who identify more with the small c conservative side of the debate
Another gap between the two is the "they are all the same" line that this government hides behind on standards and ethics. Rightly or wrongly, it seems to me far more commonly accepted in working class/non graduates than middle class/graduates. Probably a nuance thing, both sides do break the rules and to an extent always have done, just this current Tory lot are taking it to a new and more dangerous level.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
Many people who live in towns and cities yearn for rural life. Hence programmes like 'Escape to the Country'. But those people are at least a little mistaken about Country Life. What they yearn for is the picture perfect villages they visit on a Sunday, possibly at the end of a long walk. Possibly a village in the Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales or the Costwolds. A village which, due the presence of people like them, has pubs and coffee shops and cafes out of all proportion to its size. But most villages aren't like that. Most villages are small and unremarkable and dead. They might have a pub, and it might be a good pub, but it probably isn't. They might have a cafe, but it probably doesn't open very often. They might have a shop, and it might be a lovely little community owned thing where you can buy fudge and artisan coffee and vegetables at three times supermarket prices; or it may be a Happy Shopper in which nothing has changed since the 1970s. And even in the good villages, living there is very different from visiting them for the afternoon or the weekend.
I idealise the Lake District. I've whiled away man a happy hour thinking how nice it would be to live there. But even so, there are only two or three places in the Lake District I'd actually like to live: the towns. And they are only liveable because tourism gives them far more vitality than most towns of their size.
It always amazes me how people can't differentiate between a place that is nice to visit and a place that is nice to live in. A village certainly falls into the first rather than the second category for me.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
The government is not restricting itself to moaning about WFH among its own employees, though that is their focus. It is quite clear they don't want anyone doing it, as they criticise it in generalities, as a concept, not merely as it relates to government business.
Well, to that extent I would disagree with them unless they have clear evidence that it is affecting national productivity adversely. That does seem to be the public sector experience but it is not likely to be universal, not at all. Of course they may be worried too about the adverse effect on the funding of public transport systems, city centre shops etc too. But they need to sort out their own house before they start criticising others who may be doing it better.
Point of order. Do we know the staffing is the same?
And some of the delay will be backlog from the lockdowns. This is not attributable to the availability of WFH, strictly, in itself - but there is a connection also if the demand is itself a backlog. eg passports suddenly obsolescing en bloc over 2 years.
Of course, this doesn't escuse lack of action of whatever kind needed.
I think that backlogs in a lot of areas undoubtedly increased during lockdowns (although that itself is some evidence that WFH is simply not as efficient for adminstrative tasks); the public sector had extremely cautious isolation protocols so the time staff were off skyrocketed and of course a lot of people were ill. But its time to pull a finger out, several in fact.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
Lol. I am not one for boasting about my earnings, but I think you would have to sell a lot more of your trashy novels to come close. The prob with your very medieval mindset is that you think the world is very simplisticThis is because you are actually rather disappointed with your life, hence all the boasting. A classic psychological indicator of dissatisfaction. There will be some people who live in villages who are as small minded as you. Indeed many voted Brexit, just like you. There are others who choose to live like that because an English village is the epitome of class and beauty. Somewhat better than living in some noisy shitty little flat in Clapham.
On topic. Boris is spot on with suspicions of home working bringing far too many negatives, and the electorate will support him.
More productive or less productive? Those trying to work from home whilst child minding are obviously less productive than both themselves in office without those distractions and a colleague wfh without those distractions. Also depends on tasks. A task needing face-to-face communication is going to be less productive without it.
don’t call it working from home, call it remote working, for then you have people working remotely since year dot you can compare it to. Back in the sixties there was a study of People out and about working remotely fixing office machinery, each knew a different trick the others didn’t. When they all got together in a diner for a meal they shared all these tricks and productivity shot up. If knowledge share drops off due to remote working, it’s a huge hit on productivity that can only be noticed over longer time spans not shorter ones, why? Becuase most studies have innovation is a key part of productivity, and innovation is now proved to being killed by remote working the earlier studies didn’t pick up.
Unions should be wary about it. It can’t be measured solely as working from home getting tasks done versus in office getting tasks done. If productivity appears up with home workers it may be because workers slip into longer working hours, the pay off is burn out and mental health, not getting their brains or bodies enough break away from work.
Rees Mogg is winning this argument single handedly, though Boris intervention has helped. Mogg said it’s used for long weekends, Mondays, Fridays, is he wrong? Let’s look at the stat for the days people most work remotely…
Are you a Lib Dem or a dyed-in-the-wool Tory? It's confusing. You seem more enchanted with Johnson than you were with Mme Le Pen which is a long way down the rabbit hole
As Lord Gnome would say 'I think we should be told!'
It's possible that you can not be a Tory and yet not express outright hostility to all Tories and all Tory ideas.
I can think of plenty of areas in which I find agreement with people in different parts of the political spectrum. It would be odd if I did not.
The more rabid Tory hatred is becoming more and more a middle class/graduate/luvvie thing, they have detoxified in parts of the working class. Probably because progressivism has moved from redistribution and state ownership ideologies to encompass divisive social issues that see generally less sympathy in the WC, who identify more with the small c conservative side of the debate
Another gap between the two is the "they are all the same" line that this government hides behind on standards and ethics. Rightly or wrongly, it seems to me far more commonly accepted in working class/non graduates than middle class/graduates. Probably a nuance thing, both sides do break the rules and to an extent always have done, just this current Tory lot are taking it to a new and more dangerous level.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
Absolutely. WFH is now clearly impacting the government’s work on multiple fronts.
eg foreign tax exemption forms from HMRC used to take weeks to file, process and be returned. Now it can take many months. Nightmare
Covid is over. There is no excuse. It is WFH that’s doing it. And at what cost to the wider economy?
But do we know if this is WFH, or a decade of staff cuts and real pay cuts hollowing out the public sector? Just from my own anecdotal experience of interacting with the public sector in my own life, it has been on a linear downwards trajectory for the last decade.
No, it’s Covid and post covid. It’s all fallen off a cliff
Yeah well, you know, that's just like your opinion, man.
Must be confident he isn't going to even get his wrist slapped.
I honestly though that was going to be the politically convenient fudge for everybody. Plod say looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules. Then, Starmer gets to play man of integrity card.
Apologies if I'm getting my scandals mixed up, but surely that won't wash since, I believe, plod were there?
Yes. Security detail were at Partygate and Beergate. No one can get away with lying.
Except possibly the police.
“ looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules.”
so what you thinking was the minor breach? Rules for mixing indoors not same as partygate, all they need to at currygate is isay they worked through takeaway and on afterwards, they don’t even have to prove it, it had to be proved they didn’t - sounds like they did or they didn’t, what can be a minor breach of those rules? Not keeping two poppadoms apart?
It had to be reasonably necessary for work. They could, for example, have given everyone an hour to go to a takeout or eat alone outdoors at a pub etc. Inconvenient, but that's what the rest of us were stuck with. Hence they needed to be doing something as part of the 15 person meal workwise that required them to all be there. 'It wouldn't have made sense to all go off on our own' is not an excuse. Which is the point- the rules he eagerly supported were complete bollocks
Still doesn’t answer the question though, what exactly are you proving they did wrong, even for just an advisory note?
They need to show the meal and being 'gathered together we 15' was reasonably necessary for work purposes, or rather the police merely need to say they do not believe it was and a breach of the guidelines and law, technical or otherwise, has occurred
Edit - 15 people were not allowed to eat together indoors except where reasonably necessary for work. 15 people did, the onus is on them to show it was reasonably necessary
Shouldn’t be too difficult that? Top politicians in election campaign wouldn’t expect to be standard hours, and to make the most of all in one place opportunities for wash up and planning. Especially as they passed police phone and server logs to prove they were working, can’t really leave police with much of a doubt?
Well, given witnesses present have said no work was done and some of them were pissed there's clearly some doubt from some that it was necessary, dilligent work. And 'wash up and planning' do not require you to breach the rules on numbers indoors together. It can be done remotely, via zoom etc. 'Making the most of all in one place opportunities' was indeed explicitly against the guidelines for campaigning during Covid. In person meetings were to be minimized.
I believe the whistleblowers only went as far as saying some people didn’t do much work, treated it more as a social, and this has in turn been disputed. Can the police actually use that to prove guilt on anyone? Trusting so much on testimony of a whistleblower has caused police so much grief in other cases hasn’t it, they are bound to be cautious, or even have a different take direct from whistleblower witnesses than we have via the media?
Well, we will see what they have gathered I guess but essentially if there's enough 'doubt' they can fudge it, say it looks like there may have been a breach, that they aren't issuing retrospective fines but have spoken to all concerned to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities 'should such a situation arise in future'. Or 'spoken to everyone about the importance of following the law in its entirety' And Starmer is left with a tricky choice. Also note there is no need to 'prove guilt' for a FPN, they just need to be reasonably sure it would hold up if taken to court in dispute.
Edit - and from a public perspective, it remains the case that we all had to jump through stupid hoops, so there is simply no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps, but it would have been convenient for a lot of us to do a lot of things we couldn't
“ Starmer is left with a tricky choice.”. Tricky choice? I think he would declare himself exonerated if the outcome was as you described.
With Partygate, where there was no excuse to be socialising indoors with a beer, but they paid taxpayers money to a photographer to show them socialising indoors with a beer, open and shut case not likely to go to court. Anyone at beergate though, as it’s not so obvious to show wrongdoing, might feel aggrieved enough to take it to court, police will have to be very “reasonably sure” they wouldn’t lose in court.
“no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps”. Absolutely right. But it’s not what they did though, they worked, grabbed takeaway whilst working. 100% smack bang in middle of rules at the time.
He declares himself a lot of things. Others will differ. And it will taint him in the eyes of many.
They did not 'grab a takeaway', the meal was pre-planned, it does not state on the plan that it is a working meal, some have said no work took place, others differ. Time will tell, but it's certainly impossible to conclude either it was legal or not at this stage as we weren't there, we can only believe what we believe to be the case.
The video of him stood up drinking beer with people wondering around with no covid precautions being followed does not look good and such "work events" were not happening at that time.
I would be very surprised if Durham Police approve the event and make a statement to that effect. i think the minimum will be "it should not have happened"
At least we are arguing beergate again. I had missed it 😆
I am surprised as SKS's confidence that the event was OK and in line with the Covid rules at that time.
Yes but that is because you seem to think there were imaginary rules in place at the time.
The police must also think that otherwise they would not be investigating
You honestly think the police have any desire to investigate it?
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
St Bart. What do you make of Bank of Englands issues with labour market? Are we getting close to being able to use term Stagflation?
Bailey says Bank of England surprised by large fall in size of labour market Bailey says one factor is that the labour market is now smaller by about 450,000, or 1.3%, now than it was pre-Covid.
He says there has been a 3% increase in the proportion of people economically inactive.
There are more people who are long-term sick, he says.
He says it is not clear why. Some of it is likely to be long Covid, he says. And he says some people might be nervous about going back to work because of Covid.
UPDATE: Bailey said:
We have seen a fall in the size of the labour market; since 2019, we’ve seen a fall of around 450,000, or 1.3%. In the margin of the labour force it’s a very big fall and represents a 3% increase in number of economically inactive people, meaning someone who isn’t searching for a job, unlike an unemployed person who is looking for one. The scale and persistence of this drop has been a surprise to us. We have seen an increase in long-term sickness in that number of about 320,000 people, and so what we’ve done in the main monetary policy report is to lower the projected view of labour participation.
No. The whole point of stagflation is two compounding crises of unemployment and inflation. Traditional cures for inflation worsen the unemployment crisis, traditional cures for unemployment worsen inflation, so you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
We have full employment and inflation. That isn't stagflation, since you can try to tackle inflation without worrying about the fact that there are millions unemployed.
People who have voluntarily retired or are otherwise not looking for work are not the same as the unemployed who are looking for work but can't find any.
Stagnation in that context doesn't mean high unemployment - it means low (or negative) growth. You can have high employment and low growth if your productivity is stagnant, which ours is because the government hasn't taken the supply-side measures that everybody knows are necessary and because we've run out of road to stimulate demand.
We need a new burst of Thatcherite reforms to deregulate, reduce the size of government and free the economy up. But the chances of us getting them under the current government are very small, and under Starmer less than zero.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
I live in a settlement of 9,000 people. Always some debate whether that is a town or a village. I mostly WFH (1 day a week in the office at the moment). The "village" has a full size Tesco, a leisure centre with a swimming pool and 2 High Schools (it's West Scotland of course). Hardly the peasant life.
9000 inhabitants is not a “village” by any standard. Who the heck calls that a village?!
I am right how sitting in a Greek village having a beer. This is what a village looks like
About 30 houses. Maybe 100 inhabitants. Two tavernas and a church
I recall at school discussion of how to define villages, towns, cities etc, and different countries doing so differently. On the basis of judging them by amenity provision it was pointed out it could be argued a Norwegian 'town' might be 200 people, while some 'villages' in poorer areas of the Africa say could be tens of thousands. That would be a pretty ridiculous approach in fairness.
I think up to a couple of thousand can generally get classed as a 'large village' in this country (if not too dense, eg a massive new settlement on the edge of a larger town) - often it is a historic core village identity, and then larger areas of modern development which call themselves part of the village as it is less council tax. There are certainly parishes which have upwards of 7k people in them, across a number of settlements perhaps, which I'd argue is really stretching it.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
Many people who live in towns and cities yearn for rural life. Hence programmes like 'Escape to the Country'. But those people are at least a little mistaken about Country Life. What they yearn for is the picture perfect villages they visit on a Sunday, possibly at the end of a long walk. Possibly a village in the Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales or the Costwolds. A village which, due the presence of people like them, has pubs and coffee shops and cafes out of all proportion to its size. But most villages aren't like that. Most villages are small and unremarkable and dead. They might have a pub, and it might be a good pub, but it probably isn't. They might have a cafe, but it probably doesn't open very often. They might have a shop, and it might be a lovely little community owned thing where you can buy fudge and artisan coffee and vegetables at three times supermarket prices; or it may be a Happy Shopper in which nothing has changed since the 1970s. And even in the good villages, living there is very different from visiting them for the afternoon or the weekend.
I idealise the Lake District. I've whiled away man a happy hour thinking how nice it would be to live there. But even so, there are only two or three places in the Lake District I'd actually like to live: the towns. And they are only liveable because tourism gives them far more vitality than most towns of their size.
It's almost as if different people value different things.
On topic. Boris is spot on with suspicions of home working bringing far too many negatives, and the electorate will support him.
More productive or less productive? Those trying to work from home whilst child minding are obviously less productive than both themselves in office without those distractions and a colleague wfh without those distractions. Also depends on tasks. A task needing face-to-face communication is going to be less productive without it.
don’t call it working from home, call it remote working, for then you have people working remotely since year dot you can compare it to. Back in the sixties there was a study of People out and about working remotely fixing office machinery, each knew a different trick the others didn’t. When they all got together in a diner for a meal they shared all these tricks and productivity shot up. If knowledge share drops off due to remote working, it’s a huge hit on productivity that can only be noticed over longer time spans not shorter ones, why? Becuase most studies have innovation is a key part of productivity, and innovation is now proved to being killed by remote working the earlier studies didn’t pick up.
Unions should be wary about it. It can’t be measured solely as working from home getting tasks done versus in office getting tasks done. If productivity appears up with home workers it may be because workers slip into longer working hours, the pay off is burn out and mental health, not getting their brains or bodies enough break away from work.
Rees Mogg is winning this argument single handedly, though Boris intervention has helped. Mogg said it’s used for long weekends, Mondays, Fridays, is he wrong? Let’s look at the stat for the days people most work remotely…
Are you a Lib Dem or a dyed-in-the-wool Tory? It's confusing. You seem more enchanted with Johnson than you were with Mme Le Pen which is a long way down the rabbit hole
As Lord Gnome would say 'I think we should be told!'
Pen 😦 I didn’t like Pen at all, made clear in all posts she would never get my vote. I tried to slap your complacency, with wake up Roger its closer and dicier this time, but you weren’t listening. Fortunately, after scary even polls straight after round 1, macron built a gap.
It’s good we share likes and agreements in art and cinema, despite you not agreeing with my topical political posts because you have weird politics. The problem with personal jibes like Pen one, like the Enoch Powell one you made is that they don’t really work if they are not backed up by explaining how they tie in with someone’s bit of analysis they have posted? Which of my views is Pen or Enoch Powell? I’m posting to actually welcome such feedback. It will help me learn more. As I had to look up Enoch Powell, who turns out to be a top Tory who was in Labour first, and was somewhere to the left of the Boris government on immigration policy. But that was just he was shaped by the times he was in, when world wasn’t global village, and we could still dream of being global Britain without it being a joke idea?
In fact Marx said something like his views are shaped by being a German Jew living in exile in London, I’m also perfectly straight up and honest about myself - brought up in Yorkshire (proper Yorkshire North Yorkshire lass) family of Tory party members, and I am the only one whose never voted Tory! Since posting on PB I think I have become even more a Lib Dem supporter, because things are posted here about what Boris government do that make me really mad. But I’m still right wing, anti union baron, staunch defender of how important our monarchy is, and the Church of England too, and by believing in God and CoE I’m instantly out of step with about 90% of PB posters I’m sure! Being Gen Z (just) makes me out of step with 90% of PB thinking I suspect. I live in Chelsea with my millennial girlfriend who I want to Marry, espicelly on nights like this when she’s gone drinking after work or volleyball and keeps texting “back soon”. And I love pigs, because they have been fun with me my entire life
So I don’t expect you to agree with my politics and analysis Roger, because we are different people living different lives isn’t it, so disagreements with anyone as I post wrong calls don’t bother me at all because all my thoughts all come from an honest place. But you can at least get the facts right in your posts. 😇
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
Many people who live in towns and cities yearn for rural life. Hence programmes like 'Escape to the Country'. But those people are at least a little mistaken about Country Life. What they yearn for is the picture perfect villages they visit on a Sunday, possibly at the end of a long walk. Possibly a village in the Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales or the Costwolds. A village which, due the presence of people like them, has pubs and coffee shops and cafes out of all proportion to its size. But most villages aren't like that. Most villages are small and unremarkable and dead. They might have a pub, and it might be a good pub, but it probably isn't. They might have a cafe, but it probably doesn't open very often. They might have a shop, and it might be a lovely little community owned thing where you can buy fudge and artisan coffee and vegetables at three times supermarket prices; or it may be a Happy Shopper in which nothing has changed since the 1970s. And even in the good villages, living there is very different from visiting them for the afternoon or the weekend.
I idealise the Lake District. I've whiled away man a happy hour thinking how nice it would be to live there. But even so, there are only two or three places in the Lake District I'd actually like to live: the towns. And they are only liveable because tourism gives them far more vitality than most towns of their size.
Let's not even get started on the not uncommon experience of 'outsiders' helping to prevent even small development in their perfect village, and the children of locals therefore being unable to afford to live there.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
It is up to the boss to decide which is most effective. If people need to be in the office I have no issue with that being mandated by the bosses in the civil service or private industry. It has nothing to do with politicians.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
Lol. I am not one for boasting about my earnings, but I think you would have to sell a lot more of your trashy novels to come close. The prob with your very medieval mindset is that you think the world is very simplisticThis is because you are actually rather disappointed with your life, hence all the boasting. A classic psychological indicator of dissatisfaction. There will be some people who live in villages who are as small minded as you. Indeed many voted Brexit, just like you. There are others who choose to live like that because an English village is the epitome of class and beauty. Somewhat better than living in some noisy shitty little flat in Clapham.
Mate, I’m literally sitting here drinking a beer looking at this BECAUSE IT’S MY JOB
Am I “rather disappointed with my life”? I suppose it’s possible. And I am I unself-aware? However I then wonder what kind of amazing life I would have to lead for me to be content with it. A life full of intergalactic time travel?
You over analyse. I’m just an enthusiast - and a show off, and an exhibitionist
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
I live in a settlement of 9,000 people. Always some debate whether that is a town or a village. I mostly WFH (1 day a week in the office at the moment). The "village" has a full size Tesco, a leisure centre with a swimming pool and 2 High Schools (it's West Scotland of course). Hardly the peasant life.
9000 inhabitants is not a “village” by any standard. Who the heck calls that a village?!
I am right how sitting in a Greek village having a beer. This is what a village looks like
About 30 houses. Maybe 100 inhabitants. Two tavernas and a church
I recall at school discussion of how to define villages, towns, cities etc, and different countries doing so differently. On the basis of judging them by amenity provision it was pointed out it could be argued a Norwegian 'town' might be 200 people, while some 'villages' in poorer areas of the Africa say could be tens of thousands. That would be a pretty ridiculous approach in fairness.
I think up to a couple of thousand can generally get classed as a 'large village' in this country (if not too dense, eg a massive new settlement on the edge of a larger town) - often it is a historic core village identity, and then larger areas of modern development which call themselves part of the village as it is less council tax. There are certainly parishes which have upwards of 7k people in them, across a number of settlements perhaps, which I'd argue is really stretching it.
I would say that if you walk through the place you live and you know most of the people you pass on the street then you live in a village. If you know at least one or two of them then you live in a town. And if you typically know none of them then it's a city. (Although on that basis my local London neighbourhood is more like a village).
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
Many people who live in towns and cities yearn for rural life. Hence programmes like 'Escape to the Country'. But those people are at least a little mistaken about Country Life. What they yearn for is the picture perfect villages they visit on a Sunday, possibly at the end of a long walk. Possibly a village in the Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales or the Costwolds. A village which, due the presence of people like them, has pubs and coffee shops and cafes out of all proportion to its size. But most villages aren't like that. Most villages are small and unremarkable and dead. They might have a pub, and it might be a good pub, but it probably isn't. They might have a cafe, but it probably doesn't open very often. They might have a shop, and it might be a lovely little community owned thing where you can buy fudge and artisan coffee and vegetables at three times supermarket prices; or it may be a Happy Shopper in which nothing has changed since the 1970s. And even in the good villages, living there is very different from visiting them for the afternoon or the weekend.
I idealise the Lake District. I've whiled away man a happy hour thinking how nice it would be to live there. But even so, there are only two or three places in the Lake District I'd actually like to live: the towns. And they are only liveable because tourism gives them far more vitality than most towns of their size.
Quite. Some people think they will saunter into their new village pub and be entertained by the tall tales of oddball rural types and perhaps be asked to be treasurer of the local cider circle. By the second night they fully expect to have bagged dinner invites to all the local farms to try their produce. Fleece the towny twats for every penny then hate campaign them outwith the bounds.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
That’s a very astute point by the Finnish PM. Basically Putin said Choose us or them?
President, not PM (though she probably said something similar). Fortunately they are easy to tell apart, I hate identikit politicians.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
That’s a very astute point by the Finnish PM. Basically Putin said Choose us or them?
President, not PM (though she probably said something similar). Fortunately they are easy to tell apart, I hate identikit politicians.
She looks like Arwen after she's been on a six week elf bender Which given her naughtiness during covid I suspect is true true true
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
It is up to the boss to decide which is most effective. If people need to be in the office I have no issue with that being mandated by the bosses in the civil service or private industry. It has nothing to do with politicians.
In the Public Sector the politicians are the boss. They are accountable for the performance of their departments and the quality of services they provide and they are responding to public frustration that it is not nearly good enough for the money that is being spent.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
The government is not restricting itself to moaning about WFH among its own employees, though that is their focus. It is quite clear they don't want anyone doing it, as they criticise it in generalities, as a concept, not merely as it relates to government business.
Well, to that extent I would disagree with them unless they have clear evidence that it is affecting national productivity adversely. That does seem to be the public sector experience but it is not likely to be universal, not at all. Of course they may be worried too about the adverse effect on the funding of public transport systems, city centre shops etc too. But they need to sort out their own house before they start criticising others who may be doing it better.
Point of order. Do we know the staffing is the same?
And some of the delay will be backlog from the lockdowns. This is not attributable to the availability of WFH, strictly, in itself - but there is a connection also if the demand is itself a backlog. eg passports suddenly obsolescing en bloc over 2 years.
Of course, this doesn't escuse lack of action of whatever kind needed.
I think that backlogs in a lot of areas undoubtedly increased during lockdowns (although that itself is some evidence that WFH is simply not as efficient for adminstrative tasks); the public sector had extremely cautious isolation protocols so the time staff were off skyrocketed and of course a lot of people were ill. But its time to pull a finger out, several in fact.
Quite right - let's clear the backlog, whatever its causes, which are likely to be multiple.
JRM - let's start by getting rid of 91,000 civil servants. That'll help!
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
Many people who live in towns and cities yearn for rural life. Hence programmes like 'Escape to the Country'. But those people are at least a little mistaken about Country Life. What they yearn for is the picture perfect villages they visit on a Sunday, possibly at the end of a long walk. Possibly a village in the Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales or the Costwolds. A village which, due the presence of people like them, has pubs and coffee shops and cafes out of all proportion to its size. But most villages aren't like that. Most villages are small and unremarkable and dead. They might have a pub, and it might be a good pub, but it probably isn't. They might have a cafe, but it probably doesn't open very often. They might have a shop, and it might be a lovely little community owned thing where you can buy fudge and artisan coffee and vegetables at three times supermarket prices; or it may be a Happy Shopper in which nothing has changed since the 1970s. And even in the good villages, living there is very different from visiting them for the afternoon or the weekend.
I idealise the Lake District. I've whiled away man a happy hour thinking how nice it would be to live there. But even so, there are only two or three places in the Lake District I'd actually like to live: the towns. And they are only liveable because tourism gives them far more vitality than most towns of their size.
Let's not even get started on the not uncommon experience of 'outsiders' helping to prevent even small development in their perfect village, and the children of locals therefore being unable to afford to live there.
The story of how outsiders who moved into Par in Cornwall tried to get the clay works shut down, and were somewhat surprised by the rude reception they received is brilliantly funny.
From the accounts I heard in the pub, it would make a comedy series.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
Exactly.
It is worth remembering that NATO was designed and implemented as the reverse of the Iron Curtain style stuff. Membership is voluntary - no one really even argued when the French semi-left, back in the day.
The "requirements" for spending are promises that aren't even in the "pinkie promise" range, diplomatically.
Even the "requirement" to come to the assistance of fellow NATO members is vague to the point that you could quite honestly claim that sending a diplomatic note was enough.
It is this total flexibility and lack of enforcement that is actually NATO's strength.
It's an odd beast, isn't it. I deduce that in practice (as opposed to theory) America have the sole veto over who joins since it's their umbrella that members seek to shelter under. And America will exercise their veto if they answer 'yes' and 'no' respectively to the following questions - Is this applicant at all likely to be attacked by Russia at some point? If it is, are we up for risking nuclear war to defend them?
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
Lol. I am not one for boasting about my earnings, but I think you would have to sell a lot more of your trashy novels to come close. The prob with your very medieval mindset is that you think the world is very simplisticThis is because you are actually rather disappointed with your life, hence all the boasting. A classic psychological indicator of dissatisfaction. There will be some people who live in villages who are as small minded as you. Indeed many voted Brexit, just like you. There are others who choose to live like that because an English village is the epitome of class and beauty. Somewhat better than living in some noisy shitty little flat in Clapham.
Mate, I’m literally sitting here drinking a beer looking at this BECAUSE IT’S MY JOB
Am I “rather disappointed with my life”? I suppose it’s possible. And I am I unself-aware? However I then wonder what kind of amazing life I would have to lead for me to be content with it. A life full of intergalactic time travel?
You over analyse. I’m just an enthusiast - and a show off, and an exhibitionist
I used to travel a lot for my work. Got pretty fecking tedious after a while, so you have my sympathy. Some people used to think it was glamourous, and I used to send my friends pics in lovely places, and they used to think "we don't really care". Bit like when you post your pics on here.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
That’s a very astute point by the Finnish PM. Basically Putin said Choose us or them?
President, not PM (though she probably said something similar). Fortunately they are easy to tell apart, I hate identikit politicians.
She looks like Arwen after she's been on a six week elf bender Which given her naughtiness during covid I suspect is true true true
I liked the story of her getting in a little trouble because she went out clubbing during Covid. Not because I think it is an issue that she is young enough to still be interested in going clubbing, all the merrier I say, but because she said she'd left her work phone at home when doing so - perhaps I ask too much of heads of government, but I'd hope they were contactable at all hours if necessary. At the least it shows a firm commitment in FInland to work life balance.
Like on pretty much everything, the disingenuous fat fornicator is wrong.
Hybrid working / working from home should be here to stay. The positives massively outweighs the negatives.
Have you even read the thread?
Anyone joining us late need Narniagate explained to them? Colossal Cost of installing a portal in back of a wardrobe to an off license redacted by government from freedom of information request.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
I live in a settlement of 9,000 people. Always some debate whether that is a town or a village. I mostly WFH (1 day a week in the office at the moment). The "village" has a full size Tesco, a leisure centre with a swimming pool and 2 High Schools (it's West Scotland of course). Hardly the peasant life.
Hmm, not much different from mine. And of course Wick is only slightly smaller.
When I was growing up everyone referred to Cheadle Hulme (pop. c 29,000) as a village. On the grounds that it's not a town. Fair enough, but it's not what people think of as a village and probably not what we're discussing here.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
I live in a settlement of 9,000 people. Always some debate whether that is a town or a village. I mostly WFH (1 day a week in the office at the moment). The "village" has a full size Tesco, a leisure centre with a swimming pool and 2 High Schools (it's West Scotland of course). Hardly the peasant life.
9000 inhabitants is not a “village” by any standard. Who the heck calls that a village?!
I am right how sitting in a Greek village having a beer. This is what a village looks like
About 30 houses. Maybe 100 inhabitants. Two tavernas and a church
I recall at school discussion of how to define villages, towns, cities etc, and different countries doing so differently. On the basis of judging them by amenity provision it was pointed out it could be argued a Norwegian 'town' might be 200 people, while some 'villages' in poorer areas of the Africa say could be tens of thousands. That would be a pretty ridiculous approach in fairness.
I think up to a couple of thousand can generally get classed as a 'large village' in this country (if not too dense, eg a massive new settlement on the edge of a larger town) - often it is a historic core village identity, and then larger areas of modern development which call themselves part of the village as it is less council tax. There are certainly parishes which have upwards of 7k people in them, across a number of settlements perhaps, which I'd argue is really stretching it.
Generally in most Western countries a city is usually over 100,000 people, a small city or large town is 50 to 100,000, a small town is under 50,000 people and in the UK a village is under 10,000 people and a hamlet under 1,000 people
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
That’s a very astute point by the Finnish PM. Basically Putin said Choose us or them?
President, not PM (though she probably said something similar). Fortunately they are easy to tell apart, I hate identikit politicians.
Politics is clearly not showbusiness for ugly people in Finland.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
It is up to the boss to decide which is most effective. If people need to be in the office I have no issue with that being mandated by the bosses in the civil service or private industry. It has nothing to do with politicians.
In the Public Sector the politicians are the boss. They are accountable for the performance of their departments and the quality of services they provide and they are responding to public frustration that it is not nearly good enough for the money that is being spent.
They are not responsible for day to day management. They are entitled to push their view on government employees nonetheless, but it was an area where Sir Humphrey was actually correct when pointing out Hacker did not run the department, not in that way.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
Lol. I am not one for boasting about my earnings, but I think you would have to sell a lot more of your trashy novels to come close. The prob with your very medieval mindset is that you think the world is very simplisticThis is because you are actually rather disappointed with your life, hence all the boasting. A classic psychological indicator of dissatisfaction. There will be some people who live in villages who are as small minded as you. Indeed many voted Brexit, just like you. There are others who choose to live like that because an English village is the epitome of class and beauty. Somewhat better than living in some noisy shitty little flat in Clapham.
Mate, I’m literally sitting here drinking a beer looking at this BECAUSE IT’S MY JOB
Am I “rather disappointed with my life”? I suppose it’s possible. And I am I unself-aware? However I then wonder what kind of amazing life I would have to lead for me to be content with it. A life full of intergalactic time travel?
You over analyse. I’m just an enthusiast - and a show off, and an exhibitionist
I used to travel a lot for my work. Got pretty fecking tedious after a while, so you have my sympathy. Some people used to think it was glamourous, and I used to send my friends pics in lovely places, and they used to think "we don'treally care". Bit like when you post your pics on here.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
That’s a very astute point by the Finnish PM. Basically Putin said Choose us or them?
President, not PM (though she probably said something similar). Fortunately they are easy to tell apart, I hate identikit politicians.
She looks like Arwen after she's been on a six week elf bender Which given her naughtiness during covid I suspect is true true true
I liked the story of her getting in a little trouble because she went out clubbing during Covid. Not because I think it is an issue that she is young enough to still be interested in going clubbing, all the merrier I say, but because she said she'd left her work phone at home when doing so - perhaps I ask too much of heads of government, but I'd hope they were contactable at all hours if necessary. At the least it shows a firm commitment in FInland to work life balance.
Imma not checking my phone there's a boy I want to bang down the club. She also has expenses issues apparently. She's a Tory. A foxy, clubby, slightly fey, party Tory
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
Exactly.
It is worth remembering that NATO was designed and implemented as the reverse of the Iron Curtain style stuff. Membership is voluntary - no one really even argued when the French semi-left, back in the day.
The "requirements" for spending are promises that aren't even in the "pinkie promise" range, diplomatically.
Even the "requirement" to come to the assistance of fellow NATO members is vague to the point that you could quite honestly claim that sending a diplomatic note was enough.
It is this total flexibility and lack of enforcement that is actually NATO's strength.
It's an odd beast, isn't it. I deduce that in practice (as opposed to theory) America have the sole veto over who joins since it's their umbrella that members seek to shelter under. And America will exercise their veto if they answer 'yes' and 'no' respectively to the following questions - Is this applicant at all likely to be attacked by Russia at some point? If it is, are we up for risking nuclear war to defend them?
Er - anyone can veto new members. It requires complete unanimity to join.
Which is why Turkey did some horse trading to get some nice stuff in return for their grumbles.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
Lol. I am not one for boasting about my earnings, but I think you would have to sell a lot more of your trashy novels to come close. The prob with your very medieval mindset is that you think the world is very simplisticThis is because you are actually rather disappointed with your life, hence all the boasting. A classic psychological indicator of dissatisfaction. There will be some people who live in villages who are as small minded as you. Indeed many voted Brexit, just like you. There are others who choose to live like that because an English village is the epitome of class and beauty. Somewhat better than living in some noisy shitty little flat in Clapham.
Mate, I’m literally sitting here drinking a beer looking at this BECAUSE IT’S MY JOB
Am I “rather disappointed with my life”? I suppose it’s possible. And I am I unself-aware? However I then wonder what kind of amazing life I would have to lead for me to be content with it. A life full of intergalactic time travel?
You over analyse. I’m just an enthusiast - and a show off, and an exhibitionist
I used to travel a lot for my work. Got pretty fecking tedious after a while, so you have my sympathy. Some people used to think it was glamourous, and I used to send my friends pics in lovely places, and they used to think "we don'treally care". Bit like when you post your pics on here.
Swallows are wheeling around the mighty vaults. Sinters gleam on the higher peaks, scars and seams of whiteness on the rockface
Down in the valley the freezing river Voidomatis leaps from the living rocks of the gorge, and cascades joyously between the cliffs and oaks, making backwaters of dazzling turquoise, then it swoons under the Ottoman bridge, and is never seen again
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
I live in a settlement of 9,000 people. Always some debate whether that is a town or a village. I mostly WFH (1 day a week in the office at the moment). The "village" has a full size Tesco, a leisure centre with a swimming pool and 2 High Schools (it's West Scotland of course). Hardly the peasant life.
9000 inhabitants is not a “village” by any standard. Who the heck calls that a village?!
I am right how sitting in a Greek village having a beer. This is what a village looks like
About 30 houses. Maybe 100 inhabitants. Two tavernas and a church
I recall at school discussion of how to define villages, towns, cities etc, and different countries doing so differently. On the basis of judging them by amenity provision it was pointed out it could be argued a Norwegian 'town' might be 200 people, while some 'villages' in poorer areas of the Africa say could be tens of thousands. That would be a pretty ridiculous approach in fairness.
I think up to a couple of thousand can generally get classed as a 'large village' in this country (if not too dense, eg a massive new settlement on the edge of a larger town) - often it is a historic core village identity, and then larger areas of modern development which call themselves part of the village as it is less council tax. There are certainly parishes which have upwards of 7k people in them, across a number of settlements perhaps, which I'd argue is really stretching it.
Generally in most Western countries a city is usually over 100,000 people, a small city or large town is 50 to 100,000, a small town is under 50,000 people and in the UK a village is under 10,000 people and a hamlet under 1,000 people
Blimey. Personally I'd think anything over 100 is a village not a hamlet. My gut says 15-30 is medium town, 5-15 small town. But that's just preference.
Of course, as we know a city in the UK can be any size at all, including the scale of a small village, so none of it makes any sense anyway.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
I live in a settlement of 9,000 people. Always some debate whether that is a town or a village. I mostly WFH (1 day a week in the office at the moment). The "village" has a full size Tesco, a leisure centre with a swimming pool and 2 High Schools (it's West Scotland of course). Hardly the peasant life.
9000 inhabitants is not a “village” by any standard. Who the heck calls that a village?!
I am right how sitting in a Greek village having a beer. This is what a village looks like
About 30 houses. Maybe 100 inhabitants. Two tavernas and a church
I recall at school discussion of how to define villages, towns, cities etc, and different countries doing so differently. On the basis of judging them by amenity provision it was pointed out it could be argued a Norwegian 'town' might be 200 people, while some 'villages' in poorer areas of the Africa say could be tens of thousands. That would be a pretty ridiculous approach in fairness.
I think up to a couple of thousand can generally get classed as a 'large village' in this country (if not too dense, eg a massive new settlement on the edge of a larger town) - often it is a historic core village identity, and then larger areas of modern development which call themselves part of the village as it is less council tax. There are certainly parishes which have upwards of 7k people in them, across a number of settlements perhaps, which I'd argue is really stretching it.
Generally in most Western countries a city is usually over 100,000 people, a small city or large town is 50 to 100,000, a small town is under 50,000 people and in the UK a village is under 10,000 people and a hamlet under 1,000 people
I don't think that's right in the UK. A city is a city of the queen says it is and a town is a town if the queen says it is. Villages and hamlets ISTR depend on the presence of a church, though few people will slap you down too furiously for getting it wrong.
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
That’s a very astute point by the Finnish PM. Basically Putin said Choose us or them?
President, not PM (though she probably said something similar). Fortunately they are easy to tell apart, I hate identikit politicians.
She looks like Arwen after she's been on a six week elf bender Which given her naughtiness during covid I suspect is true true true
I liked the story of her getting in a little trouble because she went out clubbing during Covid. Not because I think it is an issue that she is young enough to still be interested in going clubbing, all the merrier I say, but because she said she'd left her work phone at home when doing so - perhaps I ask too much of heads of government, but I'd hope they were contactable at all hours if necessary. At the least it shows a firm commitment in FInland to work life balance.
Imma not checking my phone there's a boy I want to bang down the club. She also has expenses issues apparently. She's a Tory. A foxy, clubby, slightly fey, party Tory
Great to see Finland and Sweden both formally confirming applications to join NATO.
In four months the Great Russian Bear has been humiliated by Slava Ukraini, pushed back first from Kyiv and then from Kherson and seen two nations famous for neutrality for decades now aligning with NATO.
And now NATO are talking openly about the possibility of Ukraine winning the war. If they do, they should join NATO themselves.
What a catastrophic humiliating screw up by Putin.
An admission that his reason for the special military operation was bollocks from the start.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864 Putin today: NATO expansion is artificial. Russia has no problems with Finland and Sweden, so their entry into NATO does not pose an immediate threat. Russia's response to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO will depend on the expansion of the alliance's infrastructure...
Also an admission that despite all his bellicose rhetoric about NATO expansion, the defanged Russian bear has been revealed to be utterly impotent and can't do anything about expansion. While they're comprehensively failing in a war with Ukraine, they're not going to open a second front in Finland.
Now is the perfect cover for any Eastern European nations who aren't under the umbrella of NATO protection to take the opportunity to do so, fast.
There are no European Countries left who would want to be in NATO - Serbia definitely wouldn't, Bosnia probably not. Austria is neutral by treaty, Switzerland relies on he fact that you'd have to fight all the way though NATO to get to them....
A Belarus that has overthrown its dictator and seen what happened to Ukraine might....
Moldova might be getting jittery over its neutrality stance as well.
I think it was the Finnish President when discussing neutrality who pointed out that since Russia started demanding people not be able to do things, like join NATO, then that would make it no longer their choice to not be in it, and thus not really neutrality anymore.
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
That’s a very astute point by the Finnish PM. Basically Putin said Choose us or them?
President, not PM (though she probably said something similar). Fortunately they are easy to tell apart, I hate identikit politicians.
She looks like Arwen after she's been on a six week elf bender Which given her naughtiness during covid I suspect is true true true
I liked the story of her getting in a little trouble because she went out clubbing during Covid. Not because I think it is an issue that she is young enough to still be interested in going clubbing, all the merrier I say, but because she said she'd left her work phone at home when doing so - perhaps I ask too much of heads of government, but I'd hope they were contactable at all hours if necessary. At the least it shows a firm commitment in FInland to work life balance.
She's a Tory. A foxy, clubby, slightly fey, party Tory
You could have stopped after the first sentence, you already won a lot of people over after three words.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
The government is not restricting itself to moaning about WFH among its own employees, though that is their focus. It is quite clear they don't want anyone doing it, as they criticise it in generalities, as a concept, not merely as it relates to government business.
Well, to that extent I would disagree with them unless they have clear evidence that it is affecting national productivity adversely. That does seem to be the public sector experience but it is not likely to be universal, not at all. Of course they may be worried too about the adverse effect on the funding of public transport systems, city centre shops etc too. But they need to sort out their own house before they start criticising others who may be doing it better.
Point of order. Do we know the staffing is the same?
And some of the delay will be backlog from the lockdowns. This is not attributable to the availability of WFH, strictly, in itself - but there is a connection also if the demand is itself a backlog. eg passports suddenly obsolescing en bloc over 2 years.
Of course, this doesn't escuse lack of action of whatever kind needed.
I think that backlogs in a lot of areas undoubtedly increased during lockdowns (although that itself is some evidence that WFH is simply not as efficient for adminstrative tasks); the public sector had extremely cautious isolation protocols so the time staff were off skyrocketed and of course a lot of people were ill. But its time to pull a finger out, several in fact.
Quite right - let's clear the backlog, whatever its causes, which are likely to be multiple.
JRM - let's start by getting rid of 91,000 civil servants. That'll help!
Didn't we employ at least that many for the contact test and trace people? A reasonable enough idea that should have been abandoned much, much earlier as a total failure.
I have recently had Covid. I had 2 tests, both negative, when I was really quite ill and presumably infectious. As I got better I got a positive test which turned negative again only 5 days later. Only 1 experience but we should have realised that test and trace was never going to work 18 months before we did.
Cutting civil servants in areas with backlogs is obviously silly though.
On topic: Whether Boris is right or wrong about working from home the key thing is it is none of his f-ing business.
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
Except it is the government's business if people cannot work because their driving licences have not been processed, cannot go on holiday because productivity at the Passport Office has collapsed, if, as is the case locally, it is taking more than a month for a consultant's letter to be typed and posted, if people cannot sell their homes bought 4 years ago because they still don't have a valid title, if people are sitting in jail for more than a year before coming to trial, etc etc.
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
The government is not restricting itself to moaning about WFH among its own employees, though that is their focus. It is quite clear they don't want anyone doing it, as they criticise it in generalities, as a concept, not merely as it relates to government business.
Well, to that extent I would disagree with them unless they have clear evidence that it is affecting national productivity adversely. That does seem to be the public sector experience but it is not likely to be universal, not at all. Of course they may be worried too about the adverse effect on the funding of public transport systems, city centre shops etc too. But they need to sort out their own house before they start criticising others who may be doing it better.
Point of order. Do we know the staffing is the same?
And some of the delay will be backlog from the lockdowns. This is not attributable to the availability of WFH, strictly, in itself - but there is a connection also if the demand is itself a backlog. eg passports suddenly obsolescing en bloc over 2 years.
Of course, this doesn't escuse lack of action of whatever kind needed.
I think that backlogs in a lot of areas undoubtedly increased during lockdowns (although that itself is some evidence that WFH is simply not as efficient for adminstrative tasks); the public sector had extremely cautious isolation protocols so the time staff were off skyrocketed and of course a lot of people were ill. But its time to pull a finger out, several in fact.
Quite right - let's clear the backlog, whatever its causes, which are likely to be multiple.
JRM - let's start by getting rid of 91,000 civil servants. That'll help!
Didn't we employ at least that many for the contact test and trace people? A reasonable enough idea that should have been abandoned much, much earlier as a total failure.
I have recently had Covid. I had 2 tests, both negative, when I was really quite ill and presumably infectious. As I got better I got a positive test which turned negative again only 5 days later. Only 1 experience but we should have realised that test and trace was never going to work 18 months before we did.
Cutting civil servants in areas with backlogs is obviously silly though.
T&T was mostly contractors, commercial firms, etc., though, wasn't it? So not on the CS slate.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
Lol. I am not one for boasting about my earnings, but I think you would have to sell a lot more of your trashy novels to come close. The prob with your very medieval mindset is that you think the world is very simplisticThis is because you are actually rather disappointed with your life, hence all the boasting. A classic psychological indicator of dissatisfaction. There will be some people who live in villages who are as small minded as you. Indeed many voted Brexit, just like you. There are others who choose to live like that because an English village is the epitome of class and beauty. Somewhat better than living in some noisy shitty little flat in Clapham.
Mate, I’m literally sitting here drinking a beer looking at this BECAUSE IT’S MY JOB
Am I “rather disappointed with my life”? I suppose it’s possible. And I am I unself-aware? However I then wonder what kind of amazing life I would have to lead for me to be content with it. A life full of intergalactic time travel?
You over analyse. I’m just an enthusiast - and a show off, and an exhibitionist
I used to travel a lot for my work. Got pretty fecking tedious after a while, so you have my sympathy. Some people used to think it was glamourous, and I used to send my friends pics in lovely places, and they used to think "we don't really care". Bit like when you post your pics on here.
There’s “travelling for work” which - for most people - means flying into a town, staying in a pleasant hotel and doing a load of meetings then flying out again, with maybe a couple of hours to explore and a nice dinner
Then there’s “getting paid to have holidays in extraordinary places” which is somewhat different?
But I’ll stop now in case I come across as boastful. And I’d hate that
I’m glad for you that you’ve made a lot of money, and I only hope you enjoy it!
Swallows are wheeling around the mighty vaults. Sinters gleam on the higher peaks, scars and seams of whiteness on the rockface
Down in the valley the freezing river Voidomatis leaps from the living rocks of the gorge, and cascades joyously between the cliffs and oaks, making backwaters of dazzling turquoise, then it swoons under the Ottoman bridge, and is never seen again
Tempted to "like", but not sure I want to encourage
Comments
IIRC there are Finnish and Swedish troops taking part in a joint exercise in Estonia at the moment. I think it is under the aegis of this agreement, combined with NATO?
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
Honestly these Conservatives with their mantra of not getting involved in peoples lives just can't help themselves from doing just that.
It's because the bilge you wrote is actually quite offensive in its wanton prejudice. We get you're a ScotNat. Fine. But, really...
Bailey says Bank of England surprised by large fall in size of labour market
Bailey says one factor is that the labour market is now smaller by about 450,000, or 1.3%, now than it was pre-Covid.
He says there has been a 3% increase in the proportion of people economically inactive.
There are more people who are long-term sick, he says.
He says it is not clear why. Some of it is likely to be long Covid, he says. And he says some people might be nervous about going back to work because of Covid.
UPDATE: Bailey said:
We have seen a fall in the size of the labour market; since 2019, we’ve seen a fall of around 450,000, or 1.3%.
In the margin of the labour force it’s a very big fall and represents a 3% increase in number of economically inactive people, meaning someone who isn’t searching for a job, unlike an unemployed person who is looking for one.
The scale and persistence of this drop has been a surprise to us.
We have seen an increase in long-term sickness in that number of about 320,000 people, and so what we’ve done in the main monetary policy report is to lower the projected view of labour participation.
Once in government politicians tend to find that getting involved with and telling people what to do with their lives is a ok. Indeed, some salivate about how they get to impose their values and preferences on the country because they won.
Probably not the best time to be contemplating a trade war with the EU, really.
Story by @SophiaSleigh ⬇️
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bank-of-england-governor-warns-of-apocalyptic-food-price-rises-due-to-ukraine-war_uk_62825524e4b0c2dce652ccef
@RedfieldWilton
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1m
Westminster Voting Intention (15 May):
Labour 39% (–)
Conservative 35% (+2)
Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
Green 6% (-1)
Scottish National Party 4% (-1)
Reform UK 3% (+1)
Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 8 May
Redfield & Wilton Strategies
Westminster Voting Intention (15 May):
Labour 39% (–)
Conservative 35% (+2)
Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
Green 6% (-1)
Scottish National Party 4% (-1)
Reform UK 3% (+1)
Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 8 May
Russia's diplomatic hysteria and trash talking seems to have made Putin feel like a big man, but made it clear neutrality may not really be neutrality anymore, it was bowing to Russian demands, and the invasion showed the potential cost of that.
As Lord Gnome would say 'I think we should be told!'
RW- Keir Starmer has seen his approval rating drop to -9%. 25% approve of Keir Starmer’s job performance (-1), while 34% disapprove (+6).
Private businesses can and should do what they like and what suits them best but the service being provided by HMG across a range of functions at the moment is not nearly good enough and the government is (rightly) getting the flack for it.
It is worth remembering that NATO was designed and implemented as the reverse of the Iron Curtain style stuff.
Membership is voluntary - no one really even argued when the French semi-left, back in the day.
The "requirements" for spending are promises that aren't even in the "pinkie promise" range, diplomatically.
Even the "requirement" to come to the assistance of fellow NATO members is vague to the point that you could quite honestly claim that sending a diplomatic note was enough.
It is this total flexibility and lack of enforcement that is actually NATO's strength.
Graduates excel at motivated reasoning, and that means they are less prone to changing their minds
STEPHEN BUSH" (£)
https://www.ft.com/content/44822e15-994f-4a74-96cc-e4c0d57bc90f
I can think of plenty of areas in which I find agreement with people in different parts of the political spectrum. It would be odd if I did not.
Who in Europe is going to “choose Russia” having seen the rape-krieg across Ukraine? The naked, mutilated girls hanging in the forests?
Russia has descended to barbarism. It will be shunned
BoE’s Ramsden says Brexit trade impact remains 3.25% off GDP in long term…
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1526233972396769283
Education = Votes centre or left = Bad = Have less education
We are going the way of the Taliban, albeit at a snails pace.
Who could have ever foreseen that? That's almost as shocking as finding out the Pope might be a Catholic.
eg foreign tax exemption forms from HMRC used to take weeks to file, process and be returned. Now it can take many months. Nightmare
Covid is over. There is no excuse. It is WFH that’s doing it. And at what cost to the wider economy?
I mostly WFH (1 day a week in the office at the moment).
The "village" has a full size Tesco, a leisure centre with a swimming pool and 2 High Schools (it's West Scotland of course). Hardly the peasant life.
And some of the delay will be backlog from the lockdowns. This is not attributable to the availability of WFH, strictly, in itself - but there is a connection also if the demand is itself a backlog. eg passports suddenly obsolescing en bloc over 2 years.
Of course, this doesn't escuse lack of action of whatever kind needed.
We have full employment and inflation. That isn't stagflation, since you can try to tackle inflation without worrying about the fact that there are millions unemployed.
People who have voluntarily retired or are otherwise not looking for work are not the same as the unemployed who are looking for work but can't find any.
I am right how sitting in a Greek village having a beer. This is what a village looks like
About 30 houses. Maybe 100 inhabitants. Two tavernas and a church
But most villages aren't like that. Most villages are small and unremarkable and dead. They might have a pub, and it might be a good pub, but it probably isn't. They might have a cafe, but it probably doesn't open very often. They might have a shop, and it might be a lovely little community owned thing where you can buy fudge and artisan coffee and vegetables at three times supermarket prices; or it may be a Happy Shopper in which nothing has changed since the 1970s.
And even in the good villages, living there is very different from visiting them for the afternoon or the weekend.
I idealise the Lake District. I've whiled away man a happy hour thinking how nice it would be to live there. But even so, there are only two or three places in the Lake District I'd actually like to live: the towns. And they are only liveable because tourism gives them far more vitality than most towns of their size.
We need a new burst of Thatcherite reforms to deregulate, reduce the size of government and free the economy up. But the chances of us getting them under the current government are very small, and under Starmer less than zero.
I think up to a couple of thousand can generally get classed as a 'large village' in this country (if not too dense, eg a massive new settlement on the edge of a larger town) - often it is a historic core village identity, and then larger areas of modern development which call themselves part of the village as it is less council tax. There are certainly parishes which have upwards of 7k people in them, across a number of settlements perhaps, which I'd argue is really stretching it.
It’s good we share likes and agreements in art and cinema, despite you not agreeing with my topical political posts because you have weird politics. The problem with personal jibes like Pen one, like the Enoch Powell one you made is that they don’t really work if they are not backed up by explaining how they tie in with someone’s bit of analysis they have posted? Which of my views is Pen or Enoch Powell? I’m posting to actually welcome such feedback. It will help me learn more. As I had to look up Enoch Powell, who turns out to be a top Tory who was in Labour first, and was somewhere to the left of the Boris government on immigration policy. But that was just he was shaped by the times he was in, when world wasn’t global village, and we could still dream of being global Britain without it being a joke idea?
In fact Marx said something like his views are shaped by being a German Jew living in exile in London, I’m also perfectly straight up and honest about myself - brought up in Yorkshire (proper Yorkshire North Yorkshire lass) family of Tory party members, and I am the only one whose never voted Tory! Since posting on PB I think I have become even more a Lib Dem supporter, because things are posted here about what Boris government do that make me really mad. But I’m still right wing, anti union baron, staunch defender of how important our monarchy is, and the Church of England too, and by believing in God and CoE I’m instantly out of step with about 90% of PB posters I’m sure! Being Gen Z (just) makes me out of step with 90% of PB thinking I suspect.
I live in Chelsea with my millennial girlfriend who I want to Marry, espicelly on nights like this when she’s gone drinking after work or volleyball and keeps texting “back soon”.
And I love pigs, because they have been fun with me my entire life
So I don’t expect you to agree with my politics and analysis Roger, because we are different people living different lives isn’t it, so disagreements with anyone as I post wrong calls don’t bother me at all because all my thoughts all come from an honest place. But you can at least get the facts right in your posts. 😇
Am I “rather disappointed with my life”? I suppose it’s possible. And I am I unself-aware? However I then wonder what kind of amazing life I would have to lead for me to be content with it. A life full of intergalactic time travel?
You over analyse. I’m just an enthusiast - and a show off, and an exhibitionist
https://twitter.com/sevillaenge/status/1526167754159624192?s=21
Fleece the towny twats for every penny then hate campaign them outwith the bounds.
Hybrid working / working from home should be here to stay. The positives massively outweighs the negatives.
Which given her naughtiness during covid I suspect is true true true
JRM - let's start by getting rid of 91,000 civil servants. That'll help!
From the accounts I heard in the pub, it would make a comedy series.
https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/twitter-claim-rangers-fans-were-145653037.html
But am not cristiano enough to know what this gent is really saying:
https://twitter.com/SevillaENGE/status/1526131295302078465?cxt=HHwWgsCykfmU9K0qAAAA
Anyone joining us late need Narniagate explained to them? Colossal Cost of installing a portal in back of a wardrobe to an off license redacted by government from freedom of information request.
@SkySportsNews
Blackpool’s Jake Daniels talks about being the UK's first male professional footballer to come out publicly as gay since Justin Fashanu
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12614531/jake-daniels-blackpool-forward-becomes-uks-first-active-male-professional-footballer-to-come-out-publicly-as-gay
https://twitter.com/SkySportsNews/status/1526231204969820160
She also has expenses issues apparently.
She's a Tory. A foxy, clubby, slightly fey, party Tory
Which is why Turkey did some horse trading to get some nice stuff in return for their grumbles.
Swallows are wheeling around the mighty vaults. Sinters gleam on the higher peaks, scars and seams of whiteness on the rockface
Down in the valley the freezing river Voidomatis leaps from the living rocks of the gorge, and cascades joyously between the cliffs and oaks, making backwaters of dazzling turquoise, then it swoons under the Ottoman bridge, and is never seen again
Of course, as we know a city in the UK can be any size at all, including the scale of a small village, so none of it makes any sense anyway.
I have recently had Covid. I had 2 tests, both negative, when I was really quite ill and presumably infectious. As I got better I got a positive test which turned negative again only 5 days later. Only 1 experience but we should have realised that test and trace was never going to work 18 months before we did.
Cutting civil servants in areas with backlogs is obviously silly though.
@IanDunt
·
5h
Nothing cheers me up like reports of Russian military defeat.
If you could bottle the way it makes me feel, Priti Patel would ban it.
https://twitter.com/IanDunt
Then there’s “getting paid to have holidays in extraordinary places” which is somewhat different?
But I’ll stop now in case I come across as boastful. And I’d hate that
I’m glad for you that you’ve made a lot of money, and I only hope you enjoy it!