Anecdata: manager at my local Co-op reckons it's been really busy and people are going spend, spend, spend. He's a bit of a dullard (ex-army), though, so perhaps he expected nobody to go shopping at all because that's what he'd read in the Daily Express. Anyway FWIW he says it's been remarkably busy. If he's right, maybe the banks are falling over themselves to lend. Or maybe people are simply thinking eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we get locked up, get the sack, catch a killer virus, or freeze.
We've spent rather little this Christmas, to be honest.
But then we have a newborn and my wife is on maternity leave.
Wait to next year and especially the year after when your newborn knows who Santa is.
The issue at the moment is that the economy is really a story of two halves. You have those who don’t have much money and find it impossible to pay for everything they need (hence food banks in hospitals for nurses and other low pay staff - just as an example).
You then have the other half who may be retired ‘ working from home and can’t see what the fuss is about as while some costs have gone up they still have a £1000 (or way more) spending money left over after the bills.
That tends to be the way in recessions, doesn't it? It's not that everyone loses five percent. Quite a lot of people carry on as normal while others go under.
It this isn’t yet a recession with no available work for unemployed people. It’s low paid employed people that are suffering.
Meanwhile Musk says he thinks they'll be cash flow break even in 2023. Though his forecasting record isn't the best, that is interesting.
Superstar coder finds the sacked Twitter programmers had not done as bad a job as Musk thought?
One of Musk’s biggest problems is that he still doesn’t understand that most media (even social media) is consumed rather than generated. For every person tweeting, x people are reading the tweet.
So, how does Sunak get out of this dead end? How does he negotiate, without losing face?
He doesn't. He loses face.
Perhaps he should wear a mask.
(His best bet is to wrap the answer up in so much gobbledegook and technicality that nobody can really tell what happened. And finding a good day to bury bad news. But by making a big fuss about Standing Firm, it'll be clear that he hasn't.)
World Cup - Winner jointly Canada/Mexico/US June – July 2026
Brazil 7 France 8 England 10 Argentina 11 Germany 11 Spain 12 Portugal 17 Netherlands 21 Italy 26 Belgium 34
Four years ahead of time ? The obvious move would be to hang on to your cash.
He's making an anti-English point, not giving a betting tip.
"But but but England has 11 times the population"
SPOT THE LAY
Population & World cup odds (Top price)
Uruguay 3.485 Million 50-1 Croatia 3.899 Million 66-1 Norway 5.408 Million 100-1 North Macedonia 2.065 Million 150-1 Scotland 5.454 Million 500-1
Croatia 66/1 looks big. I know Luka Modric has claimed his bus pass but Croatia were losing finalists in Moscow and have just won the third-place playoff.
So, how does Sunak get out of this dead end? How does he negotiate, without losing face?
He doesn't. He loses face.
Perhaps he should wear a mask.
(His best bet is to wrap the answer up in so much gobbledegook and technicality that nobody can really tell what happened. And finding a good day to bury bad news. But by making a big fuss about Standing Firm, it'll be clear that he hasn't.)
Certainly “winning” by standing firm gives him the worst headache of all. A defeated, dejected health service losing staff and recruits as it already was doing, while service quality continues to fall.
So, how does Sunak get out of this dead end? How does he negotiate, without losing face?
He comes in with something lower than the 19% but above inflation. Most people are not paying attention to the bargaining positions in the same way we do on PB and will see him offering an above inflation deal but less than the headline number the nurses were asking for. If he has an political skill at all (okay I know that is a stretch) then he can play this as a compromise. The RCN are not going to make political capital out of it in the same way that - for example - UNITE or the RMT might and it is about the only way he is going to get through this and save any face at all.
As others have already pointed out, the real stupidity is the refusal to negotiate.
So, how does Sunak get out of this dead end? How does he negotiate, without losing face?
The answer was given last week. There has been a material change in the inflation rate since the NHS pay review body reported and made its recommendations. They should be invited to look at it again with both sides undertaking to accept their revised conclusions. Which, after a fantastic amount of very important work, will be somewhere between 7 and 8%.
That way the integrity of the Pay review body is maintained (sort of) no one loses face and a result is achieved. It is truly remarkable that this has not happened already.
So, how does Sunak get out of this dead end? How does he negotiate, without losing face?
He gives in/negotiates/settles then briefs that he over-ruled the Health Secretary who was of the opinion: Fuck the nurses and the Nissan Micras they drove in on. Steven "Steve" Barclay takes one for the team and takes solace from his Most Forgettable Face in British Politics Award 2022 that he got from The Spectator.
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Two snippets from my life.
a) Just had an email from my dad's visitor. Can she come tomorrow instead of today as they have all been put on standby for the ambulance workers strike. Not sure what she is going to be doing, but glad to see the local authority has plans.
b) Visited an elderly aunt yesterday. She fell ill the previous week (pre strikes). No ambulances available. Got taken to a&e by relative. 14 hour wait. I didn't experience any of this last Feb when I broke my legs. Same hospital.
I'd have thought the best way out would be to simply ask the independent pay review body to do their work again. The answer will be higher than 4.5% as at the time of their work inflation was 6.2%, now it is 11ish I think.
So, how does Sunak get out of this dead end? How does he negotiate, without losing face?
He comes in with something lower than the 19% but above inflation. Most people are not paying attention to the bargaining positions in the same way we do on PB and will see him offering an above inflation deal but less than the headline number the nurses were asking for. If he has an political skill at all (okay I know that is a stretch) then he can play this as a compromise. The RCN are not going to make political capital out of it in the same way that - for example - UNITE or the RMT might and it is about the only way he is going to get through this and save any face at all.
As others have already pointed out, the real stupidity is the refusal to negotiate.
I remember the firefighters 20 years ago or so went out looking for something like 40% I can’t remember what the settlement was but it wasn’t 40%. IIRC it was 15% over 3 years.
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Two snippets from my life.
a) Just had an email from my dad's visitor. Can she come tomorrow instead of today as they have all been put on standby for the ambulance workers strike. Not sure what she is going to be doing, but glad to see the local authority has plans.
b) Visited an elderly aunt yesterday. She fell ill the previous week (pre strikes). No ambulances available. Got taken to a&e by relative. 14 hour wait. I didn't experience any of this last Feb when I broke my legs. Same hospital.
Yep. The system is broken and this is not because of the Ambulance drivers or the nurses.
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Two snippets from my life.
a) Just had an email from my dad's visitor. Can she come tomorrow instead of today as they have all been put on standby for the ambulance workers strike. Not sure what she is going to be doing, but glad to see the local authority has plans.
b) Visited an elderly aunt yesterday. She fell ill the previous week (pre strikes). No ambulances available. Got taken to a&e by relative. 14 hour wait. I didn't experience any of this last Feb when I broke my legs. Same hospital.
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I’m yet to be convinced that wfh works in all cases, or indeed the majority. At the uni we have many ‘professional services’ staff who are now mainly wfh. Service is less good. Take IT support. Pre pandemic if you needed stuff on your uni controlled pc a member of the IT team could come to your office and easily resolve. Now they are mostly off site it’s all done remotely. I needed some software two months ago and the process took hours rather than minutes. It’s not clear if it’s all wfh. We’ve had staff changes too, so that may play a part, but sometimes wfh is not the answer.
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Two snippets from my life.
a) Just had an email from my dad's visitor. Can she come tomorrow instead of today as they have all been put on standby for the ambulance workers strike. Not sure what she is going to be doing, but glad to see the local authority has plans.
b) Visited an elderly aunt yesterday. She fell ill the previous week (pre strikes). No ambulances available. Got taken to a&e by relative. 14 hour wait. I didn't experience any of this last Feb when I broke my legs. Same hospital.
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
The union’s biggest mistake is they should have agreed to cancel the strike and merely reported how bad things were anyway.
Anyone paying attention knows that the nhs is currently suffering multiple crisis but your average daily Mail reader doesn’t know because they are not seeing those stories being reported.
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Two snippets from my life.
a) Just had an email from my dad's visitor. Can she come tomorrow instead of today as they have all been put on standby for the ambulance workers strike. Not sure what she is going to be doing, but glad to see the local authority has plans.
b) Visited an elderly aunt yesterday. She fell ill the previous week (pre strikes). No ambulances available. Got taken to a&e by relative. 14 hour wait. I didn't experience any of this last Feb when I broke my legs. Same hospital.
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
Thank god we all stayed at home to protect the NHS, eh?
UK government borrowed £22bn last month, £13.9 billion more than last November + highest November borrowing since monthly records began in 1993 + way above City forecasts of £13bn. Interest payments alone = £7.3bn, pushed up by higher inflation . https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1605481044295049217
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Two snippets from my life.
a) Just had an email from my dad's visitor. Can she come tomorrow instead of today as they have all been put on standby for the ambulance workers strike. Not sure what she is going to be doing, but glad to see the local authority has plans.
b) Visited an elderly aunt yesterday. She fell ill the previous week (pre strikes). No ambulances available. Got taken to a&e by relative. 14 hour wait. I didn't experience any of this last Feb when I broke my legs. Same hospital.
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
The union’s biggest mistake is they should have agreed to cancel the strike and merely reported how bad things were anyway.
Anyone paying attention knows that the nhs is currently suffering multiple crisis but your average daily Mail reader doesn’t know because they are not seeing those stories being reported.
Your average Daily Mail reader almost certainly interacts with the NHS far more than most people.
I think it's fair to say the government's poll ratings will get worse before they get better.
I wonder what it's like to be a scab nurse right now.
I would be very proud of any nurse choosing to work rather than calling them abusive names which reflects very badly on the perpetrator.
I wasnt intending to be abusive, I'm on the governments side in saying it cannot afford what is being asked. I don't look down on scabbing, and wouldn't be insulted if someone called me a scab. Others do though, which is why I wonder what someone must feel like knowing their colleagues and much of the public will negatively judge them.
Most are on their side and quite rightly so. If you can't get enough nurses you either have to pay them more or import them. Thanks to decisions made by recent Tory administrations neither alternative is acceptable.
They have created this mess and the nurses are rightly tossing the ball back into their court. Fortunately we wont have to suffer Rishi and his charlatans for much longer
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I’m yet to be convinced that wfh works in all cases, or indeed the majority. At the uni we have many ‘professional services’ staff who are now mainly wfh. Service is less good. Take IT support. Pre pandemic if you needed stuff on your uni controlled pc a member of the IT team could come to your office and easily resolve. Now they are mostly off site it’s all done remotely. I needed some software two months ago and the process took hours rather than minutes. It’s not clear if it’s all wfh. We’ve had staff changes too, so that may play a part, but sometimes wfh is not the answer.
I'd strongly challenge Nick's assertion that wearing a mask doesn't impact on your quality of life any more than wearing a hat. It's awful. If I have to wear a mask to, say, go to the pub, I'm not going. Other people wearing masks also impacts on my quality of life. People whose faces you can't see look hostile, less human. Interactions with them are lower quality.
UK government borrowed £22bn last month, £13.9 billion more than last November + highest November borrowing since monthly records began in 1993 + way above City forecasts of £13bn. Interest payments alone = £7.3bn, pushed up by higher inflation . https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1605481044295049217
The problem Sunak faces with the NHS strikes is not purely political. It's also fiscal and economic.
His plan to cut the deficit and balance the public finances relies on inflation doing all the heavy lifting - increasing taxes with fiscal drag and cutting spending by cutting pay.
He can't give in to the strikes and up the pay offer without either borrowing more or taxing more*. We saw with Truss that Britain doesn't have the market credibility to borrow without limit. So which taxes will go up to pay for a better pay offer for nurses?
* Edit: the reason cutting spending is missing from his options is that holding down pay is the way they're trying to cut spending. I'm assuming they chose what they thought was the easiest option, and if they can't manage that I don't see that they will be able to make any other spending cuts.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I haven't seen anyone wearing a mask in my area for about 6 months.
Ukrainian refugee update coz I know you all care... They both have NI numbers. The system works, sort of, eventually. #brokenbritain
The elder has a job in a stables shoveling horseshit which she loves for some reason.
The younger has a part time job in a shop (which I have to drive her to and from lol). I have told her that stealing from her employer is an essential act of militancy to fuck the capital owning class. This guidance was rejected by the recipient and then bitterly condemned by Mrs DA. She has made stellar progress in English (full credit to the teacher) and is going to try some GCSEs next year. Successfully deprogrammed her from wanting to be a cop, thank fuck.
Despite your hardman image and scepticism about Ukrainian nationalism you're actually doing a lot more for Ukrainian refugees than most of us manage. Are you a secret soft-hearted libtard?
In NFL terms, it's Mrs DA that is doing the 'hard carry' so if there is any credit going then it should be 100% directed at her.
I merely teach English, organise transport and help clean up after the daily Bake Off.
And when they are really bored I am a reluctant and not particularly talented dance student.
About 600 members of the army, navy and the RAF have been drafted in from across the country to help during the walkouts, some of whom have never driven the vehicles before https://trib.al/l5AOtS4
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I haven't seen anyone wearing a mask in my area for about 6 months.
I still occasonally see people in supermarkets wearing them. Usually with their nose hanging out, which figures.
I’m yet to be convinced that wfh works in all cases, or indeed the majority. At the uni we have many ‘professional services’ staff who are now mainly wfh. Service is less good. Take IT support. Pre pandemic if you needed stuff on your uni controlled pc a member of the IT team could come to your office and easily resolve. Now they are mostly off site it’s all done remotely. I needed some software two months ago and the process took hours rather than minutes. It’s not clear if it’s all wfh. We’ve had staff changes too, so that may play a part, but sometimes wfh is not the answer.
I'd strongly challenge Nick's assertion that wearing a mask doesn't impact on your quality of life any more than wearing a hat. It's awful. If I have to wear a mask to, say, go to the pub, I'm not going. Other people wearing masks also impacts on my quality of life. People whose faces you can't see look hostile, less human. Interactions with them are lower quality.
I don't much like wearing a mask myself, but I think one does get used to it if it's what everyone's doing - they're still mandatory in the Royal Surrey hospital where I went for a recent checkup, and after a couple of minutes I'd forgotten I was wearing it. To some extent the same applies to wfh - if it's the norm, then remote control of systems by IT support becomes the norm too, eliminating many of the snags, but if it's only occasional then it's a hassle. But obviously there are lots of jobs where it's impossible - horses for courses...
Other people wearing masks also impacts on my quality of life. People whose faces you can't see look hostile, less human. Interactions with them are lower quality.
What if the people in question have beautiful eyes and hideous mouths
For all the fine words on this site about these strikes, I cannot help but feel that if a family member of friend of mine suffers, or even dies, because of the strikes, I shall hold the unions and the strikers responsible. I will also stop thinking of the medical profession as being a 'caring' one.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
About 600 members of the army, navy and the RAF have been drafted in from across the country to help during the walkouts, some of whom have never driven the vehicles before https://trib.al/l5AOtS4
Never driven the vehicle... so fucking what? It's an ambulance on a Merc Sprinter chassis not an F-35.
I still don't agree with using squaddies as scabs though so fuck Sunak right in his excruciatingly tight balloon knot.
Sunak doesn’t have a good out, If he wins, he loses.
He’s not an experienced politician.
His rookie errors are excruciating. Ditto Dud Starmer. Complete amateurs the pair of them.
I'm not sure you're right about Starmer. It seems that to get elected he's got to appeal to a whole bunch of quasi fascists that most of us didn't realise existed. Without them and their traditional support he might not make it over the line.
Brexit has revealed a nest of cockroaches and if he wants power he's going to have to make an accomodation with them. At least in the short run .After that he can look for support in other areas.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
There is also the lack of commute to take into consideration. (For me, this is the only good thing about WFH)
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
Good luck with that, especially if your WFH is voluntary (or "voluntary").
Good to see, although it doesn’t surprise me. The idea that London’s massive agglomeration effect was going to be undone forever by a 20 month pandemic was risible even at the peak of the bug. Heard a lot of it on PB. But then you hear a lot of bullshit on PB.
Whilst the basic principle of levelling up other cities and regions is probably a good one, as a non-Londoner I've never really felt the level of antipathy that some seem to have that leads to some odd suggestions. Like the idea other places would suddenly become much more significant if we moved parliament out of the capital. I know plenty of countries have legislatures not in the biggest city, but it would just feel weird to me.
I have been based in London - and pretty central London at that - for most of my working life.
The government of the country is far too London centric. And within that, a weird subset of understanding everyone else’s lives.
One MP (actually quite a liberal) I talked to, a long while back, couldn’t understand why anyone needed cars. He lived within rock throw of a tube line straight to Westminster. A train every 4-5 minutes, each way, all day. He never travelled at rush hour, of course.
And a black taxi was always on the expenses, if required.
When out in “the country” someone would meet him at the train station - or there would be a taxi….
He’d lived in this bubble long enough that it had distorted his perception - he wasn’t arrogant or heartless. He understood at an intellectual level that some people need cars. But it wasn’t a visceral, deep understanding.
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
£350m a week...
Has been provided and then some. Trouble is not just with money but with lack of foresight in training and retaining staff.
Yep, if you allow their wages to drop 19% in real terms compared to 2010, a lot of them seek more rewarding work elsewhere.
Last year there were over 60,000 applications to start nursing training in England and yet we only accepted 18,000 on to courses. This has been the way for years. Why? The applications are there - in spite of the issues with pay and conditions - and yet we are accepting less than 1/3rd of the applicants.
So which taxes will go up to pay for a better pay offer for nurses?
Taxes on wealth, and pensioners.
Although I am a beneficiary, I cannot see the slightest justification for preserving the triple lock.
Really? The case for linking pensions to inflation looks obvious. The case for raising pensions with average earnings allows pensioners to share in national growth. But in any case, the only relevant part now is the inflation link.
Good to see, although it doesn’t surprise me. The idea that London’s massive agglomeration effect was going to be undone forever by a 20 month pandemic was risible even at the peak of the bug. Heard a lot of it on PB. But then you hear a lot of bullshit on PB.
Whilst the basic principle of levelling up other cities and regions is probably a good one, as a non-Londoner I've never really felt the level of antipathy that some seem to have that leads to some odd suggestions. Like the idea other places would suddenly become much more significant if we moved parliament out of the capital. I know plenty of countries have legislatures not in the biggest city, but it would just feel weird to me.
I have been based in London - and pretty central London at that - for most of my working life.
The government of the country is far too London centric. And within that, a weird subset of understanding everyone else’s lives.
One MP (actually quite a liberal) I talked to, a long while back, couldn’t understand why anyone needed cars. He lived within rock throw of a tube line straight to Westminster. A train every 4-5 minutes, each way, all day. He never travelled at rush hour, of course.
And a black taxi was always on the expenses, if required.
When out in “the country” someone would meet him at the train station - or there would be a taxi….
He’d lived in this bubble long enough that it had distorted his perception - he wasn’t arrogant or heartless. He understood at an intellectual level that some people need cars. But it wasn’t a visceral, deep understanding.
Hence all the Active Travel nonsense. Makes sense in big cities, but when you get even to decently sized towns, people need their cars. Councils happily converting road space to unused cycle lanes (and the councillors in all parties agree with it because central government doesn't give them the money if they don't do it) don't care what their residents want or need.
So which taxes will go up to pay for a better pay offer for nurses?
Taxes on wealth, and pensioners.
The government is in the same jam as anyone whose income doesn't match their desired expenditure. And they have roughly the same three ways out- haggle the price down for the things they want to buy, increase their income or go without. In the context of public sector pay, those ideas become a pay squeeze, increased taxes/borrowing or cutting staff numbers.
There's a catch, though. The seller doesn't have to agree to be haggled down, they can just walk away, in which case you end up going without anyway. And there's decent evidence that that's what's currently happening. It's remarkable that it has worked as well as it has for as long as it has.
No, I don't have a good way out of the problem. I'm pretty sure there isn't one. But if you can't ride that particular horse, you shouldn't have joined the bloody circus.
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Nobody is going to "win", least of all the taxpayer and the patient. The reality is that the NHS is an anachronism. It is a system that has evolved to favour the vested interests rather than the patient. The best way to reward the staff would be to first completely decentralise all of it. Sadly this will never happen as there are still plenty of gullible fools who really believe it is "the envy of the world".
For all the fine words on this site about these strikes, I cannot help but feel that if a family member of friend of mine suffers, or even dies, because of the strikes, I shall hold the unions and the strikers responsible. I will also stop thinking of the medical profession as being a 'caring' one.
Who would you hold responsible if what you describe happened when there were no strikes? Given the terrible waiting times for ambulances reported in recent months due to the backing-up at hospitals, I'm sure there will have been people suffering or even dying due to delayed treatment.
I have taken the government advice so no log chopping, cutting hedges with power tools on top of a ladder, motor racing and aerobatics flying today and the days of flying a catamaran hull and skiing black runs are behind me anyway. It will just be the 2nd batch of mince pies and stollen cooking today. Think I am pretty safe unless the oven explodes.
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Nobody is going to "win", least of all the taxpayer and the patient. The reality is that the NHS is an anachronism. It is a system that has evolved to favour the vested interests rather than the patient. The best way to reward the staff would be to first completely decentralise all of it. Sadly this will never happen as there are still plenty of gullible fools who really believe it is "the envy of the world".
Agree with every word. We need to look to Europe for better models for our health systems. Still free at the point of use but both paid for and managed in a very different way.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I haven't seen anyone wearing a mask in my area for about 6 months.
I still occasonally see people in supermarkets wearing them. Usually with their nose hanging out, which figures.
I had actually forgotten wearing masks was a thing until I had to visit the hospital the other day. But you're right, you do still see the odd person wearing a mask around town, almost always incorrectly.
So which taxes will go up to pay for a better pay offer for nurses?
Taxes on wealth, and pensioners.
The government is in the same jam as anyone whose income doesn't match their desired expenditure. And they have roughly the same three ways out- haggle the price down for the things they want to buy, increase their income or go without. In the context of public sector pay, those ideas become a pay squeeze, increased taxes/borrowing or cutting staff numbers.
There's a catch, though. The seller doesn't have to agree to be haggled down, they can just walk away, in which case you end up going without anyway. And there's decent evidence that that's what's currently happening. It's remarkable that it has worked as well as it has for as long as it has.
No, I don't have a good way out of the problem. I'm pretty sure there isn't one. But if you can't ride that particular horse, you shouldn't have joined the bloody circus.
I see you've given up on economic growth. That would give an increased tax take without increasing tax rates. It is also the natural state of the economy.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
Good luck with that, especially if your WFH is voluntary (or "voluntary").
Had this conversation with a recruiter a few months ago.
"And the best part is, this is a WFH job!" "Great, how much extra are they going to pay me?" "Huh?" "How much extra? For the rental of part of my home as their office space." "Uhhh.... But it's work from home!" "I know. How much extra do I get from my employer in rent for turning parts of my home into their office?" "Uhhh....."
Needless to say I didn't go for the job...
I despised WFH when it was mandated by lockdown. It obliterated any sense of being part of a team, made it easy for my manager to cut me out of the loop and control access to information (i.e. keep me from knowing what was really going on), favoured those who were part of the "in" group and god knows how new people were onboarded/upskilled. When given the ability to pick team members I chose people I knew from pre-lockdown times, not faces on a screen I'd never met and couldn't trust.
I can understand people WFH a day or two a week, but having no real life interaction, ever, with the people you're expected to work with day in day out dehumanises us all and turns us into cogs in a machine. No longer a person, just a face on a screen.
About 600 members of the army, navy and the RAF have been drafted in from across the country to help during the walkouts, some of whom have never driven the vehicles before https://trib.al/l5AOtS4
Never driven the vehicle... so fucking what? It's an ambulance on a Merc Sprinter chassis not an F-35.
I still don't agree with using squaddies as scabs though so fuck Sunak right in his excruciatingly tight balloon knot.
Getting RAF pilots in to drive the ambulances could be fun, for them and for patients. Squaddies likely to just plod along, I guess
Assuming there's no massive disaster today, I wonder which politician wil be the first to suggest sacking all the (clearly not needed) paramedics and drafting in the army full time. I'd probably go for Braverman (but she should be busy with other stuff) or Fabricant, maybe.
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
£350m a week...
Has been provided and then some. Trouble is not just with money but with lack of foresight in training and retaining staff.
Yep, if you allow their wages to drop 19% in real terms compared to 2010, a lot of them seek more rewarding work elsewhere.
Last year there were over 60,000 applications to start nursing training in England and yet we only accepted 18,000 on to courses. This has been the way for years. Why? The applications are there - in spite of the issues with pay and conditions - and yet we are accepting less than 1/3rd of the applicants.
Perhaps 42,000 didn't do well enough in an english exam or something.
So which taxes will go up to pay for a better pay offer for nurses?
Taxes on wealth, and pensioners.
Although I am a beneficiary, I cannot see the slightest justification for preserving the triple lock.
Really? The case for linking pensions to inflation looks obvious. The case for raising pensions with average earnings allows pensioners to share in national growth. But in any case, the only relevant part now is the inflation link.
Any one of the three is perfectly defensible on its own. The problem is the three put together.
Max (1%, Mean (CPI, Wage inflation) ) seems fair to me. Water down one lock, and water down the others by combining them.
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
£350m a week...
Has been provided and then some. Trouble is not just with money but with lack of foresight in training and retaining staff.
Yep, if you allow their wages to drop 19% in real terms compared to 2010, a lot of them seek more rewarding work elsewhere.
Last year there were over 60,000 applications to start nursing training in England and yet we only accepted 18,000 on to courses. This has been the way for years. Why? The applications are there - in spite of the issues with pay and conditions - and yet we are accepting less than 1/3rd of the applicants.
I think it might have somethng to do with the maths test that you have to pass before starting at Uni on the course.
Eight years ago when my daughter was applying for the course, I drove her to Brighton Uni for an interview. Before the interview she had to do the maths test which she failed by one mark. That was it, she was rejected. No interview, just sorry and goodbye. We were there 20 minutes.
Fortunately she managed to pass the test at Bournemouth Uni and is now a fully qualified nurse (who won't be joining the strike)
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
£350m a week...
Has been provided and then some. Trouble is not just with money but with lack of foresight in training and retaining staff.
Yep, if you allow their wages to drop 19% in real terms compared to 2010, a lot of them seek more rewarding work elsewhere.
Last year there were over 60,000 applications to start nursing training in England and yet we only accepted 18,000 on to courses. This has been the way for years. Why? The applications are there - in spite of the issues with pay and conditions - and yet we are accepting less than 1/3rd of the applicants.
That may be a good thing. I recall many health and social care students at colleges who aspired to be nurses but, to be frank, did not have the requisite education, intelligence or good sense to be let loose on the wards. Personally, I find it pretty reassuring that so many are turned down.
So, Conservative legislator “Lady” (Michelle) Mone OBE is on an Alpine break is she? Nice work. I assume she’ll be in police custody by the end of the week.
I actually have no problem with you being repetitive on this one Dicky, if SNP, Lib Dem or Labour were responsible for something like this the Tory press and Tory party would be raging about it from Dawn to Dusk day in day out, repetitively - it’s no different than what you hear about in other countries around the world and conclude it’s a corrupt country, those in power merely using it to line the pockets of themselves, friends and supporters.
However, you do concede you made a false step yesterday, trying to smear the English for the theft of relics around the world when it was so quickly called out by Leon the Scottish were up to their eyebrows with the English, and other European colonial powers, in the era of all that? A Scot stole some marbles, and then sold them on for profit, does that not sound criminal to you? My advice to all ScotNats on this sort of thing is not to stir it but use the line “not all the shared history is good.” You see what I mean?
Well said. When ScotNats complain about colonialism they conveniently forget that their countrymen were some of the leading colonialists. Nationalists always seem to have a problem with history and in particular facts
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
Commuting is easy once you get used to it, whether you spend the time working, reading the paper, or reading pb on your phone, but once a week means never getting used to it. Instead of becoming routine, infrequent commuting will always be a chore.
As to the rest, workers might relish the chance for London salaries with red wall living costs, but employers will be looking to pay red wall salaries or lower. Long before Covid, British and American companies outsourced to India, the Philippines or Eastern Europe in order to pay their workforce less (a lot less) not so their existing employees could move to more exotic locations.
In all but low skilled work, the productivity numbers show surprisingly little gain, when offshoring.
I saw a study at one company I worked for. Distributed development units, around the world. All working on the same software stack. The perfect test. London was cheaper than Eastern Europe. Mumbai was barely on the graph…
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
£350m a week...
Has been provided and then some. Trouble is not just with money but with lack of foresight in training and retaining staff.
Yep, if you allow their wages to drop 19% in real terms compared to 2010, a lot of them seek more rewarding work elsewhere.
Last year there were over 60,000 applications to start nursing training in England and yet we only accepted 18,000 on to courses. This has been the way for years. Why? The applications are there - in spite of the issues with pay and conditions - and yet we are accepting less than 1/3rd of the applicants.
Not all will be up to scratch. But ultimately training for nurses is mostly in the clinic. If you want to train more you have to fund the training places and staff. I’m sure increased training is part of the issue, but I also think it’s pay, conditions and the after effects of the pandemic that are the bigger issues right now.
A week or two ago the Today programme had someone on who had chaired pay review boards under both the Conservatives and Labour. He defended their independence and also commented that they were always willing to go beyond their remit if they thought pressure was being applied.
On the current dispute he raised a simple solution. He commented that the review board had come to its decision based upon circumstance before the current issues. He said it would be easy, and could be done in days, for the board to update its recommendation in light of changing circumstances and that if both sides accepted in advance the outcome of the review board the disputes could end now.
I musat admit I was taken aback by the 'it could be done in days' comment as that is not what you expect.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
Good luck with that, especially if your WFH is voluntary (or "voluntary").
Had this conversation with a recruiter a few months ago.
"And the best part is, this is a WFH job!" "Great, how much extra are they going to pay me?" "Huh?" "How much extra? For the rental of part of my home as their office space." "Uhhh.... But it's work from home!" "I know. How much extra do I get from my employer in rent for turning parts of my home into their office?" "Uhhh....."
Needless to say I didn't go for the job...
I despised WFH when it was mandated by lockdown. It obliterated any sense of being part of a team, made it easy for my manager to cut me out of the loop and control access to information (i.e. keep me from knowing what was really going on), favoured those who were part of the "in" group and god knows how new people were onboarded/upskilled. When given the ability to pick team members I chose people I knew from pre-lockdown times, not faces on a screen I'd never met and couldn't trust.
I can understand people WFH a day or two a week, but having no real life interaction, ever, with the people you're expected to work with day in day out dehumanises us all and turns us into cogs in a machine. No longer a person, just a face on a screen.
I'd be developing paranoia about which new faces on screen of people I never meet irl are deepfake talking heads for ChatGPT.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
Good luck with that, especially if your WFH is voluntary (or "voluntary").
Had this conversation with a recruiter a few months ago.
"And the best part is, this is a WFH job!" "Great, how much extra are they going to pay me?" "Huh?" "How much extra? For the rental of part of my home as their office space." "Uhhh.... But it's work from home!" "I know. How much extra do I get from my employer in rent for turning parts of my home into their office?" "Uhhh....."
Needless to say I didn't go for the job...
I despised WFH when it was mandated by lockdown. It obliterated any sense of being part of a team, made it easy for my manager to cut me out of the loop and control access to information (i.e. keep me from knowing what was really going on), favoured those who were part of the "in" group and god knows how new people were onboarded/upskilled. When given the ability to pick team members I chose people I knew from pre-lockdown times, not faces on a screen I'd never met and couldn't trust.
I can understand people WFH a day or two a week, but having no real life interaction, ever, with the people you're expected to work with day in day out dehumanises us all and turns us into cogs in a machine. No longer a person, just a face on a screen.
I have worked from home for years - since long before the pandemic. I do one week every 6 or 8 up in Aberdeen to catch up with people and otherwise everything is online. When most of your team is 120 miles offshore in the middle of the North Sea, what difference does it make if you talk to them from Aberdeen or rural Lincolnshire? We are far more responsive being online rather than face to face given the job is 24/7 and it means, for example, that I will be able to have Christmas at home rather than stuck in a hotel and office 350 miles from my family and yet still run the drilling operations on Christmas Day just as I do the whole of the rest of the year.
The world of work has changed (and for the better) and people need to change with it.
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Nobody is going to "win", least of all the taxpayer and the patient. The reality is that the NHS is an anachronism. It is a system that has evolved to favour the vested interests rather than the patient. The best way to reward the staff would be to first completely decentralise all of it. Sadly this will never happen as there are still plenty of gullible fools who really believe it is "the envy of the world".
The NHS used to be the "envy of the world" and it still was at the end of the last Labour government when public satisfaction with the NHS had reached an all time record high. Compare and contrast, 12 years on.
Essentially it is down to cash. Spending on health as a proportion of GDP is the key measure. We have always had health on the cheap in the UK, because the health service is relatively efficient especially compared to private and insurance based systems. The gap between the UK and other developed countries did narrow slightly with the investment under Labour, but spending on health in the UK has fallen behind badly since then. The cash simply hasn't been there to meet the rising demand of an ageing population.
For all the fine words on this site about these strikes, I cannot help but feel that if a family member of friend of mine suffers, or even dies, because of the strikes, I shall hold the unions and the strikers responsible. I will also stop thinking of the medical profession as being a 'caring' one.
Who would you hold responsible if what you describe happened when there were no strikes? Given the terrible waiting times for ambulances reported in recent months due to the backing-up at hospitals, I'm sure there will have been people suffering or even dying due to delayed treatment.
I heard a union spokesperson suggest 37 people had died waiting for ambulances recently vs 1 in a previous time period. Can’t remember the details, sorry, but it’s pretty clear that A&E and the issues with waits for ambulances are causing harm already.
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Nobody is going to "win", least of all the taxpayer and the patient. The reality is that the NHS is an anachronism. It is a system that has evolved to favour the vested interests rather than the patient. The best way to reward the staff would be to first completely decentralise all of it. Sadly this will never happen as there are still plenty of gullible fools who really believe it is "the envy of the world".
The NHS used to be the "envy of the world" and it still was at the end of the last Labour government when public satisfaction with the NHS had reached an all time record high. Compare and contrast, 12 years on.
Essentially it is down to cash. Spending on health as a proportion of GDP is the key measure. We have always had health on the cheap in the UK, because the health service is relatively efficient especially compared to private and insurance based systems. The gap between the UK and other developed countries did narrow slightly with the investment under Labour, but spending on health in the UK has fallen behind badly since then. The cash simply hasn't been there to meet the rising demand of an ageing population.
The NHS was only "envy of the world" amongst those who had never experienced health systems elsewhere in Europe. Those of us who had didn't believe the hype then and certainly don't believe it now.
Ukrainian refugee update coz I know you all care... They both have NI numbers. The system works, sort of, eventually. #brokenbritain
The elder has a job in a stables shoveling horseshit which she loves for some reason.
The younger has a part time job in a shop (which I have to drive her to and from lol). I have told her that stealing from her employer is an essential act of militancy to fuck the capital owning class. This guidance was rejected by the recipient and then bitterly condemned by Mrs DA. She has made stellar progress in English (full credit to the teacher) and is going to try some GCSEs next year. Successfully deprogrammed her from wanting to be a cop, thank fuck.
I take it this guidance to be militant and screw the capital owning class extends to you encouraging her to take whatever she wants from your house?
Surely starting with the expensive, highly polluting sports cars? Talk about symbols of capitalist luxury - they are literally designed to flaunt the wealth of the owner in the faces of the Head Count.
I have taken the government advice so no log chopping, cutting hedges with power tools on top of a ladder, motor racing and aerobatics flying today and the days of flying a catamaran hull and skiing black runs are behind me anyway. It will just be the 2nd batch of mince pies and stollen cooking today. Think I am pretty safe unless the oven explodes.
Stollen cooking might be best saved for the police strike
So which taxes will go up to pay for a better pay offer for nurses?
Taxes on wealth, and pensioners.
Although I am a beneficiary, I cannot see the slightest justification for preserving the triple lock.
Really? The case for linking pensions to inflation looks obvious. The case for raising pensions with average earnings allows pensioners to share in national growth. But in any case, the only relevant part now is the inflation link.
Any one of the three is perfectly defensible on its own. The problem is the three put together.
Max (1%, Mean (CPI, Wage inflation) ) seems fair to me. Water down one lock, and water down the others by combining them.
Raising the state pension by less than the rate of inflation (however imperfectly measured, and maybe that is the subject of a separate debate) is problematic for those who need their £10,000 a year (or just under) to pay for heating and eating. The government could probably get away with breaking the link to wages, as was done previously, but that is irrelevant right now.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
I've just moved, and this was a factor in my thinking. I have bought a house with an extra room exactly for that purpose, that I wouldn't have needed if I didn't now mostly WFH.
Around my way, that's about an extra £100k for a third bedroom so if interest rates are 6% that's £500 per month. I'm still expected to go in sometimes, so I probably save an average of 12 journeys per month at £14.10 so that's roughly £160. Not forgetting extra heating and the lack of free coffee and fruit. Against that is a better working environment and I can lie on the sofa during boring pointless calls and nobody knows.
Better office space (and pigs might fly) wouldn't make much difference to me either way.
Is 24 hours' commuting time per month back worth £340? We will all make our own valuation but in my case I say it is.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
Good luck with that, especially if your WFH is voluntary (or "voluntary").
Had this conversation with a recruiter a few months ago.
"And the best part is, this is a WFH job!" "Great, how much extra are they going to pay me?" "Huh?" "How much extra? For the rental of part of my home as their office space." "Uhhh.... But it's work from home!" "I know. How much extra do I get from my employer in rent for turning parts of my home into their office?" "Uhhh....."
Needless to say I didn't go for the job...
I despised WFH when it was mandated by lockdown. It obliterated any sense of being part of a team, made it easy for my manager to cut me out of the loop and control access to information (i.e. keep me from knowing what was really going on), favoured those who were part of the "in" group and god knows how new people were onboarded/upskilled. When given the ability to pick team members I chose people I knew from pre-lockdown times, not faces on a screen I'd never met and couldn't trust.
I can understand people WFH a day or two a week, but having no real life interaction, ever, with the people you're expected to work with day in day out dehumanises us all and turns us into cogs in a machine. No longer a person, just a face on a screen.
I have worked from home for years - since long before the pandemic. I do one week every 6 or 8 up in Aberdeen to catch up with people and otherwise everything is online. When most of your team is 120 miles offshore in the middle of the North Sea, what difference does it make if you talk to them from Aberdeen or rural Lincolnshire? We are far more responsive being online rather than face to face given the job is 24/7 and it means, for example, that I will be able to have Christmas at home rather than stuck in a hotel and office 350 miles from my family and yet still run the drilling operations on Christmas Day just as I do the whole of the rest of the year.
The world of work has changed (and for the better) and people need to change with it.
If that works for you and your industry then great, more power to you.
For me, absolutely nothing replaces the level of trust and greater understanding you get from physical interaction, from the unplanned and spontaneous conversations, from the beer in the pub after knocking off time (where the real gossip happens).
My experience of WFH was a manipulative little shit of a manager who used the opportunity to cut me out of the loop and keep vital information from me, something that would have been impossible in a physical environment.
For all the fine words on this site about these strikes, I cannot help but feel that if a family member of friend of mine suffers, or even dies, because of the strikes, I shall hold the unions and the strikers responsible. I will also stop thinking of the medical profession as being a 'caring' one.
Who would you hold responsible if what you describe happened when there were no strikes? Given the terrible waiting times for ambulances reported in recent months due to the backing-up at hospitals, I'm sure there will have been people suffering or even dying due to delayed treatment.
In that case, the NHS trust or, potentially, the government. It would very much depend on the circumstances.
We really must stop this lionisation of the health service and its staff. Many failures and abuses have been made worse by people not wanting to criticise the service - Stafford being a classic and hideous example.
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
£350m a week...
Has been provided and then some. Trouble is not just with money but with lack of foresight in training and retaining staff.
Yep, if you allow their wages to drop 19% in real terms compared to 2010, a lot of them seek more rewarding work elsewhere.
Last year there were over 60,000 applications to start nursing training in England and yet we only accepted 18,000 on to courses. This has been the way for years. Why? The applications are there - in spite of the issues with pay and conditions - and yet we are accepting less than 1/3rd of the applicants.
It's been that way for years as far as I know - and the same for doctors. Government determines the number of positions on training courses it's prepared to fund, and deliberately sets the level materially below that needed to meet future demand for medical personnel. We then fill the supply gap by recruiting from overseas.
I understood this was originally policy by Blair's government as a way of acclimatising the public to mass immigration (it's a lot more palatable to be importing doctors and nurses than construction workers). However, the simpler explanation is it's just typically poor long term planning from politicians, because they won't spend money on something for which the electoral benefit will arrive long after they retire.
Interesting day to see how much my solar battery charges today. Today is the solstice but it's a) Relatively clear b) Relatively warm (Batteries shouldn't be temperature thottled on charge) 22% charged at the moment. (Of 5.8 kwh)
My app tells me I've saved 115.4Kg of CO2 too since November 25th compared to no panels and no battery too. No christmas card from Greta mind.
For all the fine words on this site about these strikes, I cannot help but feel that if a family member of friend of mine suffers, or even dies, because of the strikes, I shall hold the unions and the strikers responsible. I will also stop thinking of the medical profession as being a 'caring' one.
Who would you hold responsible if what you describe happened when there were no strikes? Given the terrible waiting times for ambulances reported in recent months due to the backing-up at hospitals, I'm sure there will have been people suffering or even dying due to delayed treatment.
I am not sure that it has to do with wages, which let's face it is really what the dispute is about. If they get a big pay rise then they go back to work do they not?
The unpalatable problem for the UK population (who worship at the altar of the NHS) is that inefficiency goes back to the core problem of the NHS which is it is a nationalised industry run by vested interests. UK doctors are amongst the highest paid in the world outside the US and yet they have the safest job in the world and they are also able to have a very nice private sideline in addition to their handsome NHS pay and huge pension arrangements. Are they volunteering to have a pay freeze to even up the differential between their pay and those of other health professionals? You bet they are not!
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
I appreciate what you're saying but surely you would just negotiate for whatever you can get and hopefully that will be more. Framing it as 'extra' for working from home will just put people off.
So which taxes will go up to pay for a better pay offer for nurses?
Taxes on wealth, and pensioners.
The government is in the same jam as anyone whose income doesn't match their desired expenditure. And they have roughly the same three ways out- haggle the price down for the things they want to buy, increase their income or go without. In the context of public sector pay, those ideas become a pay squeeze, increased taxes/borrowing or cutting staff numbers.
There's a catch, though. The seller doesn't have to agree to be haggled down, they can just walk away, in which case you end up going without anyway. And there's decent evidence that that's what's currently happening. It's remarkable that it has worked as well as it has for as long as it has.
No, I don't have a good way out of the problem. I'm pretty sure there isn't one. But if you can't ride that particular horse, you shouldn't have joined the bloody circus.
The logical solution would have been to save money by giving pensioners an increase somewhere close to average private sector earnings growth (about 6% believe?), instead of the 10%+ they'll be getting, and to give nurses an increase somewhere closer to the same, rather than the 4% on offer?
"If the pre-war dividing line between Ukraine and Russia cannot be achieved by combat or by negotiation, recourse to the principle of self-determination could be explored. Internationally supervised referendums concerning self-determination could be applied to particularly divisive territories".
There's even some AI:
"As the world’s leaders strive to end the war in which two nuclear powers contest a conventionally armed country, they should also reflect on the impact on this conflict and on long-term strategy of incipient high–technology and artificial intelligence. Auto-nomous weapons already exist, capable of defining, assessing and targeting their own perceived threats and thus in a position to start their own war.
Once the line into this realm is crossed and hi-tech becomes standard weaponry – and computers become the principal executors of strategy – the world will find itself in a condition for which as yet it has no established concept. How can leaders exercise control when computers prescribe strategic instructions on a scale and in a manner that inherently limits and threatens human input? How can civilisation be preserved amid such a maelstrom of conflicting information, perceptions and destructive capabilities?
...and a veiled reference to as yet undisclosed "discoveries".
"No theory for this encroaching world yet exists, and consultative efforts on this subject have yet to evolve – perhaps because meaningful negotiations might disclose new discoveries, and that disclosure itself constitutes a risk for the future."
That reads like a number of articles I’ve read by people who try and use the “scare” of some new technology, to reinforce their existing worldview. Without actually understanding what they are talking about.
It all comes down to - how could you trust Poo Tin and his chums in any deal?
Personally I would sell* Ukraine nuclear weapons, as a start. But I get the impression you might not like that.
*too right. At a good price, on HP. A great big Union Jack on each and every one.
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
£350m a week...
Has been provided and then some. Trouble is not just with money but with lack of foresight in training and retaining staff.
Yep, if you allow their wages to drop 19% in real terms compared to 2010, a lot of them seek more rewarding work elsewhere.
Last year there were over 60,000 applications to start nursing training in England and yet we only accepted 18,000 on to courses. This has been the way for years. Why? The applications are there - in spite of the issues with pay and conditions - and yet we are accepting less than 1/3rd of the applicants.
Be interested in more on those stats. 60k people or 60k applications? Most applicants would make multiple applications, afterall. For those not accepted on to courses, what did they do - did they have multiple applications and choose another path. Overall - was it down to a lack of capacity, lack of quality in the applicants or many good applicants ultimately choosing other things? Each points to a different solution (increase capacity; improve primary/secondary education AND/OR attract more high quality applicants; make nursing more attractive).
I have taken the government advice so no log chopping, cutting hedges with power tools on top of a ladder, motor racing and aerobatics flying today and the days of flying a catamaran hull and skiing black runs are behind me anyway. It will just be the 2nd batch of mince pies and stollen cooking today. Think I am pretty safe unless the oven explodes.
Stollen cooking might be best saved for the police strike
Took me a few minutes. Won't be using the crockpot until then either.
Interesting day to see how much my solar battery charges today. Today is the solstice but it's a) Relatively clear b) Relatively warm (Batteries shouldn't be temperature thottled on charge) 22% charged at the moment. (Of 5.8 kwh)
My app tells me I've saved 115.4Kg of CO2 too since November 25th compared to no panels and no battery too. No christmas card from Greta mind.
I find it hard to believe Greta sends Christmas cards. Waste of trees and CO2 in manufacture and transport. So I wouldn't feel too snubbed
So which taxes will go up to pay for a better pay offer for nurses?
Taxes on wealth, and pensioners.
The government is in the same jam as anyone whose income doesn't match their desired expenditure. And they have roughly the same three ways out- haggle the price down for the things they want to buy, increase their income or go without. In the context of public sector pay, those ideas become a pay squeeze, increased taxes/borrowing or cutting staff numbers.
There's a catch, though. The seller doesn't have to agree to be haggled down, they can just walk away, in which case you end up going without anyway. And there's decent evidence that that's what's currently happening. It's remarkable that it has worked as well as it has for as long as it has.
No, I don't have a good way out of the problem. I'm pretty sure there isn't one. But if you can't ride that particular horse, you shouldn't have joined the bloody circus.
I see you've given up on economic growth. That would give an increased tax take without increasing tax rates. It is also the natural state of the economy.
Growth isn't going to get us out of this immediate crunch, is it?
And growth comes from finding and implementing more productive ways of doing things. That's not always easy for the sort of services we are talking about here. You can't for example, just put another child in every classroom to make the teacher more productive.
And the sort of capital spending that would help (updating computers so that the boot up instantly to give a trivial example) is the kind of thing the public sector is very bad at. We've spent decades favouring recurrent spending on visible things over the sort of investment that costs upfront but more than pays for itself over ten years.
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Nobody is going to "win", least of all the taxpayer and the patient. The reality is that the NHS is an anachronism. It is a system that has evolved to favour the vested interests rather than the patient. The best way to reward the staff would be to first completely decentralise all of it. Sadly this will never happen as there are still plenty of gullible fools who really believe it is "the envy of the world".
The NHS used to be the "envy of the world" and it still was at the end of the last Labour government when public satisfaction with the NHS had reached an all time record high. Compare and contrast, 12 years on.
Essentially it is down to cash. Spending on health as a proportion of GDP is the key measure. We have always had health on the cheap in the UK, because the health service is relatively efficient especially compared to private and insurance based systems. The gap between the UK and other developed countries did narrow slightly with the investment under Labour, but spending on health in the UK has fallen behind badly since then. The cash simply hasn't been there to meet the rising demand of an ageing population.
The NHS was only "envy of the world" amongst those who had never experienced health systems elsewhere in Europe. Those of us who had didn't believe the hype then and certainly don't believe it now.
I thought the ‘free at the point of use’ was the unique thing about the NHS.
"If the pre-war dividing line between Ukraine and Russia cannot be achieved by combat or by negotiation, recourse to the principle of self-determination could be explored. Internationally supervised referendums concerning self-determination could be applied to particularly divisive territories".
There's even some AI:
"As the world’s leaders strive to end the war in which two nuclear powers contest a conventionally armed country, they should also reflect on the impact on this conflict and on long-term strategy of incipient high–technology and artificial intelligence. Auto-nomous weapons already exist, capable of defining, assessing and targeting their own perceived threats and thus in a position to start their own war.
Once the line into this realm is crossed and hi-tech becomes standard weaponry – and computers become the principal executors of strategy – the world will find itself in a condition for which as yet it has no established concept. How can leaders exercise control when computers prescribe strategic instructions on a scale and in a manner that inherently limits and threatens human input? How can civilisation be preserved amid such a maelstrom of conflicting information, perceptions and destructive capabilities?
...and a veiled reference to as yet undisclosed "discoveries".
"No theory for this encroaching world yet exists, and consultative efforts on this subject have yet to evolve – perhaps because meaningful negotiations might disclose new discoveries, and that disclosure itself constitutes a risk for the future."
That reads like a number of articles I’ve read by people who try and use the “scare” of some new technology, to reinforce their existing worldview. Without actually understanding what they are talking about.
It all comes down to - how could you trust Poo Tin and his chums in any deal?
Personally I would sell* Ukraine nuclear weapons, as a start. But I get the impression you might not like that.
*too right. At a good price, on HP. A great big Union Jack on each and every one.
I am all for self-determination. But the idea that meaningful referendums can be held at gunpoint, or after massive population changes caused by war, is a bit naive. It is basically saying that the 'winning' side gets the territory.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
Good luck with that, especially if your WFH is voluntary (or "voluntary").
Had this conversation with a recruiter a few months ago.
"And the best part is, this is a WFH job!" "Great, how much extra are they going to pay me?" "Huh?" "How much extra? For the rental of part of my home as their office space." "Uhhh.... But it's work from home!" "I know. How much extra do I get from my employer in rent for turning parts of my home into their office?" "Uhhh....."
Needless to say I didn't go for the job...
I despised WFH when it was mandated by lockdown. It obliterated any sense of being part of a team, made it easy for my manager to cut me out of the loop and control access to information (i.e. keep me from knowing what was really going on), favoured those who were part of the "in" group and god knows how new people were onboarded/upskilled. When given the ability to pick team members I chose people I knew from pre-lockdown times, not faces on a screen I'd never met and couldn't trust.
I can understand people WFH a day or two a week, but having no real life interaction, ever, with the people you're expected to work with day in day out dehumanises us all and turns us into cogs in a machine. No longer a person, just a face on a screen.
I have worked from home for years - since long before the pandemic. I do one week every 6 or 8 up in Aberdeen to catch up with people and otherwise everything is online. When most of your team is 120 miles offshore in the middle of the North Sea, what difference does it make if you talk to them from Aberdeen or rural Lincolnshire? We are far more responsive being online rather than face to face given the job is 24/7 and it means, for example, that I will be able to have Christmas at home rather than stuck in a hotel and office 350 miles from my family and yet still run the drilling operations on Christmas Day just as I do the whole of the rest of the year.
The world of work has changed (and for the better) and people need to change with it.
If that works for you and your industry then great, more power to you.
For me, absolutely nothing replaces the level of trust and greater understanding you get from physical interaction, from the unplanned and spontaneous conversations, from the beer in the pub after knocking off time (where the real gossip happens).
My experience of WFH was a manipulative little shit of a manager...
That. AFAICS, is likely the more significant factor than home vs office work ?
For all the fine words on this site about these strikes, I cannot help but feel that if a family member of friend of mine suffers, or even dies, because of the strikes, I shall hold the unions and the strikers responsible. I will also stop thinking of the medical profession as being a 'caring' one.
Who would you hold responsible if what you describe happened when there were no strikes? Given the terrible waiting times for ambulances reported in recent months due to the backing-up at hospitals, I'm sure there will have been people suffering or even dying due to delayed treatment.
In that case, the NHS trust or, potentially, the government. It would very much depend on the circumstances.
We really must stop this lionisation of the health service and its staff. Many failures and abuses have been made worse by people not wanting to criticise the service - Stafford being a classic and hideous example.
Unfortunately you are absolutely correct. This idea that all healthcare professionals are angels is where a lot of the problem lies. My experience of working with them for many years is that there is probably a higher proportion of people who are motivated by a higher purpose than the general population, but there are also a fairly large number of people within the NHS that are highly selfish and some downright unethical and very little is done about either because they know they are largely untouchable. When did you last here of a medic being sacked? They just get moved to another trust.
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
£350m a week...
Has been provided and then some. Trouble is not just with money but with lack of foresight in training and retaining staff.
Yep, if you allow their wages to drop 19% in real terms compared to 2010, a lot of them seek more rewarding work elsewhere.
Last year there were over 60,000 applications to start nursing training in England and yet we only accepted 18,000 on to courses. This has been the way for years. Why? The applications are there - in spite of the issues with pay and conditions - and yet we are accepting less than 1/3rd of the applicants.
Be interested in more on those stats. 60k people or 60k applications? Most applicants would make multiple applications, afterall. For those not accepted on to courses, what did they do - did they have multiple applications and choose another path. Overall - was it down to a lack of capacity, lack of quality in the applicants or many good applicants ultimately choosing other things? Each points to a different solution (increase capacity; improve primary/secondary education AND/OR attract more high quality applicants; make nursing more attractive).
It's also worth pointing out that many of those who apply to be nurses but are not successful are not completely lost to the system. They end up working in social care, or as health care assistants, or in nurseries; i.e. in relevant jobs that are more suited to their aptitude.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
I appreciate what you're saying but surely you would just negotiate for whatever you can get and hopefully that will be more. Framing it as 'extra' for working from home will just put people off.
What pisses me off is employers framing WFH as a great perk for me when in reality it is passing their office costs onto me.
Living and working 24/7 in the same four walls. Twelve hours of staring at spreadsheets, then moving twelve feet into the next room (if you're lucky enough to have a next room) to eat your dinner and watch telly and try to switch off from work. No thanks. For my sanity, I prefer a separation between work space and living space.
Zero camaraderie with the people you're working with. Never finding out about their lives, never making friends, just having the same robotic weekly stand-up where everyone delivers a status update then back to staring at your spreadsheets alone.
I get that a lot of people enjoy WFH. More power to them. I despised every minute of it.
That's the other problem the government has. Even without the strikes, things are visibly going badly in the health services.
£350m a week...
Has been provided and then some. Trouble is not just with money but with lack of foresight in training and retaining staff.
Yep, if you allow their wages to drop 19% in real terms compared to 2010, a lot of them seek more rewarding work elsewhere.
Last year there were over 60,000 applications to start nursing training in England and yet we only accepted 18,000 on to courses. This has been the way for years. Why? The applications are there - in spite of the issues with pay and conditions - and yet we are accepting less than 1/3rd of the applicants.
Be interested in more on those stats. 60k people or 60k applications? Most applicants would make multiple applications, afterall. For those not accepted on to courses, what did they do - did they have multiple applications and choose another path. Overall - was it down to a lack of capacity, lack of quality in the applicants or many good applicants ultimately choosing other things? Each points to a different solution (increase capacity; improve primary/secondary education AND/OR attract more high quality applicants; make nursing more attractive).
It is my understanding that all healthcare degrees are over subscribed - that there are far more applicants than places for degrees to become doctors and nurses.
This isn’t terribly surprising. All the highly rated degree courses are over subscribed.
And healthcare is an area where there is a deep, worldwide shortage of personnel that looks likely to persist through our life times. Despite massive increases in training, the increasing standards living in India, China and elsewhere mean that demand for medical staff is increasing faster.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
Good luck with that, especially if your WFH is voluntary (or "voluntary").
Had this conversation with a recruiter a few months ago.
"And the best part is, this is a WFH job!" "Great, how much extra are they going to pay me?" "Huh?" "How much extra? For the rental of part of my home as their office space." "Uhhh.... But it's work from home!" "I know. How much extra do I get from my employer in rent for turning parts of my home into their office?" "Uhhh....."
Needless to say I didn't go for the job...
I despised WFH when it was mandated by lockdown. It obliterated any sense of being part of a team, made it easy for my manager to cut me out of the loop and control access to information (i.e. keep me from knowing what was really going on), favoured those who were part of the "in" group and god knows how new people were onboarded/upskilled. When given the ability to pick team members I chose people I knew from pre-lockdown times, not faces on a screen I'd never met and couldn't trust.
I can understand people WFH a day or two a week, but having no real life interaction, ever, with the people you're expected to work with day in day out dehumanises us all and turns us into cogs in a machine. No longer a person, just a face on a screen.
I have worked from home for years - since long before the pandemic. I do one week every 6 or 8 up in Aberdeen to catch up with people and otherwise everything is online. When most of your team is 120 miles offshore in the middle of the North Sea, what difference does it make if you talk to them from Aberdeen or rural Lincolnshire? We are far more responsive being online rather than face to face given the job is 24/7 and it means, for example, that I will be able to have Christmas at home rather than stuck in a hotel and office 350 miles from my family and yet still run the drilling operations on Christmas Day just as I do the whole of the rest of the year.
The world of work has changed (and for the better) and people need to change with it.
I don't see why this argument has to be all one or all the other. Flexibility and options are good. Not all jobs are the same.
People seem to want there to be one true answer to the question of work from home. It works for you and it works for me, but there will be some times when it doesn't.
I don't see why I should be pointlessly dragged into an office for now good reason.
So which taxes will go up to pay for a better pay offer for nurses?
Taxes on wealth, and pensioners.
Although I am a beneficiary, I cannot see the slightest justification for preserving the triple lock.
Really? The case for linking pensions to inflation looks obvious. The case for raising pensions with average earnings allows pensioners to share in national growth. But in any case, the only relevant part now is the inflation link.
But why are we a protected species? What makes us a special case?
Comments
Perhaps he should wear a mask.
(His best bet is to wrap the answer up in so much gobbledegook and technicality that nobody can really tell what happened. And finding a good day to bury bad news. But by making a big fuss about Standing Firm, it'll be clear that he hasn't.)
As others have already pointed out, the real stupidity is the refusal to negotiate.
That way the integrity of the Pay review body is maintained (sort of) no one loses face and a result is achieved. It is truly remarkable that this has not happened already.
‘We have a process around pay’
-Steve Barclay
-The Govt has rejected pay reviews 4x this year
#BBCR4Today
Mishal Husain destroyed Steve Barclay on the Today programme, there.
Wonder if Mick Lynch was listening.
a) Just had an email from my dad's visitor. Can she come tomorrow instead of today as they have all been put on standby for the ambulance workers strike. Not sure what she is going to be doing, but glad to see the local authority has plans.
b) Visited an elderly aunt yesterday. She fell ill the previous week (pre strikes). No ambulances available. Got taken to a&e by relative. 14 hour wait. I didn't experience any of this last Feb when I broke my legs. Same hospital.
The answer will be higher than 4.5% as at the time of their work inflation was 6.2%, now it is 11ish I think.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/where-is-sunak-war-of-words-between-unions-and-government-over-strikes_uk_63a2c207e4b03e2cc5050f7c
It’s not clear if it’s all wfh. We’ve had staff changes too, so that may play a part, but sometimes wfh is not the answer.
Anyone paying attention knows that the nhs is currently suffering multiple crisis but your average daily Mail reader doesn’t know because they are not seeing those stories being reported.
Interest payments alone = £7.3bn, pushed up by higher inflation .
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1605481044295049217
They have created this mess and the nurses are rightly tossing the ball back into their court. Fortunately we wont have to suffer Rishi and his charlatans for much longer
Other people wearing masks also impacts on my quality of life. People whose faces you can't see look hostile, less human. Interactions with them are lower quality.
His plan to cut the deficit and balance the public finances relies on inflation doing all the heavy lifting - increasing taxes with fiscal drag and cutting spending by cutting pay.
He can't give in to the strikes and up the pay offer without either borrowing more or taxing more*. We saw with Truss that Britain doesn't have the market credibility to borrow without limit. So which taxes will go up to pay for a better pay offer for nurses?
* Edit: the reason cutting spending is missing from his options is that holding down pay is the way they're trying to cut spending. I'm assuming they chose what they thought was the easiest option, and if they can't manage that I don't see that they will be able to make any other spending cuts.
I merely teach English, organise transport and help clean up after the daily Bake Off.
And when they are really bored I am a reluctant and not particularly talented dance student.
https://www.ft.com/content/0693edbb-d3d5-4e15-9c33-08f82e6460bc
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
I still don't agree with using squaddies as scabs though so fuck Sunak right in his excruciatingly tight balloon knot.
Brexit has revealed a nest of cockroaches and if he wants power he's going to have to make an accomodation with them. At least in the short run .After that he can look for support in other areas.
The government of the country is far too London centric. And within that, a weird subset of understanding everyone else’s lives.
One MP (actually quite a liberal) I talked to, a long while back, couldn’t understand why anyone needed cars. He lived within rock throw of a tube line straight to Westminster. A train every 4-5 minutes, each way, all day. He never travelled at rush hour, of course.
And a black taxi was always on the expenses, if required.
When out in “the country” someone would meet him at the train station - or there would be a taxi….
He’d lived in this bubble long enough that it had distorted his perception - he wasn’t arrogant or heartless. He understood at an intellectual level that some people need cars. But it wasn’t a visceral, deep understanding.
There's a catch, though. The seller doesn't have to agree to be haggled down, they can just walk away, in which case you end up going without anyway. And there's decent evidence that that's what's currently happening. It's remarkable that it has worked as well as it has for as long as it has.
No, I don't have a good way out of the problem. I'm pretty sure there isn't one. But if you can't ride that particular horse, you shouldn't have joined the bloody circus.
"And the best part is, this is a WFH job!"
"Great, how much extra are they going to pay me?"
"Huh?"
"How much extra? For the rental of part of my home as their office space."
"Uhhh.... But it's work from home!"
"I know. How much extra do I get from my employer in rent for turning parts of my home into their office?"
"Uhhh....."
Needless to say I didn't go for the job...
I despised WFH when it was mandated by lockdown. It obliterated any sense of being part of a team, made it easy for my manager to cut me out of the loop and control access to information (i.e. keep me from knowing what was really going on), favoured those who were part of the "in" group and god knows how new people were onboarded/upskilled. When given the ability to pick team members I chose people I knew from pre-lockdown times, not faces on a screen I'd never met and couldn't trust.
I can understand people WFH a day or two a week, but having no real life interaction, ever, with the people you're expected to work with day in day out dehumanises us all and turns us into cogs in a machine. No longer a person, just a face on a screen.
Assuming there's no massive disaster today, I wonder which politician wil be the first to suggest sacking all the (clearly not needed) paramedics and drafting in the army full time. I'd probably go for Braverman (but she should be busy with other stuff) or Fabricant, maybe.
Max (1%, Mean (CPI, Wage inflation) ) seems fair to me. Water down one lock, and water down the others by combining them.
Eight years ago when my daughter was applying for the course, I drove her to Brighton Uni for an interview. Before the interview she had to do the maths test which she failed by one mark. That was it, she was rejected. No interview, just sorry and goodbye. We were there 20 minutes.
Fortunately she managed to pass the test at Bournemouth Uni and is now a fully qualified nurse (who won't be joining the strike)
I saw a study at one company I worked for. Distributed development units, around the world. All working on the same software stack. The perfect test. London was cheaper than Eastern Europe. Mumbai was barely on the graph…
I’m sure increased training is part of the issue, but I also think it’s pay, conditions and the after effects of the pandemic that are the bigger issues right now.
On the current dispute he raised a simple solution. He commented that the review board had come to its decision based upon circumstance before the current issues. He said it would be easy, and could be done in days, for the board to update its recommendation in light of changing circumstances and that if both sides accepted in advance the outcome of the review board the disputes could end now.
I musat admit I was taken aback by the 'it could be done in days' comment as that is not what you expect.
The world of work has changed (and for the better) and people need to change with it.
Essentially it is down to cash. Spending on health as a proportion of GDP is the key measure. We have always had health on the cheap in the UK, because the health service is relatively efficient especially compared to private and insurance based systems. The gap between the UK and other developed countries did narrow slightly with the investment under Labour, but spending on health in the UK has fallen behind badly since then. The cash simply hasn't been there to meet the rising demand of an ageing population.
Can’t remember the details, sorry, but it’s pretty clear that A&E and the issues with waits for ambulances are causing harm already.
Around my way, that's about an extra £100k for a third bedroom so if interest rates are 6% that's £500 per month. I'm still expected to go in sometimes, so I probably save an average of 12 journeys per month at £14.10 so that's roughly £160. Not forgetting extra heating and the lack of free coffee and fruit. Against that is a better working environment and I can lie on the sofa during boring pointless calls and nobody knows.
Better office space (and pigs might fly) wouldn't make much difference to me either way.
Is 24 hours' commuting time per month back worth £340? We will all make our own valuation but in my case I say it is.
For me, absolutely nothing replaces the level of trust and greater understanding you get from physical interaction, from the unplanned and spontaneous conversations, from the beer in the pub after knocking off time (where the real gossip happens).
My experience of WFH was a manipulative little shit of a manager who used the opportunity to cut me out of the loop and keep vital information from me, something that would have been impossible in a physical environment.
We really must stop this lionisation of the health service and its staff. Many failures and abuses have been made worse by people not wanting to criticise the service - Stafford being a classic and hideous example.
I understood this was originally policy by Blair's government as a way of acclimatising the public to mass immigration (it's a lot more palatable to be importing doctors and nurses than construction workers). However, the simpler explanation is it's just typically poor long term planning from politicians, because they won't spend money on something for which the electoral benefit will arrive long after they retire.
a) Relatively clear
b) Relatively warm (Batteries shouldn't be temperature thottled on charge)
22% charged at the moment. (Of 5.8 kwh)
My app tells me I've saved 115.4Kg of CO2 too since November 25th compared to no panels and no battery too. No christmas card from Greta mind.
The unpalatable problem for the UK population (who worship at the altar of the NHS) is that inefficiency goes back to the core problem of the NHS which is it is a nationalised industry run by vested interests. UK doctors are amongst the highest paid in the world outside the US and yet they have the safest job in the world and they are also able to have a very nice private sideline in addition to their handsome NHS pay and huge pension arrangements. Are they volunteering to have a pay freeze to even up the differential between their pay and those of other health professionals? You bet they are not!
It all comes down to - how could you trust Poo Tin and his chums in any deal?
Personally I would sell* Ukraine nuclear weapons, as a start. But I get the impression you might not like that.
*too right. At a good price, on HP. A great big Union Jack on each and every one.
And growth comes from finding and implementing more productive ways of doing things. That's not always easy for the sort of services we are talking about here. You can't for example, just put another child in every classroom to make the teacher more productive.
And the sort of capital spending that would help (updating computers so that the boot up instantly to give a trivial example) is the kind of thing the public sector is very bad at. We've spent decades favouring recurrent spending on visible things over the sort of investment that costs upfront but more than pays for itself over ten years.
Living and working 24/7 in the same four walls. Twelve hours of staring at spreadsheets, then moving twelve feet into the next room (if you're lucky enough to have a next room) to eat your dinner and watch telly and try to switch off from work. No thanks. For my sanity, I prefer a separation between work space and living space.
Zero camaraderie with the people you're working with. Never finding out about their lives, never making friends, just having the same robotic weekly stand-up where everyone delivers a status update then back to staring at your spreadsheets alone.
I get that a lot of people enjoy WFH. More power to them. I despised every minute of it.
This isn’t terribly surprising. All the highly rated degree courses are over subscribed.
And healthcare is an area where there is a deep, worldwide shortage of personnel that looks likely to persist through our life times. Despite massive increases in training, the increasing standards living in India, China and elsewhere mean that demand for medical staff is increasing faster.
People seem to want there to be one true answer to the question of work from home. It works for you and it works for me, but there will be some times when it doesn't.
I don't see why I should be pointlessly dragged into an office for now good reason.