33 yesterday - which is the lowest first day since March IIIRC
Fantastic.
Weekend effect of course in there - we will really know about Wednesday next week if we are moving to a lower level.
On the "Stay alert message" - I have seen the following a fair bit. People maintain social distance in a queue. Until they get on their phones. Then they drift closer. When they get in a store, perhaps the majority lose any sense of social distancing.
I'll make a prediction, before too long the Wetherspoons chap will announce that his chain is closing with the loss of thousands of jobs and large empty premises in every town. WH Smiths won't be long either.
Then people will begin to realise what is happening.
I'll bet you £20 at evens that doesn't happen if you want to back that up.
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
If you're on Zoom you're not selling.
A friend works in sales at a Tier 1 bank. The management said that they were fried without direct contact.
They have made it work on the basis of we-are-f%^ked-if-we-don't
Probably upset senior management... but hey....
Absolutely. It can be made to work, but the results are not going to be as good. That was pretty much my point. Is that what the government is instructing?
The stay alert slogan has already succeeded in getting peoples' attention and talking about it. The more dissing it gets the more it cuts through. A bit like £350m per week on a bus. Simples really,
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
Surely it is the right that wants free money forever in the shape of government subsidies for their non-functioning businesses.
I think if the government makes a business non functioning it has to provide compensation.
But it's the business itself that would kill people if it were allowed to function, given the existence of the virus. It's all part of profit and risk. You profit some of the time, you lose some of the time. Why should we bail these businesses out just because they [edited] would otherwise operate in an unsafe manner?
I know there are othjer reasons - but the government's closing down a business doesn't count as one, any more than closing down a E. coliu 0157 infected takeaway would justify paying compensation to the takeaway owner.
So you think a business forced to close, through no fault of its own, should not be compensated?
It might very well be good public policy to support a business in the present situation, such as by making loans or grants to it and its employees.
But I struggle to see why the business should inherently be compensated for being unable to operate with the safety of its staff and customers. That seems a fundamental public principle, irrespective of the circumstances of the virus situation.
Mmmmmh, if you close a business you effectively take responsibility for it in the same way as opening a business. Therefore the obligation is upon you to pay all overheads.
That is not happening and will force tens of thousands into insolvency. Expect massive social unrest
Hmm. I think you're omitting an intermediate step - that the virus has made the businesses inoperable, not the government. Their owners plainly cannot be allowed to operate lest they become a public health hazard (and some wouldn't want to).
Yet they are risk-taking profit-making businesses. Why should the public purse compensate them for this risk but not others? Why should the public compensate them if, say, their business burns to the ground? Or there is a slump and there are not enough customers?
I do however wonder if the argument for compensation lies rather in the degree to which the virus's prevalence is itself a consequence of government policy.
Oh yikes I have been running with a mate or two the last few weeks.
Been nice knowing some of you!
May add a bit of competitive spice about who's the frontrunner.
Yes! Lucky enough it was me yesterday as it was a slow time, and the other two think they've both had it (Felt ill & had the symptoms after returning from Skiing in Northern France in early March)
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
If you're on Zoom you're not selling.
A friend works in sales at a Tier 1 bank. The management said that they were fried without direct contact.
They have made it work on the basis of we-are-f%^ked-if-we-don't
I'll make a prediction, before too long the Wetherspoons chap will announce that his chain is closing with the loss of thousands of jobs and large empty premises in every town. WH Smiths won't be long either.
Then people will begin to realise what is happening.
I'll bet you £20 at evens that doesn't happen if you want to back that up.
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
If you're on Zoom you're not selling.
Oh I thought it was like a facetime for your computer? Why cant you all be on that whilst working/on the phone?
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
Indeed. My better half works in finance rather than sales and they use Teams, but the principle is the same.
Much office based working will never be coming back in any event. I would imagine that many, perhaps most, workers who are entirely office based will be WFH the whole time from now on, or getting together once a week, or a fortnight, or a month for team building days, brainstorming sessions and such like.
People will adapt.
Teams is excellent for internal company meetings. We are using it extensively. But you cannot manage a sales force as effectively with it as you can by having them in an office environment. If that is going to change, so be it. My point was that the government could be clearer about it.
This a far better slogan. Cuts across young and old and even Warzone kids will appreciate it.
Yes, but we all know what happened to Hicks.
Not if you rule out everything after aliens as uncanonical bullshit. IRL the three of them live happily ever after.
I'm hoping Johnson staggers out to the lectern tonight, hair a mess (nowt new there), plasma rifle barrel exploded, helmet on backwards and runs around shouting
"That's great. That's just ****ing great, man! Now what the **** are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty shit now man! Game's over man, game's ****ing over! What the **** are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?"
Maybe we could build a campfire, sing a couple of songs, huh?
I'll make a prediction, before too long the Wetherspoons chap will announce that his chain is closing with the loss of thousands of jobs and large empty premises in every town. WH Smiths won't be long either.
Then people will begin to realise what is happening.
The Gov't has some rum choices about pubs in particular. Personally I thought a special form of bankruptcy for the business, perhaps a bit like US chapter 11 would be the only option here.
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
If you're on Zoom you're not selling.
Oh I thought it was like a facetime for your computer? Why cant you all be on that whilst working/on the phone?
You can be, I guess, but it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on. It is all doable, and it is being done now, but it is likely to mean fewer sales. That will have consequences.
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
If you're on Zoom you're not selling.
A friend works in sales at a Tier 1 bank. The management said that they were fried without direct contact.
They have made it work on the basis of we-are-f%^ked-if-we-don't
Probably upset senior management... but hey....
"fried without direct contact." que ?
That without direct contact sales - selling with the client in the room, and the team having direct contact with each other - the management thought they couldn't sell anything.
I'll make a prediction, before too long the Wetherspoons chap will announce that his chain is closing with the loss of thousands of jobs and large empty premises in every town. WH Smiths won't be long either.
Then people will begin to realise what is happening.
I'll bet you £20 at evens that doesn't happen if you want to back that up.
OK what's the deadline?
You said before too long so how about by the end of November? £20 at evens that Witherspoon's doesn't announce permanent closure by the end of November?
However, 'stay at home' has to be changed at some time and frankly 'stay alert' seems to me to be a sensible change in the narrative
Most people will understand that 'staying alert' is very much something they will want to do and in particular on social - distancing and general contact with others
Listening to Mark Drakesford today any differences seem to be in the margins and of course those on here attacking Boris give a free pass to the devolved first ministers who sit alongside Boris in Cobra
Boris and the government have made mistakes and I cannot understand why he has allowed the 'gossip' in the media to continue for so long when he could have addressed the nation days earlier. He needs a new 'comms' team as the present one is abject
Actually we do have an advantage in so far as other countries are now easing their restrictions and their experiences will be useful for us to learn from
I spent most of yesterday in our garden in the beautiful weather and rarely read PB and it was frankly refreshing, especially when I read the polarised comments from a few on here today who seem to be driven by other motives than the one most people crave for; overcoming covid 19
Big_G: the public have shown that they're really good at following clear advice. Stay at home? OK, we'll stay at home. They are understandably less good at following fuzzy advice, and "Stay alert" could mean almost anything It worries me in a non-partisan sense that Boris's natural atyle is to emphasise stirring rhetoric and uplifting banter rather than boring precision. Perhaps he'll surprise me, though.
I agree about the advantage of being late to the party so we can see how others are getting on. But we need to use that advatange to clear good effect.
'Stay at home' isn't so good for those of us who have to go to work.
Whereas staying alert is relevant advice when it comes to keeping distance from other people and touching things.
All of my friends who have gone to work throughout this, including a cleaning friend have been very supportive of the stay home message actually I've found.
Stay Home is fine when you want people to stay home but once large numbers of people are no longer doing that then it loses its relevance.
Ultimately everyone is going to have make their own individual decisions and will have to adapt their actions to their own level of activity.
And to do that in maximum safety they will have to stay alert.
Oh God! Isn't the reason for the change in slogan blindingly obvious?
You can't keep telling people to "Stay [at] Home" if you want them to go back to work!
Most people I know want to keep their employment - Is there a whole slew of people with optional jobs in the country or something ?
There are people who want to get paid but take no risks while being dependent upon other people taking risks.
This is not an entirely unfair point. There are no shortage of people too terrified to go back to work who also think they should be supported by the furlough scheme until this is all over.
There are also no shortage of people who work in non-shuttered sectors - manufacturing, agriculture, grocery retail, the NHS - who are required to keep going out to work all through this.
We must cough up our taxes to keep the rest of the country on life support. It is not unreasonable to ask us to do so, given the circumstances. It is, however, unreasonable to ask us to keep propping up millions of non-workers forever. An effective treatment or a vaccine could be a year away, a decade away, or it might never happen.
The Government's unenviable job is to try to find a balance between the interest of the remaining taxpayers (and the wider economy) and those of the terrified. Inevitably this will involve progressively unshuttering sectors of the economy and reducing support to make it more painful for terrified workers to sit at home indefinitely. This raises all kinds of awkward questions (will the demand exist to prop the re-opened businesses, especially where they need to implement the 2m rule? What happens to employees who have been told to shield?) But what alternative is there?
I think government needs to be a little more proactive than that (as it ought to have been in dealing with the pandemic outbreak). ‘Finding a balance’ is too passive an approach.
There are whole sectors of the economy - retail; leisure; commercial real estate, for example - which will very likely not return in to their pre pandemic state for many years, if ever.
Relying entirely on the market to sort out the post pandemic mess risks leaving commercial wastelands across large areas of the country. Government ought to be thinking about its potential role in jump-starting things. As a small example, we are going to have empty town centres, at the same time as having a nationwide housing shortage (an amped up version of what has been there to some extent for some time). That is an opportunity.
I'll make a prediction, before too long the Wetherspoons chap will announce that his chain is closing with the loss of thousands of jobs and large empty premises in every town. WH Smiths won't be long either.
Then people will begin to realise what is happening.
The Gov't has some rum choices about pubs in particular. Personally I thought a special form of bankruptcy for the business, perhaps a bit like US chapter 11 would be the only option here.
Correct. Brewery chains can survive in some form by selling to supermarkets etc but on a vastly decreased level. Pub cos with zero income are sitting ducks and will fold before the damage is too great.
Anybody think Tim Martin will keep paying rent etc in the hope the pubs reopen next year?
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
If you're on Zoom you're not selling.
Oh I thought it was like a facetime for your computer? Why cant you all be on that whilst working/on the phone?
You can be, I guess, but it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on. It is all doable, and it is being done now, but it is likely to mean fewer sales. That will have consequences.
You know what, I was having this conversation with a mate yesterday. I used to be an odds compiler for a spread betting company, and commuted from Essex to Southwark 4/5 days a week to sit in an office with 30 other blokes and price the weeks games up. I could "bounce ideas" off lots of clever gamblers etc... now I do the same from my home, and communicate with the people involved by phone or skype, and its no different. I cant believe I used to spend 6-7 hours a week commuting back and forth to do it, oir that a company rented an office for me to sit in. Seems like utter madness
The big fucker is no going to the pub after, no office banter, no getting away from the wife and kids.. it is not as much fun, thats why some people dont want to move away from the old way of doing things, I reckon
"it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on".. Yes, you're right, but I think the work can be done as effectively. It has in my case anyway, and lots of other people I know. Put the sales team on a cut of the bounty and they'll work hard
I'll make a prediction, before too long the Wetherspoons chap will announce that his chain is closing with the loss of thousands of jobs and large empty premises in every town. WH Smiths won't be long either.
Then people will begin to realise what is happening.
I'll bet you £20 at evens that doesn't happen if you want to back that up.
OK what's the deadline?
You said before too long so how about by the end of November? £20 at evens that Witherspoon's doesn't announce permanent closure by the end of November?
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
If you're on Zoom you're not selling.
Oh I thought it was like a facetime for your computer? Why cant you all be on that whilst working/on the phone?
You can be, I guess, but it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on. It is all doable, and it is being done now, but it is likely to mean fewer sales. That will have consequences.
You know what, I was having this conversation with a mate yesterday. I used to be an odds compiler for a spread betting company, and commuted from Essex to Southwark 4/5 days a week to sit in an office with 30 other blokes and price the weeks games up. I could "bounce ideas" off lots of clever gamblers etc... now I do the same from my home, and communicate with the people involved by phone or skype, and its no different. I cant believe I used to spend 6-7 hours a week commuting back and forth to do it, oir that a company rented an office for me to sit in. Seems like utter madness
The big fucker is no going to the pub after, no office banter, no getting away from the wife and kids.. it is not as much fun, thats why some people dont want to move away from the old way of doing things, I reckon
"it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on".. Yes, you're right, but I think the work can be done as effectively. It has in my case anyway, and lots of other people I know. Put the sales team on a cut of the bounty and they'll work hard
I would say, that for many people in office jobs, WFH is *sustainable* for a very long period of time.
The question is, what proportion of the workforce does that cover?
It is for that reason that I think the last restriction to be relaxed will be *everyone* returning to the office - not travelling and meeting people ever day probably makes a big dent in the R number.
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
If you're on Zoom you're not selling.
Oh I thought it was like a facetime for your computer? Why cant you all be on that whilst working/on the phone?
You can be, I guess, but it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on. It is all doable, and it is being done now, but it is likely to mean fewer sales. That will have consequences.
You know what, I was having this conversation with a mate yesterday. I used to be an odds compiler for a spread betting company, and commuted from Essex to Southwark 4/5 days a week to sit in an office with 30 other blokes and price the weeks games up. I could "bounce ideas" off lots of clever gamblers etc... now I do the same from my home, and communicate with the people involved by phone or skype, and its no different. I cant believe I used to spend 6-7 hours a week commuting back and forth to do it, oir that a company rented an office for me to sit in. Seems like utter madness
The big fucker is no going to the pub after, no office banter, no getting away from the wife and kids.. it is not as much fun, thats why some people dont want to move away from the old way of doing things, I reckon
"it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on".. Yes, you're right, but I think the work can be done as effectively. It has in my case anyway, and lots of other people I know. Put the sales team on a cut of the bounty and they'll work hard
I had a drink-up with some work colleagues this week.
I learned more in a single night about who's in and who's out, what's really going on within the company, who's doing what, than I have in six weeks of official videoconferences and unofficial zoom "drinks". Information that is absolutely vital to how I do my job. It's not just "banter" it's how stuff gets done.
Why on earth is the government apparently obsessing about slogans rather than actual practical measures?
That's a very silly comment. Communication is extremely important, and getting across key messages has rightly been a focal point of praise and criticism because of that. The stay at home slogan as you call it worked very well reinforced by policy but voluntary compliance was key.
It's also possible to think about a slogan and of other things.
Stay alert is not the greatest effort, as mr meeks notes being alert is not a major issue. I take the point about new message for new phase but I think it could wait.
Practical measures to deal with people in care homes and care home workers are, to my mind, more important than slogans.
Yes they are, but your initial message suggested, without stating why, that they couldn't or were not doing both, and in a way that suggested by doing slogans they could not do the latter, which is not the case. Any failures on practical measures will not be because they were focusing on slogans, it will be because they did not do a good job on practicalities. That's why the comment was so silly and I stand by that. They could do a fantastic or terrible job on slogan messaging and it would not have an impact on the job they were doing on practicalities, which is why anger at a good or bad slogan, which is not without any importance, is seen in that context. Not the absurd idea that a few people sat in Westminster thinking up good or bad slogans affects care home practicalities.
The absolute inevitability of SNP most seats is what drives Tory tactics in focusing on indepdence. What is the point in spending a lot of time developing a better policy on education when there is no chance of being the government? What they are seeking to do is consolidate enough of the Unionist vote to prevent an SNP majority and thus, hopefully, prevent a second referendum (subject to the little green helpers, of course).
Whilst I understand the logic of that it is a mistake. Scotland has not had an actual policy choice since 2007. In that 13 years we have had the truly disastrous Curriculum for Excellence imposed in our schools with the inevitable consequences in our PISA ranking, we have the insane position of still offering free University education to EU citizens at a time when funded places for Scots are being restricted, we have had the shambolic and ongoing embarrassment that is Police Scotland, we have had an ever more centralised and unaccountable concentration of power in the likes of the Care Commission, stripping local government of powers and budget, I really could go on and on. As someone actively interested in politics I genuinely don't know what the Tories or Labour are proposing in relation to these failures. It's not good enough. Scotland needs a proper choice.
Which is part of why I back Scottish independence as the best thing for Scotland.
It is only once the independence issue is over and done with that Scotland can get mature, grown up politics back.
I am British. I would be stripped of my national identity if that were to happen. I will do all I can to stop it.
Good man. I feel the same way.
I am English but love Scotland - I lived there for six years as a child - and feel it's part of our UK.
I would be so upset if it left. It's the emotional connections that mean so much to me.
I feel the opposite, being owned and controlled by England is a disgrace.
You are not. You are fully equal with me in every way.
There's just fewer of you, that's all.
Look, a few hundred million EU citizens are waving at you.
It does make me laugh at how people keep comparing the EU and the UK as if they are exactly the same thing.
Yet another halfwit, they are both voluntary unions. What part of that can you not understand.
What part of “fiscal transfers” do you not understand?
You talking about us giving all our money to London at gunpoint and getting a minimal share back and the rest squandered on their pet projects. Think you will find I know as much about fiscal transfer robbery as your goodself.
I just know I'm going to regret saying this BUT... robbed "at gunpoint"? It makes it sound almost as if you and your fellow Scots have been kidnapped by force and taken hostage or something?
In which case, what were the 55% thinking in 2014? Why didn't they run away screaming when given the chance? Was it a mass outbreak of Stockholm Syndrome?
Seriously, whereas most tax does indeed end up being aggregated centrally, and thus Scotland ends up very largely dependent on a block grant (which I agree is wrong: the failure to devolve tax raising powers to the Scottish Parliament that are commensurate with its responsibilities is one of the two basic flaws in the devolution settlement,) Scotland gets back more from the UK Treasury than it pays in tax. This has been the case for most (though not all) of the period since devolution commenced, even allowing for a geographical share of North Sea revenues.
Given that Scotland has more money spent on it than it raises, what it gets back is obviously not minimal; moreover, there must necessarily be a net flow of capital from cash "squandered on pet projects" (e.g. HS2, which I acknowledge looks increasingly useless given the way the world is now moving) to cash spent on nice things for Scotland, and not the other way around. Returning to 2014 for a moment, that's probably what saved the Union the last time around. It was perfectly obvious to most Scottish taxpayers that they were receiving meaningful support from South of the Border. If Scotland were a sustained net contributor to the UK Treasury, as Catalonia is to Spain, then the Yes campaign would probably have won.
I will now retire to trench with helmet and await verbal hand grenades.
The absolute inevitability of SNP most seats is what drives Tory tactics in focusing on indepdence. What is the point in spending a lot of time developing a better policy on education when there is no chance of being the government? What they are seeking to do is consolidate enough of the Unionist vote to prevent an SNP majority and thus, hopefully, prevent a second referendum (subject to the little green helpers, of course).
Whilst I understand the logic of that it is a mistake. Scotland has not had an actual policy choice since 2007. In that 13 years we have had the truly disastrous Curriculum for Excellence imposed in our schools with the inevitable consequences in our PISA ranking, we have the insane position of still offering free University education to EU citizens at a time when funded places for Scots are being restricted, we have had the shambolic and ongoing embarrassment that is Police Scotland, we have had an ever more centralised and unaccountable concentration of power in the likes of the Care Commission, stripping local government of powers and budget, I really could go on and on. As someone actively interested in politics I genuinely don't know what the Tories or Labour are proposing in relation to these failures. It's not good enough. Scotland needs a proper choice.
Which is part of why I back Scottish independence as the best thing for Scotland.
It is only once the independence issue is over and done with that Scotland can get mature, grown up politics back.
I am British. I would be stripped of my national identity if that were to happen. I will do all I can to stop it.
Good man. I feel the same way.
I am English but love Scotland - I lived there for six years as a child - and feel it's part of our UK.
I would be so upset if it left. It's the emotional connections that mean so much to me.
I feel the opposite, being owned and controlled by England is a disgrace.
You are not. You are fully equal with me in every way.
There's just fewer of you, that's all.
Look, a few hundred million EU citizens are waving at you.
It does make me laugh at how people keep comparing the EU and the UK as if they are exactly the same thing.
Yet another halfwit, they are both voluntary unions. What part of that can you not understand.
What part of “fiscal transfers” do you not understand?
You talking about us giving all our money to London at gunpoint and getting a minimal share back and the rest squandered on their pet projects. Think you will find I know as much about fiscal transfer robbery as your goodself.
I just know I'm going to regret saying this BUT... robbed "at gunpoint"? It makes it sound almost as if you and your fellow Scots have been kidnapped by force and taken hostage or something?
In which case, what were the 55% thinking in 2014? Why didn't they run away screaming when given the chance? Was it a mass outbreak of Stockholm Syndrome?
Seriously, whereas most tax does indeed end up being aggregated centrally, and thus Scotland ends up very largely dependent on a block grant (which I agree is wrong: the failure to devolve tax raising powers to the Scottish Parliament that are commensurate with its responsibilities is one of the two basic flaws in the devolution settlement,) Scotland gets back more from the UK Treasury than it pays in tax. This has been the case for most (though not all) of the period since devolution commenced, even allowing for a geographical share of North Sea revenues.
Given that Scotland has more money spent on it than it raises, what it gets back is obviously not minimal; moreover, there must necessarily be a net flow of capital from cash "squandered on pet projects" (e.g. HS2, which I acknowledge looks increasingly useless given the way the world is now moving) to cash spent on nice things for Scotland, and not the other way around. Returning to 2014 for a moment, that's probably what saved the Union the last time around. It was perfectly obvious to most Scottish taxpayers that they were receiving meaningful support from South of the Border. If Scotland were a sustained net contributor to the UK Treasury, as Catalonia is to Spain, then the Yes campaign would probably have won.
I will now retire to trench with helmet and await verbal hand grenades.
The stay alert slogan has already succeeded in getting peoples' attention and talking about it. The more dissing it gets the more it cuts through. A bit like £350m per week on a bus. Simples really,
With all due respect replacing 'stay at home' with 'stay alert' is not another example of Boris' genius, unless vague and open to interpretation in any way one wishes was the expectation.
Our freedom from lockdown has not been earned by our compliance and changing advice from Sage, rather Boris' hands have been tied by Thursday's red tops. It's the Sun wot won it.
Anyway, as Boris will effectively allow us all out to go and explore our local nature reserves as of this week, I will wind up the Moth du Jour feature that has otherwise kept you all sane and civilised. Good luck to any who have been inspired to get a moth trap and have a go themselves.
Moth du Jour: Swallow-tailed Moth Ourapteryx sambucaria
A moth of warm summer evenings, when it can appear in numbers. Beautiful when freshly emerged, they do have a tendency to get a bit tatty. So enjoy this pristine, fresh out the box example. Moth du Jour signing off....until the second wave.
And what about those of us unable to go out. Do we also lose our Moth du Jour?
Perhaps you could take over with a Lakeland moth report ?
A Lakeland sheep report, more like. In the last few days I have had to rescue one lamb from being stuck in a cattle grid and another from the side of the road which then died in front of me of viral pneumonia and chase a couple of lost sheep back into their fields. Plus fend off a herd of over-friendly bullocks.
I did see a kestrel in the sky the other day.
Pictures of the surrounding hills are probably my best offering.
Anyway, as Boris will effectively allow us all out to go and explore our local nature reserves as of this week, I will wind up the Moth du Jour feature that has otherwise kept you all sane and civilised. Good luck to any who have been inspired to get a moth trap and have a go themselves.
Moth du Jour: Swallow-tailed Moth Ourapteryx sambucaria
A moth of warm summer evenings, when it can appear in numbers. Beautiful when freshly emerged, they do have a tendency to get a bit tatty. So enjoy this pristine, fresh out the box example. Moth du Jour signing off....until the second wave.
And what about those of us unable to go out. Do we also lose our Moth du Jour?
Perhaps you could take over with a Lakeland moth report ?
A Lakeland sheep report, more like. In the last few days I have had to rescue one lamb from being stuck in a cattle grid and another from the side of the road which then died in front of me of viral pneumonia and chase a couple of lost sheep back into their fields. Plus fend off a herd of over-friendly bullocks.
I did see a kestrel in the sky the other day.
Pictures of the surrounding hills are probably my best offering.
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
If you're on Zoom you're not selling.
Oh I thought it was like a facetime for your computer? Why cant you all be on that whilst working/on the phone?
You can be, I guess, but it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on. It is all doable, and it is being done now, but it is likely to mean fewer sales. That will have consequences.
You know what, I was having this conversation with a mate yesterday. I used to be an odds compiler for a spread betting company, and commuted from Essex to Southwark 4/5 days a week to sit in an office with 30 other blokes and price the weeks games up. I could "bounce ideas" off lots of clever gamblers etc... now I do the same from my home, and communicate with the people involved by phone or skype, and its no different. I cant believe I used to spend 6-7 hours a week commuting back and forth to do it, oir that a company rented an office for me to sit in. Seems like utter madness
The big fucker is no going to the pub after, no office banter, no getting away from the wife and kids.. it is not as much fun, thats why some people dont want to move away from the old way of doing things, I reckon
"it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on".. Yes, you're right, but I think the work can be done as effectively. It has in my case anyway, and lots of other people I know. Put the sales team on a cut of the bounty and they'll work hard
I had a drink-up with some work colleagues this week.
I learned more in a single night about who's in and who's out, what's really going on within the company, who's doing what, than I have in six weeks of official videoconferences and unofficial zoom "drinks". Information that is absolutely vital to how I do my job. It's not just "banter" it's how stuff gets done.
I guess meet once a week for a drink could be the answer
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
If you're on Zoom you're not selling.
Oh I thought it was like a facetime for your computer? Why cant you all be on that whilst working/on the phone?
You can be, I guess, but it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on. It is all doable, and it is being done now, but it is likely to mean fewer sales. That will have consequences.
You know what, I was having this conversation with a mate yesterday. I used to be an odds compiler for a spread betting company, and commuted from Essex to Southwark 4/5 days a week to sit in an office with 30 other blokes and price the weeks games up. I could "bounce ideas" off lots of clever gamblers etc... now I do the same from my home, and communicate with the people involved by phone or skype, and its no different. I cant believe I used to spend 6-7 hours a week commuting back and forth to do it, oir that a company rented an office for me to sit in. Seems like utter madness
The big fucker is no going to the pub after, no office banter, no getting away from the wife and kids.. it is not as much fun, thats why some people dont want to move away from the old way of doing things, I reckon
"it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on".. Yes, you're right, but I think the work can be done as effectively. It has in my case anyway, and lots of other people I know. Put the sales team on a cut of the bounty and they'll work hard
Sales teams are all on commission anyway. I am glad it's all worked out for you, but our sales people are pretty desperate to get back to the office and that's where our FD wants them, too. It's not clear whether it's allowed.
NHS England, 7 day average trend line. Usual caveats about weekends and last few days of data
The bar chart is pretty smooth, so why do you display a lagging moving average weirdly floating above the daily figures?
That's the way that Excel kicks out a 7 day trendline.
I am autogenerating a spreadsheet from the scraped data *and* autogenerating the chart using Apache POI.
Was going to fiddle with another way of generating the charts, but got pulled into other things.
The trendline is a moving average of the previous week, so what is it doing? It is hardly worth smoothing data that are already quite smooth in their raw state, and the weird floating above the bars just reflects the fact that when there is a downward trend the lagged average will be bigger than the most recent values. Sorry to be negative, but I think the raw data speak for themselves.
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
Surely it is the right that wants free money forever in the shape of government subsidies for their non-functioning businesses.
I think if the government makes a business non functioning it has to provide compensation.
But it's the business itself that would kill people if it were allowed to function, given the existence of the virus. It's all part of profit and risk. You profit some of the time, you lose some of the time. Why should we bail these businesses out just because they [edited] would otherwise operate in an unsafe manner?
I know there are othjer reasons - but the government's closing down a business doesn't count as one, any more than closing down a E. coliu 0157 infected takeaway would justify paying compensation to the takeaway owner.
A nonsense comparison. A takeaway which is infected is at fault. It is only temporarily shut down and can remedy the situation. A restaurant which cannot operate because of this virus is not at fault. It is closed because of a government decision. It should either be supported until it can. Or compensated so that those running and working in it can use the compensation to do something else that is legal and viable.
If you close whole sectors of the economy without some form of compensation, expect a major depression, social unrest and never again to win an election in your newly won seats.
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
Surely it is the right that wants free money forever in the shape of government subsidies for their non-functioning businesses.
I think if the government makes a business non functioning it has to provide compensation.
But it's the business itself that would kill people if it were allowed to function, given the existence of the virus. It's all part of profit and risk. You profit some of the time, you lose some of the time. Why should we bail these businesses out just because they [edited] would otherwise operate in an unsafe manner?
I know there are othjer reasons - but the government's closing down a business doesn't count as one, any more than closing down a E. coliu 0157 infected takeaway would justify paying compensation to the takeaway owner.
So you think a business forced to close, through no fault of its own, should not be compensated?
It might very well be good public policy to support a business in the present situation, such as by making loans or grants to it and its employees.
But I struggle to see why the business should inherently be compensated for being unable to operate with the safety of its staff and customers. That seems a fundamental public principle, irrespective of the circumstances of the virus situation.
Mmmmmh, if you close a business you effectively take responsibility for it in the same way as opening a business. Therefore the obligation is upon you to pay all overheads.
That is not happening and will force tens of thousands into insolvency. Expect massive social unrest
Hmm. I think you're omitting an intermediate step - that the virus has made the businesses inoperable, not the government. Their owners plainly cannot be allowed to operate lest they become a public health hazard (and some wouldn't want to).
Yet they are risk-taking profit-making businesses. Why should the public purse compensate them for this risk but not others? Why should the public compensate them if, say, their business burns to the ground? Or there is a slump and there are not enough customers?
I do however wonder if the argument for compensation lies rather in the degree to which the virus's prevalence is itself a consequence of government policy.
The reason why this risk should be paid for by the government - and not others - is because other risks, such as the risk of fire, can be insured against. This one can’t.
Short list of countries where the virus is a left/right issue: UK, USA, Brazil, Spain. The left wants free money forever, the right wants workers to take a risk. Anyone who can add to this list is welcome, especially examples where it goes in the opposite direction!
For all the Gov'ts faults the work advice here is a happy(ish) medium ground. Head to work unless you can work from home, in which case do. If your work is prohibited by law (For public health reasons e.g. a cinema worker) obviously you can't and that's what the furlough scheme is for.
I am not sure that's right. A lot of people "can" work from home, but would probably do it a lot more productively in an office environment. Sales people, for example, are not typically lone wolves, but part of a team in which individuals bounce off each other and managers closely and constantly monitor what is going on. That is all doable from home, but it is much, much tougher. So what does a business that relies on its sales teans to generate the cash it needs to keep paying the salaries and the bills do with the latest government advice?
Tell the sales team about Zoom?
Indeed. My better half works in finance rather than sales and they use Teams, but the principle is the same.
Much office based working will never be coming back in any event. I would imagine that many, perhaps most, workers who are entirely office based will be WFH the whole time from now on, or getting together once a week, or a fortnight, or a month for team building days, brainstorming sessions and such like.
People will adapt.
Teams is excellent for internal company meetings. We are using it extensively. But you cannot manage a sales force as effectively with it as you can by having them in an office environment. If that is going to change, so be it. My point was that the government could be clearer about it.
Sorry, I didn't read back through the entire thread so was talking a little at cross-purposes. I was thinking about both how we cope as best we can for the time being, and how businesses are likely to want to work in the future (which, when this is all over, will be more a commercial matter for them than it will be an issue for Government.)
Even in those cases where there is thought to be some commercial value to gathering employees together in an office the whole time, this may very well be outweighed by the disadvantages. Offices cost a fortune to lease and to maintain, and it commonly costs a fortune (and a whole load of time and stress) for employees to commute to them as well. Which means that businesses that insist on full-time office-based working may find that they have to pay a premium over and above the rest of the market to attract the staff that they want. After all, if you're an experienced salesperson in a specialist sector, looking at two potential employers who are both offering to pay you £45,000pa, then which job are you going to go for - the WFH position, or the one that requires you to haul out of bed at the crack of dawn and spend a fifth of your waking hours going back and forth on shitty trains, and cough up £5,000 for a season ticket for the privilege?
When my husband stopped working in London and started working a five-minute walk away it had a transformative effect upon his health and our household finances, even though the new job paid a bit less than the previous one. Millions of other commuters will have been discovering similar benefits for themselves since March.
At the end of all this, I see no reason why any business should want to make people who can work from home come into an office full-time unless it is absolutely essential that they should do so. Commuting is basically a dirty, unhealthy, bad habit like smoking - and the lockdown has been the equivalent of chaining all the smokers to their radiators for months on end so that they're forced to go cold turkey. Bad habits can be very hard to shift, but once they're broken people don't typically want to take them up again.
NHS England, 7 day average trend line. Usual caveats about weekends and last few days of data
The bar chart is pretty smooth, so why do you display a lagging moving average weirdly floating above the daily figures?
That's the way that Excel kicks out a 7 day trendline.
I am autogenerating a spreadsheet from the scraped data *and* autogenerating the chart using Apache POI.
Was going to fiddle with another way of generating the charts, but got pulled into other things.
The trendline is a moving average of the previous week, so what is it doing? It is hardly worth smoothing data that are already quite smooth in their raw state, and the weird floating above the bars just reflects the fact that when there is a downward trend the lagged average will be bigger than the most recent values. Sorry to be negative, but I think the raw data speak for themselves.
No, the trend line consistently floating above the data tells us something useful.
The absolute inevitability of SNP most seats is what drives Tory tactics in focusing on indepdence. What is the point in spending a lot of time developing a better policy on education when there is no chance of being the government? What they are seeking to do is consolidate enough of the Unionist vote to prevent an SNP majority and thus, hopefully, prevent a second referendum (subject to the little green helpers, of course).
Whilst I understand the logic of that it is a mistake. Scotland has not had an actual policy choice since 2007. In that 13 years we have had the truly disastrous Curriculum for Excellence imposed in our schools with the inevitable consequences in our PISA ranking, we have the insane position of still offering free University education to EU citizens at a time when funded places for Scots are being restricted, we have had the shambolic and ongoing embarrassment that is Police Scotland, we have had an ever more centralised and unaccountable concentration of power in the likes of the Care Commission, stripping local government of powers and budget, I really could go on and on. As someone actively interested in politics I genuinely don't know what the Tories or Labour are proposing in relation to these failures. It's not good enough. Scotland needs a proper choice.
Which is part of why I back Scottish independence as the best thing for Scotland.
It is only once the independence issue is over and done with that Scotland can get mature, grown up politics back.
I am British. I would be stripped of my national identity if that were to happen. I will do all I can to stop it.
Good man. I feel the same way.
I am English but love Scotland - I lived there for six years as a child - and feel it's part of our UK.
I would be so upset if it left. It's the emotional connections that mean so much to me.
I feel the opposite, being owned and controlled by England is a disgrace.
You are not. You are fully equal with me in every way.
There's just fewer of you, that's all.
Look, a few hundred million EU citizens are waving at you.
It does make me laugh at how people keep comparing the EU and the UK as if they are exactly the same thing.
Yet another halfwit, they are both voluntary unions. What part of that can you not understand.
What part of “fiscal transfers” do you not understand?
It's reflexive, not personal.
I just ignore him.
Casino , very glad you see it is not a personal attack, rather a criticism of your view, I accept that as well and do not take anything as a personal attack or think that everyone will agree with my viewpoint but I will of course give my opinion vociferously.
When has the nerdier option won in recent British elections?
1997 Blair vs Major - Nerd lost 2001 Blair vs Hague - Nerd lost 2005 Blair vs Howard - Nerd lost 2010 Brown vs Cameron - Nerd lost 2015 Cameron vs Miliband - Nerd lost 2016 EU Ref Cameron & Osborne vs Boris & Farage - Nerds lost 2017 May vs Corbyn - Nerd won narrowly after polls gave unassailable lead 2019 Boris vs Corbyn - Nerd lost 2024 Boris vs Starmer...
I guess Labour need it to be AN Other vs Starmer. Rishi has had a lot more tv exposure than Sir Keir though.
Charisma is wot wins it
Major v Kinnock 1992, Major was the last nerd to win a majority, Kinnock had more charisma.
Heath was also more of a nerd than Wilson and won in 1970.
In the US Bush Snr in 1988 and Nixon in 1968 and 1972 were also nerds who won, Obama was also more of a nerd than McCain in 2008
The absolute inevitability of SNP most seats is what drives Tory tactics in focusing on indepdence. What is the point in spending a lot of time developing a better policy on education when there is no chance of being the government? What they are seeking to do is consolidate enough of the Unionist vote to prevent an SNP majority and thus, hopefully, prevent a second referendum (subject to the little green helpers, of course).
Whilst I understand the logic of that it is a mistake. Scotland has not had an actual policy choice since 2007. In that 13 years we have had the truly disastrous Curriculum for Excellence imposed in our schools with the inevitable consequences in our PISA ranking, we have the insane position of still offering free University education to EU citizens at a time when funded places for Scots are being restricted, we have had the shambolic and ongoing embarrassment that is Police Scotland, we have had an ever more centralised and unaccountable concentration of power in the likes of the Care Commission, stripping local government of powers and budget, I really could go on and on. As someone actively interested in politics I genuinely don't know what the Tories or Labour are proposing in relation to these failures. It's not good enough. Scotland needs a proper choice.
Which is part of why I back Scottish independence as the best thing for Scotland.
It is only once the independence issue is over and done with that Scotland can get mature, grown up politics back.
I am British. I would be stripped of my national identity if that were to happen. I will do all I can to stop it.
Good man. I feel the same way.
I am English but love Scotland - I lived there for six years as a child - and feel it's part of our UK.
I would be so upset if it left. It's the emotional connections that mean so much to me.
I feel the opposite, being owned and controlled by England is a disgrace.
You are not. You are fully equal with me in every way.
There's just fewer of you, that's all.
Look, a few hundred million EU citizens are waving at you.
It does make me laugh at how people keep comparing the EU and the UK as if they are exactly the same thing.
Yet another halfwit, they are both voluntary unions. What part of that can you not understand.
What part of “fiscal transfers” do you not understand?
You talking about us giving all our money to London at gunpoint and getting a minimal share back and the rest squandered on their pet projects. Think you will find I know as much about fiscal transfer robbery as your goodself.
I just know I'm going to regret saying this BUT... robbed "at gunpoint"? It makes it sound almost as if you and your fellow Scots have been kidnapped by force and taken hostage or something?
In which case, what were the 55% thinking in 2014? Why didn't they run away screaming when given the chance? Was it a mass outbreak of Stockholm Syndrome?
Seriously, whereas most tax does indeed end up being aggregated centrally, and thus Scotland ends up very largely dependent on a block grant (which I agree is wrong: the failure to devolve tax raising powers to the Scottish Parliament that are commensurate with its responsibilities is one of the two basic flaws in the devolution settlement,) Scotland gets back more from the UK Treasury than it pays in tax. This has been the case for most (though not all) of the period since devolution commenced, even allowing for a geographical share of North Sea revenues.
Given that Scotland has more money spent on it than it raises, what it gets back is obviously not minimal; moreover, there must necessarily be a net flow of capital from cash "squandered on pet projects" (e.g. HS2, which I acknowledge looks increasingly useless given the way the world is now moving) to cash spent on nice things for Scotland, and not the other way around. Returning to 2014 for a moment, that's probably what saved the Union the last time around. It was perfectly obvious to most Scottish taxpayers that they were receiving meaningful support from South of the Border. If Scotland were a sustained net contributor to the UK Treasury, as Catalonia is to Spain, then the Yes campaign would probably have won.
I will now retire to trench with helmet and await verbal hand grenades.
Not at all , a good post but some inaccuracies there. As you say it is far from optimal for Scotland as policy and spending is mainly decided by England and English priorities, these are not suitable for a small country. You are wrong in that Scotland if you look back 30 - 40 years is a NET contributer to UK, last numbers I saw were £68B and even if supposedly in deficit last couple of years we are still in the green for contributing. You should also know we pay a share of HS2 as they claim it benefits Scotland but as a special project they don't add it to Barnett, which is common, whereas with Forth bridge they refused to contribute at all. The NO vote was down to over 65's and people not born in Scotland, indigenous people were in favour and vote was swung by people from outwith Scotland, lots from EU as scared to be out and many English naturally but far from all. Still if the cowardly pensioners had any backbone it would still have been won. Young people are very in favour of independence, Europeans realise what a balls they made and some more English will realise they really don't want to be under the Tories so next time, good few of the old pensioners will be gone and so next time the result is going to be very different. Hence Tories stalling but it is only a matter of time. @Black_Rook
Comments
On the "Stay alert message" - I have seen the following a fair bit. People maintain social distance in a queue. Until they get on their phones. Then they drift closer. When they get in a store, perhaps the majority lose any sense of social distancing.
Yet they are risk-taking profit-making businesses. Why should the public purse compensate them for this risk but not others? Why should the public compensate them if, say, their business burns to the ground? Or there is a slump and there are not enough customers?
I do however wonder if the argument for compensation lies rather in the degree to which the virus's prevalence is itself a consequence of government policy.
All about the sentry guns.
Turns out they were wrong.
There are whole sectors of the economy - retail; leisure; commercial real estate, for example - which will very likely not return in to their pre pandemic state for many years, if ever.
Relying entirely on the market to sort out the post pandemic mess risks leaving commercial wastelands across large areas of the country. Government ought to be thinking about its potential role in jump-starting things.
As a small example, we are going to have empty town centres, at the same time as having a nationwide housing shortage (an amped up version of what has been there to some extent for some time). That is an opportunity.
Anybody think Tim Martin will keep paying rent etc in the hope the pubs reopen next year?
No chance
The big fucker is no going to the pub after, no office banter, no getting away from the wife and kids.. it is not as much fun, thats why some people dont want to move away from the old way of doing things, I reckon
"it is not the same as being with your colleagues, hearing their calls in the background, having the manager walk the room and so on".. Yes, you're right, but I think the work can be done as effectively. It has in my case anyway, and lots of other people I know. Put the sales team on a cut of the bounty and they'll work hard
The question is, what proportion of the workforce does that cover?
It is for that reason that I think the last restriction to be relaxed will be *everyone* returning to the office - not travelling and meeting people ever day probably makes a big dent in the R number.
I am autogenerating a spreadsheet from the scraped data *and* autogenerating the chart using Apache POI.
Was going to fiddle with another way of generating the charts, but got pulled into other things.
On a descent like this, the averaging trendline is going to be "above" the numbers, anyway.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a conga on a rope down Britain's roads - forever.
I learned more in a single night about who's in and who's out, what's really going on within the company, who's doing what, than I have in six weeks of official videoconferences and unofficial zoom "drinks". Information that is absolutely vital to how I do my job. It's not just "banter" it's how stuff gets done.
In which case, what were the 55% thinking in 2014? Why didn't they run away screaming when given the chance? Was it a mass outbreak of Stockholm Syndrome?
Seriously, whereas most tax does indeed end up being aggregated centrally, and thus Scotland ends up very largely dependent on a block grant (which I agree is wrong: the failure to devolve tax raising powers to the Scottish Parliament that are commensurate with its responsibilities is one of the two basic flaws in the devolution settlement,) Scotland gets back more from the UK Treasury than it pays in tax. This has been the case for most (though not all) of the period since devolution commenced, even allowing for a geographical share of North Sea revenues.
Given that Scotland has more money spent on it than it raises, what it gets back is obviously not minimal; moreover, there must necessarily be a net flow of capital from cash "squandered on pet projects" (e.g. HS2, which I acknowledge looks increasingly useless given the way the world is now moving) to cash spent on nice things for Scotland, and not the other way around. Returning to 2014 for a moment, that's probably what saved the Union the last time around. It was perfectly obvious to most Scottish taxpayers that they were receiving meaningful support from South of the Border. If Scotland were a sustained net contributor to the UK Treasury, as Catalonia is to Spain, then the Yes campaign would probably have won.
I will now retire to trench with helmet and await verbal hand grenades.
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Our freedom from lockdown has not been earned by our compliance and changing advice from Sage, rather Boris' hands have been tied by Thursday's red tops. It's the Sun wot won it.
I did see a kestrel in the sky the other day.
Pictures of the surrounding hills are probably my best offering.
If you close whole sectors of the economy without some form of compensation, expect a major depression, social unrest and never again to win an election in your newly won seats.
Even in those cases where there is thought to be some commercial value to gathering employees together in an office the whole time, this may very well be outweighed by the disadvantages. Offices cost a fortune to lease and to maintain, and it commonly costs a fortune (and a whole load of time and stress) for employees to commute to them as well. Which means that businesses that insist on full-time office-based working may find that they have to pay a premium over and above the rest of the market to attract the staff that they want. After all, if you're an experienced salesperson in a specialist sector, looking at two potential employers who are both offering to pay you £45,000pa, then which job are you going to go for - the WFH position, or the one that requires you to haul out of bed at the crack of dawn and spend a fifth of your waking hours going back and forth on shitty trains, and cough up £5,000 for a season ticket for the privilege?
When my husband stopped working in London and started working a five-minute walk away it had a transformative effect upon his health and our household finances, even though the new job paid a bit less than the previous one. Millions of other commuters will have been discovering similar benefits for themselves since March.
At the end of all this, I see no reason why any business should want to make people who can work from home come into an office full-time unless it is absolutely essential that they should do so. Commuting is basically a dirty, unhealthy, bad habit like smoking - and the lockdown has been the equivalent of chaining all the smokers to their radiators for months on end so that they're forced to go cold turkey. Bad habits can be very hard to shift, but once they're broken people don't typically want to take them up again.
Heath was also more of a nerd than Wilson and won in 1970.
In the US Bush Snr in 1988 and Nixon in 1968 and 1972 were also nerds who won, Obama was also more of a nerd than McCain in 2008
The NO vote was down to over 65's and people not born in Scotland, indigenous people were in favour and vote was swung by people from outwith Scotland, lots from EU as scared to be out and many English naturally but far from all. Still if the cowardly pensioners had any backbone it would still have been won.
Young people are very in favour of independence, Europeans realise what a balls they made and some more English will realise they really don't want to be under the Tories so next time, good few of the old pensioners will be gone and so next time the result is going to be very different. Hence Tories stalling but it is only a matter of time.
@Black_Rook