On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
Indeed. After the last recession, increasing demand was met with immigration of relatively low-skilled employees, instead of being met with increasing wages and investment in technology as one might expect.
Hence the dire productivity figures, and the disenchantment in many working-class communities that led to the Brexit vote.
But if we don't have large numbers of people to pay sub-minimum wage, in dangerous working condition, how can we survive as a country?
I mean what you are suggesting would require investment, management skill...
The man who hitched his career to Brexit, hops to quench the desire for Indy by executive fiat...
Fucking idiot.
It's not idiotic at all it's only logical and if you can't see it then you're an idiot.
Issues that were not devolved pre Brexit by and large will be issues that can't be devolved post Brexit.
How is the UK government for instance supposed to agree a trade deal with LPF for State Aid with the EU if the State Aid issue has been devolved to Holyrood?
Don't be an idiot. These issues are not issues for devolution which is why they weren't devolved within the EU either.
If Holyrood wants control of these issues then they only way to achieve that would be to become independent but NOT join the EU.
It's a power grab to get round the problem that a UK-wide Brexit is incompatible with the domestic constitutional settlement.
How is it a power grab when they didn't have the power in the first place?
The idea that Scotland or any other part of the UK could introduce policies that are incompatible with the UK negotiating international trade agreements just might set a new peak for the hysteria surrounding Brexit. In reality I expect that we will agree some LPF provisions with the EU as part of our FTA with them which will make this academic.
"Can you help us? We've left the European Union by mistake."
Weren’t we told nothing would change? If this comes to pass it will give second home owners with houses in the EU problems with nipping back and forth with the dog and relying on the EHIC card. No idea what annual travel,insurance for a 60+ With blood pressure and diabetes is going to cost coupled with mobile calls back home.
No we weren't told nothing would change. Don't make up nonsense.
We were told all our existing rights such as EHIC and pet passports would not change as we held all the cards and the EU would let us keep these benefits. Telling people they would lose them was deemed project fear. Now they may still negotiate the status quo but it’s looking increasingly unlikely.
[Citation Needed]
You know as well as I do that we were told little would change in terms of rights I’m not going to trawl five years ago to find specific examples. I clearly remember being called a doom monger and liar for suggesting things like the EHIC would disappear by ardent leavers.
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
It is jobs that will emigrate because remote workers can work remotely from Romania or any other country you care to name.
Many white-collar jobs still require work in teams, and I can see companies saving office space by having teams only work in the office a few days per month, which still allows the social and networking aspect of everyone knowing each other in person that doesn't occur with purely remote teams.
People will move further from their offices though, depending on how much time they need to spend there, and yes some will choose to live in another country but still work in the same place as before.
Jobs that can be exported, mostly have been already. With varying results, as any bank who sent their call centre of software dev teams to India will tell you. The trend there is bringing the jobs back to the UK.
I keep banging on about this.
It's not the wages that are important.
It's the productivity cost - how much you pay to get x amount of work done.
At one company I worked at, they did a formal evaluation of software development across various countries they had centres in. Bulgaria and London were tied in first place as the cheapest - by results. India was the most expensive.
This is because productivity is a function of the following
1) Cultural infrastructure 2) Legal " 3) Financial " 4) Industrial " 5) Educational " 6) Social Services " 7) Medical "
etc.
The skill of the individual is a part of the equation - but may not even be the majority of the answer.
The strange thing I find is that you get people on the Left arguing against the above - "All jobs will go to low cost x"
It's strange, since the above is an argument that the NHS (for example) is a benefit to productivity - and hence competativeness.
While productivity may be the most useful measures its a far too theoretical and lagging measure for most decision makers..
Who will look at wages and decide what to do as actual implementation and delivery is not their issue, that's a problem for the people beneath them...
"Can you help us? We've left the European Union by mistake."
Weren’t we told nothing would change? If this comes to pass it will give second home owners with houses in the EU problems with nipping back and forth with the dog and relying on the EHIC card. No idea what annual travel,insurance for a 60+ With blood pressure and diabetes is going to cost coupled with mobile calls back home.
No we weren't told nothing would change. Don't make up nonsense.
We were told all our existing rights such as EHIC and pet passports would not change as we held all the cards and the EU would let us keep these benefits. Telling people they would lose them was deemed project fear. Now they may still negotiate the status quo but it’s looking increasingly unlikely.
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
Indeed. After the last recession, increasing demand was met with immigration of relatively low-skilled employees, instead of being met with increasing wages and investment in technology as one might expect.
Hence the dire productivity figures, and the disenchantment in many working-class communities that led to the Brexit vote.
Except there is no real evidence that immigration was the reason for weak per capita GDP growth in the wake of the GFC. UK per capita growth followed basically the same path to that in the euro area and the US. There is plenty of international evidence that recoveries from recessions associated with financial crises are weaker than average. The genius of the Leave campaign was to identify a scapegoat that was easier for their target electorate to understand. In fact, the only period where the UK growth performance looks unusually weak in an international comparison is post-2016.
How depressing to wake up to more Brexit bullshit from this government. So incompetent it couldn’t even maintain the EHIC card. We’re in for a tough ride.
As much as you complain we are leaving the EU and many things will change
However, maybe the UK and EU need to stop dancing around each other and start compromising before it is too late
I may not have voted for this nonsense, but why do the government have to make such a pigs ear of it?
It takes two to tango and the EU are not blameless
Since we asked to leave the responsibility to get this right is ours. The buck stops at number 10.
I’m getting old. I remember when Conservatives claimed to value taking responsibility for the decisions we make.
The conservative party will face re-election and the public can then vote them out if they are unhappy
What does one do if the Conservative party hasn't been voted in for 75 years in one's country? Send them a stiff letter complaining about their lying and incompetence?
"Can you help us? We've left the European Union by mistake."
Weren’t we told nothing would change? If this comes to pass it will give second home owners with houses in the EU problems with nipping back and forth with the dog and relying on the EHIC card. No idea what annual travel,insurance for a 60+ With blood pressure and diabetes is going to cost coupled with mobile calls back home.
No we weren't told nothing would change. Don't make up nonsense.
We were told all our existing rights such as EHIC and pet passports would not change as we held all the cards and the EU would let us keep these benefits. Telling people they would lose them was deemed project fear. Now they may still negotiate the status quo but it’s looking increasingly unlikely.
"Can you help us? We've left the European Union by mistake."
Weren’t we told nothing would change? If this comes to pass it will give second home owners with houses in the EU problems with nipping back and forth with the dog and relying on the EHIC card. No idea what annual travel,insurance for a 60+ With blood pressure and diabetes is going to cost coupled with mobile calls back home.
No we weren't told nothing would change. Don't make up nonsense.
We were told all our existing rights such as EHIC and pet passports would not change as we held all the cards and the EU would let us keep these benefits. Telling people they would lose them was deemed project fear. Now they may still negotiate the status quo but it’s looking increasingly unlikely.
[Citation Needed]
You know as well as I do that we were told little would change in terms of rights I’m not going to trawl five years ago to find specific examples. I clearly remember being called a doom monger and liar for suggesting things like the EHIC would disappear by ardent leavers.
No I don't know that and we were told time and time again more times than I can count by Remainers that this would happen. And its not for Leavers to make the arguments against leaving, it was for Remainers to do so and as you said you did. And you lost anyway. So sorry, but the public made an informed decision to risk losing EHIC and any other nonsense that your side warned about. And if your side didn't warn about something and it happens then that is your fault too.
The public were warned about "Project Fear" and chose to vote leave anyway. Whatever happens from Project Fear now - and whatever doesn't - it was priced in the moment we voted to leave.
"Can you help us? We've left the European Union by mistake."
Weren’t we told nothing would change? If this comes to pass it will give second home owners with houses in the EU problems with nipping back and forth with the dog and relying on the EHIC card. No idea what annual travel,insurance for a 60+ With blood pressure and diabetes is going to cost coupled with mobile calls back home.
No we weren't told nothing would change. Don't make up nonsense.
We were told all our existing rights such as EHIC and pet passports would not change as we held all the cards and the EU would let us keep these benefits. Telling people they would lose them was deemed project fear. Now they may still negotiate the status quo but it’s looking increasingly unlikely.
"Outrageous scaremongering" was the term used. Vote Leave simultaneously implied Brexit would stop foreigners abusing our hospitals under the EHIC scheme, while, of course we would still have EHIC access for our own heathcare needs when in other EU countries.
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
Yes, much like 9/11 killed the old WeAlwaysFlyBAFullPrice culture.
A major issue for home working is that many people do not live in suitable accommodation. Do you want the person answering the phone to sort out your banking issues to bring up your bank details in the middle of a house in multiple occupancy?
About 15% of the staff, where I work have a serious issue with this. Some places it is much worse.
It is very nice for those who have a study or a nice shiny new garden office....
Methinks that the next trend in house design will be offices in the house....
Yes, companies like banks will still need to host call centres themselves, as many people will be unable to work securely.
In the medium term, people moving further away from the largest city centres should make accommodation more affordable.
I don't see why a job should not be able to require candidates to have suitable home working facilities.
On the HMO point, it is quite feasible to have one of the rooms in an HMO be a home office, or have a larger room for such people.
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
Indeed. After the last recession, increasing demand was met with immigration of relatively low-skilled employees, instead of being met with increasing wages and investment in technology as one might expect.
Hence the dire productivity figures, and the disenchantment in many working-class communities that led to the Brexit vote.
Except there is no real evidence that immigration was the reason for weak per capita GDP growth in the wake of the GFC. UK per capita growth followed basically the same path to that in the euro area and the US. There is plenty of international evidence that recoveries from recessions associated with financial crises are weaker than average. The genius of the Leave campaign was to identify a scapegoat that was easier for their target electorate to understand. In fact, the only period where the UK growth performance looks unusually weak in an international comparison is post-2016.
So remove the word immigration - the rest of the statement is true, productivity was solved by adding additional (cheap) labour rather than investment in automation to increase productivity.
It's a crap example (for a whole lot of reasons) but look at car hand washing sites rather than machines as an example of cheap labour being used rather than automation...
It's piss poor this. On masks too. Just need to know what the bloody rules are, then we can apply common sense to work round them. Obviously noone expects flashing blues and twos because someone's visited a One Stop without a face covering. Guidance doesn't have to be enforced to within an inch of its life France gendarme style, but it does have to be clear. Stay at Home and 2 metres were good examples of that earlier in the pandemic.
I don't see why a job should not be able to require candidates to have suitable home working facilities.
On the HMO point, it is quite feasible to have one of the rooms in an HMO be a home office, or have a larger room for such people.
There used to be tax implications. And if you are a home worker, you are supposed to meet H&S requirements for desks and chairs and so forth.
Fujitsu moved into a smaller office and told some staff they had to work at home, but they were not home workers. They had an office, just no desk at that office...
"Can you help us? We've left the European Union by mistake."
Weren’t we told nothing would change? If this comes to pass it will give second home owners with houses in the EU problems with nipping back and forth with the dog and relying on the EHIC card. No idea what annual travel,insurance for a 60+ With blood pressure and diabetes is going to cost coupled with mobile calls back home.
No we weren't told nothing would change. Don't make up nonsense.
We were told all our existing rights such as EHIC and pet passports would not change as we held all the cards and the EU would let us keep these benefits. Telling people they would lose them was deemed project fear. Now they may still negotiate the status quo but it’s looking increasingly unlikely.
"Outrageous scaremongering" was the term used. Vote Leave simultaneously implied Brexit would stop foreigners abusing our hospitals under the EHIC scheme, while, of course we would still have EHIC access for our own heathcare needs when in other EU countries.
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
Yes, much like 9/11 killed the old WeAlwaysFlyBAFullPrice culture.
A major issue for home working is that many people do not live in suitable accommodation. Do you want the person answering the phone to sort out your banking issues to bring up your bank details in the middle of a house in multiple occupancy?
About 15% of the staff, where I work have a serious issue with this. Some places it is much worse.
It is very nice for those who have a study or a nice shiny new garden office....
Methinks that the next trend in house design will be offices in the house....
Yes, companies like banks will still need to host call centres themselves, as many people will be unable to work securely.
In the medium term, people moving further away from the largest city centres should make accommodation more affordable.
I don't see why a job should not be able to require candidates to have suitable home working facilities.
On the HMO point, it is quite feasible to have one of the rooms in an HMO be a home office, or have a larger room for such people.
And you've just created a whole new level of discrimination as those who can already afford space get opportunities that those without the space can't get...
How depressing to wake up to more Brexit bullshit from this government. So incompetent it couldn’t even maintain the EHIC card. We’re in for a tough ride.
As much as you complain we are leaving the EU and many things will change
However, maybe the UK and EU need to stop dancing around each other and start compromising before it is too late
I may not have voted for this nonsense, but why do the government have to make such a pigs ear of it?
It takes two to tango and the EU are not blameless
Since we asked to leave the responsibility to get this right is ours. The buck stops at number 10.
I’m getting old. I remember when Conservatives claimed to value taking responsibility for the decisions we make.
The conservative party will face re-election and the public can then vote them out if they are unhappy
Again, offloading responsibility.
No?
The government is responsible and the voters will judge them.
But if a negotiation breaks down it is rare the fault is all on one side
I'm not sure I agree with that last sentence Charles. In the business I ran I represented associations of companies who used particular products. I effectively created trade associations for them which I managed. They were always successfully arrangements, but I failed on several occasions in the negotiations to get the associations up and running in the first place. It was never because we couldn't agree. On several occasions I failed because the people I was negotiating with could not put the time in to get it up and running, which was ironic because the objective was to save them time in the long run. On one occasion I walked away from the negotiations because I realised I was dealing with idiots and didn't want to do a deal with them because I anticipated the pain of working with them was not worth the return. There of course might have been faults on my side and I am blind to them, but a struggle to find them and certainly in the case where the other party could not put the time in they agreed it was their fault.
The issue with Brexit negotiations is, actually, that it is all downside. The best thing is obviously not to go there in the first place. That ship has sailed. In which case you should aim to limit the damage. Problem is that the government, ideological Brexiteers to a man and woman, don't acknowledge the downsides (or if they do it's all the fault of the EU/Theresa May/Remainers who are all the same people from their PoV). They can't negotiate on a damage limitation basis because that implies Brexit is damage to be limited. So the negotiations are doomed to failure, I think. A Deal may happen (I think it will) but it will be a damaging one that no-one will be happy with.
For those who believe Brexit is a good thing what you refer to as damage is actually a good thing to be maximised not limited. Because what you see as damage we see as opportunity.
George Orwell got it exactly right in "1984".
The only thing compatible with 1984 is your desire to make the idea that there are good sides to Brexit an intellectual thought crime.
The arguments are old and well worn. You know full well that we think that the UK Parliament setting UK laws not the EU doing so to be a good thing. We think democratic accountability at UK elections for our laws to be a good thing. That you propose to rewrite all of it as a bad thing and denounce any other thinking as a thought crime is very 1984 behaviour - but thankfully your Big Brother nonsense isn't enforced by the government as you're not in charge.
Instead thankfully we have a free society where people are able to advocate what they see as positives and warn against negatives. Even if people like you wish to rewrite it all as doubleplusungood.
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
It is jobs that will emigrate because remote workers can work remotely from Romania or any other country you care to name.
Many white-collar jobs still require work in teams, and I can see companies saving office space by having teams only work in the office a few days per month, which still allows the social and networking aspect of everyone knowing each other in person that doesn't occur with purely remote teams.
People will move further from their offices though, depending on how much time they need to spend there, and yes some will choose to live in another country but still work in the same place as before.
Jobs that can be exported, mostly have been already. With varying results, as any bank who sent their call centre of software dev teams to India will tell you. The trend there is bringing the jobs back to the UK.
I keep banging on about this.
It's not the wages that are important.
It's the productivity cost - how much you pay to get x amount of work done.
At one company I worked at, they did a formal evaluation of software development across various countries they had centres in. Bulgaria and London were tied in first place as the cheapest - by results. India was the most expensive.
This is because productivity is a function of the following
1) Cultural infrastructure 2) Legal " 3) Financial " 4) Industrial " 5) Educational " 6) Social Services " 7) Medical "
etc.
The skill of the individual is a part of the equation - but may not even be the majority of the answer.
The strange thing I find is that you get people on the Left arguing against the above - "All jobs will go to low cost x"
It's strange, since the above is an argument that the NHS (for example) is a benefit to productivity - and hence competativeness.
While productivity may be the most useful measures its a far too theoretical and lagging measure for most decision makers..
Who will look at wages and decide what to do as actual implementation and delivery is not their issue, that's a problem for the people beneath them...
Hence the cycle -
1) Outsource 2) Manager moves to new promotion on the basis of cost saving 3) Fuckup 4) New manager brings it back on shore. 5) New manager gets promotion on the basis of fixing the problem 6) New New Manager - what the fuck are we doing, using a high cost location? 7) Outsource
etc etc.
Note that bringing the sweat shops on shore (see Leicester) is an attempt to deal with the problems of the productivity cost outline above for 3rd world countries.
Essentially, when a country gets with the program and starts improving its social, political and technological infrastructure, this drops the productivity cost.
A side effect is more rights for workers. Being the scum that workers always are, they ask for things like enough money to live on and machines that only chop off *some* of their children's limbs.
After a while of this, the productivity cost advantage is gone.
A managers life is tough.....
When you bring 3rd/2nd world employment conditions (and employees) onshore, you are creating this productivity advantage - the NHS etc without having to pay the full costs.
The problem is that the scumbag workers will insist on learning the language, figuring out they have rights and realising that they can get better money - anywhere else.
So you need a constant resupply of new workers.....
"Can you help us? We've left the European Union by mistake."
Weren’t we told nothing would change? If this comes to pass it will give second home owners with houses in the EU problems with nipping back and forth with the dog and relying on the EHIC card. No idea what annual travel,insurance for a 60+ With blood pressure and diabetes is going to cost coupled with mobile calls back home.
No we weren't told nothing would change. Don't make up nonsense.
We were told all our existing rights such as EHIC and pet passports would not change as we held all the cards and the EU would let us keep these benefits. Telling people they would lose them was deemed project fear. Now they may still negotiate the status quo but it’s looking increasingly unlikely.
"Outrageous scaremongering" was the term used. Vote Leave simultaneously implied Brexit would stop foreigners abusing our hospitals under the EHIC scheme, while, of course we would still have EHIC access for our own heathcare needs when in other EU countries.
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
Yes, much like 9/11 killed the old WeAlwaysFlyBAFullPrice culture.
A major issue for home working is that many people do not live in suitable accommodation. Do you want the person answering the phone to sort out your banking issues to bring up your bank details in the middle of a house in multiple occupancy?
About 15% of the staff, where I work have a serious issue with this. Some places it is much worse.
It is very nice for those who have a study or a nice shiny new garden office....
Methinks that the next trend in house design will be offices in the house....
Yes, companies like banks will still need to host call centres themselves, as many people will be unable to work securely.
In the medium term, people moving further away from the largest city centres should make accommodation more affordable.
I don't see why a job should not be able to require candidates to have suitable home working facilities.
On the HMO point, it is quite feasible to have one of the rooms in an HMO be a home office, or have a larger room for such people.
"It is outrageous that Germany should now seek what amounts to reparations from the U.K. for having the audacity to want to break free of the Teutonic chains
"That allowed the small-minded Lilliputians to bind us like Gulliver to the mast of the sinking ship that is the EU. It also precipitated the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson, to their credit, from the May government.
"On acquiring the top job following the disastrous European election results, Johnson and his government managed to release some of those bindings — most importantly from membership of the Customs Union. He also had the courage to call and win a general election in December 2019, resulting in an 80-seat majority in parliament and changing the terms of the debate.
"But the timing and the politics were such that Johnson had no alternative but to accept the Withdrawal Agreement largely as it stood. In the end there was an exit door from the EU, but the handle was smeared with the EU diplomatic equivalent of Novichok."
Is a certain overwrought, multi identity, thriller writer doing their copy?
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
Yes, much like 9/11 killed the old WeAlwaysFlyBAFullPrice culture.
A major issue for home working is that many people do not live in suitable accommodation. Do you want the person answering the phone to sort out your banking issues to bring up your bank details in the middle of a house in multiple occupancy?
About 15% of the staff, where I work have a serious issue with this. Some places it is much worse.
It is very nice for those who have a study or a nice shiny new garden office....
Methinks that the next trend in house design will be offices in the house....
Yes, companies like banks will still need to host call centres themselves, as many people will be unable to work securely.
In the medium term, people moving further away from the largest city centres should make accommodation more affordable.
I don't see why a job should not be able to require candidates to have suitable home working facilities.
On the HMO point, it is quite feasible to have one of the rooms in an HMO be a home office, or have a larger room for such people.
Requiring candidates to have big houses with spare rooms might be problematic even if it did not have secondary risks like institutionalising discrimination.
And most people advocating WFH think they can move to the countryside and still get London wages. Companies will soon realise they can hire remote workers in Grimsby and pay Grimsby wages. Good for Grimsby and other declining towns but in the long term bad news for the middle class advocates of WFH and probably the economy as a whole.
"Can you help us? We've left the European Union by mistake."
Weren’t we told nothing would change? If this comes to pass it will give second home owners with houses in the EU problems with nipping back and forth with the dog and relying on the EHIC card. No idea what annual travel,insurance for a 60+ With blood pressure and diabetes is going to cost coupled with mobile calls back home.
No we weren't told nothing would change. Don't make up nonsense.
We were told all our existing rights such as EHIC and pet passports would not change as we held all the cards and the EU would let us keep these benefits. Telling people they would lose them was deemed project fear. Now they may still negotiate the status quo but it’s looking increasingly unlikely.
[Citation Needed]
You know as well as I do that we were told little would change in terms of rights I’m not going to trawl five years ago to find specific examples. I clearly remember being called a doom monger and liar for suggesting things like the EHIC would disappear by ardent leavers.
No I don't know that and we were told time and time again more times than I can count by Remainers that this would happen. And its not for Leavers to make the arguments against leaving, it was for Remainers to do so and as you said you did. And you lost anyway. So sorry, but the public made an informed decision to risk losing EHIC and any other nonsense that your side warned about. And if your side didn't warn about something and it happens then that is your fault too.
The public were warned about "Project Fear" and chose to vote leave anyway. Whatever happens from Project Fear now - and whatever doesn't - it was priced in the moment we voted to leave.
This is utter garbage, sorry. If side A says X will happen and side B say X will not happen, and people vote for side B, they voted because they believed side B. If X then happens, for side B to turn around and say - well people knew that because side A said it would happen, is possibly the most dishonest thing I have ever seen suggested on this forum or indeed anywhere else. Side B needs to own what they said. Were they wrong? Or were they lying? Either way, what does it tell us about their project?
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
Yes, much like 9/11 killed the old WeAlwaysFlyBAFullPrice culture.
A major issue for home working is that many people do not live in suitable accommodation. Do you want the person answering the phone to sort out your banking issues to bring up your bank details in the middle of a house in multiple occupancy?
About 15% of the staff, where I work have a serious issue with this. Some places it is much worse.
It is very nice for those who have a study or a nice shiny new garden office....
Methinks that the next trend in house design will be offices in the house....
Yes, companies like banks will still need to host call centres themselves, as many people will be unable to work securely.
In the medium term, people moving further away from the largest city centres should make accommodation more affordable.
I don't see why a job should not be able to require candidates to have suitable home working facilities.
On the HMO point, it is quite feasible to have one of the rooms in an HMO be a home office, or have a larger room for such people.
Ah yes - more space is so simple.
I shall ask the servants to the servants to shove up a bit. That will mean enough space for an extra ballroom, *and* some home office space...
Are you an idiot? That was crystal clear and entirely logical. What part of that are you struggling to understand.
If you're able to work from home then do so, if your employer is OK with that. If you're not able to work from home and its safe and legal for you to go back to work then go back to work.
What part of that message are you struggling to understand? If you're clueless about that it says more about you than the government.
"It is outrageous that Germany should now seek what amounts to reparations from the U.K. for having the audacity to want to break free of the Teutonic chains
"That allowed the small-minded Lilliputians to bind us like Gulliver to the mast of the sinking ship that is the EU. It also precipitated the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson, to their credit, from the May government.
"On acquiring the top job following the disastrous European election results, Johnson and his government managed to release some of those bindings — most importantly from membership of the Customs Union. He also had the courage to call and win a general election in December 2019, resulting in an 80-seat majority in parliament and changing the terms of the debate.
"But the timing and the politics were such that Johnson had no alternative but to accept the Withdrawal Agreement largely as it stood. In the end there was an exit door from the EU, but the handle was smeared with the EU diplomatic equivalent of Novichok."
IT also ends
"The battle to leave the EU is coming to an end. The battle for Britain is just beginning — and we are about to find out if Johnson is more Churchill or Halifax."
We've been taken hostage by intellectually subnormal Little Englanders who have never outgrown the WW2 comics they read as children. It is utterly pathetic.
As the LDs have their Orange Bookers, I think they should be known henceforth as the Commando Bookers
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
Yes, much like 9/11 killed the old WeAlwaysFlyBAFullPrice culture.
A major issue for home working is that many people do not live in suitable accommodation. Do you want the person answering the phone to sort out your banking issues to bring up your bank details in the middle of a house in multiple occupancy?
About 15% of the staff, where I work have a serious issue with this. Some places it is much worse.
It is very nice for those who have a study or a nice shiny new garden office....
Methinks that the next trend in house design will be offices in the house....
Yes, companies like banks will still need to host call centres themselves, as many people will be unable to work securely.
In the medium term, people moving further away from the largest city centres should make accommodation more affordable.
I don't see why a job should not be able to require candidates to have suitable home working facilities.
On the HMO point, it is quite feasible to have one of the rooms in an HMO be a home office, or have a larger room for such people.
Wow.
Care to elucidate slightly? That's rather brief :-)
I don't think anyone has picked up on this from last week but the Government has decided that they wish to push ahead with making all local councils Unitary and outlined minimum (300,000 population) and preferred (400,000) sizes.
The bun fights in Surrey and North Yorkshire amongst other places are going to be a sight to behold.
And from Tory district councillors who would no longer have a seat
300k minimum would entail pretty much a total redrawing of metropolitans - even where a metropolitan is 300k+, it almost certainly has a neighbour that isn't.
I have to say I didn't really know the applicable populations. However there are only two current English local government area under 300,000 that are not special cases: Rutland, and Herefordshire.
"Can you help us? We've left the European Union by mistake."
Weren’t we told nothing would change? If this comes to pass it will give second home owners with houses in the EU problems with nipping back and forth with the dog and relying on the EHIC card. No idea what annual travel,insurance for a 60+ With blood pressure and diabetes is going to cost coupled with mobile calls back home.
No we weren't told nothing would change. Don't make up nonsense.
We were told all our existing rights such as EHIC and pet passports would not change as we held all the cards and the EU would let us keep these benefits. Telling people they would lose them was deemed project fear. Now they may still negotiate the status quo but it’s looking increasingly unlikely.
[Citation Needed]
You know as well as I do that we were told little would change in terms of rights I’m not going to trawl five years ago to find specific examples. I clearly remember being called a doom monger and liar for suggesting things like the EHIC would disappear by ardent leavers.
No I don't know that and we were told time and time again more times than I can count by Remainers that this would happen. And its not for Leavers to make the arguments against leaving, it was for Remainers to do so and as you said you did. And you lost anyway. So sorry, but the public made an informed decision to risk losing EHIC and any other nonsense that your side warned about. And if your side didn't warn about something and it happens then that is your fault too.
The public were warned about "Project Fear" and chose to vote leave anyway. Whatever happens from Project Fear now - and whatever doesn't - it was priced in the moment we voted to leave.
This is utter garbage, sorry. If side A says X will happen and side B say X will not happen, and people vote for side B, they voted because they believed side B. If X then happens, for side B to turn around and say - well people knew that because side A said it would happen, is possibly the most dishonest thing I have ever seen suggested on this forum or indeed anywhere else. Side B needs to own what they said. Were they wrong? Or were they lying? Either way, what does it tell us about their project?
Sorry no because not all of what Remainers claimed would happen was said by Leavers it wouldn't happen. Some of it both sides explicitly agreed on.
For instance Remainers said that if we left the EU then we'd leave the Single Market. Then Leavers also said that if we left the EU then we'd leave the Single Market.
You don't get to then claim that Leavers claimed that leaving the Single Market was a part of Project Fear because it certainly wasn't. Both sides agreed it would happen.
I asked for a citation on EHIC and Pet Passports and didn't get one. Funny that. Frankly I think its a non-issue and moot but you don't get to lump everything into being dismissed as Project Fear unless it was explicitly said that it wouldn't happen.
If side A says X, Y and Z will happen and side B say X will not happen, Z will happen and ignores Y altogether . . . and then Y does happen then the public were informed about that beforehand even if side B ignored Y as an issue.
1) Outsource 2) Manager moves to new promotion on the basis of cost saving 3) Fuckup 4) New manager brings it back on shore. 5) New manager gets promotion on the basis of fixing the problem 6) New New Manager - what the fuck are we doing, using a high cost location? 7) Outsource
etc etc.
Note that bringing the sweat shops on shore (see Leicester) is an attempt to deal with the problems of the productivity cost outline above for 3rd world countries.
Essentially, when a country gets with the program and starts improving its social, political and technological infrastructure, this drops the productivity cost.
A side effect is more rights for workers. Being the scum that workers always are, they ask for things like enough money to live on and machines that only chop off *some* of their children's limbs.
After a while of this, the productivity cost advantage is gone.
A managers life is tough.....
When you bring 3rd/2nd world employment conditions (and employees) onshore, you are creating this productivity advantage - the NHS etc without having to pay the full costs.
The problem is that the scumbag workers will insist on learning the language, figuring out they have rights and realising that they can get better money - anywhere else.
So you need a constant resupply of new workers.....
Or you automate the stuff and find something else to do with the time...
But automation has upfront costs so people avoid doing it (as witnessed in the separate GDP per capita posts)..
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
Yes, much like 9/11 killed the old WeAlwaysFlyBAFullPrice culture.
A major issue for home working is that many people do not live in suitable accommodation. Do you want the person answering the phone to sort out your banking issues to bring up your bank details in the middle of a house in multiple occupancy?
About 15% of the staff, where I work have a serious issue with this. Some places it is much worse.
It is very nice for those who have a study or a nice shiny new garden office....
Methinks that the next trend in house design will be offices in the house....
Yes, companies like banks will still need to host call centres themselves, as many people will be unable to work securely.
In the medium term, people moving further away from the largest city centres should make accommodation more affordable.
I don't see why a job should not be able to require candidates to have suitable home working facilities.
On the HMO point, it is quite feasible to have one of the rooms in an HMO be a home office, or have a larger room for such people.
Requiring candidates to have big houses with spare rooms might be problematic even if it did not have secondary risks like institutionalising discrimination.
And most people advocating WFH think they can move to the countryside and still get London wages. Companies will soon realise they can hire remote workers in Grimsby and pay Grimsby wages. Good for Grimsby and other declining towns but in the long term bad news for the middle class advocates of WFH and probably the economy as a whole.
Why do you think you need a big house with a spare room?
I can show you house design books going back 50 years with "office in a cupboard" designs.
On HMOs again, the country is full of HMOs containing bedrooms which are slightly too small to meet recently introduced supplementary space standards.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
I don't think anyone has picked up on this from last week but the Government has decided that they wish to push ahead with making all local councils Unitary and outlined minimum (300,000 population) and preferred (400,000) sizes.
The bun fights in Surrey and North Yorkshire amongst other places are going to be a sight to behold.
And from Tory district councillors who would no longer have a seat
300k minimum would entail pretty much a total redrawing of metropolitans - even where a metropolitan is 300k+, it almost certainly has a neighbour that isn't.
I have to say I didn't really know the applicable populations. However there are only two current English local government area under 300,000 that are not special cases: Rutland, and Herefordshire.
“North Tyneside” is 200k...
The four Tyneside councils should have been merged into a Greater Newcastle authority years ago. The set up there is the epitome of extreme parochialism.
If Pickard is an idiot too it doesn't change things.
If you can work from home then do so, if you can't and its safe to go back to work then go back to work. What part of that do you and Pickard struggle with?
Lets take the case of a waitress and a restaurant that has now reopened - it is legal now for her to go back to work. If its safe to do so then what do you propose for her? Should she work from home in your eyes, as a waitress? Or should she go back to work?
If you want to be a deliberate idiot all it shows is that you are an idiot.
How depressing to wake up to more Brexit bullshit from this government. So incompetent it couldn’t even maintain the EHIC card. We’re in for a tough ride.
As much as you complain we are leaving the EU and many things will change
However, maybe the UK and EU need to stop dancing around each other and start compromising before it is too late
I may not have voted for this nonsense, but why do the government have to make such a pigs ear of it?
It takes two to tango and the EU are not blameless
Since we asked to leave the responsibility to get this right is ours. The buck stops at number 10.
I’m getting old. I remember when Conservatives claimed to value taking responsibility for the decisions we make.
The conservative party will face re-election and the public can then vote them out if they are unhappy
Again, offloading responsibility.
No?
The government is responsible and the voters will judge them.
But if a negotiation breaks down it is rare the fault is all on one side
I'm not sure I agree with that last sentence Charles. In the business I ran I represented associations of companies who used particular products. I effectively created trade associations for them which I managed. They were always successfully arrangements, but I failed on several occasions in the negotiations to get the associations up and running in the first place. It was never because we couldn't agree. On several occasions I failed because the people I was negotiating with could not put the time in to get it up and running, which was ironic because the objective was to save them time in the long run. On one occasion I walked away from the negotiations because I realised I was dealing with idiots and didn't want to do a deal with them because I anticipated the pain of working with them was not worth the return. There of course might have been faults on my side and I am blind to them, but a struggle to find them and certainly in the case where the other party could not put the time in they agreed it was their fault.
The issue with Brexit negotiations is, actually, that it is all downside. The best thing is obviously not to go there in the first place. That ship has sailed. In which case you should aim to limit the damage. Problem is that the government, ideological Brexiteers to a man and woman, don't acknowledge the downsides (or if they do it's all the fault of the EU/Theresa May/Remainers who are all the same people from their PoV). They can't negotiate on a damage limitation basis because that implies Brexit is damage to be limited. So the negotiations are doomed to failure, I think. A Deal may happen (I think it will) but it will be a damaging one that no-one will be happy with.
For those who believe Brexit is a good thing what you refer to as damage is actually a good thing to be maximised not limited. Because what you see as damage we see as opportunity.
George Orwell got it exactly right in "1984".
The only thing compatible with 1984 is your desire to make the idea that there are good sides to Brexit an intellectual thought crime.
The arguments are old and well worn. You know full well that we think that the UK Parliament setting UK laws not the EU doing so to be a good thing. We think democratic accountability at UK elections for our laws to be a good thing. That you propose to rewrite all of it as a bad thing and denounce any other thinking as a thought crime is very 1984 behaviour - but thankfully your Big Brother nonsense isn't enforced by the government as you're not in charge.
Instead thankfully we have a free society where people are able to advocate what they see as positives and warn against negatives. Even if people like you wish to rewrite it all as doubleplusungood.
Well if you want to try and draw balance to the concept that lies are bad and the liars who tell them are worse go right ahead. Again you can try and have your own personal truth if you like just don't critiscise other people for "not getting it".
To be clear all the tired-out tropes you list above are lies - a great example of how the UK Parliament was and is sovereign was when David Cameron rejected voting rights for convicts in the face of apparently superior EU directive - that act doesn't get much of a reference in Brexit circles does it?
The fact that the UK government might have frequently chosen to simply copy and paste EU legislation is a different matter - they were accountable for that before but no one seemed to care. Go and ask Viktor Orban about who is calling the shots in EU member Hungary.
There certainly is a Big Brother at play: the UK government has actually said that it now prefers to hire Brexiters into Government posts because they have the "right" thought patterns.
Brexit is a faith and it is intolerant of non-believers at the same time as it peddles its own untruths. Hence the highly aggresive response when people point out the lies and the inconsistencies in the creed. I don't think supporting Brexit is a thought crime I just point out the things wrong with it and that is interpreted as an attack: that tells you everything you need to know about it and its supporters - brittle, thin-skinned and intellectually shallow.
I don't think anyone has picked up on this from last week but the Government has decided that they wish to push ahead with making all local councils Unitary and outlined minimum (300,000 population) and preferred (400,000) sizes.
The bun fights in Surrey and North Yorkshire amongst other places are going to be a sight to behold.
And from Tory district councillors who would no longer have a seat
300k minimum would entail pretty much a total redrawing of metropolitans - even where a metropolitan is 300k+, it almost certainly has a neighbour that isn't.
I have to say I didn't really know the applicable populations. However there are only two current English local government area under 300,000 that are not special cases: Rutland, and Herefordshire.
“North Tyneside” is 200k...
The four Tyneside councils should have been merged into a Greater Newcastle authority years ago. The set up there is the epitome of extreme parochialism.
100000% agree. Same with the West Midlands Greater Birmingham.
I don't think anyone has picked up on this from last week but the Government has decided that they wish to push ahead with making all local councils Unitary and outlined minimum (300,000 population) and preferred (400,000) sizes.
The bun fights in Surrey and North Yorkshire amongst other places are going to be a sight to behold.
And from Tory district councillors who would no longer have a seat
300k minimum would entail pretty much a total redrawing of metropolitans - even where a metropolitan is 300k+, it almost certainly has a neighbour that isn't.
I have to say I didn't really know the applicable populations. However there are only two current English local government area under 300,000 that are not special cases: Rutland, and Herefordshire.
“North Tyneside” is 200k...
What's a special case, Darlington is in no way special - it just happened to be part of County Durham but felt (as everywhere outside of Durham itself still does) unloved
My other comment with the drive to unitary authorities is whether that would also mean mergers of existing UAs.
In Berkshire, when they got rid of the county council in the 1990s they made each of the districts its own UA. Bracknell is the smallest with only 122k residents.
So if you want consistency across the country, you could merge the 6 Berskhire UAs into 2.
I think locally people would be OK with merging with Bracknell Forest but adding in Slough... that would be really lighting the blue touchpaper!
The danger with moving to UAs is that it may make sense economically but it risks upsetting a lot of Tory voters.
Another example is Blackpool. This existing UA only has 139k people so you could make up the numbers by merging with Fylde and Wyre districts of Lancashire. This wouldn't go down well with people in Lytham St Annes though!
Well, Slough always used to be part of Bucks, until Heath started messing about with the counties and Slough was moved into Berkshire to make up the numbers.
Obviously Slough ought to go into the mixing pot with the other Bucks districts.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Well “Remainers” have no control over the process so their opinion is irrelevant.
How depressing to wake up to more Brexit bullshit from this government. So incompetent it couldn’t even maintain the EHIC card. We’re in for a tough ride.
As much as you complain we are leaving the EU and many things will change
However, maybe the UK and EU need to stop dancing around each other and start compromising before it is too late
I may not have voted for this nonsense, but why do the government have to make such a pigs ear of it?
It takes two to tango and the EU are not blameless
Since we asked to leave the responsibility to get this right is ours. The buck stops at number 10.
I’m getting old. I remember when Conservatives claimed to value taking responsibility for the decisions we make.
The conservative party will face re-election and the public can then vote them out if they are unhappy
Again, offloading responsibility.
No?
The government is responsible and the voters will judge them.
But if a negotiation breaks down it is rare the fault is all on one side
I'm not sure I agree with that last sentence Charles. In the business I ran I represented associations of companies who used particular products. I effectively created trade associations for them which I managed. They were always successfully arrangements, but I failed on several occasions in the negotiations to get the associations up and running in the first place. It was never because we couldn't agree. On several occasions I failed because the people I was negotiating with could not put the time in to get it up and running, which was ironic because the objective was to save them time in the long run. On one occasion I walked away from the negotiations because I realised I was dealing with idiots and didn't want to do a deal with them because I anticipated the pain of working with them was not worth the return. There of course might have been faults on my side and I am blind to them, but a struggle to find them and certainly in the case where the other party could not put the time in they agreed it was their fault.
The issue with Brexit negotiations is, actually, that it is all downside. The best thing is obviously not to go there in the first place. That ship has sailed. In which case you should aim to limit the damage. Problem is that the government, ideological Brexiteers to a man and woman, don't acknowledge the downsides (or if they do it's all the fault of the EU/Theresa May/Remainers who are all the same people from their PoV). They can't negotiate on a damage limitation basis because that implies Brexit is damage to be limited. So the negotiations are doomed to failure, I think. A Deal may happen (I think it will) but it will be a damaging one that no-one will be happy with.
For those who believe Brexit is a good thing what you refer to as damage is actually a good thing to be maximised not limited. Because what you see as damage we see as opportunity.
George Orwell got it exactly right in "1984".
The only thing compatible with 1984 is your desire to make the idea that there are good sides to Brexit an intellectual thought crime.
The arguments are old and well worn. You know full well that we think that the UK Parliament setting UK laws not the EU doing so to be a good thing. We think democratic accountability at UK elections for our laws to be a good thing. That you propose to rewrite all of it as a bad thing and denounce any other thinking as a thought crime is very 1984 behaviour - but thankfully your Big Brother nonsense isn't enforced by the government as you're not in charge.
Instead thankfully we have a free society where people are able to advocate what they see as positives and warn against negatives. Even if people like you wish to rewrite it all as doubleplusungood.
Well if you want to try and draw balance to the concept that lies are bad and the liars who tell them are worse go right ahead. Again you can try and have your own personal truth if you like just don't critiscise other people for "not getting it".
To be clear all the tired-out tropes you list above are lies - a great example of how the UK Parliament was and is sovereign was when David Cameron rejected voting rights for convicts in the face of apparently superior EU directive - that act doesn't get much of a reference in Brexit circles does it?
The fact that the UK government might have frequently chosen to simply copy and paste EU legislation is a different matter - they were accountable for that before but no one seemed to care. Go and ask Viktor Orban about who is calling the shots in EU member Hungary.
There certainly is a Big Brother at play: the UK government has actually said that it now prefers to hire Brexiters into Government posts because they have the "right" thought patterns.
Brexit is a faith and it is intolerant of non-believers at the same time as it peddles its own untruths. Hence the highly aggresive response when people point out the lies and the inconsistencies in the creed. I don't think supporting Brexit is a thought crime I just point out the things wrong with it and that is interpreted as an attack: that tells you everything you need to know about it and its supporters - brittle, thin-skinned and intellectually shallow.
You don't know what you're talking about.
The European Court of Human Rights is not an EU institution. Their decision on voting rights for convicts was not an EU directive. The 1972 European Communities Act (now repealed, though its effects saved until 31/12/20) makes EU law supreme in the UK - but that doesn't apply to non-EU rules.
If you can't tell the difference between EU institutions and non-EU ones then don't blame Leavers for your ignorance.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Well “Remainers” have no control over the process so their opinion is irrelevant.
They had their chance and May completely fucked it.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
What opportunities are there that are going to improve Their lives? How’s progress on achieving them?
On the upside, there is no (other) way that humanity would have organised to reduce emissions so quickly and dramatically to tackle climate change. It may be temporary (although I would expect an after effect) but it will at least provide some interesting data to calibrate the impact of other potential interventions.
What's changed?
All the analysis I have been listening to suggests that corona lockdown etc might only provide a tiny extra blip.
In the UK we have reduced our C02 emissions by well over 3% each year on average (geometric mean) in the last decade; we are achieving what we need to continue to achieve. source: carbon brief.
I've heard lots of usual suspects demanding that Corona proves that we must do what they were already demanding that we do, but I don't attach much weight to such.
The best thing for the environment this year has been the reintroduction of a comprehensible home energy package last week.
There may be perception changes about food miles, allotments etc; I am not sure Corona has driven that.
The best thing for the environment this year, by miles, is that everyone's stopped commuting.
The best thing we can do for the environment, going forward, is to keep more people working remotely for more of the time.
Yes, unless people start to abandon big cities and live in the countryside where they have to drive to go to the shops, etc.
Greater working from home has so many benefits to society, I've been thinking for twenty years that it should become the new normal, where the job allows it.
For many, it means higher productivity, lower stress, greater life satisfaction and so on. It means that house prices become more equal across the country, public transport is less crowded at peak times and so on and so forth.
But, obviously, it's not for everybody.
Indeed so. It's taken until everyone was forced home, for the bosses to wake up to how much better the remote working technology has become over the past decade or two.
Even if companies start to work flexibly, with teams spending one week in three in the office, or a few days a month depending on how they arrange themselves, there would be a massive positive effect on the environment, on quality of life and personal savings.
It wouldn't be good for train companies (although many people would live further away if the commute wasn't daily), and wouldn't be good for the minimum-wage cafe workers in central London, nor the property speculators - but the overall impact would be positive.
Government might not see it though, as the raw GDP numbers would be down, GDP per capita is going to be a much better measure in the next few years if we see net emigration of unemployed service workers in cities.
Yes, much like 9/11 killed the old WeAlwaysFlyBAFullPrice culture.
A major issue for home working is that many people do not live in suitable accommodation. Do you want the person answering the phone to sort out your banking issues to bring up your bank details in the middle of a house in multiple occupancy?
About 15% of the staff, where I work have a serious issue with this. Some places it is much worse.
It is very nice for those who have a study or a nice shiny new garden office....
Methinks that the next trend in house design will be offices in the house....
Yes, companies like banks will still need to host call centres themselves, as many people will be unable to work securely.
In the medium term, people moving further away from the largest city centres should make accommodation more affordable.
I don't see why a job should not be able to require candidates to have suitable home working facilities.
On the HMO point, it is quite feasible to have one of the rooms in an HMO be a home office, or have a larger room for such people.
Requiring candidates to have big houses with spare rooms might be problematic even if it did not have secondary risks like institutionalising discrimination.
And most people advocating WFH think they can move to the countryside and still get London wages. Companies will soon realise they can hire remote workers in Grimsby and pay Grimsby wages. Good for Grimsby and other declining towns but in the long term bad news for the middle class advocates of WFH and probably the economy as a whole.
Is it, though? Even if incomes fall, people are likely to have lower expenses (less commuting, lower house prices). Besides, this government has made great play of wanting to move government jobs out of London and into the provinces.
The trend of London sucking up the professional life of the whole country causes lots of problems. If you look at the faces of people on the way to Liverpool Street, they're not enjoying it. The hollowing out of the provincial private sector middle class creates all sorts of social problems for towns. This is worth getting right.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
What opportunities are there that are going to improve Their lives? How’s progress on achieving them?
One Lemming to another "Well there is simply nothing to be done chaps. If we don't jump how will our lives improve?"
Poor from Hodges. There are rumours that the government is going to ask the CS to get staff back into offices, but they are just rumours at the moment.
If Pickard is an idiot too it doesn't change things.
If you can work from home then do so, if you can't and its safe to go back to work then go back to work. What part of that do you and Pickard struggle with?
Lets take the case of a waitress and a restaurant that has now reopened - it is legal now for her to go back to work. If its safe to do so then what do you propose for her? Should she work from home in your eyes, as a waitress? Or should she go back to work?
If you want to be a deliberate idiot all it shows is that you are an idiot.
The issue is the office blocks around the restaurant.
What is the advice for them? Restaurants and waitresses fine. But the government needs to solve the dilemma of the restaurant's customers. That is why the advice is so confusing.
What is an office manager to do? The guidance is to work from home = don't rearrange the office yet. The message is get back to work = rearrange the office.
One means customers for the restaurant, the other means no customers for the restaurant.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
Why did you start out as a Remainer given all these benefits? Were you stupid?
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Well “Remainers” have no control over the process so their opinion is irrelevant.
They had their chance and May completely fucked it.
Not really. The voters told her they didn't want the kind of hard Brexit that she was planning. So the voters reined her in.
If Pickard is an idiot too it doesn't change things.
If you can work from home then do so, if you can't and its safe to go back to work then go back to work. What part of that do you and Pickard struggle with?
Lets take the case of a waitress and a restaurant that has now reopened - it is legal now for her to go back to work. If its safe to do so then what do you propose for her? Should she work from home in your eyes, as a waitress? Or should she go back to work?
If you want to be a deliberate idiot all it shows is that you are an idiot.
The issue is the office blocks around the restaurant.
What is the advice for them? Restaurants and waitresses fine. But the government needs to solve the dilemma of the customers. That is why the advice is so confusing.
What is an office manager to do? The guidance is to work from home = don't rearrange the office yet. The message is get back to work = rearrange the office.
But you see no problem.
As the government are saying they should use their own common sense and decide what suits them.
If they see no good reason to bring people back in and are fine with continuing to work from home they should do so.
If they see a good reason to bring people back in and it is safe to do so then they should do so.
They should use their own common sense. Which is the government's advice. There is no problem, the office managers hopefully aren't complete and utter idiots pretending to be (or actually being) dumb.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
What opportunities? I know I can see plenty of them but that's because I write software to improve, automate and remove processes and Brexit is creating millions of new processes that I can automate away for you, for a monthly fee..
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
On 3 - we always have as even Brown knew that the UK using the Euro was a bad idea..
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
The UK was able to have a points based immigration system before. The reason for not having one was simply an assessment that it wasn't deemed the best solution. Immigration was however subject to a freedom of movement requirement for EU citizens. Freedom surely counts as "opportunity", no?
If Pickard is an idiot too it doesn't change things.
If you can work from home then do so, if you can't and its safe to go back to work then go back to work. What part of that do you and Pickard struggle with?
Lets take the case of a waitress and a restaurant that has now reopened - it is legal now for her to go back to work. If its safe to do so then what do you propose for her? Should she work from home in your eyes, as a waitress? Or should she go back to work?
If you want to be a deliberate idiot all it shows is that you are an idiot.
The issue is the office blocks around the restaurant.
What is the advice for them? Restaurants and waitresses fine. But the government needs to solve the dilemma of the customers. That is why the advice is so confusing.
What is an office manager to do? The guidance is to work from home = don't rearrange the office yet. The message is get back to work = rearrange the office.
But you see no problem.
As the government are saying they should use their own common sense and decide what suits them.
If they see no good reason to bring people back in and are fine with continuing to work from home they should do so.
If they see a good reason to bring people back in and it is safe to do so then they should do so.
They should use their own common sense. Which is the government's advice. There is no problem, the office managers hopefully aren't complete and utter idiots pretending to be (or actually being) dumb.
The government's advice, as we are trying to tell you, is all over the place. But if the advice is use your common sense, what is the point of their guidance? Let alone conflicting guidance?
What does the government want and what policies is it going to put in place to achieve that? I mean that is the question governments should be asking.
Return of economic health? Go to work. Minimisation of the virus? Don't go to work. Balance of the two? Manage the situation and set out policies designed to achieve that.
No one has a problem with the complexity of the issue, nor the challenges of solving for the best possible outcome. But the government's messaging at the most basic level (what do we want and how do we achieve it) is failing.
Incredible isn't it, that despite the enormous anti-work abuse secretariat we have in Britain, plus labour MPs apparently on the side on the downtrodden and other well funded organisations bleating about slavery in the past, it takes a right wing conservative MP to finally speak the truth about the disgusting practices going on in Leicester and elsewhere in Britain.
Francois has been routinely reviled, mocked and abused on here and will doubtless receive zero credit from the usual suspects for his comments.
But that of course says far more about them than it does about him
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
Why did you start out as a Remainer given all these benefits? Were you stupid?
Because its a balancing act.
You have to weigh the pros and the cons. The advantages in my eyes of EU membership were:
A: Improved trade with the EU. B: Trade agreements negotiated with the rest of the world. C: Free movement.
If the EU were a simple trade agreement I'd have supported it 100%. But I became convinced that the cons outweighed the pros during the campaign.
In particular @Richard_Tyndall made a convincing argument that non-EU EEA nations have more and better trade agreements than the EU nations have. This switched my thinking on B on the pro-membership list to 4 on the anti-membership list.
Michael Gove, Boris, Mr Tyndall and @Casino_Royale made convincing arguments on 1 and 2 that convinced me.
Finally on C an argument was made that free movement was distorting immigration by causing us to be overly-harsh on rest of the world immigration in order to try and drive down numbers. That was the first time I'd seen a pro-immigration argument in favour of Brexit (as opposed to the xenophobia of Farage etc) which neutralised the issue for me.
Not really. The voters told her they didn't want the kind of hard Brexit that she was planning. So the voters reined her in.
To get a harder Brexit with BoZo...
Yeah well we shall see. With luck he will show his usual incompetence and spinelessness to achieve a soft Brexit. I would be amazed if he was capable enough to get a hard one.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
The UK was able to have a points based immigration system before. The reason for not having one was simply an assessment that it wasn't deemed the best solution. Immigration was however subject to a freedom of movement requirement for EU citizens. Freedom surely counts as "opportunity", no?
We could have a point based immigration system with EU migrants? Are you 100% sure?
Why bother publicising all of the fun that's coming with Brexit? If peoplecan't travel as their passport not got enough life or run up £100s in phone charges or £10k in hospital bills getting pissed in Magaluf that's the #Brexit they voted for and knew would happen. Buyer beware...
If Pickard is an idiot too it doesn't change things.
If you can work from home then do so, if you can't and its safe to go back to work then go back to work. What part of that do you and Pickard struggle with?
Lets take the case of a waitress and a restaurant that has now reopened - it is legal now for her to go back to work. If its safe to do so then what do you propose for her? Should she work from home in your eyes, as a waitress? Or should she go back to work?
If you want to be a deliberate idiot all it shows is that you are an idiot.
The issue is the office blocks around the restaurant.
What is the advice for them? Restaurants and waitresses fine. But the government needs to solve the dilemma of the customers. That is why the advice is so confusing.
What is an office manager to do? The guidance is to work from home = don't rearrange the office yet. The message is get back to work = rearrange the office.
But you see no problem.
As the government are saying they should use their own common sense and decide what suits them.
If they see no good reason to bring people back in and are fine with continuing to work from home they should do so.
If they see a good reason to bring people back in and it is safe to do so then they should do so.
They should use their own common sense. Which is the government's advice. There is no problem, the office managers hopefully aren't complete and utter idiots pretending to be (or actually being) dumb.
The government's advice, as we are trying to tell you, is all over the place. But if the advice is use your common sense, what is the point of their guidance? Let alone conflicting guidance?
What does the government want and what policies is it going to put in place to achieve that? I mean that is the question governments should be asking.
Return of economic health? Go to work. Minimisation of the virus? Don't go to work. Balance of the two? Manage the situation and set out policies designed to achieve that.
No one has a problem with the complexity of the issue, nor the challenges of solving for the best possible outcome. But the government's messaging at the most basic level (what do we want and how do we achieve it) is failing.
The advice is clear. Go to work if you can, that work should be at home if it can be.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
The UK was able to have a points based immigration system before. The reason for not having one was simply an assessment that it wasn't deemed the best solution. Immigration was however subject to a freedom of movement requirement for EU citizens. Freedom surely counts as "opportunity", no?
We could have a point based immigration system with EU migrants? Are you 100% sure?
No but most of the EU don't have a means tested welfare system, instead they offered a contribution based system.
Which meant that the UK was the place that low skilled workers went to once they arrived and registered they would instantly get additional money to top up their pay while the rest of the EU insisted that they worked for X years before getting any benefits...
Which meant you only went to Germany if the job paid a lot but you could go to the UK even if the job paid very little
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
The UK was able to have a points based immigration system before. The reason for not having one was simply an assessment that it wasn't deemed the best solution. Immigration was however subject to a freedom of movement requirement for EU citizens. Freedom surely counts as "opportunity", no?
We could have a point based immigration system with EU migrants? Are you 100% sure?
No but most of the EU don't have a means tested welfare system. In the UK that encouraged people to come here and take low paid work. In the rest of europe the low paid were not encouraged to move as you needed to work X years before getting any benefits so the only reason to go there was if the work paid well enough...
Indeed but I don't recall any parties seeking to abolish our means tested welfare system. If the Tories had sought to do so they'd have been called evil by the parties that were unambiguously pro-Remain.
The government's immigration policy is not cast in stone.
Future governments will be able to change it if that is what voters want.
And that's the point. Voters will be able to choose from a menu of immigration policies set forward by the parties that want their vote. Immigration will not be a roped off issue.
Tricky for a labour party that wants those red wall seats back.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
On 3 - we always have as even Brown knew that the UK using the Euro was a bad idea..
I said money not currency.
Hundreds of millions of pounds a week going to the EU means we weren't controlling it.
If Pickard is an idiot too it doesn't change things.
If you can work from home then do so, if you can't and its safe to go back to work then go back to work. What part of that do you and Pickard struggle with?
Lets take the case of a waitress and a restaurant that has now reopened - it is legal now for her to go back to work. If its safe to do so then what do you propose for her? Should she work from home in your eyes, as a waitress? Or should she go back to work?
If you want to be a deliberate idiot all it shows is that you are an idiot.
The issue is the office blocks around the restaurant.
What is the advice for them? Restaurants and waitresses fine. But the government needs to solve the dilemma of the customers. That is why the advice is so confusing.
What is an office manager to do? The guidance is to work from home = don't rearrange the office yet. The message is get back to work = rearrange the office.
But you see no problem.
As the government are saying they should use their own common sense and decide what suits them.
If they see no good reason to bring people back in and are fine with continuing to work from home they should do so.
If they see a good reason to bring people back in and it is safe to do so then they should do so.
They should use their own common sense. Which is the government's advice. There is no problem, the office managers hopefully aren't complete and utter idiots pretending to be (or actually being) dumb.
The government's advice, as we are trying to tell you, is all over the place. But if the advice is use your common sense, what is the point of their guidance? Let alone conflicting guidance?
What does the government want and what policies is it going to put in place to achieve that? I mean that is the question governments should be asking.
Return of economic health? Go to work. Minimisation of the virus? Don't go to work. Balance of the two? Manage the situation and set out policies designed to achieve that.
No one has a problem with the complexity of the issue, nor the challenges of solving for the best possible outcome. But the government's messaging at the most basic level (what do we want and how do we achieve it) is failing.
The advice is clear. Go to work if you can, that work should be at home if it can be.
So on this basis staff at K10 Japanese Restaurant on Appold Street in the heart of the City in London should go back to work while everyone at the surrounding office buildings should stay at home?
If Pickard is an idiot too it doesn't change things.
If you can work from home then do so, if you can't and its safe to go back to work then go back to work. What part of that do you and Pickard struggle with?
Lets take the case of a waitress and a restaurant that has now reopened - it is legal now for her to go back to work. If its safe to do so then what do you propose for her? Should she work from home in your eyes, as a waitress? Or should she go back to work?
If you want to be a deliberate idiot all it shows is that you are an idiot.
The issue is the office blocks around the restaurant.
What is the advice for them? Restaurants and waitresses fine. But the government needs to solve the dilemma of the customers. That is why the advice is so confusing.
What is an office manager to do? The guidance is to work from home = don't rearrange the office yet. The message is get back to work = rearrange the office.
But you see no problem.
As the government are saying they should use their own common sense and decide what suits them.
If they see no good reason to bring people back in and are fine with continuing to work from home they should do so.
If they see a good reason to bring people back in and it is safe to do so then they should do so.
They should use their own common sense. Which is the government's advice. There is no problem, the office managers hopefully aren't complete and utter idiots pretending to be (or actually being) dumb.
The government's advice, as we are trying to tell you, is all over the place. But if the advice is use your common sense, what is the point of their guidance? Let alone conflicting guidance?
What does the government want and what policies is it going to put in place to achieve that? I mean that is the question governments should be asking.
Return of economic health? Go to work. Minimisation of the virus? Don't go to work. Balance of the two? Manage the situation and set out policies designed to achieve that.
No one has a problem with the complexity of the issue, nor the challenges of solving for the best possible outcome. But the government's messaging at the most basic level (what do we want and how do we achieve it) is failing.
The advice is clear. Go to work if you can, that work should be at home if it can be.
So on this basis staff at K10 Japanese Restaurant on Appold Street in the heart of the City in London should go back to work while everyone at the surrounding office buildings should stay at home?
Would you be able to go back to work if your place of work is shut?
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
The UK was able to have a points based immigration system before. The reason for not having one was simply an assessment that it wasn't deemed the best solution. Immigration was however subject to a freedom of movement requirement for EU citizens. Freedom surely counts as "opportunity", no?
We could have a point based immigration system with EU migrants? Are you 100% sure?
No but most of the EU don't have a means tested welfare system. In the UK that encouraged people to come here and take low paid work. In the rest of europe the low paid were not encouraged to move as you needed to work X years before getting any benefits so the only reason to go there was if the work paid well enough...
Indeed but I don't recall any parties seeking to abolish our means tested welfare system. If the Tories had sought to do so they'd have been called evil by the parties that were unambiguously pro-Remain.
Which is why when I've discussed this before I said all routes to Brexit start with Blair and Brown not fixing this back in 2004/6 when they discussed allowing Eastern Europeans to work in the UK...
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
On 3 - we always have as even Brown knew that the UK using the Euro was a bad idea..
I said money not currency.
Hundreds of millions of pounds a week going to the EU means we weren't controlling it.
Absolutely. I have the same thing that my tennis club insists on taking a membership from me. I have no control whatsoever. Oh wait, I could resign. But I like being a member so not sure of my remaining options.
@Philip_Thompson it doesn’t matter what was said. Brexit voters are expecting their lives to improve as a result of leaving the EU. If that doesn’t happen, they are not going to be very happy.
On that I agree 100%.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
Still waiting on an actual definition of those opportunities.
1: The UK Parliament rather than the EU determining UK laws. 2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU). 3: UK controlling its own money. 4: UK controlling its own trade policies. 5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
On 3 - we always have as even Brown knew that the UK using the Euro was a bad idea..
I said money not currency.
Hundreds of millions of pounds a week going to the EU means we weren't controlling it.
I would argue that the EU was actually better at targeting and spending money in the UK than the UK Government was...
Equally I suspect that we will be paying a similar amount to the EU when the final agreement is made - but hey all will be revealed within a month..
Comments
I mean what you are suggesting would require investment, management skill...
Don't be absurd.
Who will look at wages and decide what to do as actual implementation and delivery is not their issue, that's a problem for the people beneath them...
In fact, the only period where the UK growth performance looks unusually weak in an international comparison is post-2016.
The public were warned about "Project Fear" and chose to vote leave anyway. Whatever happens from Project Fear now - and whatever doesn't - it was priced in the moment we voted to leave.
https://www.politico.eu/article/national-health-eu-referendum-leave-remain-london-kill-or-cure-how-brexit-could-change-the-nhs/
https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1282611524603969536
On the HMO point, it is quite feasible to have one of the rooms in an HMO be a home office, or have a larger room for such people.
It's a crap example (for a whole lot of reasons) but look at car hand washing sites rather than machines as an example of cheap labour being used rather than automation...
Obviously noone expects flashing blues and twos because someone's visited a One Stop without a face covering. Guidance doesn't have to be enforced to within an inch of its life France gendarme style, but it does have to be clear. Stay at Home and 2 metres were good examples of that earlier in the pandemic.
Fujitsu moved into a smaller office and told some staff they had to work at home, but they were not home workers. They had an office, just no desk at that office...
https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1282613847367593984
The arguments are old and well worn. You know full well that we think that the UK Parliament setting UK laws not the EU doing so to be a good thing. We think democratic accountability at UK elections for our laws to be a good thing. That you propose to rewrite all of it as a bad thing and denounce any other thinking as a thought crime is very 1984 behaviour - but thankfully your Big Brother nonsense isn't enforced by the government as you're not in charge.
Instead thankfully we have a free society where people are able to advocate what they see as positives and warn against negatives. Even if people like you wish to rewrite it all as doubleplusungood.
1) Outsource
2) Manager moves to new promotion on the basis of cost saving
3) Fuckup
4) New manager brings it back on shore.
5) New manager gets promotion on the basis of fixing the problem
6) New New Manager - what the fuck are we doing, using a high cost location?
7) Outsource
etc etc.
Note that bringing the sweat shops on shore (see Leicester) is an attempt to deal with the problems of the productivity cost outline above for 3rd world countries.
Essentially, when a country gets with the program and starts improving its social, political and technological infrastructure, this drops the productivity cost.
A side effect is more rights for workers. Being the scum that workers always are, they ask for things like enough money to live on and machines that only chop off *some* of their children's limbs.
After a while of this, the productivity cost advantage is gone.
A managers life is tough.....
When you bring 3rd/2nd world employment conditions (and employees) onshore, you are creating this productivity advantage - the NHS etc without having to pay the full costs.
The problem is that the scumbag workers will insist on learning the language, figuring out they have rights and realising that they can get better money - anywhere else.
So you need a constant resupply of new workers.....
Brexiteers explicitly told the public not to listen to informed debate.
The public were lied to, continuously, by BoZo and his chums.
Some of them have noticed.
Suck it up, you won...
And most people advocating WFH think they can move to the countryside and still get London wages. Companies will soon realise they can hire remote workers in Grimsby and pay Grimsby wages. Good for Grimsby and other declining towns but in the long term bad news for the middle class advocates of WFH and probably the economy as a whole.
If side A says X will happen and side B say X will not happen, and people vote for side B, they voted because they believed side B. If X then happens, for side B to turn around and say - well people knew that because side A said it would happen, is possibly the most dishonest thing I have ever seen suggested on this forum or indeed anywhere else.
Side B needs to own what they said. Were they wrong? Or were they lying? Either way, what does it tell us about their project?
I shall ask the servants to the servants to shove up a bit. That will mean enough space for an extra ballroom, *and* some home office space...
If you're able to work from home then do so, if your employer is OK with that.
If you're not able to work from home and its safe and legal for you to go back to work then go back to work.
What part of that message are you struggling to understand? If you're clueless about that it says more about you than the government.
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1282616186417668097
For instance Remainers said that if we left the EU then we'd leave the Single Market. Then Leavers also said that if we left the EU then we'd leave the Single Market.
You don't get to then claim that Leavers claimed that leaving the Single Market was a part of Project Fear because it certainly wasn't. Both sides agreed it would happen.
I asked for a citation on EHIC and Pet Passports and didn't get one. Funny that. Frankly I think its a non-issue and moot but you don't get to lump everything into being dismissed as Project Fear unless it was explicitly said that it wouldn't happen.
If side A says X, Y and Z will happen and side B say X will not happen, Z will happen and ignores Y altogether . . . and then Y does happen then the public were informed about that beforehand even if side B ignored Y as an issue.
But automation has upfront costs so people avoid doing it (as witnessed in the separate GDP per capita posts)..
I can show you house design books going back 50 years with "office in a cupboard" designs.
On HMOs again, the country is full of HMOs containing bedrooms which are slightly too small to meet recently introduced supplementary space standards.
If you can work from home then do so, if you can't and its safe to go back to work then go back to work. What part of that do you and Pickard struggle with?
Lets take the case of a waitress and a restaurant that has now reopened - it is legal now for her to go back to work. If its safe to do so then what do you propose for her? Should she work from home in your eyes, as a waitress? Or should she go back to work?
If you want to be a deliberate idiot all it shows is that you are an idiot.
To be clear all the tired-out tropes you list above are lies - a great example of how the UK Parliament was and is sovereign was when David Cameron rejected voting rights for convicts in the face of apparently superior EU directive - that act doesn't get much of a reference in Brexit circles does it?
The fact that the UK government might have frequently chosen to simply copy and paste EU legislation is a different matter - they were accountable for that before but no one seemed to care. Go and ask Viktor Orban about who is calling the shots in EU member Hungary.
There certainly is a Big Brother at play: the UK government has actually said that it now prefers to hire Brexiters into Government posts because they have the "right" thought patterns.
Brexit is a faith and it is intolerant of non-believers at the same time as it peddles its own untruths. Hence the highly aggresive response when people point out the lies and the inconsistencies in the creed. I don't think supporting Brexit is a thought crime I just point out the things wrong with it and that is interpreted as an attack: that tells you everything you need to know about it and its supporters - brittle, thin-skinned and intellectually shallow.
the West MidlandsGreater Birmingham.Obviously Slough ought to go into the mixing pot with the other Bucks districts.
However do you also agree that their lives won't improve if nothing changes, will it? Surely the only way to improve their lives is to seize the opportunities Brexiteers see before us, even if Remainers don't see it as an opportunity.
How can their lives improve if we proceed with Brexit in a "damage limitation" mindset?
I discussed this with a colleague recently. She propped her laptop on a shelf to work from home, then wondered why her neck was stiff for days.
If you have no idea what the rules are, you can't enforce them
And if you can't enforce them, they are in practise non-existent.
The European Court of Human Rights is not an EU institution. Their decision on voting rights for convicts was not an EU directive. The 1972 European Communities Act (now repealed, though its effects saved until 31/12/20) makes EU law supreme in the UK - but that doesn't apply to non-EU rules.
If you can't tell the difference between EU institutions and non-EU ones then don't blame Leavers for your ignorance.
The trend of London sucking up the professional life of the whole country causes lots of problems. If you look at the faces of people on the way to Liverpool Street, they're not enjoying it. The hollowing out of the provincial private sector middle class creates all sorts of social problems for towns. This is worth getting right.
I'm about to do one myself.
2: The UK electorate being able to kick out governments that make laws they don't like (not possible with the EU).
3: UK controlling its own money.
4: UK controlling its own trade policies.
5: UK controlling its own borders.
Just off the top of my head. Point 5 is one I don't care about but a new points based immigration system has been announced today on that which is newsworthy.
What is the advice for them? Restaurants and waitresses fine. But the government needs to solve the dilemma of the restaurant's customers. That is why the advice is so confusing.
What is an office manager to do? The guidance is to work from home = don't rearrange the office yet. The message is get back to work = rearrange the office.
One means customers for the restaurant, the other means no customers for the restaurant.
But you see no problem.
If they see no good reason to bring people back in and are fine with continuing to work from home they should do so.
If they see a good reason to bring people back in and it is safe to do so then they should do so.
They should use their own common sense. Which is the government's advice. There is no problem, the office managers hopefully aren't complete and utter idiots pretending to be (or actually being) dumb.
https://twitter.com/adamcooperF1/status/1282614058437443584
After Hungary, this coming weekend, there's a weekend off, I think, then the British Grands Prix.
What does the government want and what policies is it going to put in place to achieve that? I mean that is the question governments should be asking.
Return of economic health? Go to work.
Minimisation of the virus? Don't go to work.
Balance of the two? Manage the situation and set out policies designed to achieve that.
No one has a problem with the complexity of the issue, nor the challenges of solving for the best possible outcome. But the government's messaging at the most basic level (what do we want and how do we achieve it) is failing.
Francois has been routinely reviled, mocked and abused on here and will doubtless receive zero credit from the usual suspects for his comments.
But that of course says far more about them than it does about him
You have to weigh the pros and the cons. The advantages in my eyes of EU membership were:
A: Improved trade with the EU.
B: Trade agreements negotiated with the rest of the world.
C: Free movement.
If the EU were a simple trade agreement I'd have supported it 100%. But I became convinced that the cons outweighed the pros during the campaign.
In particular @Richard_Tyndall made a convincing argument that non-EU EEA nations have more and better trade agreements than the EU nations have. This switched my thinking on B on the pro-membership list to 4 on the anti-membership list.
Michael Gove, Boris, Mr Tyndall and @Casino_Royale made convincing arguments on 1 and 2 that convinced me.
Finally on C an argument was made that free movement was distorting immigration by causing us to be overly-harsh on rest of the world immigration in order to try and drive down numbers. That was the first time I'd seen a pro-immigration argument in favour of Brexit (as opposed to the xenophobia of Farage etc) which neutralised the issue for me.
Which meant that the UK was the place that low skilled workers went to once they arrived and registered they would instantly get additional money to top up their pay while the rest of the EU insisted that they worked for X years before getting any benefits...
Which meant you only went to Germany if the job paid a lot but you could go to the UK even if the job paid very little
Future governments will be able to change it if that is what voters want.
And that's the point. Voters will be able to choose from a menu of immigration policies set forward by the parties that want their vote. Immigration will not be a roped off issue.
Tricky for a labour party that wants those red wall seats back.
Hundreds of millions of pounds a week going to the EU means we weren't controlling it.
Genius. Can't understand why anyone is confused by that.
Idiot.
Plenty of people go to their computer at home to work from home. Its not difficult.
Equally I suspect that we will be paying a similar amount to the EU when the final agreement is made - but hey all will be revealed within a month..