Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
Many employers are thinking about the 2 day a week model. Being able to reduce office space is a big driver in this.
You can survive a much longer commute if it is 4 journeys a week, rather than 10.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
Exactly. People can now live where they want to live. This will transform the map of the UK as the "Britain is full" nonsense gets silenced as people move away from London and realise most of the UK is sparsely populated.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
No because while I would commute less often I still wouldnt be realistically able to move out of the south east so my position wouldn't change substantially. I would still be stuck somewhere I don't want to be. 3 or so days a month and it would be possible.
Everyone here goes on about networking and socialising. I have worked for a lot of companies and never yet seen much of either since the 90's until people get to middle management level. Most of us drones don't socialise after all whats the point we will be moving jobs in 2 to 3 years to get a payrise or promotion and never see them again. Its into the office logon headphones on and that seems pretty much universal from my experience
In old money Biden is 10/11 with Trump 11/10, I'm genuinely amazed. I really thought a year ago the Democrats would have walked in with any candidate.
That might still be the case but despite every media outlet painting Trump in such a bad light (over here) the Americans clearly see it differently. I don't follow the US enough to make a judgement, my point is the view where it counts is nowhere near as negative as the view from here.
It isn't a massive secret. A lot of American are incredibly racist in a way you simply don't see here.
Yeah, yeah clutch your pearls at my terribleness but the research is abundantly clear.
A huge section of poor rural white Americans will repeatedly choose options that are economically bad for them as long as it ensures equally bad if not worse outcomes for Black people.
White supremicism is a mainstream political viewpoint in America.
Betting on American politics without understanding how deeply ingrained their racism is is a sure fire way to the poor house.
I've only been once, to NY so I can't comment, but you make my point about the mainstream media here as opposed to tens of millions of Americans.
With absolutely no financial gain on my part, the BBC meltdown should Trump get back in will be sumptuous. And further confirmation of how detached they are.
I'm sorry, and don't take this personally, but the people claiming they are going to enjoy "the BBC meltdown should Trump get back in" come across as arseholes.
Somewhat out of date arseholes also, owning the libs is so 2016. Nowadays it's all '4 more years of Trump will be the left's fault cos they chose Biden as a candidate'. Same folk, mind.
I give my American relatives stick over this - "You couldn't find anyone under the age of 1,000, without the baggage? For an election *this* important?"
Sky News and the BBC News channel may not carry Downing Street’s new televised press conference in full every day, it has emerged.
Britain’s two leading rolling news channels plan to screen the White House-style briefings “on merit” and may cut away if they are insufficiently newsworthy.
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
Exactly. People can now live where they want to live. This will transform the map of the UK as the "Britain is full" nonsense gets silenced as people move away from London and realise most of the UK is sparsely populated.
Most of the UK is sparsely populated? Isn't it one of the most densely populated in Europe?
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
Exactly. People can now live where they want to live. This will transform the map of the UK as the "Britain is full" nonsense gets silenced as people move away from London and realise most of the UK is sparsely populated.
The anguished articles from Guardian opinion writers about being banished to outer... Birmingham will be hilarious.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
Many employers are thinking about the 2 day a week model. Being able to reduce office space is a big driver in this.
You can survive a much longer commute if it is 4 journeys a week, rather than 10.
Not sufficient to allow me to move out of the south east.
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
You think it should get in the way of people happily getting on with operating within the single market.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the recession and negative equity in 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
But there was no recession in 1997. There was no recession in 1993, 1994, 1995 or 1996 either.
As for the growth in 1992 - that came after the election not before it. Have a look at your own link you silly person. Q1 and Q2 1992 the UK was in negative growth*, the growth that you refer to happened in Q3 and Q4. The election was in April, so before the Q3 and Q4 growth and during the downturn with negative growth.
* though rounded up to 0 on a quarterly basis in Q1, it was negative on an annual basis both quarters.
The economy was in its deepest recession in 1991, even in Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 of 1992 the UK economy was growing compared to 1991.
It was after the negative equity from Black Wednesday after late 1992 and early 1993 and the collapse in house prices and repossessions that the Tories poll rating collapsed, Labour was well ahead even under John Smith, when Tony Blair took over he just expanded the Labour lead, he did not create it
No the economy was not growing in 1992. From your own link:
Quarterly figures: Q1 0%, Q2 -0.1%
Annualised figures Q1 -0.2%, Q1 -0.1%
Growing would require positive figures not negative ones 🙄
The Tories always go into negative territory in the polls when they're in government - Cameron did, May did, Thatcher did every Parliament and yes Major did too. They won in 1992 and lost in 1997 despite the economy not because of it. If we were to go on economic figures alone then the Tories should have done better in 1997 than they did in 1992.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
Exactly. People can now live where they want to live. This will transform the map of the UK as the "Britain is full" nonsense gets silenced as people move away from London and realise most of the UK is sparsely populated.
Most of the UK is sparsely populated? Isn't it one of the most densely populated in Europe?
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
You think it should get in the way of people happily getting on with operating within the single market.
We voted to Leave the Single Market five years ago. Get over it already.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
Is the right answer.
I’ve never understood why the LDs are not proud of their role in government, too many of them focus only on the negative aspects and forget the positives - top of which was to bring stability to government at a very difficult time. Government is harder than opposition, and requires compromises and making difficult decisions. The LDs did well in government and should be applauded.
Tories not understanding why other parties don't want to highlight any past association with the Tories are always a hoot.
Sky News and the BBC News channel may not carry Downing Street’s new televised press conference in full every day, it has emerged.
Britain’s two leading rolling news channels plan to screen the White House-style briefings “on merit” and may cut away if they are insufficiently newsworthy.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
I think what the government could do is force train companies to offer 2-4 days per week season tickets and charge the proportional rate. One of the huge issues people have with one day at home is that they're still paying for a monthly ticket but they only use it for 4 days and lots of people say the same thing about 2 or 3 days per week. The cost of commuting doesn't really go down with 3 or 4 days in office because you still need a season ticket or you end up in the daily return trap. In London it's not so bad because I just use contactless PAYG, but for those coming in from Hertfordshire or Surrey there is no saving for doing 1 or 2 days from home.
I think service patterns could change too.
People will be travelling throughout the day more, not just between 6.30-9am and 5pm-7pm, so there will be less density of traffic.
That should mean a need for a bit less rolling stock, stabling and capacity pinches (saving a tad of money) but, overall, TOCs and NR will still be down. We're probably talking takings down about 30-40%, operating costs about 10-15%, and much new capital work deferred.
That definitely ends with a new governance model for rail in the UK, if not necessarily nationalisation.
I may bang about this too much - but that would make the viability of quite a few lines vanish.
With the age of electric car approaching, the train doesn't automatically win. Running a train with 8 people on it - which is not uncommon now - is not sustainable.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
Exactly. People can now live where they want to live. This will transform the map of the UK as the "Britain is full" nonsense gets silenced as people move away from London and realise most of the UK is sparsely populated.
Most of the UK is sparsely populated? Isn't it one of the most densely populated in Europe?
The two points nevertheless do not contradict one another. It can be denser than most but still mostly not be dense
Sounds very much to me as though your boss is trying to have his cake and eat it and what he is doing is neither ethical nor legal. In fact and I am certainly no lawyer here it doesn't sound to me like you are being made redundant at all. Redundant is when the role goes away. The role appears to be still there they are just handing it to someone else.
Thanks for that. As I have been there less than 2 years I have less rights than I would like. However I agree with the cake and eat it bit. Legally they don't need a reason to lay me off. However they have followed a process where they have declared my role redundant. Despite the commercial review which will decide if the business wants to restructure me out not taking place until the end of October.
In his own words the CEO is clear that we do not yet know the shape of 2021 and cannot make the call yet about Commercial resource needed. But to reduce the costs to the business he has triggered redundancy now so that if we get to the end of October and they want to remove the role it will cost less as I have (a) already served 2 months notice and (b) they have used the Arcadia strategem to negate my contract and use Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme monies to not pay my contracted pay despite ministers being explicit that this is now what the scheme is to be used for.
I am certainly going to argue the toss. But short of spending money on solicitors to try and defend my position I don't think I will get anywhere. Hence my ambivalence towards doing anything other that strict delivery against my part of a contract they are refusing to honour.
It does sound as if they want you to spend a couple of months seeking out sales leads to take to your next company!
Anyone in senior management or customer-facing roles are traditionally walked out of the door the day it’s agreed they’re leaving, and for good reason.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the recession and negative equity in 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
But there was no recession in 1997. There was no recession in 1993, 1994, 1995 or 1996 either.
As for the growth in 1992 - that came after the election not before it. Have a look at your own link you silly person. Q1 and Q2 1992 the UK was in negative growth*, the growth that you refer to happened in Q3 and Q4. The election was in April, so before the Q3 and Q4 growth and during the downturn with negative growth.
* though rounded up to 0 on a quarterly basis in Q1, it was negative on an annual basis both quarters.
The economy was in its deepest recession in 1991, even in Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 of 1992 the UK economy was growing compared to 1991.
It was after the negative equity from Black Wednesday after late 1992 and early 1993 and the collapse in house prices and repossessions that the Tories poll rating collapsed, Labour was well ahead even under John Smith, when Tony Blair took over he just expanded the Labour lead, he did not create it
No the economy was not growing in 1992. From your own link:
Quarterly figures: Q1 0%, Q2 -0.1%
Annualised figures Q1 -0.2%, Q1 -0.1%
Growing would require positive figures not negative ones 🙄
The Tories always go into negative territory in the polls when they're in government - Cameron did, May did, Thatcher did every Parliament and yes Major did too. They won in 1992 and lost in 1997 despite the economy not because of it. If we were to go on economic figures alone then the Tories should have done better in 1997 than they did in 1992.
Had Major called an election in 1991 rather than 1992 he probably would have lost.
1997 was lost after Black Wednesday and never recovered
Your last link showed the economy shrinking in Q1 1992. The economy was growing far faster in 1997 than in 1992. By 1997 the economy was growing at its fastest rate in nearly a decade but the Tories weren't rewarded for that.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the negative equity in late 1992 and early 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
The polls didn't really show that. The fall started pretty much the moment Major won, certainly well before Black Wednesday. And Black Wednesday doesn't really show up on the graph; the steady decline that had been happening just continued happening;
Yes, surprised me as well. Anyone remember if there was a reason for the clear, but short-lived blip around the end of 1992?
No, look at the graph.
The UK election was in April 1992 and on that link the Tories led every poll until the end of July 1992 and the Tories also still led half the polls from August to mid September 1992 after Smith was elected Labour leader on 18th July.
Black Wednesday was on 16th September 1992 after which Labour led every poll bar one tie until the end of 1992 and Labour then led every poll bar one from 1993 until 1997 after that
Look at the lines on the graph. Crossover happened in Autumn 1992, sure, but convergence was happening already. Black Wednesday didn't accelerate the Conservative's fall, or Labour's rise. It surprised me as well.
Crossover happened in Autumn 1992 ie after Black Wednesday.
That is the key point, before Black Wednesday the Tories led at least half the polls, after Black Wednesday the Tories barely led any until 1997
Has anyone who is banging on about how Brexit will be a failure got any new lines or arguments that weren't used in the 2016 referendum?
Is there anyone here banging on about how Brexit will be a failure who didn't vote for the losing side in 2016?
This is the longest most drawn out whinge ever.
The argument is entirely different. The referendum campaign was about the pros and cons of EU membership. We've now moved onto implementation of a new trading relationship having settled that issue and left the EU. Nobody - on any side - argued for no deal in the referendum. So no, we aren't banging on with the same old arguments. We left. This is about the future.
Having left we still need to trade. That the cretins in government have only just realised that is entertaining.
Yes but (and I appreciate you've switched sides) the EU side want us to sign up for a trade deal that is Brexit In Name Only. The Leave side want us to Take Back Control.
I haven't switched sides. I voted to leave the EU not the EEA and I would be very happy with that outcome. BINO is bullshit. You are either in something or you are not. Brexit was the exit of the EU. Achieved. The EEA is not the EU. The CU is not the EU. You aren't a fool Philip, so stop parroting the idiot words of these idiots who can't tell the difference.
Norway is not in the EU. Has never been in the EU. Cannot be accused of having not joined in name only. Turkey is in a CU. Has never been in the EU and indeed the suggestion it may join was one of the Faragista messages as to why we should leave. Turkey cannot be accused of having not joined in name only. Its a fucking stupid moronic argument.
I voted to Take Back Control knowing that meant leaving the EEA and leaving the Single Market. I was explicitly and repeatedly told that my vote meant leaving the Single Market and I expect us to do so and to take back control.
If I'd wanted to stay in the Single Market, then having been told that leaving the EU meant leaving the Single Market, I would have voted Remain.
I carefully considered all this in 2016. Nothing has changed for me.
And thats fine. The same people telling you the "would you like to leave the EU" question meant EEA as well also assured all of us that deals would be simple. Not only have they no delivered any deals they don't even know what the deals would look like or what they want.
They've taken you for a fool. You wanted to leave the EEA - fine. And do what? Because we're on the verge of shutting our border which will be the effectual impact of tearing up all trade deals and not even having the physical and IT infrastructure to impose massive cost and delay on business even if that was a good idea which it isn't. You voted I assume for one of these imaginary replacement deals? Isn't it sensible to not throw yourself off the bungee platform until the cord has been tied to your ankle?
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Not true. Companies go bust and continue operating all the time. Get administrators in and restructure the company.
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
You think it should get in the way of people happily getting on with operating within the single market.
We voted to Leave the Single Market five years ago. Get over it already.
Prior to the referendum who said, and where did it say we would leave the single market on a Leave vote?
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
Is the right answer.
I’ve never understood why the LDs are not proud of their role in government, too many of them focus only on the negative aspects and forget the positives - top of which was to bring stability to government at a very difficult time. Government is harder than opposition, and requires compromises and making difficult decisions. The LDs did well in government and should be applauded.
Tories not understanding why other parties don't want to highlight any past association with the Tories are always a hoot.
What is the point of being a centrist party that doesnt embrace coalition though? It should be their raison d'etre? If not are they a vehicle for changing policies in other parties like the greens or UKIP? - if so they need to do a lot more differentiation on policy to have an impact.
Sounds very much to me as though your boss is trying to have his cake and eat it and what he is doing is neither ethical nor legal. In fact and I am certainly no lawyer here it doesn't sound to me like you are being made redundant at all. Redundant is when the role goes away. The role appears to be still there they are just handing it to someone else.
Thanks for that. As I have been there less than 2 years I have less rights than I would like. However I agree with the cake and eat it bit. Legally they don't need a reason to lay me off. However they have followed a process where they have declared my role redundant. Despite the commercial review which will decide if the business wants to restructure me out not taking place until the end of October.
In his own words the CEO is clear that we do not yet know the shape of 2021 and cannot make the call yet about Commercial resource needed. But to reduce the costs to the business he has triggered redundancy now so that if we get to the end of October and they want to remove the role it will cost less as I have (a) already served 2 months notice and (b) they have used the Arcadia strategem to negate my contract and use Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme monies to not pay my contracted pay despite ministers being explicit that this is now what the scheme is to be used for.
I am certainly going to argue the toss. But short of spending money on solicitors to try and defend my position I don't think I will get anywhere. Hence my ambivalence towards doing anything other that strict delivery against my part of a contract they are refusing to honour.
It does sound as if they want you to spend a couple of months seeking out sales leads to take to your next company!
Anyone in senior management or customer-facing roles are traditionally walked out of the door the day it’s agreed they’re leaving, and for good reason.
A friend got binned after long service with his company.
He pointed out, at his exit interview that his contract didn't have a no-compete clause. He left to their screaming.....
He'd already setup his own outfit and just told all of his clients the situation.
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
You think it should get in the way of people happily getting on with operating within the single market.
We voted to Leave the Single Market five years ago. Get over it already.
It’s a question about your political philosophy. You can’t credibly claim to support the idea of the government getting out of the way of people’s lives while favouring the reimposition of national control of the economy and creating barriers where none exist today.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
Exactly. People can now live where they want to live. This will transform the map of the UK as the "Britain is full" nonsense gets silenced as people move away from London and realise most of the UK is sparsely populated.
Most of the UK is sparsely populated? Isn't it one of the most densely populated in Europe?
More than one thing can be true at the same time.
If the whole of the UK had London's population density then the UK would more than double the United States of America's combined population.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the recession and negative equity in 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
But there was no recession in 1997. There was no recession in 1993, 1994, 1995 or 1996 either.
As for the growth in 1992 - that came after the election not before it. Have a look at your own link you silly person. Q1 and Q2 1992 the UK was in negative growth*, the growth that you refer to happened in Q3 and Q4. The election was in April, so before the Q3 and Q4 growth and during the downturn with negative growth.
* though rounded up to 0 on a quarterly basis in Q1, it was negative on an annual basis both quarters.
The economy was in its deepest recession in 1991, even in Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 of 1992 the UK economy was growing compared to 1991.
It was after the negative equity from Black Wednesday after late 1992 and early 1993 and the collapse in house prices and repossessions that the Tories poll rating collapsed, Labour was well ahead even under John Smith, when Tony Blair took over he just expanded the Labour lead, he did not create it
No the economy was not growing in 1992. From your own link:
Quarterly figures: Q1 0%, Q2 -0.1%
Annualised figures Q1 -0.2%, Q1 -0.1%
Growing would require positive figures not negative ones 🙄
The Tories always go into negative territory in the polls when they're in government - Cameron did, May did, Thatcher did every Parliament and yes Major did too. They won in 1992 and lost in 1997 despite the economy not because of it. If we were to go on economic figures alone then the Tories should have done better in 1997 than they did in 1992.
Had Major called an election in 1991 rather than 1992 he probably would have lost.
1997 was lost after Black Wednesday and never recovered
Your last link showed the economy shrinking in Q1 1992. The economy was growing far faster in 1997 than in 1992. By 1997 the economy was growing at its fastest rate in nearly a decade but the Tories weren't rewarded for that.
I have just posted a link showing the economy was growing by early 1992, even the earlier link showed the economy was not declining as much as in 1991, as I said had Major called an election in 1991 not 1992 he probably would have lost.
In 1997 the Tories lost because of the negative equity and reposessions and surging interest rates after Black Wednesday, Blair just increased the scale of their defeat, John Smith would have won in 1997 too. Plus it was 18 years in power and no party in government has ever survived that long anyway
I don't understand Take Back Control. We took control of our borders and chose not to shut them to pox-laden travellers. The people who we said had no control of their borders closed them. We said we don't want foreign types dictating our laws. But want to sign a US trade deal where foreign types will dictate our laws. We said we wanted to be in control of our destiny. Yet having not understood the map or politics or trade we are literally adrift awaiting for a predatory trade deal to be dictated by a counterparty who will have control of the life raft we need.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the negative equity in late 1992 and early 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
The polls didn't really show that. The fall started pretty much the moment Major won, certainly well before Black Wednesday. And Black Wednesday doesn't really show up on the graph; the steady decline that had been happening just continued happening;
Yes, surprised me as well. Anyone remember if there was a reason for the clear, but short-lived blip around the end of 1992?
The Tories performed strongly at the May 1992 Local Elections held a month later than the GE.
Yes because the vast majority of LD and Lab voters stayed at home for those local elections (not including me), having been hit hard by the GE result. That is not the same as the polling figures for Westminster VI
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
You think it should get in the way of people happily getting on with operating within the single market.
We voted to Leave the Single Market five years ago. Get over it already.
Prior to the referendum who said, and where did it say we would leave the single market on a Leave vote?
David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George Osborne, Andrea Leadsom, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.
Sky News and the BBC News channel may not carry Downing Street’s new televised press conference in full every day, it has emerged.
Britain’s two leading rolling news channels plan to screen the White House-style briefings “on merit” and may cut away if they are insufficiently newsworthy.
On train fares, for me buying day return tickets 3 days a week is cheaper than a weekly ticket, but not much. 4 day return tickets would cost more.
So moneywise I only save the price of a coffee. But get two lie-ins.
This is West Yorkshire so the situation may be different in other areas.
I save more if one of my days involves a trip to the Manchester office, as that is on expenses.
Whether I will return to this arrangement, who knows?
Yes, that was my point. 3 or 4 days per week in office works out to about the same as getting a season ticket. I think the government needs to force railway companies to get on board with new flexible working and offer weekly tickets that give 6 peak time return journeys plus unlimited off peak travel for 75% of the cost of a proper season ticket for people doing 3 days in office. With smart ticketing it would be easy to implement as well. I'm sure train companies would have to be dragged into it kicking and screaming.
If you're going to a theatre performance that requires you to travel at peak time you pay more too.
It's supply and demand but it's not a free market. Consumers in most cases can't realistically choose another means of transport - so they are forced to pay whatever is asked of them.
That's why your opinion on the trains is a niche position. Rail re-nationalisation as a SERVICE rather than as a business is popular amongst the public.
Consumers absolutely can choose alternative means of transportation. Cars, pedal bikes, e-bikes, motorbikes, taxis . . . there are plenty of alternatives.
Are you a commuter?
The rail service absolutely is a monopoly, on weight of numbers alone. Working from home has liberated us, finally.
Want us to go back to trains? try providing a decent service.
I'm not at the minute as I'm working from home, but I have been in the past and I have always chosen to drive to work. As does the overwhelming majority of the country.
Rail commuters are a tiny vocal minority. They are the Lib Dems of commuters.
It’s also a very London-centric activity, and those in and around power are disproportionately high users of rail travel.
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
You think it should get in the way of people happily getting on with operating within the single market.
We voted to Leave the Single Market five years ago. Get over it already.
Can you please show me where the EEA was on the ballot paper? You keep saying "we voted to leave the Single Market". But as we were not asked a question about the Single Market your repetition of it doesn't make it correct. Its still wrong.
Yes, some politicians said "we will leave the single market". Some other politicians on the same side said "we won't leave the single market". All of them said we would have a deal, easy, better, quickly. The word of a politician is not binding. Whats on the ballot IS binding. Its the same guff as "I voted for the PM" when you don't live in their constituency. No, you didn't.
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Not true. Companies go bust and continue operating all the time. Get administrators in and restructure the company.
And that would result in cuts to services and track, railways are a public service as most of the world agrees.
They were privatised and they went bust. They’ve been privatised again and gone bust.
Perhaps the non-ideological viewpoint is that some businesses ought to be nationalised and others not.
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Well as PT would say if that’s what the market says then so be it.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
Is the right answer.
I’ve never understood why the LDs are not proud of their role in government, too many of them focus only on the negative aspects and forget the positives - top of which was to bring stability to government at a very difficult time. Government is harder than opposition, and requires compromises and making difficult decisions. The LDs did well in government and should be applauded.
Tories not understanding why other parties don't want to highlight any past association with the Tories are always a hoot.
What is the point of being a centrist party that doesnt embrace coalition though? It should be their raison d'etre? If not are they a vehicle for changing policies in other parties like the greens or UKIP? - if so they need to do a lot more differentiation on policy to have an impact.
The LDs did embrace coalition, perhaps that's part of the problem! Afaicr their schtick in 2015 was 'we influenced the coalition for the better', for all the good it did them. Not sure if more full blooded cheerleading for the coalition would have helped.
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
You think it should get in the way of people happily getting on with operating within the single market.
We voted to Leave the Single Market five years ago. Get over it already.
Can you please show me where the EEA was on the ballot paper? You keep saying "we voted to leave the Single Market". But as we were not asked a question about the Single Market your repetition of it doesn't make it correct. Its still wrong.
Yes, some politicians said "we will leave the single market". Some other politicians on the same side said "we won't leave the single market". All of them said we would have a deal, easy, better, quickly. The word of a politician is not binding. Whats on the ballot IS binding. Its the same guff as "I voted for the PM" when you don't live in their constituency. No, you didn't.
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Well as PT would say if that’s what the market says then so be it.
The Liberal Democrats are a complete irrelevance but before OGH bans mention of them altogether as a waste of precious bits and bytes on pb's expensive new server, we can perhaps offer the new leader some advice.
The LibDems are no longer our third party and thus almost guaranteed an invitation to political discussion shows. The SNP has three times as many MPs; the DUP almost as many.
Ed Davey needs to emulate chat show Charlie to get those television invitations pouring in. Luckily Davey scored a first in PPE at Oxford, in the same cohort as David Cameron. Davey needs to rack his brain for anecdotes about Boris, Gove and all the other Tory big cheeses he was at Oxford with. And stories from his time in government that make him seem a more serious player than Keir Starmer.
Instead what we got on the day he was elected was a promise to listen, to travel up and down the country listening to people. Not unlike Rory Stewart, and a fat lot of good it did him. I am your leader, let me follow you!
Were there any ideas emanting from either candidate in their election campaign? If so, they didn't make it to the outside world....
If I were a senior LibDem, I'd be giving up on Westminster. For at least the next ten years. Meantime, become a nationally important party of local government. It's what they are good at. Nobody believes they will be a governing party in any other context. So become very, very good at local governance.
It would get them over the issue of the height of their ambition being as a junior partner in a coalition. Because that went so well last time. And everybody knows it - hence their continued slide in seats. But they can still make a real improvement at a local level - especially if that is their sole focus.
The Libdems may still be recovering from the political damage that being part of the 2010-15 coalition government did, but that coalition government was a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority govt that followed, a hell of a lot better than the conservative govt propped up the DUP that followed that, and a hell of a lot better than the conservative majority government that followed that.
I would also argue that if Labour had failed to get a majority in 1997, 2001, or 2005, a Labour-LibDem coalition government would have been much better than the Labour majority governments we actually had.
I voted for Ed Davey because he was a Coalition minister. Its been used as an attack - he needs to pivot it into a positive and that was a key campaign theme. So much of the good in the coalition was LibDem initiatives and policies. So much of the bad was Tory initiatives and policies. Own the good, disown the bad. The Tories are excellent at this, Davey hopefully learned some tricks.
You can't run and hide from your actions. Own them. Every time I fuck something up professionally I own it - what gets remembered is the professional and responsible way I handled it as opposed to the fuck up itself. Davey can do the same - Clegg fucked up tuition fees. Made the wrong choice, didn't tell us until afterwards, we shouldn't have done it, we will fix it.
It's all about tuition fees. Has Davey said anything about them? Would a red line in any future coalition or C&S negotiations be to scrap them?
Isn't that easy though since Labour still supports - I think - scrapping them anyway.
The red line should be PR.
Well that's good news in terms of any deal with Labour (let's face it, Labour and Lib Dems are no longer fighting each other).
But how about a result like:
Con - 308 Lab - 249 SNP - 50 LD - 20 (of which four are in Scotland) DUP - 8 SF - 7 PC - 4 SDLP - 2 Alliance - 1 Speaker - 1
What would the Lib Dems do in such a scenario? Do they do a deal with Labour and the SNP? Could they work with the Tories?
Unless the Tories backed EEA the LDs would obviously go with Starmer Labour and the LDs
cs Not everything in 2024 is going to be about Brexit ffs.
He is obsessed with it.
If we're still talking about Brexit as the main issue, Johnson has failed to deliver it and so why would voters trust him again?
Johnson has already delivered it but who wins in 2024 will almost certainly depend on whether Brexit is a success under the Tories, whether on WTO terms or with a FTA with the EU and the economy is still growing.
If not then voters will look for a softer Brexit with Labour and the LDs and SNP
No, who wins in 2024 will depend upon the issues of 2024.
If Brexit is a success then it will be banked and taken for granted by the public and new issues will be the battleground.
If Brexit is a failure then it may still be banked and thought of as too much hassle to touch and with new issues as the battleground.
No if Brexit is a success then WTO Terms Brexit or the EU FTA will be accepted by all parties and the economy will be booming and the Tories will be re elected.
If the shape of Brexit is not a success then we will be in recession still in large part due to a WTO terms Brexit and obviously Brexit will be the dominant issue of the election assuming Covid is under control with Labour supported by the LDs and or the SNP likely to win the election on a platform of a softer Brexit to get a deal with the EU or EEA
Like the Tories were re-elected when the economy was growing in 1997? Or like the Tories lost when the economy was struggling in 1992?
You're full of shit. There are no certainties.
The Tories loss in 1997 and their collapse in the polls started with the negative equity in late 1992 and early 1993 after leaving the ERM and Black Wednesday.
In 1992 the UK economy actually grew from the weak point of the downturn in 1991
The polls didn't really show that. The fall started pretty much the moment Major won, certainly well before Black Wednesday. And Black Wednesday doesn't really show up on the graph; the steady decline that had been happening just continued happening;
Yes, surprised me as well. Anyone remember if there was a reason for the clear, but short-lived blip around the end of 1992?
No, look at the graph.
The UK election was in April 1992 and on that link the Tories led every poll until the end of July 1992 and the Tories also still led half the polls from August to mid September 1992 after Smith was elected Labour leader on 18th July.
Black Wednesday was on 16th September 1992 after which Labour led every poll bar one tie until the end of 1992 and Labour then led every poll bar one from 1993 until 1997 after that
Look at the lines on the graph. Crossover happened in Autumn 1992, sure, but convergence was happening already. Black Wednesday didn't accelerate the Conservative's fall, or Labour's rise. It surprised me as well.
Crossover happened in Autumn 1992 ie after Black Wednesday.
That is the key point, before Black Wednesday the Tories led at least half the polls, after Black Wednesday the Tories barely led any until 1997
It could well be that Black Wednesday was the event that killed the credibility of any Conservative attempts to relaunch and boost their ratings.
But looking at the poll trends in Summer 1992, crossover in autumn 1992 was baked in, and it's just a coincidence that it happened around Black Wednesday It surprised me as well that there wasn't a BW shock. But the ongoing Conservative decline and Labour rise just kept trundling on.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
Exactly. People can now live where they want to live. This will transform the map of the UK as the "Britain is full" nonsense gets silenced as people move away from London and realise most of the UK is sparsely populated.
Most of the UK is sparsely populated? Isn't it one of the most densely populated in Europe?
Andrea Leadsom said she thought we would leave the SM, she did not say for certain.
Regardless, the question was Leave the EU or Remain. Norway and Switzerland are not in the EU.
There would have been a majority for EEA in the country after Brexit if May hadn't been so blinkered and the country would still be less divided than today.
Sky News and the BBC News channel may not carry Downing Street’s new televised press conference in full every day, it has emerged.
Britain’s two leading rolling news channels plan to screen the White House-style briefings “on merit” and may cut away if they are insufficiently newsworthy.
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Not true. Companies go bust and continue operating all the time. Get administrators in and restructure the company.
And that would result in cuts to services and track, railways are a public service as most of the world agrees.
They were privatised and they went bust. They’ve been privatised again and gone bust.
Perhaps the non-ideological viewpoint is that some businesses ought to be nationalised and others not.
No, I think we need a more dispassionate look at it, maybe train companies are overstaffed and run too many services. That means 50% job losses and redundancies at operating companies but no one wants to talk about that. Why do we still have ticket selling desks? They are completely pointless everything can and should be done online and we should have one desk for tourists and old people. The idea of a train guard is just incredibly outdated, yet we're forced to keep them on because the unions will strike if companies try and explain the reality that they are no longer necessary.
Railways should be an almost completely automated system in terms of operation with the bulk of revenue going into maintenance and capital expenditure rather than paying wages for jobs that are no longer necessary.
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
You think it should get in the way of people happily getting on with operating within the single market.
We voted to Leave the Single Market five years ago. Get over it already.
Can you please show me where the EEA was on the ballot paper? You keep saying "we voted to leave the Single Market". But as we were not asked a question about the Single Market your repetition of it doesn't make it correct. Its still wrong.
Yes, some politicians said "we will leave the single market". Some other politicians on the same side said "we won't leave the single market". All of them said we would have a deal, easy, better, quickly. The word of a politician is not binding. Whats on the ballot IS binding. Its the same guff as "I voted for the PM" when you don't live in their constituency. No, you didn't.
The Leave Campaign and Remain Campaign explicitly said voting to leave the EU was to leave the Single Market. Boris Johnson, David Cameron and others said it explicitly.
Can I ask for perspectives on my situation with work? I've been made redundant from my Commercial Manager role - in essence the business is downsizing and they can't afford me. We haven't been able to reach an agreement about their use of the Arcadia stratagem to underpay my notice by using the furlough scheme. A proportion of my role has been passed to overworked / under-qualified colleagues to bollocks up. I and they and most of us are working 3 day weeks (and furloughed the rest) which in my case meant I just had a 6 day weekend and thus trying to progress anything is (as my similarly shit-canned Operations Manager colleague put it) like wading through Glue.
The business wants me relentlessly seeking commercial opportunities - apparently its Critical. Yet apparently the way to do so is emasculate me, fire me, under pay me and ensure that progress is painfully and abjectly slow. My question then is this - why am I still here? The business wanting to keep me on the books through to the end of the Furlough scheme I can understand. But leaving me in a role they have already discarded? I'm going to hand projects and major customer relationships over to my number two who is perfectly capable - beyond that I am baffled what the game is.
I think the boss wants my experience and ideas and expertise. Having already fired me. He proposed that having fired me I then had 2 months to see what new business we could win and if enough then un-fire me. When he gets back off holiday (yes, I have had a "consultation" process leading to redundancy which he trigged the afternoon he went on holiday) I need to discuss with him their dodgy practices with regards to pay and effective breach of contract. I am Not Happy. Yet he envisages that I will graft away fully committed.
This job has filled in general management experience I was short. And some great examples of what not to do. So I appreciate that. But I am baffled as to what they think I am going to be doing.
Not for the first time I am profoundly glad I've never had a proper job.
Yes, sometimes being in a non office job has its advantages. Rain or shine, boom or bust, there are poorly folk.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
Exactly. People can now live where they want to live. This will transform the map of the UK as the "Britain is full" nonsense gets silenced as people move away from London and realise most of the UK is sparsely populated.
Most of the UK is sparsely populated? Isn't it one of the most densely populated in Europe?
More than one thing can be true at the same time.
If the whole of the UK had London's population density then the UK would more than double the United States of America's combined population.
A farmer I know pointed out the following - for years, he would report thefts & vandalism. Nothing was done.
Then, one day he decided to put a roof on disused outbuilding - nice old massive stone building. As more secure storage....
Within a day of starting work, he had planning people all over him, accusing him of building a residential property. Escorted by a bemused copper.
The joke was that the disused building was probably an ancient cottage.
I don't understand Take Back Control. We took control of our borders and chose not to shut them to pox-laden travellers. The people who we said had no control of their borders closed them. We said we don't want foreign types dictating our laws. But want to sign a US trade deal where foreign types will dictate our laws. We said we wanted to be in control of our destiny. Yet having not understood the map or politics or trade we are literally adrift awaiting for a predatory trade deal to be dictated by a counterparty who will have control of the life raft we need.
It will be fine as long as we can call the life raft brexit mcbrexit face
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Well as PT would say if that’s what the market says then so be it.
Even his beloved Tories don't agree with him
I am not a Tory loyalist, I have never said I am. If the Tories disagree with me then I stick by my own principles not theirs. Surely that is the right thing to do? Or do you think I should be like HYUFD and defend the Tory line whatever it is?
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Well as PT would say if that’s what the market says then so be it.
Even his beloved Tories don't agree with him
I am not a Tory loyalist, I have never said I am. If the Tories disagree with me then I stick by my own principles not theirs. Surely that is the right thing to do? Or do you think I should be like HYUFD and defend the Tory line whatever it is?
I think you're pretty blinkered to think that privatised railways in this country work when we have two decades of evidence that they don't.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
Exactly. People can now live where they want to live. This will transform the map of the UK as the "Britain is full" nonsense gets silenced as people move away from London and realise most of the UK is sparsely populated.
Most of the UK is sparsely populated? Isn't it one of the most densely populated in Europe?
More than one thing can be true at the same time.
If the whole of the UK had London's population density then the UK would more than double the United States of America's combined population.
A farmer I know pointed out the following - for years, he would report thefts & vandalism. Nothing was done.
Then, one day he decided to put a roof on disused outbuilding - nice old massive stone building. As more secure storage....
Within a day of starting work, he had planning people all over him, accusing him of building a residential property. Escorted by a bemused copper.
The joke was that the disused building was probably an ancient cottage.
As for Boris Johnson, he wrote two columns and made his mind up on the day, hardly a Brexiteer for life. The mission for him was Boris Johnson.
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
People outside of London seem to think the Mayor has an important job. The reality is none of them so far have made much difference, good or bad. I doubt any will in the next decade. Any cabinet minister who has a couple of years in charge of a big department will have a bigger on Londoners lives.
As for Boris Johnson, he wrote two columns and made his mind up on the day, hardly a Brexiteer for life. The mission for him was Boris Johnson.
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
People outside of London seem to think the Mayor has an important job. The reality is none of them so far have made much difference, good or bad. I doubt any will in the next decade. Any cabinet minister who has a couple of years in charge of a big department will have a bigger on Londoners lives.
I think this is pretty much true, although Johnson wasted a lot of money on the Garden Bridge and those illegal water cannons. That was all down to him.
Khan will win again because he's basically not offended anyone. I just enjoy the racists on Twitter getting angry we keep electing a Muslim
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
I think what the government could do is force train companies to offer 2-4 days per week season tickets and charge the proportional rate. One of the huge issues people have with one day at home is that they're still paying for a monthly ticket but they only use it for 4 days and lots of people say the same thing about 2 or 3 days per week. The cost of commuting doesn't really go down with 3 or 4 days in office because you still need a season ticket or you end up in the daily return trap. In London it's not so bad because I just use contactless PAYG, but for those coming in from Hertfordshire or Surrey there is no saving for doing 1 or 2 days from home.
That's spot on and indeed many are looking at this exact model – was on the London news recently.
Sky News and the BBC News channel may not carry Downing Street’s new televised press conference in full every day, it has emerged.
Britain’s two leading rolling news channels plan to screen the White House-style briefings “on merit” and may cut away if they are insufficiently newsworthy.
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Well as PT would say if that’s what the market says then so be it.
Even his beloved Tories don't agree with him
I am not a Tory loyalist, I have never said I am. If the Tories disagree with me then I stick by my own principles not theirs. Surely that is the right thing to do? Or do you think I should be like HYUFD and defend the Tory line whatever it is?
I think you're pretty blinkered to think that privatised railways in this country work when we have two decades of evidence that they don't.
What evidence that they don't? This graph says otherwise.
As for Boris Johnson, he wrote two columns and made his mind up on the day, hardly a Brexiteer for life. The mission for him was Boris Johnson.
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
People outside of London seem to think the Mayor has an important job. The reality is none of them so far have made much difference, good or bad. I doubt any will in the next decade. Any cabinet minister who has a couple of years in charge of a big department will have a bigger on Londoners lives.
I think this is pretty much true, although Johnson wasted a lot of money on the Garden Bridge and those illegal water cannons. That was all down to him.
Khan will win again because he's basically not offended anyone. I just enjoy the racists on Twitter getting angry we keep electing a Muslim
The bridge and the water cannon were a tiny amount of money in terms of the budget for London.
Conservative levels of support in London is entirely due to Brexit.
Definitely looks like it is happening. Absolutely disgraceful.
No it doesn't, that article is completely different to that insane Telegraph nonsense last night.
Whitehall sources insist the campaign will not suggest those who continue to work from home are at any greater risk of losing their jobs. ...
... Mr Hancock said getting staff back to work was a "matter for employers" and, when asked about the Department for Health and Social Care, that his main concern was how employees performed.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate," the health secretary told Times Radio. ...
... "But I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases," he [Schapps] said. ...
That doesn't sounds remotely like the Telegraph's insane suggestion we all said was nonsense.
Eventually I can see the government deciding to introduce tax incentives for people to WFO (work from the office).
The economy seems likely to worsen next year, and the public sector deficit with it. Tax rises are therefore likely to be required, but people who are WFO could be exempted from them as they face increased commuting and other costs compared to WFH workers.
That's a terrible, terrible idea as far as I'm concerned.
Govt subsidised trains are effectively just that. We will be getting more subsidies on trains.
In London, we are waiting, with a certain sense of dry amusement, for the seasonal strikes by the RMT.....
Which brings me to another point.
I'm not sure people here are fully understand the ramifications if the current situation for WFH continues.
It's not just some commercial premises owners - as other have pointed out, the owners will have them converted into flats before lunch. In much of City and some other places, this has actually been slowed down/prevented by planners, in the past.
A very large number of low paid people will be out of a job. The spend may well be transferred to local high streets. So this may end up with a migration of people to move where the new jobs are - and that is the hopeful outcome.
The worst outcome would be if, after a vaccine come out in a few months, commuting returns and now all the infrastructure of local businesses is gone....
I am actually in favour of the move towards greater home working. But it won't all be beer & skittles.
The other thing - one area that Starmer could raise a policy or 2 on - is the legal, tax and H&S following on from WFH.
At the moment, companies have binned the office, and in some cases have their employees working from a personal laptop balanced on the ironing board. In the living room of the flat they share....
Nice for the company. Not so nice for quite a few workers.
Excellent post.
I would add to that that the government is in danger – yet again – of falling into the binary trap. That WFH has to be all or nothing.
Clearly the best model is a hybrid, let people come in 2-3 days a week and WFH (if they choose) 2-3 days a week.
Days in the office have an explicit purpose for collaboration and thus one would expect revenues for bars, pubs and restaurants to be higher on those days people are in.
Oh, and let's kill off rush hour. Let people have core hours 11am-3.30pm (or whatever) and work the hours they want around those, as suits them and the needs of the business on any given day.
The 2 to 3 days a week model isn't good for employees as it still physically ties them to the office instead of being able to choose to live in a cheaper location. Therefore they still have to work from home in cramped space because it does nothing to ease the high price areas.
I was already working part of the week at home before Covid. With this setup I am happier to live further from work and have a longer commute than if I had to go in every day. I suspect that the same will apply to many others. Taken on a weekly basis your commuting time is still reduced and you live somewhere you prefer to be.
Exactly. People can now live where they want to live. This will transform the map of the UK as the "Britain is full" nonsense gets silenced as people move away from London and realise most of the UK is sparsely populated.
Most of the UK is sparsely populated? Isn't it one of the most densely populated in Europe?
More than one thing can be true at the same time.
If the whole of the UK had London's population density then the UK would more than double the United States of America's combined population.
A farmer I know pointed out the following - for years, he would report thefts & vandalism. Nothing was done.
Then, one day he decided to put a roof on disused outbuilding - nice old massive stone building. As more secure storage....
Within a day of starting work, he had planning people all over him, accusing him of building a residential property. Escorted by a bemused copper.
The joke was that the disused building was probably an ancient cottage.
As someone who knows too much about planning the only reason why a policeman would be required is because the council had a flag on the property as “awkward”.
In which case the policeman will be there for deterrence and I can see why the police may have done nothing about the vandalism.
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Well as PT would say if that’s what the market says then so be it.
Even his beloved Tories don't agree with him
I am not a Tory loyalist, I have never said I am. If the Tories disagree with me then I stick by my own principles not theirs. Surely that is the right thing to do? Or do you think I should be like HYUFD and defend the Tory line whatever it is?
I think you're pretty blinkered to think that privatised railways in this country work when we have two decades of evidence that they don't.
We had decades of British Rail to prove absolutely that nationalised railways don't work. British Rail had ever falling passenger numbers whereas privatised rail has ever increasing numbers.
As for Boris Johnson, he wrote two columns and made his mind up on the day, hardly a Brexiteer for life. The mission for him was Boris Johnson.
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
People outside of London seem to think the Mayor has an important job. The reality is none of them so far have made much difference, good or bad. I doubt any will in the next decade. Any cabinet minister who has a couple of years in charge of a big department will have a bigger on Londoners lives.
I think this is pretty much true, although Johnson wasted a lot of money on the Garden Bridge and those illegal water cannons. That was all down to him.
Khan will win again because he's basically not offended anyone. I just enjoy the racists on Twitter getting angry we keep electing a Muslim
The bridge and the water cannon were a tiny amount of money in terms of the budget for London.
Conservative levels of support in London is entirely due to Brexit.
They lost quite handsomely prior to Brexit. Johnson is deeply unpopular in London.
People will start to go back to their offices and places of work once there's a vaccine or the threat from the virus is diminished. Otherwise, unless they have to, they won't: it costs more money for both employees and employers, adds a bit of risk, and there's very little to be gained by it.
When they do start to go back, they will do so on a new basis. My bet (for my line of work) is collaborative workshops on a Wednesday, including training/mentoring sessions, with team meetings/talks/briefings on a Thursday, followed by a social. Tuesdays will be optional. Few will go in on a Monday or Friday again.
Obviously that will vary week by week, but 2-3 days a week will be the new norm; not the weekly grind.
Absolutely agreed and I think your day-by-day breakdown makes perfect sense for a great many companies.
Certainly, we'll be looking at something very similar to that.
People will start to go back to their offices and places of work once there's a vaccine or the threat from the virus is diminished. Otherwise, unless they have to, they won't: it costs more money for both employees and employers, adds a bit of risk, and there's very little to be gained by it.
When they do start to go back, they will do so on a new basis. My bet (for my line of work) is collaborative workshops on a Wednesday, including training/mentoring sessions, with team meetings/talks/briefings on a Thursday, followed by a social. Tuesdays will be optional. Few will go in on a Monday or Friday again.
Obviously that will vary week by week, but 2-3 days a week will be the new norm; not the weekly grind.
Absolutely agreed and I think your day-by-day breakdown makes perfect sense for a great many companies.
Certainly, we'll be looking at something very similar to that.
As for Boris Johnson, he wrote two columns and made his mind up on the day, hardly a Brexiteer for life. The mission for him was Boris Johnson.
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
People outside of London seem to think the Mayor has an important job. The reality is none of them so far have made much difference, good or bad. I doubt any will in the next decade. Any cabinet minister who has a couple of years in charge of a big department will have a bigger on Londoners lives.
I think this is pretty much true, although Johnson wasted a lot of money on the Garden Bridge and those illegal water cannons. That was all down to him.
Khan will win again because he's basically not offended anyone. I just enjoy the racists on Twitter getting angry we keep electing a Muslim
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Well as PT would say if that’s what the market says then so be it.
Even his beloved Tories don't agree with him
I am not a Tory loyalist, I have never said I am. If the Tories disagree with me then I stick by my own principles not theirs. Surely that is the right thing to do? Or do you think I should be like HYUFD and defend the Tory line whatever it is?
I think you're pretty blinkered to think that privatised railways in this country work when we have two decades of evidence that they don't.
Nobody in their right mind would want to go back to British Rail it’s a great opportunity to come up with a solution which neither puts pound notes in to undeserving shareholders or unlimited power to the looniest of unions.
As for Boris Johnson, he wrote two columns and made his mind up on the day, hardly a Brexiteer for life. The mission for him was Boris Johnson.
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
People outside of London seem to think the Mayor has an important job. The reality is none of them so far have made much difference, good or bad. I doubt any will in the next decade. Any cabinet minister who has a couple of years in charge of a big department will have a bigger on Londoners lives.
I think this is pretty much true, although Johnson wasted a lot of money on the Garden Bridge and those illegal water cannons. That was all down to him.
Khan will win again because he's basically not offended anyone. I just enjoy the racists on Twitter getting angry we keep electing a Muslim
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Well as PT would say if that’s what the market says then so be it.
Even his beloved Tories don't agree with him
I am not a Tory loyalist, I have never said I am. If the Tories disagree with me then I stick by my own principles not theirs. Surely that is the right thing to do? Or do you think I should be like HYUFD and defend the Tory line whatever it is?
I think you're pretty blinkered to think that privatised railways in this country work when we have two decades of evidence that they don't.
We had decades of British Rail to prove absolutely that nationalised railways don't work. British Rail had ever falling passenger numbers whereas privatised rail has ever increasing numbers.
Precisely. Not sure if CHB will have seen the graph in my prior post as it was a broken link first time around, but this is unequivocal. Nationalisation failed, privatisation has succeeded better than expected. The difficulties with privatisation is caused by the fact its been more popular than expected.
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Well as PT would say if that’s what the market says then so be it.
Even his beloved Tories don't agree with him
I am not a Tory loyalist, I have never said I am. If the Tories disagree with me then I stick by my own principles not theirs. Surely that is the right thing to do? Or do you think I should be like HYUFD and defend the Tory line whatever it is?
I think you're pretty blinkered to think that privatised railways in this country work when we have two decades of evidence that they don't.
Nobody in their right mind would want to go back to British Rail it’s a great opportunity to come up with a solution which neither puts pound notes in to undeserving shareholders or unlimited power to the looniest of unions.
I'm not advocating British Rail again, I do think publicly owned railways are the inevitable end point of coronavirus though
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
You think it should get in the way of people happily getting on with operating within the single market.
We voted to Leave the Single Market five years ago. Get over it already.
Can you please show me where the EEA was on the ballot paper? You keep saying "we voted to leave the Single Market". But as we were not asked a question about the Single Market your repetition of it doesn't make it correct. Its still wrong.
Yes, some politicians said "we will leave the single market". Some other politicians on the same side said "we won't leave the single market". All of them said we would have a deal, easy, better, quickly. The word of a politician is not binding. Whats on the ballot IS binding. Its the same guff as "I voted for the PM" when you don't live in their constituency. No, you didn't.
The Leave Campaign and Remain Campaign explicitly said voting to leave the EU was to leave the Single Market. Boris Johnson, David Cameron and others said it explicitly.
And I can play you clips of leave campaigners saying the direct opposite. I can play you clips from ministers and ex ministers and even the PM extolling the deal we don't have. Politicians talk shit. What they say has to be put through the perception filter.
What is simple and legal and clear is that the referendum was to leave the EU and that the EU is the EU and not anything else. That some politicians told you the political decisions they would make doesn't mean that you were asked a question about the EEA nor could you cast a vote on the EEA as the EEA was not on the ballot.
Its a simple democratic principle. We vote for what is in front of us - the democratic mandate. Those elected then make political choices. Leaving the EEA is not mandated by the referendum. It is a political choice.
As for Boris Johnson, he wrote two columns and made his mind up on the day, hardly a Brexiteer for life. The mission for him was Boris Johnson.
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
People outside of London seem to think the Mayor has an important job. The reality is none of them so far have made much difference, good or bad. I doubt any will in the next decade. Any cabinet minister who has a couple of years in charge of a big department will have a bigger on Londoners lives.
I think this is pretty much true, although Johnson wasted a lot of money on the Garden Bridge and those illegal water cannons. That was all down to him.
Khan will win again because he's basically not offended anyone. I just enjoy the racists on Twitter getting angry we keep electing a Muslim
The bridge and the water cannon were a tiny amount of money in terms of the budget for London.
Conservative levels of support in London is entirely due to Brexit.
They lost quite handsomely prior to Brexit. Johnson is deeply unpopular in London.
Zac Goldsmith was a useless candidate. Polling suggested that if Boris had gone for a third term, he would have won.
The private sector doesn't make any money, hence the subsidies.
Or the trains would simply charge proper prices and react accordingly. They might even be cheaper if liberated from state control as they could consider innovations like driverless trains easier.
Trains existed before state control and exist globally in many nations without it too.
Railtrack was so successful as a private company it went bust
So?
So its investors lose their money, strip its assets and sell them to a new venture. The free market doesn't mean that every company must be profitable and no business can fail - and if a business in a capitalist economy fails then it is the investors who lose their money, not the taxpayer.
If Railtrack had been allowed to just go bust we'd have no railways at all
Well as PT would say if that’s what the market says then so be it.
Even his beloved Tories don't agree with him
I am not a Tory loyalist, I have never said I am. If the Tories disagree with me then I stick by my own principles not theirs. Surely that is the right thing to do? Or do you think I should be like HYUFD and defend the Tory line whatever it is?
I think you're pretty blinkered to think that privatised railways in this country work when we have two decades of evidence that they don't.
We had decades of British Rail to prove absolutely that nationalised railways don't work. British Rail had ever falling passenger numbers whereas privatised rail has ever increasing numbers.
Precisely. Not sure if CHB will have seen the graph in my prior post as it was a broken link first time around, but this is unequivocal. Nationalisation failed, privatisation has succeeded better than expected. The difficulties with privatisation is caused by the fact its been more popular than expected.
Have you got figures of amount of money the Government spends per passenger over that time period, or perhaps passenger satisfaction? Otherwise they are meaningless.
You can’t judge success based on one metric.
Besides, the railways are not exactly “privatised” at the moment.
As for Boris Johnson, he wrote two columns and made his mind up on the day, hardly a Brexiteer for life. The mission for him was Boris Johnson.
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
People outside of London seem to think the Mayor has an important job. The reality is none of them so far have made much difference, good or bad. I doubt any will in the next decade. Any cabinet minister who has a couple of years in charge of a big department will have a bigger on Londoners lives.
I think this is pretty much true, although Johnson wasted a lot of money on the Garden Bridge and those illegal water cannons. That was all down to him.
Khan will win again because he's basically not offended anyone. I just enjoy the racists on Twitter getting angry we keep electing a Muslim
He did waste a lot of money. But it will be dwarfed by how much money each cabinet minister wastes per year and taking London's 15% share of that. They will be wasting billions rather than millions.
As for Boris Johnson, he wrote two columns and made his mind up on the day, hardly a Brexiteer for life. The mission for him was Boris Johnson.
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
People outside of London seem to think the Mayor has an important job. The reality is none of them so far have made much difference, good or bad. I doubt any will in the next decade. Any cabinet minister who has a couple of years in charge of a big department will have a bigger on Londoners lives.
I think this is pretty much true, although Johnson wasted a lot of money on the Garden Bridge and those illegal water cannons. That was all down to him.
Khan will win again because he's basically not offended anyone. I just enjoy the racists on Twitter getting angry we keep electing a Muslim
The bridge and the water cannon were a tiny amount of money in terms of the budget for London.
Conservative levels of support in London is entirely due to Brexit.
They lost quite handsomely prior to Brexit. Johnson is deeply unpopular in London.
Zac Goldsmith was a useless candidate. Polling suggested that if Boris had gone for a third term, he would have won.
Zac Goldsmith was a dog whistle racist and also was useless.
Johnson would most definitely not win now. His mistakes have come out since he left
As for Boris Johnson, he wrote two columns and made his mind up on the day, hardly a Brexiteer for life. The mission for him was Boris Johnson.
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
People outside of London seem to think the Mayor has an important job. The reality is none of them so far have made much difference, good or bad. I doubt any will in the next decade. Any cabinet minister who has a couple of years in charge of a big department will have a bigger on Londoners lives.
I think this is pretty much true, although Johnson wasted a lot of money on the Garden Bridge and those illegal water cannons. That was all down to him.
Khan will win again because he's basically not offended anyone. I just enjoy the racists on Twitter getting angry we keep electing a Muslim
He's a rubbish mayor though.
Still better than Boris Johnson
Not really, they are about the same level of crap, and I think Sadiq has been worse for policing and travel. He's also not been good at advertising London on the global stage. Far too negative, he seems to want the nation (and London) to fail so he can be proved right about brexit.
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
You think it should get in the way of people happily getting on with operating within the single market.
We voted to Leave the Single Market five years ago. Get over it already.
Can you please show me where the EEA was on the ballot paper? You keep saying "we voted to leave the Single Market". But as we were not asked a question about the Single Market your repetition of it doesn't make it correct. Its still wrong.
Yes, some politicians said "we will leave the single market". Some other politicians on the same side said "we won't leave the single market". All of them said we would have a deal, easy, better, quickly. The word of a politician is not binding. Whats on the ballot IS binding. Its the same guff as "I voted for the PM" when you don't live in their constituency. No, you didn't.
The Leave Campaign and Remain Campaign explicitly said voting to leave the EU was to leave the Single Market. Boris Johnson, David Cameron and others said it explicitly.
And I can play you clips of leave campaigners saying the direct opposite. I can play you clips from ministers and ex ministers and even the PM extolling the deal we don't have. Politicians talk shit. What they say has to be put through the perception filter.
What is simple and legal and clear is that the referendum was to leave the EU and that the EU is the EU and not anything else. That some politicians told you the political decisions they would make doesn't mean that you were asked a question about the EEA nor could you cast a vote on the EEA as the EEA was not on the ballot.
Its a simple democratic principle. We vote for what is in front of us - the democratic mandate. Those elected then make political choices. Leaving the EEA is not mandated by the referendum. It is a political choice.
I bet you can't play clips saying the opposite, because in five years debating this I've never seen any.
Not unless you resort to that discredited Open Europe lying video that has been thoroughly discredited.
Please find a single video of the likes of Boris Johnson explicitly saying we would stay in the Single Market.
As for Boris Johnson, he wrote two columns and made his mind up on the day, hardly a Brexiteer for life. The mission for him was Boris Johnson.
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
People outside of London seem to think the Mayor has an important job. The reality is none of them so far have made much difference, good or bad. I doubt any will in the next decade. Any cabinet minister who has a couple of years in charge of a big department will have a bigger on Londoners lives.
I think this is pretty much true, although Johnson wasted a lot of money on the Garden Bridge and those illegal water cannons. That was all down to him.
Khan will win again because he's basically not offended anyone. I just enjoy the racists on Twitter getting angry we keep electing a Muslim
He's a rubbish mayor though.
Still better than Boris Johnson
Not really, they are about the same level of crap, and I think Sadiq has been worse for policing and travel. He's also not been good at advertising London on the global stage. Far too negative, he seems to want the nation (and London) to fail so he can be proved right about brexit.
I don't agree I'm afraid, I think Khan has represented all of London as opposed to the rich as Johnson did and hasn't wasted money on illegal water canons and bridges we can't build.
At worst Khan has done nothing, I think you're able to argue that. I do not for one second think he is worse than Johnson.
You can feel free to put up a better candidate next time
It’s funny that @Philip_Thompson wants Boris Johnson to do “nothing”, yet simultaneously also wants him to renegotiate our trading relationship with the entire world, overhaul the entire planning system, and reform the civil service, amongst many other things.
Fascinating mental gymnastics. It’s almost like it’s all b*llocks.
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
You think it should get in the way of people happily getting on with operating within the single market.
We voted to Leave the Single Market five years ago. Get over it already.
Can you please show me where the EEA was on the ballot paper? You keep saying "we voted to leave the Single Market". But as we were not asked a question about the Single Market your repetition of it doesn't make it correct. Its still wrong.
Yes, some politicians said "we will leave the single market". Some other politicians on the same side said "we won't leave the single market". All of them said we would have a deal, easy, better, quickly. The word of a politician is not binding. Whats on the ballot IS binding. Its the same guff as "I voted for the PM" when you don't live in their constituency. No, you didn't.
The Leave Campaign and Remain Campaign explicitly said voting to leave the EU was to leave the Single Market. Boris Johnson, David Cameron and others said it explicitly.
And I can play you clips of leave campaigners saying the direct opposite. I can play you clips from ministers and ex ministers and even the PM extolling the deal we don't have. Politicians talk shit. What they say has to be put through the perception filter.
What is simple and legal and clear is that the referendum was to leave the EU and that the EU is the EU and not anything else. That some politicians told you the political decisions they would make doesn't mean that you were asked a question about the EEA nor could you cast a vote on the EEA as the EEA was not on the ballot.
Its a simple democratic principle. We vote for what is in front of us - the democratic mandate. Those elected then make political choices. Leaving the EEA is not mandated by the referendum. It is a political choice.
I bet you can't play clips saying the opposite, because in five years debating this I've never seen any.
Not unless you resort to that discredited Open Europe lying video that has been thoroughly discredited.
Please find a single video of the likes of Boris Johnson explicitly saying we would stay in the Single Market.
In your own video Andrea Leadsom does not definitely say we will leave the SM.
Comments
You can survive a much longer commute if it is 4 journeys a week, rather than 10.
Everyone here goes on about networking and socialising. I have worked for a lot of companies and never yet seen much of either since the 90's until people get to middle management level. Most of us drones don't socialise after all whats the point we will be moving jobs in 2 to 3 years to get a payrise or promotion and never see them again. Its into the office logon headphones on and that seems pretty much universal from my experience
Britain’s two leading rolling news channels plan to screen the White House-style briefings “on merit” and may cut away if they are insufficiently newsworthy.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/no-10s-hopes-for-daily-tv-slot-dashed-by-channels-ctwptkzrm
We don't need a Government that is constantly seeking to "do" something. The Government should be seeking to "do" as little as possible and generally get out of the way of people doing their own thing.
Boris is a proper Conservative like that.
So moneywise I only save the price of a coffee. But get two lie-ins.
This is West Yorkshire so the situation may be different in other areas.
I save more if one of my days involves a trip to the Manchester office, as that is on expenses.
Whether I will return to this arrangement, who knows?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/nov/25/gdp-uk-1948-growth-economy
Had Major called an election in 1991 rather than 1992 he probably would have lost.
1997 was lost after Black Wednesday and never recovered
With the age of electric car approaching, the train doesn't automatically win. Running a train with 8 people on it - which is not uncommon now - is not sustainable.
Anyone in senior management or customer-facing roles are traditionally walked out of the door the day it’s agreed they’re leaving, and for good reason.
That is the key point, before Black Wednesday the Tories led at least half the polls, after Black Wednesday the Tories barely led any until 1997
They've taken you for a fool. You wanted to leave the EEA - fine. And do what? Because we're on the verge of shutting our border which will be the effectual impact of tearing up all trade deals and not even having the physical and IT infrastructure to impose massive cost and delay on business even if that was a good idea which it isn't. You voted I assume for one of these imaginary replacement deals? Isn't it sensible to not throw yourself off the bungee platform until the cord has been tied to your ankle?
Relax, it's a rhetorical question...
So he jumped.
He pointed out, at his exit interview that his contract didn't have a no-compete clause. He left to their screaming.....
He'd already setup his own outfit and just told all of his clients the situation.
He got nearly all of them IIRC.
If the whole of the UK had London's population density then the UK would more than double the United States of America's combined population.
In 1997 the Tories lost because of the negative equity and reposessions and surging interest rates after Black Wednesday, Blair just increased the scale of their defeat, John Smith would have won in 1997 too. Plus it was 18 years in power and no party in government has ever survived that long anyway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlF9STvLeDQ
Yes, some politicians said "we will leave the single market". Some other politicians on the same side said "we won't leave the single market". All of them said we would have a deal, easy, better, quickly. The word of a politician is not binding. Whats on the ballot IS binding. Its the same guff as "I voted for the PM" when you don't live in their constituency. No, you didn't.
They were privatised and they went bust. They’ve been privatised again and gone bust.
Perhaps the non-ideological viewpoint is that some businesses ought to be nationalised and others not.
But looking at the poll trends in Summer 1992, crossover in autumn 1992 was baked in, and it's just a coincidence that it happened around Black Wednesday It surprised me as well that there wasn't a BW shock. But the ongoing Conservative decline and Labour rise just kept trundling on.
Half of the top ten most densely populated are our former colonies...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density
Regardless, the question was Leave the EU or Remain. Norway and Switzerland are not in the EU.
There would have been a majority for EEA in the country after Brexit if May hadn't been so blinkered and the country would still be less divided than today.
Cameron is to blame for running away.
Railways should be an almost completely automated system in terms of operation with the bulk of revenue going into maintenance and capital expenditure rather than paying wages for jobs that are no longer necessary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlF9STvLeDQ
And of course people who need bombing!
I suspect his time in the country post leaving will be seen post his London mayoralty, a disaster.
The only people that seek to think he was a good Mayor are those that don't live in London, funny that
Then, one day he decided to put a roof on disused outbuilding - nice old massive stone building. As more secure storage....
Within a day of starting work, he had planning people all over him, accusing him of building a residential property. Escorted by a bemused copper.
The joke was that the disused building was probably an ancient cottage.
If the lib dems play it right that could be a way back into the leafier English constituencies where they used to be strong.
Khan will win again because he's basically not offended anyone. I just enjoy the racists on Twitter getting angry we keep electing a Muslim
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-08-19/who-decides-how-much-train-fares-are-increased-by-each-year
Conservative levels of support in London is entirely due to Brexit.
In which case the policeman will be there for deterrence and I can see why the police may have done nothing about the vandalism.
Certainly, we'll be looking at something very similar to that.
I think we should let the state bid for these if it so wants to.
What is simple and legal and clear is that the referendum was to leave the EU and that the EU is the EU and not anything else. That some politicians told you the political decisions they would make doesn't mean that you were asked a question about the EEA nor could you cast a vote on the EEA as the EEA was not on the ballot.
Its a simple democratic principle. We vote for what is in front of us - the democratic mandate. Those elected then make political choices. Leaving the EEA is not mandated by the referendum. It is a political choice.
You can’t judge success based on one metric.
Besides, the railways are not exactly “privatised” at the moment.
Johnson would most definitely not win now. His mistakes have come out since he left
Not unless you resort to that discredited Open Europe lying video that has been thoroughly discredited.
Please find a single video of the likes of Boris Johnson explicitly saying we would stay in the Single Market.
At worst Khan has done nothing, I think you're able to argue that. I do not for one second think he is worse than Johnson.
You can feel free to put up a better candidate next time
Fascinating mental gymnastics. It’s almost like it’s all b*llocks.