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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Ministers are only just waking up to the Covid hangover
Panic might be too strong a word but the urgency with which ministers and business leaders have called this week for people to return to working in offices and city centres suggests that they’re seriously concerned, and rightly so.
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David Cameron found that out.
Theresa May found that out.
Let's hope BoZo finds out, really soon.
Turns out working at home, being around my family and no longer needlessly adding co2 and landfill is a good thing. Why on Earth would I want to go back to the nonsense especially when I get more done?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/28/perfectly-logical-case-donald-trump/
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If you think things are bad now under Donald Trump, vote for Donald Trump, who will fix things. The chaos will continue unless you vote for Donald Trump, who will bring needed change by serving another term as president.
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Most of all, Joe Biden wants to destroy America’s greatness. (Greatness is what we have right now, under Donald Trump, but also don’t have yet, but will definitely have in the future.) Joe Biden will never create jobs, the way Donald Trump has, by first presiding over the loss of millions of them.
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Change will happen, but however attractive for some of us, it’s going to have painful consequences for many others.
Reading on the Victoria line was never a thing. Sardines can’t read.
The Tories have spent years going on about not propping up failing nationalised industries. The government should put their money where their mouth is and let people remake the economy as they see fit.
The government has something of a problem. Usage of National Rail is about a 1/3 of what it normally is:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-use-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic
Passengers pay c.£10 billion a year. Let's assume that those travelling at the moment are paying quite a lot less than the normal average (i.e. no one will buy a first class ticket, those travelling are probably more local, fewer tickets purchased for business use). Let's say that the government is getting around £2 billion a year (and we're assuming that August usage is maintained - it might be propped up by a higher share of leisure travel).
So as David says, the subsidy goes from £4.5 billion a year to £12.5 billion a year. But what can the government do other than pay it? The people using the trains are people who have to go to work. They are key workers. There would be a huge backlash if the government starts cutting services.
Oh, and one other thing. HS2. How can the government justify ploughing on with that whilst closing existing railways? They can't.
Ultimately businesses and individuals will decide what works best though not government .However government should not be looking to put barriers in place of working in the office like face mask wearing (when no need) in either the work place or on public transport.
The genie is uncorked. The government is trying the equivalent of promoting horses and carts in the era of the motor car.
Instead of trying to reinstate an analogue world it should be helping people transition.
https://twitter.com/janinegibson/status/1299591644157816833
I do not love Southern trains, the Victoria line, delays, overpriced coffee, shitty airports, shittier planes, bullshit drinking/dining in overpriced restaurants/bars, fake work socials, buying tat to anaesthetise.
Like many others I cannot WFH. I am spending a bit more time at home, as our undergraduate and postgraduate teaching is via Zoom or Teams, and works in that format. The effective abolition of private practice has given me a bit more time off too. Leicester city centre doesn't look a lot quieter than usual when I have been running errands, so the changes in London seem much less marked.
I miss the pub after work, live church meetings and live football but all these will return.
It's a good lead and raises a serious issue - but is over-focused on the issue of commuting. My small town has zero reliance on commuting yet the retail sector is in the same difficulty and many shopkeepers are saying they can get to Xmas but may go under before next summer. The loss of the front end of the summer season, coupled with people's continuing reluctance to be out and about and the many who have now discovered easy and hassle-free online shopping, has critically hit footfall.
As for working from home the benefits to some are obvious, but others need, even crave the company of others and hate isolation. I'd be interested to see, if given the option, how many went back to office life.
You are just overstating a case. It would be terrible to have to walk 50 miles over broken glass to work every day, but it does not follow that being locked in a small metal box for the rest of one's life would improve matters.
Certainly it's going to take a couple of years for such changes to come into effect: all those who had to endure the great TSGN timetabling disaster of 2018 will be all too acutely aware of the need to manage these things properly. But it must surely happen?
As for HS2, I think the London to Birmingham section will end up being built in full, for several reasons. Firstly, it's already underway so this Government has to deal with it (whereas the branches to the North can be placed under review and booted into the long grass for the next Prime Minister to worry about.) Secondly, it's being used as much as a means to dole out contracts to the construction industry and maintain and develop skills as it is to build infrastructure, and this arguably becomes a greater priority for Government during a recession. Thirdly, there will be the usual concerns about sunk costs involved in abandoning any partially completed project. Finally, the Tory West Midlands metro-mayor is an enthusiast for the scheme and is up for re-election next May.
However, I seriously doubt if the remainder of HS2 will ever get built.
F1: The 3 (3.1 with boost) on McLaren to 'win' qualifying without the big 6 is worth considering.
Great header. Thanks David.
"the urgency with which ministers and business leaders have called this week for people to return to working in offices and city centres suggests that they’re seriously concerned, and rightly so."
Yet, having deployed The Boris for stirring words about getting back to the office, on Thursday. By Friday night Hancock was briefing that a second wave is looming and promises to be a nightmare with strong local lockdowns if not a national one.
Who is in charge of this government?
Beyond that, some people will go back to offices - either full or part time - because they miss being physically present with other people, or their employer feels that it is necessary, or both. But precisely nobody is going to start putting themselves through all that again in order to rescue a sandwich shop or a dry cleaners from ruin.
Historically, before factories, plenty of people worked at home - spinning wool or whatever in little cottages. But their neighbours were doing the same.
We had a senior management away day yesterday in a hotel in Surrey. The consensus was that we need to be back in our office in EC4, but that it is impossible to rely on government advice right now, so we cannot mandate a return, it will have to be on a staggered, voluntary basis, as we work out the practical implications of ever-changing guidelines, with those who can and want to work from home able to do so. My guess is that we are not alone.
We’re also going through a very tough redundancy process that is seeing dozens of jobs go. Again, I doubt we’re alone.
The next few months and, probably years, are going to be brutal. I don’t think many people realise just how hard it’s going to be.
Back next week iirc.
Last two days' figures for newly unquarantined Portugal, +399, +401, compared to quarantined on the same day Austria +328, +229. Populations both around 9-10 million; multiply by six or seven to scale up and the rate is in the same ballpark as in the UK.
Meanwhile this is a good map showing distribution of cases within countries:
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/3a056fc8839d47969ef59949e9984a71
Personally I think HS2 should be stopped and the losses cut. There's not even a figleaf of justification anymore.
But iirc the Hatch Act does not apply to the POTUS. So it is even worse than it first appears - all his federal underlings are the ones who have possibly broken the law by staging this event for him.
Sickening.
HS2, we are told by its advocates, is primarily about capacity. There's nothing particularly wrong with the East and West Coast Main Lines, it's just that there was concern that continually growing passenger numbers would mean that the network couldn't cope. Now, if half the passengers are no longer travelling then the problem disappears.
OTOH, the Transpennine routes are crap, so there's no reason why the Government can't persist in throwing money at those. Indeed, if the Government were to end up, for argument's sake, spending the HS2 money on moving more civil service functions to York or Leeds, subsidising a biotechnology campus in Newcastle and re-opening some more rural branch lines on top of that, then might this be of more value than building the remainder of HS2?
I'm not necessarily saying that any of this will happen because the Government gives a very distinct impression of not knowing its arse from its elbow, but do you see where I'm coming from?
The scooters seem to be here in force, despite no official rally. Its like Boomer quadrophenia.
There is a reason why we hear reports of estate agents in Manchester getting a lot of enquiries from worried Hongkongers with BN(O) passports. They are not stupid and know a good deal when they see one.
Yep, that is the case.
Renault have been quick in practice but they do seem to usually underperform.
There is no strategy beyond the next crisis.
I know that unemployment topped three million in the early Eighties, but the UK now has a substantially larger population than it did then. It's arguable that we'll be doing well if it's not passed four million by Christmas.
But the BBC is in a particular difficulty. It's so huge and so diverse in its offering, which most wont take advantage of, that it is very easy to sell the idea that at the least the bit that should be paid for should be much reduced and the rest can pay its way.
After all, which bits provide a public service? Which bits worthily subsidise a niche market?
Change is coming, public attitudes will demand that. Dig in the heels and resist everything and the BBC haters may get to set the agenda completely and that will not be good.
I dont know how the good of the BBC can be preserved, but I think big change is coming, has to come, and it could all go very wrong. But fighting the tide itself is not an option.
There may well be job losses in our dept too. There is misalignment between staffing and socially distanced capacity. Real problem in training too. Junior doctors are doing far fewer procedures, and will not have skills when they rotate. A lot depends on how long the current state lasts.
That was Trump's tactic the other evening.
I'm sure some things have, certain elements of my own have, but it might not be as many as we think.
And they run much more slowly (I don't think any are pathed for over 75mph) and therefore block off fast expresses.
With the price of diesel likely to keep heading up, I expect to see a lot more long-distance freight on the railways, pulled by electric or bi-mode locomotives. Unfortunately, this cannot be moved on the nice quiet Central Wales line through Llandod - it will go on the main lines because they link the places where people want the freight to go.
For that, the express passenger trains at least will have to go somewhere, and if WFH becomes the norm then suddenly putting Manchester and Leeds 90 minutes from London will make them very attractive places to live for London workers.
Bear in mind HS2 will only actually restore the capacity essentially removed by Beeching. It's not quite 'new' in that regard.
(Also, I would add that as the money is borrowed as a ring-fenced investment, it isn't 'available' for other projects in quite the way people seem to think.)
The public and businesses are entitled to just ignore such interventions though of course.
Or to put it another way, if it is completed to Leeds it will be quicker to travel from Leeds to London than it is to travel from Birmingham to London now - 87 minutes against 95 minutes.
If we had enough constituency level demographic data then it would probably be possible to accurately predict the outcome in the bulk of seats by plugging a few numbers into a formula: the percentage of voters from various ethnic minority groups, the median age of the electorate, the percentage of voters identifying primarily as British, and the percentage of voters who have a university degree. It's entirely possible that future General Elections will see Labour swapping seats in County Durham for others in Surrey.
What Covid and WFH show is that this is a mug's game. Central government can no more control extreme events than a flea riding an elephant. Wise government recognises and fears this. This government has yet to have that epiphany, which has potential to be brutal.
By living with the virus, I mean how to go about something approaching normal life while keeping the epidemic in check.
The only planned control appears to be a vaccine that may prove effective some time next year. There is at least one winter to get through first and it will be grim.
I also wonder about things like fraud being a lot easier in a permanent home working environment. There are implications for record keeping and security of data which will not be easy to work out as well.
It has been pointed out that the perspective on here is largely from people in established roles, mainly people with families which may consume a large part of the (social) time and who are quite content in where they are and don’t have any great expectation of much changing in their lives in the near future.
Those who are younger, entering the workforce now, eager to learn and meet new people, to develop their careers may have a very different perspective. Or will do before very long.
ETA you are also right about the "axe Radio 1 and the rest of the BBC except for the bits I like such as Radio 3/4 and BBC 4 (delete as appropriate)" tendency.
Governments need to embrace this change, even though it will cause short term disruption, because companies are going to do it anyway. We are seeing a decade’s change in a year thanks to the pandemic.
Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.
Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.
But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.
Oh God, that's it, the licence fee is definitely finished under this government then.
The Daily Mail, always such a key bellwether for the government, was bursting with thousands of contributions yesterday on the themes of happier and more productive output from home, and tory-supporting commercial property owners being desperate to have people back in.