Some people on twitter (Lionel Barber, and Andrew Neil) are lionising this speech by Democrat John Deberry as to what the democrats should have been saying all along.
Alas they weren't. And they still aren't.
Doubtless the modern democrats would call him an uncle Tom. I think he should be their candidate.
There are those who would counter by arguing where has 60 years of "peaceful" protest got Black Americans? There are still too many examples of Police brutality and actions taken by Police against black men which would never be taken against white men.
Yes, in many respects black Americans have made huge strides - economically, many have levels of prosperity and freedom unknown to their grandparents and it is so much better than it was but it is still not as good as it could or should be.
There comes a point when those who advocate a peaceful and dignified response to institutional racism or terror or state oppression have to contend with the unpalatable truth they are not making progress and the siren voices advocating a more violent response get heard.
It's the same whether it is a protest against Police violence in Wisconsin or electoral fraud in Minsk.
Bluntly, where would war get them? They are outnumbered 5 to 1 by white Americans. Go to war, and they will lose.
Where did peaceful protest get them? Quite a long way, if not as far as they should be.
There's also the factor of a race war being precisely what white US racists want, its necessity and inevitability is almost an article of religious faith for them.
There was a report back in the early 2000s (after Timothy McVeigh's execution) about just how many on the American far right think The Turner Diaries would come true, and were prepared to do anything, including false flag attacks to make it happen.
I think there are a number who would have made credible Prime Ministers.
Since 1970, I'd put up the following:
Denis Healey Roy Jenkins William Whitelaw Geoffrey Howe Michael Heseltine Ken Clarke (as you say) George Osborne David Milliband Yvette Cooper
That's nine against the field and possibly a couple of others on the fringes.
Not sure I would agree about Yvette Cooper, her husband might have been a better shout. Also, going back a bit, a lot of people, even non Labour people, had a lot of time for Roy Mason.
Of that list I would say that Jenkins and Clarke really stand out.
I've got to say (and this sounds terrible) I was finding it harder to think of credible candidates the closer I got to today and I didn't want to come over as one of those old fogeys who think all the past politicians are great and all the current ones terrible because it's not that straightforward.
The first six were easy and I think both Osborne and David Milliband would have made fine Prime Ministers.
Of the current crop, I'm genuinely struggling. Rishi Sunak might be on the list but he needs to be tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
And I hope he is - tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
There's a good handful that whilst you're not jumping up and down for them they're capable. (Sunak as said) Patel, Hancock, Gove, Raab, Hunt.
For Labour (I'm not a supporter) I can see only three plausible candidates - Cooper, Nandy and Allin-Khan.
You have to be joking , the only half decent one in that list is Hunt , the rest are crap, liars , cheats and comic singers. On Labour you are worse , 3 absolute donkeys I would not trust to run a bath
Good that you like (or at least don't dislike) Hunt. You may be right, but I'd hope you'd agree that my list has some of the better rather than worse.
Scotland needs a friend or two to make 'escape' work. It would have been different 10 years ago. The most likely and best friends are the English, and that applies always.
For sure , only madmen would think that England and Scotland would not remain close partners in the event of independence. Would be madness for both nations and not something I would want to see.
I think that is very naive Malc
Scotland and RUK would become competitor nations and with a near certain Westminster conservative government both company and personal taxation will be much more competitive than Scotland
If independence becomes likely time to invest heavily in Berwick to Carlisle as businesses and employees locate across the border into England
I think you are being blinkered, why is England not cheaper than Ireland for tax and you are using the same brexit fantasy of "we hold all the cards" , for businesses all moving to Berwick or Carlisle. That is naive, bit like the stampede to there predicted when they increased drink prices , and fantasy that when tax went up there would be stampede south. You guys are delusional.
Scots are already paying higher taxes and the gap will only increase on independence
There will be a move by business to gain tax advantages and of course Scotland will be facing a uniform EU tax rate which is higher than the UK
You seem to think independence will be a walk in the park and that is simply for the birds
What uniform EU tax rate would that be?
The one they will have to impose as part of fiscal union to save the Euro in the medium term?
Why is a uniform tax rate necessary for a fiscal union? The US doesn't have one.
They do, actually, although as taxes are varied at a state and local level (including income tax) it looks to the outsider as though they don’t.
Put it this way, they have a uniform minimum tax rate.
I would add though that one reason why Europe keeps struggling to drag its people along with its dogma is that it has a stupid habit of going for as much as it thinks it needs, rather than as much as it can actually command popular support for.
And to the insider who has to pay different tax rates depending on the state in which they live or operate, it looks like there is uniform rate?
As I said, there is a set minimum.
So, yes.
Absurd.
You know, William, what I like about you is the way that you bring detailed evidence in support of your claims. When somebody points out that you have misunderstood something and you end up being in the wrong, you don’t go the Hyufd and Contrarion route of one-word personal abuse to try and support an indefensible position.
But I'm right as you admit. Tax rates vary from state to state, ergo there is no uniformity and there is tax competition between states. Whether there's a set minimum is neither here nor there.
You are saying there is a set minimum, on top of which the states levy their own taxes, and therefore no uniformity.
Are you claiming them that if the EU insisted on minimum federation wide tax rates (as it has already tried to do for corporation tax, of course) that would not be tax harmonisation?
Because if so, I have a bridge for sale.
There are currently set minimums for VAT. Do you think that means the EU currently has harmonised VAT rates?
Your original point was that a uniform rate was necessary in order to implement a fiscal union and I refuted this. You were wrong and you are now trying to change the subject.
I think there are a number who would have made credible Prime Ministers.
Since 1970, I'd put up the following:
Denis Healey Roy Jenkins William Whitelaw Geoffrey Howe Michael Heseltine Ken Clarke (as you say) George Osborne David Milliband Yvette Cooper
That's nine against the field and possibly a couple of others on the fringes.
Not sure I would agree about Yvette Cooper, her husband might have been a better shout. Also, going back a bit, a lot of people, even non Labour people, had a lot of time for Roy Mason.
Of that list I would say that Jenkins and Clarke really stand out.
I've got to say (and this sounds terrible) I was finding it harder to think of credible candidates the closer I got to today and I didn't want to come over as one of those old fogeys who think all the past politicians are great and all the current ones terrible because it's not that straightforward.
The first six were easy and I think both Osborne and David Milliband would have made fine Prime Ministers.
Of the current crop, I'm genuinely struggling. Rishi Sunak might be on the list but he needs to be tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
And I hope he is - tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
There's a good handful that whilst you're not jumping up and down for them they're capable. (Sunak as said) Patel, Hancock, Gove, Raab, Hunt.
For Labour (I'm not a supporter) I can see only three plausible candidates - Cooper, Nandy and Allin-Khan.
You have to be joking , the only half decent one in that list is Hunt , the rest are crap, liars , cheats and comic singers. On Labour you are worse , 3 absolute donkeys I would not trust to run a bath
Good that you like (or at least don't dislike) Hunt. You may be right, but I'd hope you'd agree that my list has some of the better rather than worse.
Scotland needs a friend or two to make 'escape' work. It would have been different 10 years ago. The most likely and best friends are the English, and that applies always.
For sure , only madmen would think that England and Scotland would not remain close partners in the event of independence. Would be madness for both nations and not something I would want to see.
I think that is very naive Malc
Scotland and RUK would become competitor nations and with a near certain Westminster conservative government both company and personal taxation will be much more competitive than Scotland
If independence becomes likely time to invest heavily in Berwick to Carlisle as businesses and employees locate across the border into England
I think you are being blinkered, why is England not cheaper than Ireland for tax and you are using the same brexit fantasy of "we hold all the cards" , for businesses all moving to Berwick or Carlisle. That is naive, bit like the stampede to there predicted when they increased drink prices , and fantasy that when tax went up there would be stampede south. You guys are delusional.
It's weird, the folk always going on about the deep, family bond of the UK are often the ones promising that England will fcuk an indy Scotland good and propah.
You have to realise that once Scotland leaves the union it becomes a competitor nation and as such will face competition for the same markets
This has nothing to do with family bonds but is all to do with the reality of independence
So Scotland is currently unable to compete for business based on national policies? Sounds like something they should correct.
Scotland already levies higher tax rates but should Scotland leave the union it should not receive the benefits of the union
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
On the current polling it looks like Minnesota will be closer than Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, so if Trump won Minnesota then those 3 states plus the Hillary states would not be enough and Biden would need Florida too
I think there are a number who would have made credible Prime Ministers.
Since 1970, I'd put up the following:
Denis Healey Roy Jenkins William Whitelaw Geoffrey Howe Michael Heseltine Ken Clarke (as you say) George Osborne David Milliband Yvette Cooper
That's nine against the field and possibly a couple of others on the fringes.
Not sure I would agree about Yvette Cooper, her husband might have been a better shout. Also, going back a bit, a lot of people, even non Labour people, had a lot of time for Roy Mason.
Of that list I would say that Jenkins and Clarke really stand out.
I've got to say (and this sounds terrible) I was finding it harder to think of credible candidates the closer I got to today and I didn't want to come over as one of those old fogeys who think all the past politicians are great and all the current ones terrible because it's not that straightforward.
The first six were easy and I think both Osborne and David Milliband would have made fine Prime Ministers.
Of the current crop, I'm genuinely struggling. Rishi Sunak might be on the list but he needs to be tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
And I hope he is - tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
There's a good handful that whilst you're not jumping up and down for them they're capable. (Sunak as said) Patel, Hancock, Gove, Raab, Hunt.
For Labour (I'm not a supporter) I can see only three plausible candidates - Cooper, Nandy and Allin-Khan.
You have to be joking , the only half decent one in that list is Hunt , the rest are crap, liars , cheats and comic singers. On Labour you are worse , 3 absolute donkeys I would not trust to run a bath
Good that you like (or at least don't dislike) Hunt. You may be right, but I'd hope you'd agree that my list has some of the better rather than worse.
Scotland needs a friend or two to make 'escape' work. It would have been different 10 years ago. The most likely and best friends are the English, and that applies always.
For sure , only madmen would think that England and Scotland would not remain close partners in the event of independence. Would be madness for both nations and not something I would want to see.
I think that is very naive Malc
Scotland and RUK would become competitor nations and with a near certain Westminster conservative government both company and personal taxation will be much more competitive than Scotland
If independence becomes likely time to invest heavily in Berwick to Carlisle as businesses and employees locate across the border into England
I think you are being blinkered, why is England not cheaper than Ireland for tax and you are using the same brexit fantasy of "we hold all the cards" , for businesses all moving to Berwick or Carlisle. That is naive, bit like the stampede to there predicted when they increased drink prices , and fantasy that when tax went up there would be stampede south. You guys are delusional.
Scots are already paying higher taxes and the gap will only increase on independence
There will be a move by business to gain tax advantages and of course Scotland will be facing a uniform EU tax rate which is higher than the UK
You seem to think independence will be a walk in the park and that is simply for the birds
What uniform EU tax rate would that be?
The one they will have to impose as part of fiscal union to save the Euro in the medium term?
Why is a uniform tax rate necessary for a fiscal union? The US doesn't have one.
They do, actually, although as taxes are varied at a state and local level (including income tax) it looks to the outsider as though they don’t.
Put it this way, they have a uniform minimum tax rate.
I would add though that one reason why Europe keeps struggling to drag its people along with its dogma is that it has a stupid habit of going for as much as it thinks it needs, rather than as much as it can actually command popular support for.
And to the insider who has to pay different tax rates depending on the state in which they live or operate, it looks like there is uniform rate?
As I said, there is a set minimum.
So, yes.
Absurd.
You know, William, what I like about you is the way that you bring detailed evidence in support of your claims. When somebody points out that you have misunderstood something and you end up being in the wrong, you don’t go the Hyufd and Contrarion route of one-word personal abuse to try and support an indefensible position.
But I'm right as you admit. Tax rates vary from state to state, ergo there is no uniformity and there is tax competition between states. Whether there's a set minimum is neither here nor there.
You are saying there is a set minimum, on top of which the states levy their own taxes, and therefore no uniformity.
Are you claiming them that if the EU insisted on minimum federation wide tax rates (as it has already tried to do for corporation tax, of course) that would not be tax harmonisation?
Because if so, I have a bridge for sale.
There are currently set minimums for VAT. Do you think that means the EU currently has harmonised VAT rates?
Your original point was that a uniform rate was necessary in order to implement a fiscal union and I refuted this. You were wrong and you are now trying to change the subject.
It may not be necessary - although in practice for the EU it probably would be - but the point is the example you used was not valid and your attempts to argue the contrary are now moving rapidly into the Trump territory of alternative facts.
You obviously don’t like this given the increasingly unpleasant personal abuse you are dishing out, but I can’t help that.
Peaceful protest appears to have done quite a lot for black people in the US. They may too often be on the wrong end of police excesses but are they being wrongly killed in disproportionate numbers to whites? The jury is out. They are the police killings that get the media attention though.
I think there are a number who would have made credible Prime Ministers.
Since 1970, I'd put up the following:
Denis Healey Roy Jenkins William Whitelaw Geoffrey Howe Michael Heseltine Ken Clarke (as you say) George Osborne David Milliband Yvette Cooper
That's nine against the field and possibly a couple of others on the fringes.
Not sure I would agree about Yvette Cooper, her husband might have been a better shout. Also, going back a bit, a lot of people, even non Labour people, had a lot of time for Roy Mason.
Of that list I would say that Jenkins and Clarke really stand out.
I've got to say (and this sounds terrible) I was finding it harder to think of credible candidates the closer I got to today and I didn't want to come over as one of those old fogeys who think all the past politicians are great and all the current ones terrible because it's not that straightforward.
The first six were easy and I think both Osborne and David Milliband would have made fine Prime Ministers.
Of the current crop, I'm genuinely struggling. Rishi Sunak might be on the list but he needs to be tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
And I hope he is - tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
There's a good handful that whilst you're not jumping up and down for them they're capable. (Sunak as said) Patel, Hancock, Gove, Raab, Hunt.
For Labour (I'm not a supporter) I can see only three plausible candidates - Cooper, Nandy and Allin-Khan.
You have to be joking , the only half decent one in that list is Hunt , the rest are crap, liars , cheats and comic singers. On Labour you are worse , 3 absolute donkeys I would not trust to run a bath
Good that you like (or at least don't dislike) Hunt. You may be right, but I'd hope you'd agree that my list has some of the better rather than worse.
Scotland needs a friend or two to make 'escape' work. It would have been different 10 years ago. The most likely and best friends are the English, and that applies always.
For sure , only madmen would think that England and Scotland would not remain close partners in the event of independence. Would be madness for both nations and not something I would want to see.
I think that is very naive Malc
Scotland and RUK would become competitor nations and with a near certain Westminster conservative government both company and personal taxation will be much more competitive than Scotland
If independence becomes likely time to invest heavily in Berwick to Carlisle as businesses and employees locate across the border into England
I think you are being blinkered, why is England not cheaper than Ireland for tax and you are using the same brexit fantasy of "we hold all the cards" , for businesses all moving to Berwick or Carlisle. That is naive, bit like the stampede to there predicted when they increased drink prices , and fantasy that when tax went up there would be stampede south. You guys are delusional.
It's weird, the folk always going on about the deep, family bond of the UK are often the ones promising that England will fcuk an indy Scotland good and propah.
You have to realise that once Scotland leaves the union it becomes a competitor nation and as such will face competition for the same markets
This has nothing to do with family bonds but is all to do with the reality of independence
So Scotland is currently unable to compete for business based on national policies? Sounds like something they should correct.
Scotland already levies higher tax rates but should Scotland leave the union it should not receive the benefits of the union
Reminds one of the EU and Barnier
I think this is one we won’t persuade by reasoning and evidence Big-G. Best just to leave him in peace.
Some people on twitter (Lionel Barber, and Andrew Neil) are lionising this speech by Democrat John Deberry as to what the democrats should have been saying all along.
Alas they weren't. And they still aren't.
Doubtless the modern democrats would call him an uncle Tom. I think he should be their candidate.
There are those who would counter by arguing where has 60 years of "peaceful" protest got Black Americans? There are still too many examples of Police brutality and actions taken by Police against black men which would never be taken against white men.
Yes, in many respects black Americans have made huge strides - economically, many have levels of prosperity and freedom unknown to their grandparents and it is so much better than it was but it is still not as good as it could or should be.
There comes a point when those who advocate a peaceful and dignified response to institutional racism or terror or state oppression have to contend with the unpalatable truth they are not making progress and the siren voices advocating a more violent response get heard.
It's the same whether it is a protest against Police violence in Wisconsin or electoral fraud in Minsk.
Bluntly, where would war get them? They are outnumbered 5 to 1 by white Americans. Go to war, and they will lose.
Where did peaceful protest get them? Quite a long way, if not as far as they should be.
There's also the factor of a race war being precisely what white US racists want, its necessity and inevitability is almost an article of religious faith for them.
There was a report back in the early 2000s (after Timothy McVeigh's execution) about just how many on the American far right think The Turner Diaries would come true, and were prepared to do anything, including false flag attacks to make it happen.
Wasn’t there a theory at one point that many of them thought the world would end in a nuclear war between Israel and Iran and were actively trying to make it happen?
I think there are a number who would have made credible Prime Ministers.
Since 1970, I'd put up the following:
Denis Healey Roy Jenkins William Whitelaw Geoffrey Howe Michael Heseltine Ken Clarke (as you say) George Osborne David Milliband Yvette Cooper
That's nine against the field and possibly a couple of others on the fringes.
Not sure I would agree about Yvette Cooper, her husband might have been a better shout. Also, going back a bit, a lot of people, even non Labour people, had a lot of time for Roy Mason.
Of that list I would say that Jenkins and Clarke really stand out.
I've got to say (and this sounds terrible) I was finding it harder to think of credible candidates the closer I got to today and I didn't want to come over as one of those old fogeys who think all the past politicians are great and all the current ones terrible because it's not that straightforward.
The first six were easy and I think both Osborne and David Milliband would have made fine Prime Ministers.
Of the current crop, I'm genuinely struggling. Rishi Sunak might be on the list but he needs to be tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
And I hope he is - tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
There's a good handful that whilst you're not jumping up and down for them they're capable. (Sunak as said) Patel, Hancock, Gove, Raab, Hunt.
For Labour (I'm not a supporter) I can see only three plausible candidates - Cooper, Nandy and Allin-Khan.
You have to be joking , the only half decent one in that list is Hunt , the rest are crap, liars , cheats and comic singers. On Labour you are worse , 3 absolute donkeys I would not trust to run a bath
Good that you like (or at least don't dislike) Hunt. You may be right, but I'd hope you'd agree that my list has some of the better rather than worse.
Scotland needs a friend or two to make 'escape' work. It would have been different 10 years ago. The most likely and best friends are the English, and that applies always.
For sure , only madmen would think that England and Scotland would not remain close partners in the event of independence. Would be madness for both nations and not something I would want to see.
I think that is very naive Malc
Scotland and RUK would become competitor nations and with a near certain Westminster conservative government both company and personal taxation will be much more competitive than Scotland
If independence becomes likely time to invest heavily in Berwick to Carlisle as businesses and employees locate across the border into England
I think you are being blinkered, why is England not cheaper than Ireland for tax and you are using the same brexit fantasy of "we hold all the cards" , for businesses all moving to Berwick or Carlisle. That is naive, bit like the stampede to there predicted when they increased drink prices , and fantasy that when tax went up there would be stampede south. You guys are delusional.
Scots are already paying higher taxes and the gap will only increase on independence
There will be a move by business to gain tax advantages and of course Scotland will be facing a uniform EU tax rate which is higher than the UK
You seem to think independence will be a walk in the park and that is simply for the birds
What uniform EU tax rate would that be?
The one they will have to impose as part of fiscal union to save the Euro in the medium term?
Why is a uniform tax rate necessary for a fiscal union? The US doesn't have one.
They do, actually, although as taxes are varied at a state and local level (including income tax) it looks to the outsider as though they don’t.
Put it this way, they have a uniform minimum tax rate.
I would add though that one reason why Europe keeps struggling to drag its people along with its dogma is that it has a stupid habit of going for as much as it thinks it needs, rather than as much as it can actually command popular support for.
And to the insider who has to pay different tax rates depending on the state in which they live or operate, it looks like there is uniform rate?
As I said, there is a set minimum.
So, yes.
Absurd.
You know, William, what I like about you is the way that you bring detailed evidence in support of your claims. When somebody points out that you have misunderstood something and you end up being in the wrong, you don’t go the Hyufd and Contrarion route of one-word personal abuse to try and support an indefensible position.
But I'm right as you admit. Tax rates vary from state to state, ergo there is no uniformity and there is tax competition between states. Whether there's a set minimum is neither here nor there.
You are saying there is a set minimum, on top of which the states levy their own taxes, and therefore no uniformity.
Are you claiming them that if the EU insisted on minimum federation wide tax rates (as it has already tried to do for corporation tax, of course) that would not be tax harmonisation?
Because if so, I have a bridge for sale.
There are currently set minimums for VAT. Do you think that means the EU currently has harmonised VAT rates?
Your original point was that a uniform rate was necessary in order to implement a fiscal union and I refuted this. You were wrong and you are now trying to change the subject.
It may not be necessary - although in practice for the EU it probably would be - but the point is the example you used was not valid and your attempts to argue the contrary are now moving rapidly into the Trump territory of alternative facts.
You obviously don’t like this given the increasingly unpleasant personal abuse you are dishing out, but I can’t help that.
You consider pointing out your mistakes to be personally abusive?
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
Some people on twitter (Lionel Barber, and Andrew Neil) are lionising this speech by Democrat John Deberry as to what the democrats should have been saying all along.
Alas they weren't. And they still aren't.
Doubtless the modern democrats would call him an uncle Tom. I think he should be their candidate.
There are those who would counter by arguing where has 60 years of "peaceful" protest got Black Americans? There are still too many examples of Police brutality and actions taken by Police against black men which would never be taken against white men.
Yes, in many respects black Americans have made huge strides - economically, many have levels of prosperity and freedom unknown to their grandparents and it is so much better than it was but it is still not as good as it could or should be.
There comes a point when those who advocate a peaceful and dignified response to institutional racism or terror or state oppression have to contend with the unpalatable truth they are not making progress and the siren voices advocating a more violent response get heard.
It's the same whether it is a protest against Police violence in Wisconsin or electoral fraud in Minsk.
Bluntly, where would war get them? They are outnumbered 5 to 1 by white Americans. Go to war, and they will lose.
Where did peaceful protest get them? Quite a long way, if not as far as they should be.
There's also the factor of a race war being precisely what white US racists want, its necessity and inevitability is almost an article of religious faith for them.
There was a report back in the early 2000s (after Timothy McVeigh's execution) about just how many on the American far right think The Turner Diaries would come true, and were prepared to do anything, including false flag attacks to make it happen.
Wasn’t there a theory at one point that many of them thought the world would end in a nuclear war between Israel and Iran and were actively trying to make it happen?
Yup.
There's also those loons who think Israel annexing parts of the West Bank etc will lead to the rapture/second coming.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
I think there are a number who would have made credible Prime Ministers.
Since 1970, I'd put up the following:
Denis Healey Roy Jenkins William Whitelaw Geoffrey Howe Michael Heseltine Ken Clarke (as you say) George Osborne David Milliband Yvette Cooper
That's nine against the field and possibly a couple of others on the fringes.
Not sure I would agree about Yvette Cooper, her husband might have been a better shout. Also, going back a bit, a lot of people, even non Labour people, had a lot of time for Roy Mason.
Of that list I would say that Jenkins and Clarke really stand out.
I've got to say (and this sounds terrible) I was finding it harder to think of credible candidates the closer I got to today and I didn't want to come over as one of those old fogeys who think all the past politicians are great and all the current ones terrible because it's not that straightforward.
The first six were easy and I think both Osborne and David Milliband would have made fine Prime Ministers.
Of the current crop, I'm genuinely struggling. Rishi Sunak might be on the list but he needs to be tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
And I hope he is - tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
There's a good handful that whilst you're not jumping up and down for them they're capable. (Sunak as said) Patel, Hancock, Gove, Raab, Hunt.
For Labour (I'm not a supporter) I can see only three plausible candidates - Cooper, Nandy and Allin-Khan.
You have to be joking , the only half decent one in that list is Hunt , the rest are crap, liars , cheats and comic singers. On Labour you are worse , 3 absolute donkeys I would not trust to run a bath
Good that you like (or at least don't dislike) Hunt. You may be right, but I'd hope you'd agree that my list has some of the better rather than worse.
Scotland needs a friend or two to make 'escape' work. It would have been different 10 years ago. The most likely and best friends are the English, and that applies always.
For sure , only madmen would think that England and Scotland would not remain close partners in the event of independence. Would be madness for both nations and not something I would want to see.
I think that is very naive Malc
Scotland and RUK would become competitor nations and with a near certain Westminster conservative government both company and personal taxation will be much more competitive than Scotland
If independence becomes likely time to invest heavily in Berwick to Carlisle as businesses and employees locate across the border into England
I think you are being blinkered, why is England not cheaper than Ireland for tax and you are using the same brexit fantasy of "we hold all the cards" , for businesses all moving to Berwick or Carlisle. That is naive, bit like the stampede to there predicted when they increased drink prices , and fantasy that when tax went up there would be stampede south. You guys are delusional.
Scots are already paying higher taxes and the gap will only increase on independence
There will be a move by business to gain tax advantages and of course Scotland will be facing a uniform EU tax rate which is higher than the UK
You seem to think independence will be a walk in the park and that is simply for the birds
What uniform EU tax rate would that be?
The one they will have to impose as part of fiscal union to save the Euro in the medium term?
Why is a uniform tax rate necessary for a fiscal union? The US doesn't have one.
They do, actually, although as taxes are varied at a state and local level (including income tax) it looks to the outsider as though they don’t.
Put it this way, they have a uniform minimum tax rate.
I would add though that one reason why Europe keeps struggling to drag its people along with its dogma is that it has a stupid habit of going for as much as it thinks it needs, rather than as much as it can actually command popular support for.
And to the insider who has to pay different tax rates depending on the state in which they live or operate, it looks like there is uniform rate?
As I said, there is a set minimum.
So, yes.
Absurd.
You know, William, what I like about you is the way that you bring detailed evidence in support of your claims. When somebody points out that you have misunderstood something and you end up being in the wrong, you don’t go the Hyufd and Contrarion route of one-word personal abuse to try and support an indefensible position.
But I'm right as you admit. Tax rates vary from state to state, ergo there is no uniformity and there is tax competition between states. Whether there's a set minimum is neither here nor there.
You are saying there is a set minimum, on top of which the states levy their own taxes, and therefore no uniformity.
Are you claiming them that if the EU insisted on minimum federation wide tax rates (as it has already tried to do for corporation tax, of course) that would not be tax harmonisation?
Because if so, I have a bridge for sale.
There are currently set minimums for VAT. Do you think that means the EU currently has harmonised VAT rates?
Your original point was that a uniform rate was necessary in order to implement a fiscal union and I refuted this. You were wrong and you are now trying to change the subject.
It may not be necessary - although in practice for the EU it probably would be - but the point is the example you used was not valid and your attempts to argue the contrary are now moving rapidly into the Trump territory of alternative facts.
You obviously don’t like this given the increasingly unpleasant personal abuse you are dishing out, but I can’t help that.
You consider pointing out your mistakes to be personally abusive?
You haven’t pointed out any mistakes. I have pointed out yours, in response to which you have used the words ‘Absurd’ and ‘illogical’, without showing how what I had said was either. So yes, it was pure personal abuse.
Anyway, I have better things to do with my life than bandy words with somebody who can’t bear to admit they’ve made what was, frankly, quite a minor mistake had you been willing to admit to it, and so without apparent irony accuse others of being wrong instead. I wish you a pleasant evening.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
I realise you are at the sharp end of this but all I can offer is my anecdotal experience of long queues at both the school outfitters in East Ham this morning.
It looks as though there will be a concerted attempt at a return as early as tomorrow so we'll see.
Some people on twitter (Lionel Barber, and Andrew Neil) are lionising this speech by Democrat John Deberry as to what the democrats should have been saying all along.
Alas they weren't. And they still aren't.
Doubtless the modern democrats would call him an uncle Tom. I think he should be their candidate.
There are those who would counter by arguing where has 60 years of "peaceful" protest got Black Americans? There are still too many examples of Police brutality and actions taken by Police against black men which would never be taken against white men.
Yes, in many respects black Americans have made huge strides - economically, many have levels of prosperity and freedom unknown to their grandparents and it is so much better than it was but it is still not as good as it could or should be.
There comes a point when those who advocate a peaceful and dignified response to institutional racism or terror or state oppression have to contend with the unpalatable truth they are not making progress and the siren voices advocating a more violent response get heard.
It's the same whether it is a protest against Police violence in Wisconsin or electoral fraud in Minsk.
You answered your own question. They have made huge strides. Hell, they got a black president.
That guy was president for eight years. Its funny how he never got any criticism for the oppression of black people that you claim has been going on for sixty, including his own tenure. Not a word. Black lives sure didn't matter then.
Why? because BLM is not about Black Lives Mattering whatsoever. Its nothing to do with that. Its a about a mainly white liberal elite not getting their own way for once.
They cannot abide the man in their way, or the voters in their way. They hate and despise them, and want them gone.
At which point black people can go back to rotting away in democrat run administrations like they have in every democrat administration in the last 60 years.
Sounds like an end to racial injustice really keeps you awake at nights. You're not fooled by the surface of things. You know that Donald Trump, for all his unPC bluntness of speech and manner, has the interests of black Americans at heart in a way that Barack Obama and the Clintons and Joe Biden and the whole rotten liberal establishment who have called the shots for so long do not and never have. Bravo and what's more - hats off.
I think there are a number who would have made credible Prime Ministers.
Since 1970, I'd put up the following:
Denis Healey Roy Jenkins William Whitelaw Geoffrey Howe Michael Heseltine Ken Clarke (as you say) George Osborne David Milliband Yvette Cooper
That's nine against the field and possibly a couple of others on the fringes.
Not sure I would agree about Yvette Cooper, her husband might have been a better shout. Also, going back a bit, a lot of people, even non Labour people, had a lot of time for Roy Mason.
Of that list I would say that Jenkins and Clarke really stand out.
I've got to say (and this sounds terrible) I was finding it harder to think of credible candidates the closer I got to today and I didn't want to come over as one of those old fogeys who think all the past politicians are great and all the current ones terrible because it's not that straightforward.
The first six were easy and I think both Osborne and David Milliband would have made fine Prime Ministers.
Of the current crop, I'm genuinely struggling. Rishi Sunak might be on the list but he needs to be tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
And I hope he is - tested in the fires of unpopularity and defeat.
There's a good handful that whilst you're not jumping up and down for them they're capable. (Sunak as said) Patel, Hancock, Gove, Raab, Hunt.
For Labour (I'm not a supporter) I can see only three plausible candidates - Cooper, Nandy and Allin-Khan.
You have to be joking , the only half decent one in that list is Hunt , the rest are crap, liars , cheats and comic singers. On Labour you are worse , 3 absolute donkeys I would not trust to run a bath
Good that you like (or at least don't dislike) Hunt. You may be right, but I'd hope you'd agree that my list has some of the better rather than worse.
Scotland needs a friend or two to make 'escape' work. It would have been different 10 years ago. The most likely and best friends are the English, and that applies always.
For sure , only madmen would think that England and Scotland would not remain close partners in the event of independence. Would be madness for both nations and not something I would want to see.
I think that is very naive Malc
Scotland and RUK would become competitor nations and with a near certain Westminster conservative government both company and personal taxation will be much more competitive than Scotland
If independence becomes likely time to invest heavily in Berwick to Carlisle as businesses and employees locate across the border into England
I think you are being blinkered, why is England not cheaper than Ireland for tax and you are using the same brexit fantasy of "we hold all the cards" , for businesses all moving to Berwick or Carlisle. That is naive, bit like the stampede to there predicted when they increased drink prices , and fantasy that when tax went up there would be stampede south. You guys are delusional.
Scots are already paying higher taxes and the gap will only increase on independence
There will be a move by business to gain tax advantages and of course Scotland will be facing a uniform EU tax rate which is higher than the UK
You seem to think independence will be a walk in the park and that is simply for the birds
What uniform EU tax rate would that be?
The one they will have to impose as part of fiscal union to save the Euro in the medium term?
Why is a uniform tax rate necessary for a fiscal union? The US doesn't have one.
They do, actually, although as taxes are varied at a state and local level (including income tax) it looks to the outsider as though they don’t.
Put it this way, they have a uniform minimum tax rate.
I would add though that one reason why Europe keeps struggling to drag its people along with its dogma is that it has a stupid habit of going for as much as it thinks it needs, rather than as much as it can actually command popular support for.
And to the insider who has to pay different tax rates depending on the state in which they live or operate, it looks like there is uniform rate?
As I said, there is a set minimum.
So, yes.
Absurd.
You know, William, what I like about you is the way that you bring detailed evidence in support of your claims. When somebody points out that you have misunderstood something and you end up being in the wrong, you don’t go the Hyufd and Contrarion route of one-word personal abuse to try and support an indefensible position.
But I'm right as you admit. Tax rates vary from state to state, ergo there is no uniformity and there is tax competition between states. Whether there's a set minimum is neither here nor there.
You are saying there is a set minimum, on top of which the states levy their own taxes, and therefore no uniformity.
Are you claiming them that if the EU insisted on minimum federation wide tax rates (as it has already tried to do for corporation tax, of course) that would not be tax harmonisation?
Because if so, I have a bridge for sale.
There are currently set minimums for VAT. Do you think that means the EU currently has harmonised VAT rates?
Your original point was that a uniform rate was necessary in order to implement a fiscal union and I refuted this. You were wrong and you are now trying to change the subject.
It may not be necessary - although in practice for the EU it probably would be - but the point is the example you used was not valid and your attempts to argue the contrary are now moving rapidly into the Trump territory of alternative facts.
You obviously don’t like this given the increasingly unpleasant personal abuse you are dishing out, but I can’t help that.
You consider pointing out your mistakes to be personally abusive?
You haven’t pointed out any mistakes. I have pointed out yours, in response to which you have used the words ‘Absurd’ and ‘illogical’, without showing how what I had said was either. So yes, it was pure personal abuse.
Anyway, I have better things to do with my life than bandy words with somebody who can’t bear to admit they’ve made what was, frankly, quite a minor mistake had you been willing to admit to it, and so without apparent irony accuse others of being wrong instead. I wish you a pleasant evening.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
I realise you are at the sharp end of this but all I can offer is my anecdotal experience of long queues at both the school outfitters in East Ham this morning.
It looks as though there will be a concerted attempt at a return as early as tomorrow so we'll see.
I would like to think so. This isn’t doing the children any good. True, I imagine some have enjoyed the long holiday where they absent-mindedly forgot to turn in any work, but it’s at a dreadful price in their education.
Truthfully, I am less worried about getting them back than keeping them back. The government’s advice on partial closures or bubbles doesn’t make any sense. We will still have staff wandering from classroom to classroom, so at the first case of Covid we will end up so short of staff the site will be shut. It’s inevitable.
But to hear government advice you would think the staff are immune.
Spain reporting 23,000 new cases of covid since Friday and with Portugal also over the UK quarantine threshold surely this must be a big concern
Are we heading to quarantine all travel into the UK
I am no expert on covid numbers but it does look very worrying
We should have done it months ago. Particularly from those places where the disease is endemic.
But even if we do ‘quarantine’ arrivals, unless there is a sudden surge of intelligence on the part of HMG it won’t be quarantine, it will be a polite request to stay in your house for two weeks unless there’s an emergency, such as you need more chocolate or you fancy a breath of fresh air, or your eyes need testing.
Which is still a quarantine. This country isn't an authoritarian dictatorship - the law is a polite request first and foremost and people generally abide by said requests.
No, it’s not a quarantine. It’s an advisory.
Quarantine is where people are kept strictly separate from everyone else until it’s clear they’re not infectious.
Quarantine is a period of isolation. If people are told to stay at home and they do so then they are quarantined.
quarantine /ˈkwɒrəntiːn/ Learn to pronounce noun a state, period, or place of isolation in which people or animals that have arrived from elsewhere or been exposed to infectious or contagious disease are placed.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
WFH is here to stay until there's a vaccine.
Very few offices are compatible with anything close to a fullish return to the office and social distancing.
Some people on twitter (Lionel Barber, and Andrew Neil) are lionising this speech by Democrat John Deberry as to what the democrats should have been saying all along.
Alas they weren't. And they still aren't.
Doubtless the modern democrats would call him an uncle Tom. I think he should be their candidate.
There are those who would counter by arguing where has 60 years of "peaceful" protest got Black Americans? There are still too many examples of Police brutality and actions taken by Police against black men which would never be taken against white men.
Yes, in many respects black Americans have made huge strides - economically, many have levels of prosperity and freedom unknown to their grandparents and it is so much better than it was but it is still not as good as it could or should be.
There comes a point when those who advocate a peaceful and dignified response to institutional racism or terror or state oppression have to contend with the unpalatable truth they are not making progress and the siren voices advocating a more violent response get heard.
It's the same whether it is a protest against Police violence in Wisconsin or electoral fraud in Minsk.
Bluntly, where would war get them? They are outnumbered 5 to 1 by white Americans. Go to war, and they will lose.
Where did peaceful protest get them? Quite a long way, if not as far as they should be.
There's also the factor of a race war being precisely what white US racists want, its necessity and inevitability is almost an article of religious faith for them.
There was a report back in the early 2000s (after Timothy McVeigh's execution) about just how many on the American far right think The Turner Diaries would come true, and were prepared to do anything, including false flag attacks to make it happen.
Wasn’t there a theory at one point that many of them thought the world would end in a nuclear war between Israel and Iran and were actively trying to make it happen?
That's the Evangelicals. They sincerely believe in Armageddon. A not insignificant number of GOP have been voted in on a personal policy platform of bringing about Armageddon.
Spain reporting 23,000 new cases of covid since Friday and with Portugal also over the UK quarantine threshold surely this must be a big concern
Are we heading to quarantine all travel into the UK
I am no expert on covid numbers but it does look very worrying
We should have done it months ago. Particularly from those places where the disease is endemic.
But even if we do ‘quarantine’ arrivals, unless there is a sudden surge of intelligence on the part of HMG it won’t be quarantine, it will be a polite request to stay in your house for two weeks unless there’s an emergency, such as you need more chocolate or you fancy a breath of fresh air, or your eyes need testing.
Which is still a quarantine. This country isn't an authoritarian dictatorship - the law is a polite request first and foremost and people generally abide by said requests.
No, it’s not a quarantine. It’s an advisory.
Quarantine is where people are kept strictly separate from everyone else until it’s clear they’re not infectious.
Quarantine is a period of isolation. If people are told to stay at home and they do so then they are quarantined.
quarantine /ˈkwɒrəntiːn/ Learn to pronounce noun a state, period, or place of isolation in which people or animals that have arrived from elsewhere or been exposed to infectious or contagious disease are placed.
But if it’s not being monitored, how do we know they’re doing it?
Some people on twitter (Lionel Barber, and Andrew Neil) are lionising this speech by Democrat John Deberry as to what the democrats should have been saying all along.
Alas they weren't. And they still aren't.
Doubtless the modern democrats would call him an uncle Tom. I think he should be their candidate.
There are those who would counter by arguing where has 60 years of "peaceful" protest got Black Americans? There are still too many examples of Police brutality and actions taken by Police against black men which would never be taken against white men.
Yes, in many respects black Americans have made huge strides - economically, many have levels of prosperity and freedom unknown to their grandparents and it is so much better than it was but it is still not as good as it could or should be.
There comes a point when those who advocate a peaceful and dignified response to institutional racism or terror or state oppression have to contend with the unpalatable truth they are not making progress and the siren voices advocating a more violent response get heard.
It's the same whether it is a protest against Police violence in Wisconsin or electoral fraud in Minsk.
Bluntly, where would war get them? They are outnumbered 5 to 1 by white Americans. Go to war, and they will lose.
Where did peaceful protest get them? Quite a long way, if not as far as they should be.
There's also the factor of a race war being precisely what white US racists want, its necessity and inevitability is almost an article of religious faith for them.
There was a report back in the early 2000s (after Timothy McVeigh's execution) about just how many on the American far right think The Turner Diaries would come true, and were prepared to do anything, including false flag attacks to make it happen.
Wasn’t there a theory at one point that many of them thought the world would end in a nuclear war between Israel and Iran and were actively trying to make it happen?
That's the Evangelicals. They sincerely believe in Armageddon. A not insignificant number of GOP have been voted in on a personal policy platform of bringing about Armageddon.
This is not a joke.
Well, no. I seem to remember a TV programme on it, but I can’t remember the details.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
No. They're not.
If the jobs aren't there, the jobs aren't there. Its the free market. Shame when it happens but it happens.
And since those jobs are essentially unskilled minimum wage jobs - they should not be our top concern either.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
WFH is here to stay until there's a vaccine.
Very few offices are compatible with anything close to a fullish return to the office and social distancing.
No schools are - but we’re expected to be back from tomorrow.
According to the latest Government figures England has only 70 more Covid patients in hospital than Scotland. If things keep going the way they are then within a week England will have less.
On the 28th August 83 Covid positive patients were admitted to hospital in Wales. According to the same figures Wales had 41 Covid positive patients in hospital on the 28th August.
It's basically inexplicable at this point. Unless Scotland are being beyond cautious about releasing elderly back into care homes I have no explanation for the difference.
It seems like only you and me are interested in this.
As England has ten times the population of Scotland you would have thought someone in the news may have mentioned it. As the for Wales admission figures I am amazed that the person publishing these stats is not questioning them.
I've Messaged a newspaper editor about it and he said they would look into it so maybe there will be a question or two at the Scottish press briefing soon.
My guess would be that Scotland are massively exaggerating their figures to continue the culture of fear.
Surely it is England out of line? Wales, Scotland, France, Spain etc etc have higher admission rates.
Perhaps England is undertreating?
The England hospital numbers for the weekend are clearly too low and I suspect because all the regional data has not yet been received.
There have been a few errors on regional data previously.
But the Scottish hospital numbers look wrong as do the Wales hospital admissions.
Spain reporting 23,000 new cases of covid since Friday and with Portugal also over the UK quarantine threshold surely this must be a big concern
Are we heading to quarantine all travel into the UK
I am no expert on covid numbers but it does look very worrying
We should have done it months ago. Particularly from those places where the disease is endemic.
But even if we do ‘quarantine’ arrivals, unless there is a sudden surge of intelligence on the part of HMG it won’t be quarantine, it will be a polite request to stay in your house for two weeks unless there’s an emergency, such as you need more chocolate or you fancy a breath of fresh air, or your eyes need testing.
Which is still a quarantine. This country isn't an authoritarian dictatorship - the law is a polite request first and foremost and people generally abide by said requests.
No, it’s not a quarantine. It’s an advisory.
Quarantine is where people are kept strictly separate from everyone else until it’s clear they’re not infectious.
Quarantine is a period of isolation. If people are told to stay at home and they do so then they are quarantined.
quarantine /ˈkwɒrəntiːn/ Learn to pronounce noun a state, period, or place of isolation in which people or animals that have arrived from elsewhere or been exposed to infectious or contagious disease are placed.
But if it’s not being monitored, how do we know they’re doing it?
The same as how the law always works in this country: we put faith that our fellow man is doing the right thing unless or until we have reason to believe otherwise.
We do not live in an authoritarian dictatorship where people must be monitored to ensure they are. Tell them to do so, then let them do so.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
WFH is here to stay until there's a vaccine.
Very few offices are compatible with anything close to a fullish return to the office and social distancing.
I do not disagree but a gradual return is needed, otherwise the cost is unimaginable in lost businesses and jobs, hence my comment on Prets 2,800 job loses
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Instead of trying to interfere in the arrangements employers and employees make between themselves, the government should be thinking of other uses to which unused office buildings in town centres could be put: light manufacturing, maybe. Workshops for quality craftsmen; learning and training centres for older people or those retraining etc.
This is a time for imagination and thinking about the goods and services of the future and how city centres might be configured to provide them. Not bullying people into returning to what was before out of some misplaced nostalgia for over-priced cafes or, more realistically, fear for property portfolios.
SKS is objectively smart, nice to have a smart leader somewhere
All the main party leaders in this country are now objectively smart.
Boris Johnson is not smart, lol
Oh really?
On what "objective" criteria do you judge him to be objectively not smart?
Well he only went to Balliol for one thing
I don't really understand calling clever people 'smart'. The word 'smart' has a useful existing meaning. It's very American - reminds me of children who win spelling bees and can list all the states but actually aren't particularly bright.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
WFH is here to stay until there's a vaccine.
Very few offices are compatible with anything close to a fullish return to the office and social distancing.
I do not disagree but a gradual return is needed, otherwise the cost is unimaginable in lost businesses and jobs, hence my comment on Prets 2,800 job loses
A gradual return isn't needed unless you want a lot more dead people.
Like No Deal, a few job losses here and there will be useful for the greater good.
Regarding the end of summer and the end of financial support. Unfortunately the pox hasn't gone away, is already surging back and that's before we send the school super spreaders to work. The government needs to try and at least throttle the vast sums being spent supporting the economy, but its seems clear enough that the result in doing so will be a surge in unemployment.
For a right wing free marketeer that shouldn't provide a concern and didn't in the 80s when economic reform and modernisation required the mass unemployment of working people across the midlands and north. These people didn't vote Tory and didn't matter. But now? One of the successes of the Tories has been the demonisation of state aid. If you are taking support from the government you must be some kind of scrounger, shirker, failure. Universal Credit, Food Banks, Bedroom Taxes - these are all things that happen to other people and besides its exaggerated.
Until now. The people being dumped onto UC are increasingly the people told UC was for dossers who live it large on your tax dollars. They are finding the opposite is true, and the "is that all I can get" conversations with the likes of Citizens Advice I am assured are eye-opening. As the middle class increasingly find themselves dumped onto a system that treats them like dirt and provides farthings, whilst at the same time the government issues increasingly patronising messages featuring someone like Ester McVeigh pretenting to drive off to her "staycation" I cannot see how the Tories avoid the political calamity this will bring.
And just as the pain from their people gets the most acute, we exit from transition with no deal. The borders gum shut, we get mass shortages and what there is costs money that their people don't have. Whilst IDS pops up cheering the glorious future we have now started. No wonder Shagger is looking to step off the stage.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
A lot of that none welfare cap money is housing benefit paid to private landlords.
If HMRC and the government wish to really cut costs I can save them billions there and yes some people landlords would scream but investment conditions and change and investments will go up and down.
HB for Private Rentals is not normally outside the benefit cap, according to the CAB:
The Benefit Cap is a limit to the total amount of money you can get from benefits. The Benefit Cap will only apply if you get Housing Benefit or Universal Credit.
That is not a "Lot" out of £102bn, or £600 billion for that matter.
Isn't it time we move on from these silly (and sometimes fake) kneejerk arguments targeted on the Private Rental Sector?
It says we spend £5000 on average to 4.6m people. If we halved that, to £2500 average, what would happen to the houses and flats the landlords own? Surely they would just rent them out for approx £2500 less to broadly the same people, or sell them to other landlords (who again have to accept the lower rent) or to the people renting.
What else can they do with the properties that would make them more money?
Indirectly it would also bring down other private rents for those not on housing benefit, who in turn would spend more into the wider economy more efficiently than they do through rent.
Several problems with that.
You are assuming that there is no other demand for new rentals. There is. They would rent the flat to anyone who would pay more than £2500 below market rent, and perhaps get the benefit of not having to deal with Councils. Rents are currently not going down; check any industry reports.
Currently demand is at near record highs.
If you try to cut £2500 you would also make many properties lossmaking. If the LLs bale out, then they go for sale to other LLs or people who are *not* HB renters - who are required by the regulations to have little or know capital, and therefore cannot buy houses but will continue to look for rentals. Either way, it is inimical to the interest of HB renters.
There is also the need to justify that just for tenants in the PRS under Equality Law? Unless you are proposing halving Social Sector HB payments too. What would that do to arrears, the subsidies that would have to be paid to Housing Associations etc to keep them solvent? Social Sector rents are already being marginally reduced, and they are all squealing.
It's a problem but if the treasury wants to save money Housing Benefit changes will generate more than anything else would.
And yes there would be squeals but I have a plan for dealing with those...
No it won't.
Housing Benefit which pays all or part of the rents of 4.6 million of the least wealthy households people costs £22 billion a year, of which believe approx 60%+ is for Social Sector and 40%- is for Private Sector. Roughly.
At most you could save a small fraction of that. And note that downward pressure has been in place for many years already, such as a 5 year freeze in cash terms since 2015.
Meanwhile the CGT Relief on main dwellings - which is money for wealthier sections of society - costs more than £25bn a year, and removing that entirely would generate many times more whilst only costing them at most perhaps 15-20% of the profit made on selling their houses.
I would be interested to hear your plan and why it should be targeted at the housing of poorer people.
I think it is quite clear where it should be targeted.
The issue with CGT on principal residences is it makes it hard to move
Let’s say you buy a flat for £100k with a £90k mortgage. Your future partner has also done the same. After a few years you get married and want to buy a small house for your growing family
Small houses are £350k in your area. Nothing grand but nice with a bit of garden. Luckily your flats have each gone up to £150k, and you’ve each had a pay rise so you can borrow the extra £50k. Alls good.
Except that now you have to pay £28k in tax. So you don’t move but cram into too small a flat. And you don’t buy new furniture or repaint the house. And the estate agent goes bust but we don’t care about them
(Moral: you need rollover relief otherwise you will kill ability for most people to move to better properties)
The number one issue is the inflated housing market - further inflated by myriad government decisions since 2010 (easy money, direct support for first time buyers, stamp duty holidays, complete openness to foreign criminalsinvestors, doing nothing to stop developers sitting on undeveloped land) - and the principal change is that we need to move toward a more realistic balance between house prices and earnings.
The first stage is to replace Stamp Duty with an equivalent annual property tax, with provision to delay payment until the property is sold for those on low incomes. Then, progressively, the tax rate is edged up, which should lead to an equivalent slow decline in property prices and a rapid realisation from those sitting on empty prime UK property as ‘investment’ that there are better places to put their money.
People will bid up house prices as high as they can afford. Fox Jr is buying a house near identical to the one I bought 28 years ago. Four times the price, but at current interest rates more affordable than my house with 12% mortgage rates.
Want lower house prices? Then stick up interest rates. Just don't expect any thanks!
Simply defeatist.
It’s going to be a long time before interest rates return to what most of a sane persuasion would in times gone by have regarded as ‘normal’.
Meanwhile there is plenty that government could do (but won’t) to address the extreme imbalances of the UK housing market.
No, just Market forces. People will usually spend about 40% of income on housing. Low interest rates means higher prices are serviceable, so the market floats in that direction. Normalising interest rates (perhaps going up 0.75% per year for 5 years would be good for a lot of the economy too.
Also the increased prevalence of women working post marriage - the price of a house is 10x the average income (R4 this am). That means it is only 5x a dual average income - equivalent to the 4.5x combined salary plus 10% deposit
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
How has that figure been derived?
Of course, job losses at Pret are regrettable but you are presumably a capitalist and must recognise jobs are lost even in the best of times. Capitalism is brutal but adversity and change beget opportunity and it's fair to say jobs are also being created especially in the home delivery sector and in other areas dedicated to the new working culture.
The Government should recognise, empower and support the socio-economic and cultural changes this is bringing about - the revitalisation of dormitory commuter towns, the re-invigoration if local clubs and societies as people have time and energy to get involved and perhaps the re-invigoration of local democracy as well as people feel more part of their local communities.
As it is, Boris Johnson seems more concerned about his and the party's friends in the commercial property industry.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Instead of trying to interfere in the arrangements employers and employees make between themselves, the government should be thinking of other uses to which unused office buildings in town centres could be put: light manufacturing, maybe. Workshops for quality craftsmen; learning and training centres for older people or those retraining etc.
This is a time for imagination and thinking about the goods and services of the future and how city centres might be configured to provide them. Not bullying people into returning to what was before out of some misplaced nostalgia for over-priced cafes or, more realistically, fear for property portfolios.
They did something along those lines in Llantrisant - turned an old factory into an arts and craft centre. Lots of little workshops for small artisans who wanted a place to work without being disturbed. And a very interesting place it is to visit as well.
(Yes, I know ’Llantrisant’ and ‘interesting’ wouldn’t traditionally be together unless the word ‘not’ is in between, but it was really good.)
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
I realise you are at the sharp end of this but all I can offer is my anecdotal experience of long queues at both the school outfitters in East Ham this morning.
It looks as though there will be a concerted attempt at a return as early as tomorrow so we'll see.
I would like to think so. This isn’t doing the children any good. True, I imagine some have enjoyed the long holiday where they absent-mindedly forgot to turn in any work, but it’s at a dreadful price in their education.
Truthfully, I am less worried about getting them back than keeping them back. The government’s advice on partial closures or bubbles doesn’t make any sense. We will still have staff wandering from classroom to classroom, so at the first case of Covid we will end up so short of staff the site will be shut. It’s inevitable.
But to hear government advice you would think the staff are immune.
Up here in Northumberland the bubbling has fallen at the first hurdle. That over 50% travel by school (Not public) bus. Which village, not which year group bubble determines which bus. No masks or social distancing from what I can make out. I was making this very point on here back in May that it ought to be the number one issue to work out. Neither the council, nor government appears to have even noticed.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
WFH is here to stay until there's a vaccine.
Very few offices are compatible with anything close to a fullish return to the office and social distancing.
I do not disagree but a gradual return is needed, otherwise the cost is unimaginable in lost businesses and jobs, hence my comment on Prets 2,800 job loses
A gradual return isn't needed unless you want a lot more dead people.
Like No Deal, a few job losses here and there will be useful for the greater good.
You really are not suggesting I want more dead surely
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
WFH is here to stay until there's a vaccine.
Very few offices are compatible with anything close to a fullish return to the office and social distancing.
Yes, at most it will be 2/3 days a week in the office, the rest WFH
Am I in the wrong to say I couldn't care less if people lose property values - commercial or residential? That's the market for you, all investments can be lost.
It does not surprise me. I went looking at comments on this subject at a whole load of sites, the idea was universally panned. There are a LOT of people who have taken a liking to not commuting, and those people are simply not going to accept that they need to be in their offices 5 days a week even once COVID-19 is gone.
That news that Capita may close a third of their offices points the way. A smart government would be thinking "how do we make that work?" not "how do we turn the clock back."
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
In city centres yes, in commuter market towns and villages where commuters who would have bought sandwiches in London are now buying lunch locally maybe not
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
I realise you are at the sharp end of this but all I can offer is my anecdotal experience of long queues at both the school outfitters in East Ham this morning.
It looks as though there will be a concerted attempt at a return as early as tomorrow so we'll see.
I would like to think so. This isn’t doing the children any good. True, I imagine some have enjoyed the long holiday where they absent-mindedly forgot to turn in any work, but it’s at a dreadful price in their education.
Truthfully, I am less worried about getting them back than keeping them back. The government’s advice on partial closures or bubbles doesn’t make any sense. We will still have staff wandering from classroom to classroom, so at the first case of Covid we will end up so short of staff the site will be shut. It’s inevitable.
But to hear government advice you would think the staff are immune.
Up here in Northumberland the bubbling has fallen at the first hurdle. That over 50% travel by school (Not public) bus. Which village, not which year group bubble determines which bus. No masks or social distancing from what I can make out. I was making this very point on here back in May that it ought to be the number one issue to work out. Neither the council, nor government appears to have even noticed.
The school I went to has the same problem. 45% of 1300 pupils coming in by bus. Moreover, at the end of a 1500 yard single road that’s so congested at the best of times they can’t hope to lay on more buses.
It might work in cities with strictly local intakes. In rural areas, it’s just not going to be feasible.
Private schools will have this problem too, given the areas many cover (Cokethorpe near Witney takes pupils from Reading, for example).
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
WFH is here to stay until there's a vaccine.
Very few offices are compatible with anything close to a fullish return to the office and social distancing.
I do not disagree but a gradual return is needed, otherwise the cost is unimaginable in lost businesses and jobs, hence my comment on Prets 2,800 job loses
A gradual return isn't needed unless you want a lot more dead people.
Like No Deal, a few job losses here and there will be useful for the greater good.
You really are not suggesting I want more dead surely
And why bring in brexit
I'm pointing out the government you regularly defend is worried about job losses just not the ones that are likely to flow from a sustained no deal Brexit.
It does not surprise me. I went looking at comments on this subject at a whole load of sites, the idea was universally panned. There are a LOT of people who have taken a liking to not commuting, and those people are simply not going to accept that they need to be in their offices 5 days a week even once COVID-19 is gone.
That news that Capita may close a third of their offices points the way. A smart government would be thinking "how do we make that work?" not "how do we turn the clock back."
Some of those people aren't going to have the choice of whether to work at home or at the office.
They will be unemployed before this is finished.
At which point working in an office might suddenly become attractive again.
Am I in the wrong to say I couldn't care less if people lose property values - commercial or residential? That's the market for you, all investments can be lost.
Will it cause another banking crash?
If so, yes you are in the wrong.
If not, possibly not, but it wouldn’t be easy or pleasant. For example, how do homeowners in negative equity move? With some difficulty, I would suggest. That would make the labour market less flexible, for a start. Buy to let landlords with mortgages (that doesn’t include me) would have to sell, so there would be a dramatic reduction in rented accommodation. That would be fine and dandy if the tenants could now afford to buy. If they couldn’t, then that leaves them with a huge problem known as homelessness.
People always bang on about relatives of old Presidential candidates returning next time, it never happens. Dubya and Hillary followed George Bush Snr and Bill as candidates but not immediately afterwards . . . and they're the exception not the rule.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Instead of trying to interfere in the arrangements employers and employees make between themselves, the government should be thinking of other uses to which unused office buildings in town centres could be put: light manufacturing, maybe. Workshops for quality craftsmen; learning and training centres for older people or those retraining etc.
This is a time for imagination and thinking about the goods and services of the future and how city centres might be configured to provide them. Not bullying people into returning to what was before out of some misplaced nostalgia for over-priced cafes or, more realistically, fear for property portfolios.
I agree 100%.
However, if the Government did want to get people back into offices, it would be better served by gently encouraging them - if possibly even incentivising them. That's why 'Eat out to help out' has worked, where as a campaign just demanding that people eat out to save the restaurant sector would have met near universal derision/anger.
Personally I'd focus the campaign around taking one day a week at the office to 'keep in touch' face to face with colleagues, for the professional benefits, mental health benefits, etc. Like a Baker day in education. That is a lot more likely to succeed, and 1 day in 5 ain't bad.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
In city centres yes, in commuter market towns and villages where commuters who would have bought sandwiches in London are now buying lunch locally maybe not
I look forward to see the anaylsis to be honest
Are we really saying the big city centres including London can wither on the vine and be replaced by local thriving businesses
Technically could even be Donald Trump vs Kamala if Trump lost and decided to run again and won the 2024 GOP nomination and Biden decided to only do one term and not run for re election.
In 1888 for instance President Grover Cleveland lost the election to Benjamin Harrison but ran again in 1892 and beat Harrison to return to the Oval Office and complete his second term
Some of those people aren't going to have the choice of whether to work at home or at the office.
They will be unemployed before this is finished.
At which point working in an office might suddenly become attractive again.
Please explain why you think these jobs are going to be lost.
This kind of scaremongering was put up in the Telegraph and quickly discounted.
Sensible organisations are going to realise the cost of its real estate has been a millstone carried for years. The work is being done and whether you believe it or not, many people are more productive at home.
Yes.home working isn't for everyone and I wouldn't impose it on anyone anymore than I would force people back to offices.
Am I in the wrong to say I couldn't care less if people lose property values - commercial or residential? That's the market for you, all investments can be lost.
Will it cause another banking crash?
If so, yes you are in the wrong.
If not, possibly not, but it wouldn’t be easy or pleasant. For example, how do homeowners in negative equity move? With some difficulty, I would suggest. That would make the labour market less flexible, for a start. Buy to let landlords with mortgages (that doesn’t include me) would have to sell, so there would be a dramatic reduction in rented accommodation. That would be fine and dandy if the tenants could now afford to buy. If they couldn’t, then that leaves them with a huge problem known as homelessness.
I couldn't care less even if it causes another bank crash. Cheaper property would be a good thing for those who need it. Plus the banks are supposed to have separated their portfolios now to prevent eg depositors from being at risk from a crash - though I'll eat my hat if that works without needing a bailout. But if a bailout is needed so be it - it shouldn't be going to people who have bought up expensive property speculating that the price of property only goes one way though.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Instead of trying to interfere in the arrangements employers and employees make between themselves, the government should be thinking of other uses to which unused office buildings in town centres could be put: light manufacturing, maybe. Workshops for quality craftsmen; learning and training centres for older people or those retraining etc.
This is a time for imagination and thinking about the goods and services of the future and how city centres might be configured to provide them. Not bullying people into returning to what was before out of some misplaced nostalgia for over-priced cafes or, more realistically, fear for property portfolios.
It would be interesting to know what the Dept for Business Development was doing.
If anything.
Likewise what local councils are themselves doing.
There should be scope for multiple different experiments in urban use to see which work best.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
And the other thing is, is that it's about more than just Pret.
Saying getting back to the office is about saving Pret is not risible if its clear that by Pret what we really mean here is not one business, but an entire slice of the pre-pandemic UK economy.
That doesn't mean going back to what we used to do is automatically the right thing, but let's not try to pretend its really simple because no one really gives a crap about Pret, it's much bigger than that.
It does not surprise me. I went looking at comments on this subject at a whole load of sites, the idea was universally panned. There are a LOT of people who have taken a liking to not commuting, and those people are simply not going to accept that they need to be in their offices 5 days a week even once COVID-19 is gone.
That news that Capita may close a third of their offices points the way. A smart government would be thinking "how do we make that work?" not "how do we turn the clock back."
Some of those people aren't going to have the choice of whether to work at home or at the office.
They will be unemployed before this is finished.
At which point working in an office might suddenly become attractive again.
Sure there are bad employers and failing businesses, but we are already seeing some businesses saying things have changed and that they will not go back to working the old ways. I expect that businesses that can adapt will do a lot better than those that can't or won't.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
In city centres yes, in commuter market towns and villages where commuters who would have bought sandwiches in London are now buying lunch locally maybe not
I look forward to see the anaylsis to be honest
Are we really saying the big city centres including London can wither on the vine and be replaced by local thriving businesses
If so I will be delighted
Well, apart from London surely most of them have? Most offices these days seem to be in enterprise parks not city centres. Easier to get to and cheaper to rent. Meanwhile, city centres are ghosts of chain stores, takeaways and cheap flats.
OK, maybe my experience is coloured by Gloucester and Stoke. But city centres have been decaying for a long time.
According to the latest Government figures England has only 70 more Covid patients in hospital than Scotland. If things keep going the way they are then within a week England will have less.
On the 28th August 83 Covid positive patients were admitted to hospital in Wales. According to the same figures Wales had 41 Covid positive patients in hospital on the 28th August.
It's basically inexplicable at this point. Unless Scotland are being beyond cautious about releasing elderly back into care homes I have no explanation for the difference.
It seems like only you and me are interested in this.
As England has ten times the population of Scotland you would have thought someone in the news may have mentioned it. As the for Wales admission figures I am amazed that the person publishing these stats is not questioning them.
I've Messaged a newspaper editor about it and he said they would look into it so maybe there will be a question or two at the Scottish press briefing soon.
My guess would be that Scotland are massively exaggerating their figures to continue the culture of fear.
Surely it is England out of line? Wales, Scotland, France, Spain etc etc have higher admission rates.
Perhaps England is undertreating?
The England hospital numbers for the weekend are clearly too low and I suspect because all the regional data has not yet been received.
There have been a few errors on regional data previously.
But the Scottish hospital numbers look wrong as do the Wales hospital admissions.
I suspect that most of the difference is in data collection. The anomalous figures seem to be the English ones though.
People always bang on about relatives of old Presidential candidates returning next time, it never happens. Dubya and Hillary followed George Bush Snr and Bill as candidates but not immediately afterwards . . . and they're the exception not the rule.
Bobby Kennedy would also have likely won the Democratic nomination in 1968 had he not been shot
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
I realise you are at the sharp end of this but all I can offer is my anecdotal experience of long queues at both the school outfitters in East Ham this morning.
It looks as though there will be a concerted attempt at a return as early as tomorrow so we'll see.
I would like to think so. This isn’t doing the children any good. True, I imagine some have enjoyed the long holiday where they absent-mindedly forgot to turn in any work, but it’s at a dreadful price in their education.
Truthfully, I am less worried about getting them back than keeping them back. The government’s advice on partial closures or bubbles doesn’t make any sense. We will still have staff wandering from classroom to classroom, so at the first case of Covid we will end up so short of staff the site will be shut. It’s inevitable.
But to hear government advice you would think the staff are immune.
Up here in Northumberland the bubbling has fallen at the first hurdle. That over 50% travel by school (Not public) bus. Which village, not which year group bubble determines which bus. No masks or social distancing from what I can make out. I was making this very point on here back in May that it ought to be the number one issue to work out. Neither the council, nor government appears to have even noticed.
The school I went to has the same problem. 45% of 1300 pupils coming in by bus. Moreover, at the end of a 1500 yard single road that’s so congested at the best of times they can’t hope to lay on more buses.
It might work in cities with strictly local intakes. In rural areas, it’s just not going to be feasible.
Private schools will have this problem too, given the areas many cover (Cokethorpe near Witney takes pupils from Reading, for example).
2 200 km square with 3 Secondary Schools in Tynedale. Youngest starts Sixth Form Wednesday. No change to the school transport procedures AFAICMO. 55 kids on a 55 seat coach for 30 mins each way was last year's set up for our village. We shall find out. Northumberland County Council is in shambolic turmoil for other reasons just now.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
In city centres yes, in commuter market towns and villages where commuters who would have bought sandwiches in London are now buying lunch locally maybe not
I look forward to see the anaylsis to be honest
Are we really saying the big city centres including London can wither on the vine and be replaced by local thriving businesses
If so I will be delighted
Many of us would. Though I wouldn't go as far to say "wither on the vine" but a correction is no bad thing. London is overpopulated and overcrowded - it lacks the transport or the homes to have everyone be able to live and work comfortably at a reasonable price. Many Londoners here have complained about transport and housing repeatedly.
If London becomes a city for Londoners and for tourists rather than for everyone to try to descend upon just because its there then that would be good for Londoners and good for everyone else too.
Am I in the wrong to say I couldn't care less if people lose property values - commercial or residential? That's the market for you, all investments can be lost.
It sounds like you're one of those people who thinks a mortgage is to be paid off and the property owned outright.
Rather than the property is to be used as a cash machine and the mortgage increased with every valuation increase.
Or the Telegraph's story was media bullshit. I called it here right away, I said that this was bullshit and that I didn't believe it was going to happen but that if it did I would oppose it. And I was right.
The media keep having these stories and they keep being nonsense. The Government have been 100% consistent that it isn't its place to tell businesses or employees where they should work within the law and nor should it ever be.
Just because the likes of Littlejohn want the peasants to go back to work in offices so only he can work from home, doesn't mean the Government could or should go down that path.
Absolutely unsurprising this isn't happening but I wonder who here who attacked the Government for this stupid story the Telegraph put out despite the fact it was immediately denied by Hancock and was never plausible in the first place?
It's the Mail which has been the champion of the "back to your desks" brigade. It has employed people to stand outside Government buildings (never those of private companies) and literally count how many civil servants have arrived for work while praising the relevant Minister to the skies for being "in the office".
This Saturday it turned on its other favourite target - local Government - complaining how few council workers were at their desks.
Boris Johnson works at home and it's hardly a long commute for Rishi Sunak from No.11 to the Treasury yet what works for them apparently isn't allowed for the rest of us.
Once the children are back and the weather closes in WFH will look even more attractive - everyone knows that, even the Government deep down knows that.
If we can keep them back.
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
The government needs to explain WHY getting back to the office rather than working from home is so important. Saving Pret is a risible answer.
Actually a cost of 500 billion was quoted in the weekend papers of continuing WFH
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
In city centres yes, in commuter market towns and villages where commuters who would have bought sandwiches in London are now buying lunch locally maybe not
I look forward to see the anaylsis to be honest
Are we really saying the big city centres including London can wither on the vine and be replaced by local thriving businesses
If so I will be delighted
Hopefully we will at least get a more equal balance
Simon Case the 41 year old new head of the civil service. Bit of a steep promotion don't you think?
I fear a yes man.
The alternative was apparently Christopher Wormald, who was one of the more useless and incompetent civil servants at the DfE in the Gove era, in a field notable for the quality of the competition.
It isn’t a good look when there’s such a choice. It suggests either they want a cipher or there’s no talent left in the CS.
Or both, of course.
I got to know Richard Wilson (Blair/browns equivalent) well when my father hired him to navigate our family’s machinations. He was unbelievably smart, charming, very sophisticated, a high EQ... and crushingly naive
People always bang on about relatives of old Presidential candidates returning next time, it never happens. Dubya and Hillary followed George Bush Snr and Bill as candidates but not immediately afterwards . . . and they're the exception not the rule.
Bobby Kennedy would also have likely won the Democratic nomination in 1968 had he not been shot
We are in the 20s now not the 60s.
So you're saying there wasn't but possibly may have been another related candidacy six decades ago?
Kennedy was again the exception not the rule.
Overwhelming majority of elections neither party is fronted by someone directly related to a previous President.
According to the latest Government figures England has only 70 more Covid patients in hospital than Scotland. If things keep going the way they are then within a week England will have less.
On the 28th August 83 Covid positive patients were admitted to hospital in Wales. According to the same figures Wales had 41 Covid positive patients in hospital on the 28th August.
It's basically inexplicable at this point. Unless Scotland are being beyond cautious about releasing elderly back into care homes I have no explanation for the difference.
It seems like only you and me are interested in this.
As England has ten times the population of Scotland you would have thought someone in the news may have mentioned it. As the for Wales admission figures I am amazed that the person publishing these stats is not questioning them.
I've Messaged a newspaper editor about it and he said they would look into it so maybe there will be a question or two at the Scottish press briefing soon.
My guess would be that Scotland are massively exaggerating their figures to continue the culture of fear.
Surely it is England out of line? Wales, Scotland, France, Spain etc etc have higher admission rates.
Perhaps England is undertreating?
The England hospital numbers for the weekend are clearly too low and I suspect because all the regional data has not yet been received.
There have been a few errors on regional data previously.
But the Scottish hospital numbers look wrong as do the Wales hospital admissions.
I suspect that most of the difference is in data collection. The anomalous figures seem to be the English ones though.
Given how few hospital deaths there are now in England the data looks reasonable.
Whereas the Scottish numbers looks way excessive for the number of deaths in recent weeks.
People always bang on about relatives of old Presidential candidates returning next time, it never happens. Dubya and Hillary followed George Bush Snr and Bill as candidates but not immediately afterwards . . . and they're the exception not the rule.
Bobby Kennedy would also have likely won the Democratic nomination in 1968 had he not been shot
We are in the 20s now not the 60s.
So you're saying there wasn't but possibly may have been another related candidacy six decades ago?
Kennedy was again the exception not the rule.
Overwhelming majority of elections neither party is fronted by someone directly related to a previous President.
Romney's father also ran for the GOP nomination in 1968 and FDR was a distant cousin of Theodore Roosevelt
Some people on twitter (Lionel Barber, and Andrew Neil) are lionising this speech by Democrat John Deberry as to what the democrats should have been saying all along.
Alas they weren't. And they still aren't.
Doubtless the modern democrats would call him an uncle Tom. I think he should be their candidate.
There are those who would counter by arguing where has 60 years of "peaceful" protest got Black Americans? There are still too many examples of Police brutality and actions taken by Police against black men which would never be taken against white men.
Yes, in many respects black Americans have made huge strides - economically, many have levels of prosperity and freedom unknown to their grandparents and it is so much better than it was but it is still not as good as it could or should be.
There comes a point when those who advocate a peaceful and dignified response to institutional racism or terror or state oppression have to contend with the unpalatable truth they are not making progress and the siren voices advocating a more violent response get heard.
It's the same whether it is a protest against Police violence in Wisconsin or electoral fraud in Minsk.
Bluntly, where would war get them? They are outnumbered 5 to 1 by white Americans. Go to war, and they will lose.
Where did peaceful protest get them? Quite a long way, if not as far as they should be.
There's also the factor of a race war being precisely what white US racists want, its necessity and inevitability is almost an article of religious faith for them.
There was a report back in the early 2000s (after Timothy McVeigh's execution) about just how many on the American far right think The Turner Diaries would come true, and were prepared to do anything, including false flag attacks to make it happen.
Wasn’t there a theory at one point that many of them thought the world would end in a nuclear war between Israel and Iran and were actively trying to make it happen?
I’m not sure it was “many” but there was a strain of thought that the Second Coming of Christ was a good thing. However St John the Mushroom Man wrote that the second coming was to be preceded by Armageddon.
So, bright sparks trust they were, they tried to precipitate Armageddon.
People always bang on about relatives of old Presidential candidates returning next time, it never happens. Dubya and Hillary followed George Bush Snr and Bill as candidates but not immediately afterwards . . . and they're the exception not the rule.
Bobby Kennedy would also have likely won the Democratic nomination in 1968 had he not been shot
We are in the 20s now not the 60s.
So you're saying there wasn't but possibly may have been another related candidacy six decades ago?
Kennedy was again the exception not the rule.
Overwhelming majority of elections neither party is fronted by someone directly related to a previous President.
Ken Clarke Ed Balls John Smith Roy Jenkins Douglas Hurd Chris Patten
And funnily enough Eden at the right time and without his crippling illness.
He was a broken reed by 1955.
The Conservative offering of politicians for the leadership in the 1970s was a depressing one, which might explain why Thatcher won.
Eden was for a time a fine Foreign Secretary; with his profound ignorance of domestic affairs he was always likely to be a poor PM, irrespective of his illness, or the Suez disaster.
Very interesting little item on the Today programme about an NHS programme to drive Type II diabetes into remission by what is essentially a diet and weight loss training programme.
Starting small with 5000 people after some years of research.
Comments
Was genuinely terrifying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turner_Diaries
Your original point was that a uniform rate was necessary in order to implement a fiscal union and I refuted this. You were wrong and you are now trying to change the subject.
Reminds one of the EU and Barnier
At the moment, the advice coming from the government is so confused and incoherent, and the rules so arbitrary, we’ll be damn lucky if all schools can reopen this week.
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1300300894051930112?s=20
You obviously don’t like this given the increasingly unpleasant personal abuse you are dishing out, but I can’t help that.
The Mail are See You Next Tuesdays.
That is all.
There's also those loons who think Israel annexing parts of the West Bank etc will lead to the rapture/second coming.
Also Pret as a business is not the issue, the 2,800 lost jobs most certainly are
Anyway, I have better things to do with my life than bandy words with somebody who can’t bear to admit they’ve made what was, frankly, quite a minor mistake had you been willing to admit to it, and so without apparent irony accuse others of being wrong instead. I wish you a pleasant evening.
It looks as though there will be a concerted attempt at a return as early as tomorrow so we'll see.
His tutors reported him as fizzing with imaginative ideas that bordered on the ridiculous, but lacking in understanding of wider issues.
Or to put it more simply and honestly -
You utter utter braindead wanker.
Truthfully, I am less worried about getting them back than keeping them back. The government’s advice on partial closures or bubbles doesn’t make any sense. We will still have staff wandering from classroom to classroom, so at the first case of Covid we will end up so short of staff the site will be shut. It’s inevitable.
But to hear government advice you would think the staff are immune.
quarantine
/ˈkwɒrəntiːn/
Learn to pronounce
noun
a state, period, or place of isolation in which people or animals that have arrived from elsewhere or been exposed to infectious or contagious disease are placed.
Very few offices are compatible with anything close to a fullish return to the office and social distancing.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/trump-cuts-bidens-lead-just-4-percentage-points-post-convention-poll
All depends on likelihood to vote - using a looser filter Biden leads 50-42.
No meaningful crosstabs of course as this is basically a Rasmussen poll.
This is not a joke.
If the jobs aren't there, the jobs aren't there. Its the free market. Shame when it happens but it happens.
And since those jobs are essentially unskilled minimum wage jobs - they should not be our top concern either.
https://twitter.com/DPMcBride/status/1300080360626192384
There have been a few errors on regional data previously.
But the Scottish hospital numbers look wrong as do the Wales hospital admissions.
We do not live in an authoritarian dictatorship where people must be monitored to ensure they are. Tell them to do so, then let them do so.
This is a time for imagination and thinking about the goods and services of the future and how city centres might be configured to provide them. Not bullying people into returning to what was before out of some misplaced nostalgia for over-priced cafes or, more realistically, fear for property portfolios.
Like No Deal, a few job losses here and there will be useful for the greater good.
Of course, job losses at Pret are regrettable but you are presumably a capitalist and must recognise jobs are lost even in the best of times. Capitalism is brutal but adversity and change beget opportunity and it's fair to say jobs are also being created especially in the home delivery sector and in other areas dedicated to the new working culture.
The Government should recognise, empower and support the socio-economic and cultural changes this is bringing about - the revitalisation of dormitory commuter towns, the re-invigoration if local clubs and societies as people have time and energy to get involved and perhaps the re-invigoration of local democracy as well as people feel more part of their local communities.
As it is, Boris Johnson seems more concerned about his and the party's friends in the commercial property industry.
(Yes, I know ’Llantrisant’ and ‘interesting’ wouldn’t traditionally be together unless the word ‘not’ is in between, but it was really good.)
Which village, not which year group bubble determines which bus.
No masks or social distancing from what I can make out.
I was making this very point on here back in May that it ought to be the number one issue to work out.
Neither the council, nor government appears to have even noticed.
And why bring in brexit
That news that Capita may close a third of their offices points the way. A smart government would be thinking "how do we make that work?" not "how do we turn the clock back."
It might work in cities with strictly local intakes. In rural areas, it’s just not going to be feasible.
Private schools will have this problem too, given the areas many cover (Cokethorpe near Witney takes pupils from Reading, for example).
If they were consistent they'd worry about both.
They will be unemployed before this is finished.
At which point working in an office might suddenly become attractive again.
If so, yes you are in the wrong.
If not, possibly not, but it wouldn’t be easy or pleasant. For example, how do homeowners in negative equity move? With some difficulty, I would suggest. That would make the labour market less flexible, for a start. Buy to let landlords with mortgages (that doesn’t include me) would have to sell, so there would be a dramatic reduction in rented accommodation. That would be fine and dandy if the tenants could now afford to buy. If they couldn’t, then that leaves them with a huge problem known as homelessness.
People always bang on about relatives of old Presidential candidates returning next time, it never happens. Dubya and Hillary followed George Bush Snr and Bill as candidates but not immediately afterwards . . . and they're the exception not the rule.
However, if the Government did want to get people back into offices, it would be better served by gently encouraging them - if possibly even incentivising them. That's why 'Eat out to help out' has worked, where as a campaign just demanding that people eat out to save the restaurant sector would have met near universal derision/anger.
Personally I'd focus the campaign around taking one day a week at the office to 'keep in touch' face to face with colleagues, for the professional benefits, mental health benefits, etc. Like a Baker day in education. That is a lot more likely to succeed, and 1 day in 5 ain't bad.
Are we really saying the big city centres including London can wither on the vine and be replaced by local thriving businesses
If so I will be delighted
In 1888 for instance President Grover Cleveland lost the election to Benjamin Harrison but ran again in 1892 and beat Harrison to return to the Oval Office and complete his second term
This kind of scaremongering was put up in the Telegraph and quickly discounted.
Sensible organisations are going to realise the cost of its real estate has been a millstone carried for years. The work is being done and whether you believe it or not, many people are more productive at home.
Yes.home working isn't for everyone and I wouldn't impose it on anyone anymore than I would force people back to offices.
If anything.
Likewise what local councils are themselves doing.
There should be scope for multiple different experiments in urban use to see which work best.
Saying getting back to the office is about saving Pret is not risible if its clear that by Pret what we really mean here is not one business, but an entire slice of the pre-pandemic UK economy.
That doesn't mean going back to what we used to do is automatically the right thing, but let's not try to pretend its really simple because no one really gives a crap about Pret, it's much bigger than that.
Agree with the consensus for Ken Clarke, however.
NEW THREAD
OK, maybe my experience is coloured by Gloucester and Stoke. But city centres have been decaying for a long time.
If, as I suspect, there was a requirement for performance before payment then there is no issue
Youngest starts Sixth Form Wednesday. No change to the school transport procedures AFAICMO.
55 kids on a 55 seat coach for 30 mins each way was last year's set up for our village.
We shall find out. Northumberland County Council is in shambolic turmoil for other reasons just now.
If London becomes a city for Londoners and for tourists rather than for everyone to try to descend upon just because its there then that would be good for Londoners and good for everyone else too.
Rather than the property is to be used as a cash machine and the mortgage increased with every valuation increase.
So you're saying there wasn't but possibly may have been another related candidacy six decades ago?
Kennedy was again the exception not the rule.
Overwhelming majority of elections neither party is fronted by someone directly related to a previous President.
Whereas the Scottish numbers looks way excessive for the number of deaths in recent weeks.
Agree completely
So, bright sparks trust they were, they tried to precipitate Armageddon.
Starting small with 5000 people after some years of research.
Nothing on the BBC website afaics, so there's this quite reasonable article in the Mail:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8683375/ROY-TAYLOR-patients-felt-10-years-younger-losing-two-stone-writes-professor.html
A success that needs to be acknowledged.