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Get back to the office! Boris Johnson will launch major drive reassuring ‘the workplace is a safe place’ https://t.co/qA59LcthJ6
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Re. the previous thread, I think the Dems have played an unintentional blinder by selecting Joe Biden. This is assuming he doesn't have a disastrously obvious senile moment between now and Nov. 3rd. Trump is highly erratic. Choosing an old safe, steady, pair of hands is making for a very effective contrast.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54045115
London refugees are certainly real, I know loads and the leafy village I’m in is seeing more and more Range Rovers seeking out the picture book house and local church or prep school. In turn the village pubs and farm shops are thriving and since lockdown ended there are now more not less local retail outlets.
It’s in my view by far a more material and long lasting phenomenon than covid itself. Sure, lots of people have long looked outside of London in their 30s but this feels on another level entirely.
I find the government position on this a real puzzle. Isn’t this what they just won an election promising? “Levelling up” and all that?
Pre-race ramble:
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2020/09/italy-pre-race-2020.html
Morris Dancer away!
The WEA, too, has left the church or community hall and has set up it's courses on line.And they are by no means the only educational establishment to use the new-found systems.
I know, too, of groups of friends who, separated by life's 'accidents' now use the technology they've been introduced to, to 'meet' and socialise. A. letter or a phone call is a one-to-one; a Zoom group can have five or six people chatting. And they can all see each other, and share photos of grandchildren, etc.
What this requires of course is the technology, the ability to fund it, and the confidence to use it, and I rather fear that, as we now have people who cannot leave their small communities because of lack of transport, we will have people isolated by technophobia or, as before, by poverty.
People aren't going to rush back to their offices just because the government says so, especially not what it's clear that many MPs and most of Whitehall are all still very much working from home - with a civil service union determined to keep it that way.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/02/campaign-get-britain-back-work-flounders/
Had the trend been happening gradually, it may or may not have generated political issues and concern, but we wouldn’t be faced with wholesale changes to our way of life, to city centres, and to a swathe of the economy all at once.
An obvious comparator is the progressive loss of bank branches (and more recently ATMs), that has been going on for years driven mostly by changes in the nature of commerce. This has only transiently thrown up political issues, usually in remote areas faced with loss of a facility, but even here, once the matter is done, people move on, and politicians aren’t daily asked what they are doing about it, nor does the issue impinge widely on voting behaviour. Compare the situation if most of the bank branches had been driven to close in a single year!
Of all governments this one doesn’t have the intellectual or managerial capability to deal with any more complex and intractable problems, struggling as it is with those already on its plate, both external and self inflicted.
Bottas is 6 for the win, which IMO is worth a pint in what's a two horse race.
Ricciardo at 9.4 for a podium is another pint.
For the not so adventurous, LH is 1.1 for a points finish. Given his 40 consecutive points finishes before this race, that seems good value even at such a short price.
(All Betfair Exchange).
This government in particular does not like upsetting people. Unfortunately for them, over the next few years they are going to have to do just that.
Having a job that means you can work from home because it involves producing nothing tangible but it involves talking , answering emails , writing reports , inputting data is not really going to be deemed vital as a doctor, teacher or plumber when the economy tanks to the extent that hard decisions need to be made.
Facebook has already announced that employees WFH might see their salaries reduced in line with their home cities, crushing the dream of Silicon Valley salaries and Boondocks living expenses.)
https://fortune.com/2020/05/21/facebook-permanent-work-from-home-salaries/
(Oh, and I shall be made redundant later this month; my job role has emigrated. For the past several years I've been WFH.)
Be careful what you wish for.
However a fair few of these are middle aged people who have either advanced (or been promoted actually to implement) their life’s dream, or at least daydream. Thus, playing devil’s advocate, it is possible that this becomes a temporary shift rather than a permanent one; it will depend on the attitudes of the younger generation following behind.
https://twitter.com/Pervaizistan/status/1302427987929899008?s=19
Edit: lol, was going to be for the 2012 RNC
https://twitter.com/pareene/status/1302436224356020224?s=19
What everyone seems to forget is that it is solely the opinion of employers over WFH that matters here. If my employer wants me back in the office I'll be on the train tomorrow. If they don't then I'll stay put. Ultimately neither my opinion nor that of the Government matters much. Government simply doesn't have the tools to effect their calculations very much.
A brilliant piece of juxtaposition.
Biden 1.97
Democrats 1.9
Trump 2.08
Republicans 2.08
The risk premium on Joe Biden is 0.07. That is, you get an extra .07 by backing Biden rather than the Democrats in case he drops out (although that will get messy as we get nearer November and ballots are already printed). Can Formula 1 fans please let us know when Lewis Hamilton reaches 1.07 to win the race? That will give us a comparison: how many laps for Hamilton against how many weeks for Biden does .07 represent.
I don’t think it’s about what we wish for (and FWIW, it poses risks to my business), but rather the futility of trying to reverse a change which looks inevitable, rather than trying to plan how best to ameliorate its negative consequences.
Society will become duller and more selfish (due to seeing less live examples of human need) if we all progress to a more cocooned life in our houses or villages
Chance of a Biden Electoral college win if he wins the popular vote by X points: 0-1 points: just 6%!
1-2 points: 22%
2-3 points: 46%
3-4 points: 74%
4-5 points: 89%
5-6 points: 98%
6-7 points: 99%
Which are interesting and worse than I expected for Biden. Does anyone know the methodology?
Silver's tweet was dated 2 September, when according to 538 polling averages, Pennsylvania was leaning 3.3% more Trumpy than the country. 4 weeks ago Pennsylvania was leaning just 1.6% more Trumpy than the country.
So if those figures are based on a snapshot, then they are also likely to change again. And, looking at average Trump leans of the swing states, likely to move in the direction of Biden needing a bit smaller national lead to win in EC.
Possibly.
the full quote from my reference below - Substititute any major population centre for London and I get what he means in that to fully experience life and world around you you need to be there in the middle of it. Both to change it for the better and to live it. Not sure you can get that if you spend all your life WFH
Trying to urge people into a tin can for 2 to 3 hours per day rather than spending extra time with their family, just to improve the circulation of the dying dead tree press is never going to work. The Government is wise to be ignoring the Siren calls from the press here. I normally am not overly cynical about the press but I am here.
Mine is a hands on job, so WFH is not realistic. The only real change to my working week is that departmental business meetings are on Teams rather than in person, and didactic undergraduate and postgraduate teaching on Zoom. 80% of my work week is the same, albeit PPE'd up and Socially Distanced. Apart from some teaching and meetings, I don't expect much long term change.
Like a fair number of colleagues, in and out of the profession, I have reflected on work life balance, and bringing forward plans to cut hours and wind up Private Practice. Several colleagues have taken early retirement, so there may be a bit more of a staffing crisis as we try to get back capacity.
Anecdata: The Leics (commuting village) housing market is booming, with more Asian families moving in from the city. This has been a trend for some years, but has accelerated. Mostly middle class professionals with families, and keen on village life, with dogs, pub and all. A decade ago it was a much more urban community.
Fox jr 2 is moving back to London, to pursue his acting career, and found it both substantially cheaper and a buyers market to rent. A nice 2 bed flat in Chiswick was a lot cheaper than last years lower quality place. He found getting casual work quite easy in a cafe.
Fox jr 1 works in Law and their nationwide property dept is very busy. Lots of people wanting houses with gardens in suburbs and villages.
Leicester city centre was as busy yesterday as any usual summer Saturday, with social distancing and mask wearing pretty universal in shops, albeit often a bit ineffective. I picked up some bargain summer clothes.
One sib in London is WFH, and bored with it (Economic and Foreign Policy Analyst), counting the weeks to retirement. The other is laboratory based and WFH barely at all, but fewer foreign site visits.
Life goes on and adapts, and outside white collar office jobs, is rapidly resuming normality. I do wonder how many of those white collar office jobs will be still here in a couple of years time. In my hospital we are not missing the middle management at all. Were they really doing anything useful? And I am sure that is true of many other sectors too.
I shall give them the benefit of the doubt here, focusing on why they are saying things, rather than what they are saying.
They know the shift is happening but are trying to slow the pace down, precisely because that does give more time for the economy, businesses, jobs and people to adapt.
Bearing in mind why Mr Johnson told us to stay at home six months ago. It seems foolhardy to demand people return to environments where infection rates could be accelerated, precisely at the moment senior health officials are fearing we could be on the cusp of (at present) localised second waves.
I appreciate we need to protect the careers of baristas, but if we have to lock the entire economy down again the collateral damage will affect more than sandwich bars and coffee houses.
Some of my family work for call centres and that is really "front-line" talking to, usually unhappy , customers of their clients.
And it doesn’t much matter what No 10 or a Sec of State says. The public sector will follow whatever the private sector does or they’ll find themselves unattractive employers.
What this brings home to me is that it is much easier making these changes when you are already established, already have those networks built up in person and know the people you are dealing with. New arrivals and those getting training will face much greater challenges.
If Alastair is right then this is something we are going to have to get used to but I can't really pretend to like it. I miss the casual chats and coffees with my pals, the mental breaks of lunch talking about something different and the camaraderie of a shared environment. Having been quite disciplined and productive in the early months of the lockdown I personally have found my productivity at home sliding. I don't like the fact that work and home are not sufficiently divided and blur one into the other. My wife is also sick to death of having so many people in the house.
If this is the future I am going to have to change my set up. I will need a work space that I can "go" to and leave, shut away from the rest of the house. Our house is (just) big enough to provide for this, I have sympathy for those that can't.
And what is Johnson's rationale? You can't just tell people 'hey go back to the office' if they don't really want to and their employers are still making a tidy profit.
https://twitter.com/Saahil_Desai/status/1301889457654820865?s=19
In my own field, I think both Undergraduate and Postgraduate training has suffered massively. I fear that is not being adequately dealt with in the NHS recovery plan. We are going to have some very underskilled doctors in a few years, who have missed out on masses of practical training.
My point is that Mr Johnson appears not to have thought through a long-term and safe back to work strategy. The notion of 'whack-a-mole' is operating here. Johnson sees a problem, he directly attacks that immediate problem with a blunt instrument showing little regard for any collateral damage that may arise.
Off topic - an extraordinary story about the rule of law in the EU:
https://twitter.com/JoshuaRozenberg/status/1301895010888093699?s=20
https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/eu-lawyer-sues-the-eu
Sharpston has had her injunction granted.
I think you have to distinguish between the enforced WFH we’re experiencing, and what happens post pandemic. 15% less office working (though granted that’s possibly an underestimate) is not the apocalypse.
This wouldn't work for a lot of people but it is certainly working for them.
People who have been vaccinated should not have to worry about taking trains and buses, or about sitting closely packed together with other workers in an office. Millions of chairs that are in storage or that are marked "Do not use" will be able to be brought back into use.
After that we will be in a changed situation, and we will see where we are. That will be the time to discuss WFH and its future. The effect of Brexit on the economy will be relevant as well.
Russia and China are going to vaccinate all their own populations, forcibly if necessary, and at the same time try and sow distrust in the West so this damn virus never goes away.
I do hope he is right about this being a permanent change. I believe it will be but fear the forces of inertia and the inability of this Government to think more than 5 minutes ahead on any subject means they will spend far too many months struggling against the fundamental changes that are occurring because they are incapable in leading the country in the necessary adaptations that are needed to take advantage of the 'new normal'.
How do you learn from telephone hearings? How do you realise that you are annoying the decision maker or wasting time pushing at an open door? How can you observe others? If we go on this way we will also have underskilled lawyers plying their trade as well. On the positive side our incompetence rarely kills anyone.
Eldest Granddaughter is about to start a 'taught' PhD, much of which will be, at the moment anyway, done remotely, where she will have to do casework. She is, understandably, concerned about interaction with subjects, with fellow students and with her tutors.
Manchester and Birmingham have the next largest office markets in England yet the commuting experience is not remotely the same nor the cost.
I think the London experience is dominating a discussion that whilst the vast majority of office workers are London based, the experiences elsewhere will not mirror London as the negatives far smaller of returning to the office again and the positives similar.
What both sides need to do in the time before the transition runs out is focus on what we can agree and leave the areas where there is no agreement to one side. A more constructive approach like this will end up with broader agreement than looking for ever more elaborate trade offs that the other side will not accept. Post transition areas where there is no agreement will come much more sharply into view and again will be better dealt with on a piece meal basis.
What both sides need to do in the time before the transition runs out is focus on what we can agree and leave the areas where there is no agreement to one side. A more constructive approach like this will end up with broader agreement than looking for ever more elaborate trade offs that the other side will not accept. Post transition areas where there is no agreement will come much more sharply into view and again will be better dealt with on a piece meal basis.
Save Pret, save NCP, save the Shard. Is Keir Starmer saying anything?
There are tax issues for companies - and individuals - in working from outside the U.K. for prolonged periods. So it’s not quite as easy as it seems.
A thoughtful article from Mr Meeks. The issues it seem to me with WFH are:-
1. How to manage effectively your team, train them, share knowledge and experience etc;
2. Younger members of the team and new joiners;
3. Blurring of the boundaries between work and home. I found it at times immensely helpful, indeed, essential for my sanity to be able to close the door to home and go into the office. Equally, I did resent it when I spent time at home having to deal with work issues because this meant that my space, my time were being invaded my work - and that distinction was something that was important.
4. Serendipity: WFH is good for some jobs but not for others where presence is necessary - and I’m not just talking about the distinction between a lawyer and a plumber, say. The key will be to make sure firms don’t lose what is valuable from physical proximity and the sharing of ideas etc or make the mistaken assumption that a Zoom meeting is always an adequate substitute.
The government should be thinking creatively and imaginatively about what can be done in city centres: that space can and should be used in other ways.
There’s not really a good solution. Maybe phone calls rather than Zoom.
Given the high costs of London real estate, the long travel times (1 hour each way turns 8 hours at work into 10), the costs of travel and housing (which London weighting doesn't really begin to cover), would anyone invent the London commuter experience if it didn't already exist?
Yes, there are problems to be solved in the new world (some easier than others), but many of the arguments for wholesale return to offices full time look pretty thin. Even the one about the risks of jobs going abroad; if a job can be done somewhere cheaper, it probably will be, and adding on the cost of a London desk does nothing for its viability.
In relation to HS2 if we are wfh more there is less need for it, the problem is the costs of cancelling the project
Though at least some people admit there are negative consequences to ameliorate. Others are like evangelists. I'm happy they are saving commuting costs and it probably is inevitable things stay this way to a larger degree than before, but ease up on the euphoria.