I think WFH exposes bad managers, not bad employees. A good manager would (and should) have no problem motivating and coordinating their team remotely. Perhaps they’ve also arranged a socially distanced meet-up on company time.
A bad manager is sitting there frantically entering data into spreadsheets with no idea what their team is doing.
Lots of staff WFH is very similar to outsourcing.
Good managers can make it work, but there is no doubt that remote resources take longer to get up to speed.
We have some resources outsourced to India, and they open Service tickets when they see brute force login attempts failing on remote firewalls.
We have explained to them multiple times that these failures indicate the systems are working exactly as designed...
Have you ever experienced the full JoyJoy of the India IT workers life experience?
Talk to some of them - it will be an education.
"The beatings will continue until moral improves" - seems to be a managerial motto in some outfits...
Similar things have been seen with Chinese manufacturing - their big advantage is now the existing supply chains etc. Factories in the *US* are competitive against them.
I saw a story somewhere (may have been here) about opening a factory in the US that ran into trouble because they couldn't buy screws. All of the US screw manufacturing companies had gone and all the machines had been scrapped
Similar things have been seen with Chinese manufacturing - their big advantage is now the existing supply chains etc. Factories in the *US* are competitive against them.
I saw a story somewhere (may have been here) about opening a factory in the US that ran into trouble because they couldn't buy screws. All of the US screw manufacturing companies had gone and all the machines had been scrapped
So that’s why everything is glued instead of screwed these days.
Very good article Alastair. I hope the poolside is good
I would add two other points that have very significant implications on jobs:
1. many firms are using this crisis to push through automation and / or delayering of management structures (the two are often linked). I suspect we are about to see happening to the professional class what happened to blue collar jobs in the 1980s with far more being done by far fewer people;
2. Offshoring of professional jobs. Alister Heath in the Telegraph had a good piece on this a few weeks back. If you don’t need to be in the office, why can’t the job be done overseas (at lower cost) than by a UK professional?
There have really been two barriers to 2, need to be in the office and translation issues (don’t so much of an issue for areas such as IT, hence why many rave about outsourcing their IT functions to Romania and Serbia). The first has been settled effectively. On the second, worth taking a look at the recent merger of two major translation firms and the suggestions as to how their market will grow.
2 If it is a professional job the person doing it still needs to be professionally qualified, even if they live in Eastern Europe or India and can do it cheaper and wfh.
On the outsourcing - UK business has been using cheap labour as flesh robots. The reason - no need to manage investments in automation. Which leads us back to a favourite topic of mine.
True labour costs are a function of employee cost x productivity. In the 1980s, the Economist pointed out that a German steel worker cost 19x an Indian steelworker. So why were there German steel workers? Well, perhaps because the German employees produced 21x as much steel per head. They were *cheaper*.
In IT there have been many attempts at using cheap locations. First was getting it done by cheap firms based in places like Mumbai. Then came insourcing - to deal with the sweatshop nonsense and keep control, the companies would setup business units in Mumbai etc. That has staggered along.
The simple truth is that the productivity cost of IT in the UK is the same as India. You can lie to yourself for a few years - costs are down etc, but in the end the productivity thing hits the company.
Similar things have been seen with Chinese manufacturing - their big advantage is now the existing supply chains etc. Factories in the *US* are competitive against them.
Why is that? Well, productivity is a function of the employee, the societal structure they live in and the the company. Quite simply the NHS, roads, laws etc improve productivity. Given the flow of international trade, it is not surprising that wages then float up and down to roughly *effective* parity.
Which brings us to the last part of the outsourcing idea. Bring the cheap workers onshore. This means that you get the productivity benefit of western society, but can try to pay a fraction of the wage.
After a few years, the employees will learn and escape to better jobs. Then you hire more. In the meantime, why do think that people are cramming into houses to the point of adults living in bunk beds?
True and skilled productive workers with good infrastructure make up for higher costs but hence also the votes for Brexit, Trump etc to keep immigration under control
Using immigration to socially dump is the last "cheat option" that business are using.
And before various people pile in - it works by abusing the immigrants themselves. They are treated as rapidly expiring (couple of years) components - to be used and discarded.
My remedy starts with enforcing minimum wage and working conditions. With a very, very heavy hand.
Suggestions - something to watch for is the type of visa that effectively ties the worker to single company. That has been used, in a number of countries to absue workers.
I think WFH exposes bad managers, not bad employees. A good manager would (and should) have no problem motivating and coordinating their team remotely. Perhaps they’ve also arranged a socially distanced meet-up on company time.
A bad manager is sitting there frantically entering data into spreadsheets with no idea what their team is doing.
Lots of staff WFH is very similar to outsourcing.
Good managers can make it work, but there is no doubt that remote resources take longer to get up to speed.
We have some resources outsourced to India, and they open Service tickets when they see brute force login attempts failing on remote firewalls.
We have explained to them multiple times that these failures indicate the systems are working exactly as designed...
Have you ever experienced the full JoyJoy of the India IT workers life experience?
Talk to some of them - it will be an education.
"The beatings will continue until moral improves" - seems to be a managerial motto in some outfits...
While the unit cost of labour for a software developer or network admin is cheaper in India than in the U.K., the unit cost of productivity most certainly isn’t.
Those Indians who are any good are not in India - they’re in the US, UK, Middle East and Australia.
Anecdote - I was in the Royal Surrey hospital yesterday for a minor ultrasound test. The five departments that I walked past were utterly empty. I was warned to arrive only 5 minutes early "to avoid crowding in the waiting room". The number of people waiting was zero.
No idea whether this is patient reluctance, GP reluctance or hospital policy (it was Saturday evening, so perhaps always quiet outside A&E?) but it did feel abnormally deserted.
I was told by a hospital consultant, when I took my mother-in-law in, recently:
- Massive drop in patients from *some* GPs. Some are doing patient refrerals at close to normal numbers. Some have sent no patients in for months. - Big bump in no-shows for appointments.
I bet many politicians interpret GPs not referring patients as a good thing, meaning less people are ill.
Similar things have been seen with Chinese manufacturing - their big advantage is now the existing supply chains etc. Factories in the *US* are competitive against them.
I saw a story somewhere (may have been here) about opening a factory in the US that ran into trouble because they couldn't buy screws. All of the US screw manufacturing companies had gone and all the machines had been scrapped
Forgive my ignorance, but isn't that going to send them to New York for finance, until such time a suitable replacement for London can be established in Berlin or Paris?
They do not have automatic access to the New York market they had in London when in the EU and which is to be renegotiated post Brexit
So London and New York now operate on a level playing field? Forgive me but that looks like a step backwards.
Similar things have been seen with Chinese manufacturing - their big advantage is now the existing supply chains etc. Factories in the *US* are competitive against them.
I saw a story somewhere (may have been here) about opening a factory in the US that ran into trouble because they couldn't buy screws. All of the US screw manufacturing companies had gone and all the machines had been scrapped
So that’s why everything is glued instead of screwed these days.
Why do we think that the Johnson Ministry is setting itself against the home-working revolution? I can think of a few possibilities, and I'm interested in what other people think.
1. They're focused on the losses from the change - the jobs, business rates, season tickets.
2. They're beholden to special interests with a stake in the status quo, principally commercial property investors.
3. They genuinely think it's a Bad Thing for people's mental health and productivity not to congregate in mass workplaces.
4. It's become symbolic of a return to normality after* Covid, that they believe is necessary to restore confidence.
I don't agree with any of these as justifying opposition to home-working, but they are plausible as explanations for the government's actions, and the latter two, at least, are not so negative as reasons, were they true.
* Putting to one side for a moment that we aren't yet past Covid as a major crisis.
Also. Politicians are by nature extroverts. Their whole life revolves around meeting folk. They literally cannot comprehend that some do not function best that way. And, moreover, do not aspire to. I am sure this aspect is not a conscious one. But I also reckon it is a very heavy, unexamined underlying assumption.
True though Gordon Brown and Theresa May for example are definite introverts, even JFK was supposedly quite reserved in private, Ted Kennedy was the most extrovert of the Kennedy brothers.
What is needed and likely is more a balance of wfh and commuting
I think Brown was not necessarily an introvert but devoid of small talk .He loved talking to people ,it was just that the content of the talking would be business not chat.
Attlee , Douglas-Home and Heath were probably introverts. Possibly Chamberlain too.
Anecdote - I was in the Royal Surrey hospital yesterday for a minor ultrasound test. The five departments that I walked past were utterly empty. I was warned to arrive only 5 minutes early "to avoid crowding in the waiting room". The number of people waiting was zero.
No idea whether this is patient reluctance, GP reluctance or hospital policy (it was Saturday evening, so perhaps always quiet outside A&E?) but it did feel abnormally deserted.
Not surprised to hear this. I attended Hexham General Hospital a week and a half or so ago and it was deserted too. The car park was barely a quarter full at 10.30am ish on a Thursday.
Anecdote - I was in the Royal Surrey hospital yesterday for a minor ultrasound test. The five departments that I walked past were utterly empty. I was warned to arrive only 5 minutes early "to avoid crowding in the waiting room". The number of people waiting was zero.
No idea whether this is patient reluctance, GP reluctance or hospital policy (it was Saturday evening, so perhaps always quiet outside A&E?) but it did feel abnormally deserted.
Not surprised to hear this. I attended Hexham General Hospital a week and a half or so ago and it was deserted too. The car park was barely a quarter full at 10.30am ish on a Thursday.
Is Hexham General ever busy? Don’t they ship everyone to the RVI pronto?
Oh dear. It seems I am a member of the "liberal elite" who only cares about using Covid as a pretext for Disaster Socialism. The fact I don't buy overpriced Costa coffees and Pret sandwiches, and never have done, isn't the real problem it appears. My sin, for which there is no redemption, is being "woke".
The presumably unwoke Dan Hodges doesn't go into his own coffee and sandwich buying patterns. But that's an irrelevant nitpick. Whether real staff at real businesses lose their jobs is unimportant. What matters is having the right ideological outlook.
Also many people have work contracts that have an office as the place of work not their home. Firms or public sector employers cannot just ignore this and arrogantly assume employees can work from home . they need to provide a place of work away from the home otherwise they are in breach of the contract I would feel. People have not signed up to many a job to work from home. Many people dont want negative work situations brought into their home for other members of the household to potentially hear or have to close off areas of their home to other members. Employers are being arrogant is they think employees can be ordered to work from home
Hence why my idea to open a small business hub makes sense. I am reasonably happy with my home office set up but I do agree with the comments about needing interaction with people. So a choice of work stations / small offices with a meeting room, a kitchen area etc. All at competitive prices! And if it doesn't take off the property comes as part of the house we want to buy. It doesn't technically have to generate swathes of income.
Been around for a while. There's one near us in an old church which is usually fully occupied. They haven't though, AFAIK, got a meeting room on site. There's another, about 5 miles away in what was once a farm which is similarly full. Find the right site, ensure, as far as possible decent internet access and you should be away.
Also many people have work contracts that have an office as the place of work not their home. Firms or public sector employers cannot just ignore this and arrogantly assume employees can work from home . they need to provide a place of work away from the home otherwise they are in breach of the contract I would feel. People have not signed up to many a job to work from home. Many people dont want negative work situations brought into their home for other members of the household to potentially hear or have to close off areas of their home to other members. Employers are being arrogant is they think employees can be ordered to work from home
Hence why my idea to open a small business hub makes sense. I am reasonably happy with my home office set up but I do agree with the comments about needing interaction with people. So a choice of work stations / small offices with a meeting room, a kitchen area etc. All at competitive prices! And if it doesn't take off the property comes as part of the house we want to buy. It doesn't technically have to generate swathes of income.
Been around for a while. There's one near us in an old church which is usually fully occupied. They haven't though, AFAIK, got a meeting room on site. There's another, about 5 miles away in what was once a farm which is similarly full. Find the right site, ensure, as far as possible decent internet access and you should be away.
Perhaps start selling tables at the local coffee shop. I had fun explaining Edward Lloyd's idea to a local coffee shop owner who was getting angry at the buy-one-coffee-stay-all-day mob...
One problem in the sector is that WeWork damaged the cost expectations - they tried an Uber style lose-money-until-we-get-big-or-the-underpants-plan-works plan.
Which has forced a lot of people into a super low cost, super low quality model....
Anecdote - I was in the Royal Surrey hospital yesterday for a minor ultrasound test. The five departments that I walked past were utterly empty. I was warned to arrive only 5 minutes early "to avoid crowding in the waiting room". The number of people waiting was zero.
No idea whether this is patient reluctance, GP reluctance or hospital policy (it was Saturday evening, so perhaps always quiet outside A&E?) but it did feel abnormally deserted.
Not surprised to hear this. I attended Hexham General Hospital a week and a half or so ago and it was deserted too. The car park was barely a quarter full at 10.30am ish on a Thursday.
Is Hexham General ever busy? Don’t they ship everyone to the RVI pronto?
If an emergency. Otherwise Cramlington. Lovely, new clean quiet hospital, mind.
Just think - in an alternate world we would have agreed May’s Withdrawal Agreement and would be proceeding towards Dec 31st without a clear cliff edge of significant short term trade barriers being imposed overnight devastating U.K. exporters and importers to the EU, and with a reasonable negotiating advantage of enjoying these lack of trade barriers in perpetuity without financial contributions into the single market...
Oh dear. It seems I am a member of the "liberal elite" who only cares about using Covid as a pretext for Disaster Socialism. The fact I don't buy overpriced Costa coffees and Pret sandwiches, and never have done, isn't the real problem it appears. My sin, for which there is no redemption, is being "woke".
The presumably unwoke Dan Hodges doesn't go into his own coffee and sandwich buying patterns. But that's an irrelevant nitpick. Whether real staff at real businesses lose their jobs is unimportant. What matters is having the right ideological outlook.
Also many people have work contracts that have an office as the place of work not their home. Firms or public sector employers cannot just ignore this and arrogantly assume employees can work from home . they need to provide a place of work away from the home otherwise they are in breach of the contract I would feel. People have not signed up to many a job to work from home. Many people dont want negative work situations brought into their home for other members of the household to potentially hear or have to close off areas of their home to other members. Employers are being arrogant is they think employees can be ordered to work from home
Hence why my idea to open a small business hub makes sense. I am reasonably happy with my home office set up but I do agree with the comments about needing interaction with people. So a choice of work stations / small offices with a meeting room, a kitchen area etc. All at competitive prices! And if it doesn't take off the property comes as part of the house we want to buy. It doesn't technically have to generate swathes of income.
Been around for a while. There's one near us in an old church which is usually fully occupied. They haven't though, AFAIK, got a meeting room on site. There's another, about 5 miles away in what was once a farm which is similarly full. Find the right site, ensure, as far as possible decent internet access and you should be away.
Also many people have work contracts that have an office as the place of work not their home. Firms or public sector employers cannot just ignore this and arrogantly assume employees can work from home . they need to provide a place of work away from the home otherwise they are in breach of the contract I would feel. People have not signed up to many a job to work from home. Many people dont want negative work situations brought into their home for other members of the household to potentially hear or have to close off areas of their home to other members. Employers are being arrogant is they think employees can be ordered to work from home
Hence why my idea to open a small business hub makes sense. I am reasonably happy with my home office set up but I do agree with the comments about needing interaction with people. So a choice of work stations / small offices with a meeting room, a kitchen area etc. All at competitive prices! And if it doesn't take off the property comes as part of the house we want to buy. It doesn't technically have to generate swathes of income.
Been around for a while. There's one near us in an old church which is usually fully occupied. They haven't though, AFAIK, got a meeting room on site. There's another, about 5 miles away in what was once a farm which is similarly full. Find the right site, ensure, as far as possible decent internet access and you should be away.
Perhaps start selling tables at the local coffee shop. I had fun explaining Edward Lloyd's idea to a local coffee shop owner who was getting angry at the buy-one-coffee-stay-all-day mob...
One problem in the sector is that WeWork damaged the cost expectations - they tried an Uber style lose-money-until-we-get-big-or-the-underpants-plan-works plan.
Which has forced a lot of people into a super low cost, super low quality model....
As others have said, it’s easier for a pub to invest in good wifi and a decent coffee machine, and open at 8:30am, than for a new business to set up and survive on renting desks for a tenner a day.
Similar things have been seen with Chinese manufacturing - their big advantage is now the existing supply chains etc. Factories in the *US* are competitive against them.
I saw a story somewhere (may have been here) about opening a factory in the US that ran into trouble because they couldn't buy screws. All of the US screw manufacturing companies had gone and all the machines had been scrapped
So that’s why everything is glued instead of screwed these days.
instead, everybody is screwed.
It was interesting to hear the reason that the differential tariffs on components and finished goods *had* to be kept, a few years back.
Context : The people behind the Raspberry PI wanted to make it in the UK. There was a differential tariff on components vs finished products. So buying in the resistors etc was more expensive than getting the finished Raspberry PIs.
They were told that changing it was impossible, since the Chinese government would throw toys out of the pram if it was changed...
Why are Tories suddenly so interested in State Aid? Seems mighty suspicious to me. The party hasn't given a f about it since Heseltine was active.
Because the EU plan is to force us to sign up to their idea of state aid, which they can litigate against the U.K. - at the same time as most other EU counties are ignoring those same rules themselves.
Oh dear. It seems I am a member of the "liberal elite" who only cares about using Covid as a pretext for Disaster Socialism. The fact I don't buy overpriced Costa coffees and Pret sandwiches, and never have done, isn't the real problem it appears. My sin, for which there is no redemption, is being "woke".
The presumably unwoke Dan Hodges doesn't go into his own coffee and sandwich buying patterns. But that's an irrelevant nitpick. Whether real staff at real businesses lose their jobs is unimportant. What matters is having the right ideological outlook.
Was he drunk whilst writing this? Or is there a Daily Mail in house competition to write the most ridiculous story of the month?
In case he hasnt noticed the liberal left dont run the country, nor are they in charge of the decisions of individual businesses and employees as to where they work or who gets made redundant.
Oh dear. It seems I am a member of the "liberal elite" who only cares about using Covid as a pretext for Disaster Socialism. The fact I don't buy overpriced Costa coffees and Pret sandwiches, and never have done, isn't the real problem it appears. My sin, for which there is no redemption, is being "woke".
The presumably unwoke Dan Hodges doesn't go into his own coffee and sandwich buying patterns. But that's an irrelevant nitpick. Whether real staff at real businesses lose their jobs is unimportant. What matters is having the right ideological outlook.
Goodness me. That is utter paranoid bollocks. No solution offered either. Other than get back to work as before yesterday. Oh. And the socio economic changes wrought by Covid are the Guardian's fault. He seems to also think people haven't noticed the economy is in trouble. I could go on.
Also many people have work contracts that have an office as the place of work not their home. Firms or public sector employers cannot just ignore this and arrogantly assume employees can work from home . they need to provide a place of work away from the home otherwise they are in breach of the contract I would feel. People have not signed up to many a job to work from home. Many people dont want negative work situations brought into their home for other members of the household to potentially hear or have to close off areas of their home to other members. Employers are being arrogant is they think employees can be ordered to work from home
Hence why my idea to open a small business hub makes sense. I am reasonably happy with my home office set up but I do agree with the comments about needing interaction with people. So a choice of work stations / small offices with a meeting room, a kitchen area etc. All at competitive prices! And if it doesn't take off the property comes as part of the house we want to buy. It doesn't technically have to generate swathes of income.
Been around for a while. There's one near us in an old church which is usually fully occupied. They haven't though, AFAIK, got a meeting room on site. There's another, about 5 miles away in what was once a farm which is similarly full. Find the right site, ensure, as far as possible decent internet access and you should be away.
Also many people have work contracts that have an office as the place of work not their home. Firms or public sector employers cannot just ignore this and arrogantly assume employees can work from home . they need to provide a place of work away from the home otherwise they are in breach of the contract I would feel. People have not signed up to many a job to work from home. Many people dont want negative work situations brought into their home for other members of the household to potentially hear or have to close off areas of their home to other members. Employers are being arrogant is they think employees can be ordered to work from home
Hence why my idea to open a small business hub makes sense. I am reasonably happy with my home office set up but I do agree with the comments about needing interaction with people. So a choice of work stations / small offices with a meeting room, a kitchen area etc. All at competitive prices! And if it doesn't take off the property comes as part of the house we want to buy. It doesn't technically have to generate swathes of income.
Been around for a while. There's one near us in an old church which is usually fully occupied. They haven't though, AFAIK, got a meeting room on site. There's another, about 5 miles away in what was once a farm which is similarly full. Find the right site, ensure, as far as possible decent internet access and you should be away.
Perhaps start selling tables at the local coffee shop. I had fun explaining Edward Lloyd's idea to a local coffee shop owner who was getting angry at the buy-one-coffee-stay-all-day mob...
One problem in the sector is that WeWork damaged the cost expectations - they tried an Uber style lose-money-until-we-get-big-or-the-underpants-plan-works plan.
Which has forced a lot of people into a super low cost, super low quality model....
As others have said, it’s easier for a pub to invest in good wifi and a decent coffee machine, and open at 8:30am, than for a new business to set up and survive on renting desks for a tenner a day.
True - I suggested to irate coffee shop owner (above) that she should install an ethernet wired connection* and a power bar on several tables, complete with a nicer chair. Then charge to rent them. This was before COVID.
*She had a box belonging to a high end fibre provider ISP literally outside the shop.
Very good article Alastair. I hope the poolside is good
I would add two other points that have very significant implications on jobs:
1. many firms are using this crisis to push through automation and / or delayering of management structures (the two are often linked). I suspect we are about to see happening to the professional class what happened to blue collar jobs in the 1980s with far more being done by far fewer people;
2. Offshoring of professional jobs. Alister Heath in the Telegraph had a good piece on this a few weeks back. If you don’t need to be in the office, why can’t the job be done overseas (at lower cost) than by a UK professional?
There have really been two barriers to 2, need to be in the office and translation issues (don’t so much of an issue for areas such as IT, hence why many rave about outsourcing their IT functions to Romania and Serbia). The first has been settled effectively. On the second, worth taking a look at the recent merger of two major translation firms and the suggestions as to how their market will grow.
In my previous career as an engineer I experienced companies trying to offshore engineering talent (to India primarily). The problem is that it doesn’t work very well.
It was fine (barely) for CAD and other menial tasks but it did not work very well when it came to the meat of the job, which for most white collar jobs these days is essentially project and people management, even in engineering.
If something goes wrong during manufacture, you can drive to the factory to discuss the problem with the guys on the shop floor. You can then immediately contact the client and discuss any potential solutions. All of this is still possible WFH but within commuting distance. It is not possible from Romania or Serbia or whatever.
The example that seems to be used a lot as to why outsourcing won't work is India and primarily because Indian workers seem to be quite "inflexible" in their thinking and need constant hand holding.
I get that. When I worked at one Investment Bank nearly 20 years ago, they tried outsourcing their Equity Research side to India for junior tasks. It didn't work with the models coming back with all sorts of problems (mainly related to not being able to grasp the idea of adjusted numbers).
However, there are a lot of other countries that are not India and have cheaper labour costs. Associates I know rave about how good their IT staff based in the Baltics or the Balkans are. I am sure a lot of the work for sectors such as accountancy and advertising can be outsourced to cheaper countries.
Your point re commuting distance is a valid one but for many professional jobs, there won't be a need to drive to the factory, the calls can take place over Zoom and so can the discussions re how to fix things.
Oh dear. It seems I am a member of the "liberal elite" who only cares about using Covid as a pretext for Disaster Socialism. The fact I don't buy overpriced Costa coffees and Pret sandwiches, and never have done, isn't the real problem it appears. My sin, for which there is no redemption, is being "woke".
The presumably unwoke Dan Hodges doesn't go into his own coffee and sandwich buying patterns. But that's an irrelevant nitpick. Whether real staff at real businesses lose their jobs is unimportant. What matters is having the right ideological outlook.
Goodness me. That is utter paranoid bollocks. No solution offered either. Other than get back to work as before yesterday. Oh. And the socio economic changes wrought by Covid are the Guardian's fault. He seems to also think people haven't noticed the economy is in trouble. I could go on.
Yup
But I would say that a lot of people are ignoring *who* will be hit by a big drop in city centre offices.
In the past, I've caused a bit of moment, by pointing out to people patting themselves on the back about diversity, by pointing out the difference between the people who work in the offices, and those who clean, maintain etc
Why do we think that the Johnson Ministry is setting itself against the home-working revolution? I can think of a few possibilities, and I'm interested in what other people think.
1. They're focused on the losses from the change - the jobs, business rates, season tickets.
2. They're beholden to special interests with a stake in the status quo, principally commercial property investors.
3. They genuinely think it's a Bad Thing for people's mental health and productivity not to congregate in mass workplaces.
4. It's become symbolic of a return to normality after* Covid, that they believe is necessary to restore confidence.
I don't agree with any of these as justifying opposition to home-working, but they are plausible as explanations for the government's actions, and the latter two, at least, are not so negative as reasons, were they true.
* Putting to one side for a moment that we aren't yet past Covid as a major crisis.
Also. Politicians are by nature extroverts. Their whole life revolves around meeting folk. They literally cannot comprehend that some do not function best that way. And, moreover, do not aspire to. I am sure this aspect is not a conscious one. But I also reckon it is a very heavy, unexamined underlying assumption.
True though Gordon Brown and Theresa May for example are definite introverts, even JFK was supposedly quite reserved in private, Ted Kennedy was the most extrovert of the Kennedy brothers.
What is needed and likely is more a balance of wfh and commuting
I think Brown was not necessarily an introvert but devoid of small talk .He loved talking to people ,it was just that the content of the talking would be business not chat.
Attlee , Douglas-Home and Heath were probably introverts. Possibly Chamberlain too.
For politicians, maybe. But an introverted politician is probably pretty extrovert by the standards of the whole population. Take TM's ritual of song the weekend on the constituency stump, no matter what. A real introvert couldn't do that.
While the unit cost of labour for a software developer or network admin is cheaper in India than in the U.K., the unit cost of productivity most certainly isn’t.
Those Indians who are any good are not in India - they’re in the US, UK, Middle East and Australia.
Not my experience - had several issues with a laptop which were each solved promptly by Bangalore servvice engineers, including in one case arrnaging for a spare part to be delivered to my home next day. Conversely I've encountered useless UK-based service centres.
There's too much anecdata on service issues - you get competent and less competent people in all establishments. What I'm sure is true is that if there's a systemic support problem in one centre, it's hard to spot and resolve from a distance.
Labour put the IRA into the Northern Ireland government.
Given that we're all supposed to be friends and forgiveness decades later I'm not sure that many people are going to be overly bothered about some person they've never heard of being in the HoL.
Labour idea on testing is a good idea, Tories will steal it next week
What is their idea?
Testing on arrival at airports, it's not a Labour idea, the Telegraph and travel lobby have been pushing it for months.
How many tests a day would that entail ?
And is there the capacity for it ?
It needs rapid testing, the current 8h PCR test isn't going to cut it.
So until the airports can get a testing system in place then all talk of replacing quarantine with airport testing is pointless.
No matter how much the people at the Mail want to visit their foreign villas.
It must be hell at the Guardian as well.
A 20 minute test - particularly one, that by using an easier sampling method cuts down on the false negatives - would make airport testing effective. Hell, they want everyone sitting by the gate 30 minutes before boarding, anyway.
Very good article Alastair. I hope the poolside is good
I would add two other points that have very significant implications on jobs:
1. many firms are using this crisis to push through automation and / or delayering of management structures (the two are often linked). I suspect we are about to see happening to the professional class what happened to blue collar jobs in the 1980s with far more being done by far fewer people;
2. Offshoring of professional jobs. Alister Heath in the Telegraph had a good piece on this a few weeks back. If you don’t need to be in the office, why can’t the job be done overseas (at lower cost) than by a UK professional?
There have really been two barriers to 2, need to be in the office and translation issues (don’t so much of an issue for areas such as IT, hence why many rave about outsourcing their IT functions to Romania and Serbia). The first has been settled effectively. On the second, worth taking a look at the recent merger of two major translation firms and the suggestions as to how their market will grow.
In my previous career as an engineer I experienced companies trying to offshore engineering talent (to India primarily). The problem is that it doesn’t work very well.
It was fine (barely) for CAD and other menial tasks but it did not work very well when it came to the meat of the job, which for most white collar jobs these days is essentially project and people management, even in engineering.
If something goes wrong during manufacture, you can drive to the factory to discuss the problem with the guys on the shop floor. You can then immediately contact the client and discuss any potential solutions. All of this is still possible WFH but within commuting distance. It is not possible from Romania or Serbia or whatever.
The example that seems to be used a lot as to why outsourcing won't work is India and primarily because Indian workers seem to be quite "inflexible" in their thinking and need constant hand holding.
I get that. When I worked at one Investment Bank nearly 20 years ago, they tried outsourcing their Equity Research side to India for junior tasks. It didn't work with the models coming back with all sorts of problems (mainly related to not being able to grasp the idea of adjusted numbers).
However, there are a lot of other countries that are not India and have cheaper labour costs. Associates I know rave about how good their IT staff based in the Baltics or the Balkans are. I am sure a lot of the work for sectors such as accountancy and advertising can be outsourced to cheaper countries.
Your point re commuting distance is a valid one but for many professional jobs, there won't be a need to drive to the factory, the calls can take place over Zoom and so can the discussions re how to fix things.
I still think there’s still a significant productivity value of being able to thrash out a problem in a room together face-to-face for an afternoon without international flights.
While the unit cost of labour for a software developer or network admin is cheaper in India than in the U.K., the unit cost of productivity most certainly isn’t.
Those Indians who are any good are not in India - they’re in the US, UK, Middle East and Australia.
Not my experience - had several issues with a laptop which were each solved promptly by Bangalore servvice engineers, including in one case arrnaging for a spare part to be delivered to my home next day. Conversely I've encountered useless UK-based service centres.
There's too much anecdata on service issues - you get competent and less competent people in all establishments. What I'm sure is true is that if there's a systemic support problem in one centre, it's hard to spot and resolve from a distance.
I don't know if this is anecdote - one company I worked for had development centres in London, Eastern Europe, US, a few other place & India. They did a study of productivity cost.
- London and Eastern Europe were tied for first place - India was last. By a long way.
While the unit cost of labour for a software developer or network admin is cheaper in India than in the U.K., the unit cost of productivity most certainly isn’t.
Those Indians who are any good are not in India - they’re in the US, UK, Middle East and Australia.
Not my experience - had several issues with a laptop which were each solved promptly by Bangalore servvice engineers, including in one case arrnaging for a spare part to be delivered to my home next day. Conversely I've encountered useless UK-based service centres.
There's too much anecdata on service issues - you get competent and less competent people in all establishments. What I'm sure is true is that if there's a systemic support problem in one centre, it's hard to spot and resolve from a distance.
Glad to hear you had a good experience. The call centres are generally okay for first-level support issues and hardware replacement, but fall down on software development and more advanced configuration and troubleshooting - things that can’t be learned by rote and written into a script to follow.
While the unit cost of labour for a software developer or network admin is cheaper in India than in the U.K., the unit cost of productivity most certainly isn’t.
Those Indians who are any good are not in India - they’re in the US, UK, Middle East and Australia.
Not my experience - had several issues with a laptop which were each solved promptly by Bangalore servvice engineers, including in one case arrnaging for a spare part to be delivered to my home next day. Conversely I've encountered useless UK-based service centres.
There's too much anecdata on service issues - you get competent and less competent people in all establishments. What I'm sure is true is that if there's a systemic support problem in one centre, it's hard to spot and resolve from a distance.
Glad to hear you had a good experience. The call centres are generally okay for first-level support issues and hardware replacement, but fall down on software development and more advanced configuration and troubleshooting - things that can’t be learned by rote and written into a script to follow.
In general, that kind of support will be following a fault tree script. The guy on the phone will be being told by the system what to do next.
Software Eng talent in Romania is very good from experience
Yup - complete with wage inflation on a crazy level.
In Bulgaria, at one point, a middle level dev was making more than a high end medical consultant.
They would leave a job, if the company didn't give them a double digit pay rise, each year. And get another one the same day, at the rate they wanted.
The same was happening on the Czech border with Germany where firms were (are?) using cheaper Labour to supply German factories etc. They would be trained and then immediately leave for better wages.
My wife has friends at the college she used to work at. They are still doing all of their teaching remotely but have suffered isolation as well. Their solution is innovative. 3 or 4 of them get together at each other's houses each work day taking it in turn to host so that they can have a shared work environment WFH.
This wouldn't work for a lot of people but it is certainly working for them.
They can only do that outside, technically only 2 separate households can meet still inside at each others homes
Nobody cares.
Well they should do if we are to keep new cases down
I don’t know a single person who is bothering with the “only 2 separate households can meet inside a home”. For one it doesn’t make any sense considering you can go to a pub with 50 households, or an office with even more.
Well I certainly am, as is my partner and our famililies.
You can only go to a pub with social distancing maintained and enforced with tables clearly divided and 2 metres away from each other and most pub dining and drinking is taking place outside with foods ordered on apps, not inside. All pub goers have to give their details for track and trace too.
Most office workers are still wfh or at least not going in 5 days a week and offices have to ensure social distancing measures are in place too
Fascinating. Doesn’t change anything.
Also a load of b*llocks. Most pub dining and drinking is certainly not taking place outside.
How many pubs have you been to?
There’s also zero enforcement of track and trace. In every shop, cafe, pub, and restaurant I’ve been to its been entirely optional. I’ve forgotten to do it on a number of occasions, and I’m sure many other people have.
Wrong, I have been to a pub six times since lockdown, twice in or near Oxford and once near Epping and twice in Dorset and once in Fareham.
In Oxford and Fareham everyone was drinking outside, barely anyone inside, in Epping and Dorset you were only allowed to eat outside, there were no tables set up inside.
In every pub there was track and trace details required too before you went to your table.
In shops it is not needed but you have to wear a mask.
Does not say much about your area of Newcastle if there is such blatant disregard for the rules and the police should take action on those establishments breaching them
Not everyone in the country lives in your lovely South Eastern climate.
How many restaurants in Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle etc do you think are seating punters outside?
Norwegians for example live in a much colder climate even than those in the North of England and are able to respect the rules.
Plus have pubs in Newcastle and Manchester not heard of outdoor heaters? Marquees and gazebos with open sides can protect against the rain
You’re talking about pubs. I’m talking about restaurants. How many restaurants do you know that have huge outdoor space available for gazebos, etc? Very few. Even in Norway.
Your middle-class leafy Epping perspective with your country pubs with huge car parks is clouding your ability to understand the rest of the country.
I’ve also discussed McDonalds. Not exactly a “dodgy operator”, who is not sitting punters outside, and not enforcing track and trace in my experience. It is optional, in the sense that you have to go out of your way to do it, rather than be refused entry if you do not.. Used by millions.
City Restaurants can still do takeaways even if they do not have much outdoor space but many restaurants do have tables outside.
McDonalds is mainly takeaway and indoor tables as with inner city restaurants should be socially distanced and at least 1.5 metres apart.
The police should take action if McDonalds are seating customers for eating and not pursuing track and trace
Sorry mate but you have no idea what you’re talking about.
City Restaurants are alive and kicking again - mainly eat in, not takeaways, and no outdoor seating.
McDonalds, Costa, and many other chains simply ask you to fill in your details. In my experience nobody checks if you have. Nobody asks you to. There are simply signs on the tables.
The original point to all of this was that there’s no logical reason why you can sit 1.5m away from multiple households in an underground restaurant, like I was in central Newcastle a few days ago, but can’t sit 1.5m away from multiple people in my own home.
Hence why it is being ignored. And it is being ignored.
Even the “Boris has killed 60k people” frothers who I know, who work for the NHS, etc, do not care.
They may well be but they still have to comply with the rules, that means tables at least 1.5m apart and track and trace.
If they are not then they are not only increasing the risk of more cases spreading but they are also breaking the law and the police should get involved.
This comment isn't just delusional, its completely bonkers. "They still have to comply with the rules". No, they don't. Because who is going to come round and check? You?
Just because this week's version of the covid rules was issued by your party doesn't mean that everyone else is doffing their cap the way you do. Significant numbers enter the UK every day without completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks. Which means no way to ensure self-isolation compliance. Significant numbers are going into pubs and restaurants and not completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks.
Here is reality. Our "world beating" track and trace system barely exists on the ground. And the woman who presided over this fiasco has now been put in charge of public health. She's useless, people will die because of it, but she's the right kind of Tory so who cares?
Software Eng talent in Romania is very good from experience
Yup - complete with wage inflation on a crazy level.
In Bulgaria, at one point, a middle level dev was making more than a high end medical consultant.
They would leave a job, if the company didn't give them a double digit pay rise, each year. And get another one the same day, at the rate they wanted.
The same was happening on the Czech border with Germany where firms were (are?) using cheaper Labour to supply German factories etc. They would be trained and then immediately leave for better wages.
The same pattern has been repeated so many time -
- Lower wage country makes sufficient reforms to health, infrastructure, rule-of-law to create a productivity gap. Workers are cheap - Everyone piles in - Wages rise. Productivity gap closes.
When I was young, Japan was supposed to in charge of the world by 2000....
Well said Sir Keir, and not something that his predecessor would have uttered in response.
No matter what we think of the media, not much in many cases, that doesn’t mean that they should be stopped from publishing. A free press is a cornerstone of democracy.
Not my experience - had several issues with a laptop which were each solved promptly by Bangalore servvice engineers, including in one case arrnaging for a spare part to be delivered to my home next day. Conversely I've encountered useless UK-based service centres.
There's too much anecdata on service issues - you get competent and less competent people in all establishments. What I'm sure is true is that if there's a systemic support problem in one centre, it's hard to spot and resolve from a distance.
I don't know if this is anecdote - one company I worked for had development centres in London, Eastern Europe, US, a few other place & India. They did a study of productivity cost.
- London and Eastern Europe were tied for first place - India was last. By a long way.
I think Sandpit has put his finger on the difference - I'm going by experience of first-line problems ("since the last Microsoft update my system starts up very slowly", that sort of thing which can be resolve by careful analysis and relating to known problems), you're talking about software development, which is a different skill.
Software Eng talent in Romania is very good from experience
Yup - complete with wage inflation on a crazy level.
In Bulgaria, at one point, a middle level dev was making more than a high end medical consultant.
They would leave a job, if the company didn't give them a double digit pay rise, each year. And get another one the same day, at the rate they wanted.
The same was happening on the Czech border with Germany where firms were (are?) using cheaper Labour to supply German factories etc. They would be trained and then immediately leave for better wages.
The same pattern has been repeated so many time -
- Lower wage country makes sufficient reforms to health, infrastructure, rule-of-law to create a productivity gap. Workers are cheap - Everyone piles in - Wages rise. Productivity gap closes.
When I was young, Japan was supposed to in charge of the world by 2000....
But the point is that the jobs very rarely go back to the home country.
Yes, you train these people, wage inflation skyrockets, they leave and so on.
Regardless, it still is much cheaper than to hire someone in the UK.
To be honest though, automation is the real job killer, at least in the short to medium term. If many professional jobs can be automated, they will.
Software Eng talent in Romania is very good from experience
Poland and Ukraine too. Pretty much the same cost as India, but a better cultural fit and physically closer when tight management is required.
Had a fun one when the Ukraine War kicked off - a client had a dev team in Moscow and one in Lvov.....
Talk about tension in the stand up....
Whoops. As a result of all that, the Ukranian currency fell by 75%, and since then Kiev is now full of devs people able to bill in dollars and euros in an international market. They’re doing very well for themselves at the moment.
Oh dear. It seems I am a member of the "liberal elite" who only cares about using Covid as a pretext for Disaster Socialism. The fact I don't buy overpriced Costa coffees and Pret sandwiches, and never have done, isn't the real problem it appears. My sin, for which there is no redemption, is being "woke".
The presumably unwoke Dan Hodges doesn't go into his own coffee and sandwich buying patterns. But that's an irrelevant nitpick. Whether real staff at real businesses lose their jobs is unimportant. What matters is having the right ideological outlook.
Was he drunk whilst writing this? Or is there a Daily Mail in house competition to write the most ridiculous story of the month?
In case he hasnt noticed the liberal left dont run the country, nor are they in charge of the decisions of individual businesses and employees as to where they work or who gets made redundant.
He was *paid* to write this. And why not - its what Wail readers want to read.
My wife has friends at the college she used to work at. They are still doing all of their teaching remotely but have suffered isolation as well. Their solution is innovative. 3 or 4 of them get together at each other's houses each work day taking it in turn to host so that they can have a shared work environment WFH.
This wouldn't work for a lot of people but it is certainly working for them.
They can only do that outside, technically only 2 separate households can meet still inside at each others homes
Nobody cares.
Well they should do if we are to keep new cases down
I don’t know a single person who is bothering with the “only 2 separate households can meet inside a home”. For one it doesn’t make any sense considering you can go to a pub with 50 households, or an office with even more.
Well I certainly am, as is my partner and our famililies.
You can only go to a pub with social distancing maintained and enforced with tables clearly divided and 2 metres away from each other and most pub dining and drinking is taking place outside with foods ordered on apps, not inside. All pub goers have to give their details for track and trace too.
Most office workers are still wfh or at least not going in 5 days a week and offices have to ensure social distancing measures are in place too
Fascinating. Doesn’t change anything.
Also a load of b*llocks. Most pub dining and drinking is certainly not taking place outside.
How many pubs have you been to?
There’s also zero enforcement of track and trace. In every shop, cafe, pub, and restaurant I’ve been to its been entirely optional. I’ve forgotten to do it on a number of occasions, and I’m sure many other people have.
Wrong, I have been to a pub six times since lockdown, twice in or near Oxford and once near Epping and twice in Dorset and once in Fareham.
In Oxford and Fareham everyone was drinking outside, barely anyone inside, in Epping and Dorset you were only allowed to eat outside, there were no tables set up inside.
In every pub there was track and trace details required too before you went to your table.
In shops it is not needed but you have to wear a mask.
Does not say much about your area of Newcastle if there is such blatant disregard for the rules and the police should take action on those establishments breaching them
Not everyone in the country lives in your lovely South Eastern climate.
How many restaurants in Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle etc do you think are seating punters outside?
Norwegians for example live in a much colder climate even than those in the North of England and are able to respect the rules.
Plus have pubs in Newcastle and Manchester not heard of outdoor heaters? Marquees and gazebos with open sides can protect against the rain
You’re talking about pubs. I’m talking about restaurants. How many restaurants do you know that have huge outdoor space available for gazebos, etc? Very few. Even in Norway.
Your middle-class leafy Epping perspective with your country pubs with huge car parks is clouding your ability to understand the rest of the country.
I’ve also discussed McDonalds. Not exactly a “dodgy operator”, who is not sitting punters outside, and not enforcing track and trace in my experience. It is optional, in the sense that you have to go out of your way to do it, rather than be refused entry if you do not.. Used by millions.
City Restaurants can still do takeaways even if they do not have much outdoor space but many restaurants do have tables outside.
McDonalds is mainly takeaway and indoor tables as with inner city restaurants should be socially distanced and at least 1.5 metres apart.
The police should take action if McDonalds are seating customers for eating and not pursuing track and trace
Sorry mate but you have no idea what you’re talking about.
City Restaurants are alive and kicking again - mainly eat in, not takeaways, and no outdoor seating.
McDonalds, Costa, and many other chains simply ask you to fill in your details. In my experience nobody checks if you have. Nobody asks you to. There are simply signs on the tables.
The original point to all of this was that there’s no logical reason why you can sit 1.5m away from multiple households in an underground restaurant, like I was in central Newcastle a few days ago, but can’t sit 1.5m away from multiple people in my own home.
Hence why it is being ignored. And it is being ignored.
Even the “Boris has killed 60k people” frothers who I know, who work for the NHS, etc, do not care.
They may well be but they still have to comply with the rules, that means tables at least 1.5m apart and track and trace.
If they are not then they are not only increasing the risk of more cases spreading but they are also breaking the law and the police should get involved.
This comment isn't just delusional, its completely bonkers. "They still have to comply with the rules". No, they don't. Because who is going to come round and check? You?
Just because this week's version of the covid rules was issued by your party doesn't mean that everyone else is doffing their cap the way you do. Significant numbers enter the UK every day without completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks. Which means no way to ensure self-isolation compliance. Significant numbers are going into pubs and restaurants and not completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks.
Here is reality. Our "world beating" track and trace system barely exists on the ground. And the woman who presided over this fiasco has now been put in charge of public health. She's useless, people will die because of it, but she's the right kind of Tory so who cares?
Hmmm
The ONS infection survey says that the infection rate is stable as of the 25 August. 2000 cases per day.
If that is correct, the case numbers mean that since then, we have gone from detecting 40% of all cases to 60%.
O/T (but FPTs), it looks like John Boulton - who is not a friend of Trump by any stretch of the imagination - has denied the Atlantic story re Trump’s alleged remarks on veterans.
Quick question for PBers - if this story does turn out to be false, should it be condemned or does the end justify the means in trying to stop Trump being elected?
My wife has friends at the college she used to work at. They are still doing all of their teaching remotely but have suffered isolation as well. Their solution is innovative. 3 or 4 of them get together at each other's houses each work day taking it in turn to host so that they can have a shared work environment WFH.
This wouldn't work for a lot of people but it is certainly working for them.
They can only do that outside, technically only 2 separate households can meet still inside at each others homes
Nobody cares.
Well they should do if we are to keep new cases down
I don’t know a single person who is bothering with the “only 2 separate households can meet inside a home”. For one it doesn’t make any sense considering you can go to a pub with 50 households, or an office with even more.
Well I certainly am, as is my partner and our famililies.
You can only go to a pub with social distancing maintained and enforced with tables clearly divided and 2 metres away from each other and most pub dining and drinking is taking place outside with foods ordered on apps, not inside. All pub goers have to give their details for track and trace too.
Most office workers are still wfh or at least not going in 5 days a week and offices have to ensure social distancing measures are in place too
Fascinating. Doesn’t change anything.
Also a load of b*llocks. Most pub dining and drinking is certainly not taking place outside.
How many pubs have you been to?
There’s also zero enforcement of track and trace. In every shop, cafe, pub, and restaurant I’ve been to its been entirely optional. I’ve forgotten to do it on a number of occasions, and I’m sure many other people have.
Wrong, I have been to a pub six times since lockdown, twice in or near Oxford and once near Epping and twice in Dorset and once in Fareham.
In Oxford and Fareham everyone was drinking outside, barely anyone inside, in Epping and Dorset you were only allowed to eat outside, there were no tables set up inside.
In every pub there was track and trace details required too before you went to your table.
In shops it is not needed but you have to wear a mask.
Does not say much about your area of Newcastle if there is such blatant disregard for the rules and the police should take action on those establishments breaching them
Not everyone in the country lives in your lovely South Eastern climate.
How many restaurants in Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle etc do you think are seating punters outside?
Norwegians for example live in a much colder climate even than those in the North of England and are able to respect the rules.
Plus have pubs in Newcastle and Manchester not heard of outdoor heaters? Marquees and gazebos with open sides can protect against the rain
You’re talking about pubs. I’m talking about restaurants. How many restaurants do you know that have huge outdoor space available for gazebos, etc? Very few. Even in Norway.
Your middle-class leafy Epping perspective with your country pubs with huge car parks is clouding your ability to understand the rest of the country.
I’ve also discussed McDonalds. Not exactly a “dodgy operator”, who is not sitting punters outside, and not enforcing track and trace in my experience. It is optional, in the sense that you have to go out of your way to do it, rather than be refused entry if you do not.. Used by millions.
City Restaurants can still do takeaways even if they do not have much outdoor space but many restaurants do have tables outside.
McDonalds is mainly takeaway and indoor tables as with inner city restaurants should be socially distanced and at least 1.5 metres apart.
The police should take action if McDonalds are seating customers for eating and not pursuing track and trace
Sorry mate but you have no idea what you’re talking about.
City Restaurants are alive and kicking again - mainly eat in, not takeaways, and no outdoor seating.
McDonalds, Costa, and many other chains simply ask you to fill in your details. In my experience nobody checks if you have. Nobody asks you to. There are simply signs on the tables.
The original point to all of this was that there’s no logical reason why you can sit 1.5m away from multiple households in an underground restaurant, like I was in central Newcastle a few days ago, but can’t sit 1.5m away from multiple people in my own home.
Hence why it is being ignored. And it is being ignored.
Even the “Boris has killed 60k people” frothers who I know, who work for the NHS, etc, do not care.
They may well be but they still have to comply with the rules, that means tables at least 1.5m apart and track and trace.
If they are not then they are not only increasing the risk of more cases spreading but they are also breaking the law and the police should get involved.
This comment isn't just delusional, its completely bonkers. "They still have to comply with the rules". No, they don't. Because who is going to come round and check? You?
Just because this week's version of the covid rules was issued by your party doesn't mean that everyone else is doffing their cap the way you do. Significant numbers enter the UK every day without completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks. Which means no way to ensure self-isolation compliance. Significant numbers are going into pubs and restaurants and not completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks.
Here is reality. Our "world beating" track and trace system barely exists on the ground. And the woman who presided over this fiasco has now been put in charge of public health. She's useless, people will die because of it, but she's the right kind of Tory so who cares?
Hmmm
The ONS infection survey says that the infection rate is stable as of the 25 August. 2000 cases per day.
If that is correct, the case numbers mean that since then, we have gone from detecting 40% of all cases to 60%.
Something is causing an increased detection rate.
More tests? It isn't Test and Trace. They can't Test and Trace people whose details haven't been collected.
Not my experience - had several issues with a laptop which were each solved promptly by Bangalore servvice engineers, including in one case arrnaging for a spare part to be delivered to my home next day. Conversely I've encountered useless UK-based service centres.
There's too much anecdata on service issues - you get competent and less competent people in all establishments. What I'm sure is true is that if there's a systemic support problem in one centre, it's hard to spot and resolve from a distance.
I don't know if this is anecdote - one company I worked for had development centres in London, Eastern Europe, US, a few other place & India. They did a study of productivity cost.
- London and Eastern Europe were tied for first place - India was last. By a long way.
I think Sandpit has put his finger on the difference - I'm going by experience of first-line problems ("since the last Microsoft update my system starts up very slowly", that sort of thing which can be resolve by careful analysis and relating to known problems), you're talking about software development, which is a different skill.
Yes - the person you spoke to was following a script. Probably a software system. Looks a bit like the old style text-only adventures (ADVENT) - you are given a bunch of options on the screen. Which takes you to the next screen... etc...
The next generation version of that presents the system to you, the subscriber, over the internet. You only get to call in, if your computer is dead.....
Oh dear. It seems I am a member of the "liberal elite" who only cares about using Covid as a pretext for Disaster Socialism. The fact I don't buy overpriced Costa coffees and Pret sandwiches, and never have done, isn't the real problem it appears. My sin, for which there is no redemption, is being "woke".
The presumably unwoke Dan Hodges doesn't go into his own coffee and sandwich buying patterns. But that's an irrelevant nitpick. Whether real staff at real businesses lose their jobs is unimportant. What matters is having the right ideological outlook.
Goodness me. That is utter paranoid bollocks. No solution offered either. Other than get back to work as before yesterday. Oh. And the socio economic changes wrought by Covid are the Guardian's fault. He seems to also think people haven't noticed the economy is in trouble. I could go on.
A propos the discussion about fish yesterday, I notice the Lidl smoked salmon that used be processed in Scotland using Scottish fish is now processed in Poland instead. I don't have the inside track on Lidl's purchasing decisions, but do note that EU import tariffs are much higher for processed fish than raw fish and therefore with Brexit looming it makes commercial sense to move the processing to the EU from the UK, presumably with the loss of jobs here.
I think there is an important difference between being sympathetic to workers losing their jobs due to reasons outside anyone's control (Costa, Pret) and government ideology that Dan Hodges supports directly leading to people losing their jobs.
O/T (but FPTs), it looks like John Boulton - who is not a friend of Trump by any stretch of the imagination - has denied the Atlantic story re Trump’s alleged remarks on veterans.
Quick question for PBers - if this story does turn out to be false, should it be condemned or does the end justify the means in trying to stop Trump being elected?
Yes truly Trump is the most sinned against president of all time. It is truly shocking this non stop witch hunt against him calling into question his eligibility to be president based on the place of his birth. Only a true scumbag would perpetrate such a campaign.
Software Eng talent in Romania is very good from experience
Yup - complete with wage inflation on a crazy level.
In Bulgaria, at one point, a middle level dev was making more than a high end medical consultant.
They would leave a job, if the company didn't give them a double digit pay rise, each year. And get another one the same day, at the rate they wanted.
The same was happening on the Czech border with Germany where firms were (are?) using cheaper Labour to supply German factories etc. They would be trained and then immediately leave for better wages.
The same pattern has been repeated so many time -
- Lower wage country makes sufficient reforms to health, infrastructure, rule-of-law to create a productivity gap. Workers are cheap - Everyone piles in - Wages rise. Productivity gap closes.
When I was young, Japan was supposed to in charge of the world by 2000....
But the point is that the jobs very rarely go back to the home country.
Yes, you train these people, wage inflation skyrockets, they leave and so on.
Regardless, it still is much cheaper than to hire someone in the UK.
To be honest though, automation is the real job killer, at least in the short to medium term. If many professional jobs can be automated, they will.
If you take the short term view - hiring the cheap person is cheaper in the short term. In the long term....
It took the banks a little while to figure out the following cycle
- Outsource everything to save money - Problems mount, productivity sucks. - New guy comes in - brings it all onshore. Fixes the situation. - New guy gets promotion - Newer guy screams "why are we doing all the dev in a high cost location?" - Outsource everything to save money - Newer guy outsources, promises cost cuts. - Newer guy gets promotion. - Problems mount, productivity sucks. - guess what?
Why are Tories suddenly so interested in State Aid? Seems mighty suspicious to me. The party hasn't given a f about it since Heseltine was active.
Because "state aid" is a misnomer.
Under the EU's proposal actions we took to make ourselves more competitive, including changes of law and tax cuts, could be counted as "state aid". They're not actually arguing about state aid as it normally is considered to mean - the UK has already offered rules against that which are standard in normal FTAs eg CETA, but the EU is wanting to go miles above and beyond that.
O/T (but FPTs), it looks like John Boulton - who is not a friend of Trump by any stretch of the imagination - has denied the Atlantic story re Trump’s alleged remarks on veterans.
Quick question for PBers - if this story does turn out to be false, should it be condemned or does the end justify the means in trying to stop Trump being elected?
It was pretty obvious that it was made up bollocks from the start and I'm amazed anyone is still falling for this stuff.
My wife has friends at the college she used to work at. They are still doing all of their teaching remotely but have suffered isolation as well. Their solution is innovative. 3 or 4 of them get together at each other's houses each work day taking it in turn to host so that they can have a shared work environment WFH.
This wouldn't work for a lot of people but it is certainly working for them.
They can only do that outside, technically only 2 separate households can meet still inside at each others homes
Nobody cares.
Well they should do if we are to keep new cases down
I don’t know a single person who is bothering with the “only 2 separate households can meet inside a home”. For one it doesn’t make any sense considering you can go to a pub with 50 households, or an office with even more.
Well I certainly am, as is my partner and our famililies.
You can only go to a pub with social distancing maintained and enforced with tables clearly divided and 2 metres away from each other and most pub dining and drinking is taking place outside with foods ordered on apps, not inside. All pub goers have to give their details for track and trace too.
Most office workers are still wfh or at least not going in 5 days a week and offices have to ensure social distancing measures are in place too
Fascinating. Doesn’t change anything.
Also a load of b*llocks. Most pub dining and drinking is certainly not taking place outside.
How many pubs have you been to?
There’s also zero enforcement of track and trace. In every shop, cafe, pub, and restaurant I’ve been to its been entirely optional. I’ve forgotten to do it on a number of occasions, and I’m sure many other people have.
Wrong, I have been to a pub six times since lockdown, twice in or near Oxford and once near Epping and twice in Dorset and once in Fareham.
In Oxford and Fareham everyone was drinking outside, barely anyone inside, in Epping and Dorset you were only allowed to eat outside, there were no tables set up inside.
In every pub there was track and trace details required too before you went to your table.
In shops it is not needed but you have to wear a mask.
Does not say much about your area of Newcastle if there is such blatant disregard for the rules and the police should take action on those establishments breaching them
Not everyone in the country lives in your lovely South Eastern climate.
How many restaurants in Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle etc do you think are seating punters outside?
Norwegians for example live in a much colder climate even than those in the North of England and are able to respect the rules.
Plus have pubs in Newcastle and Manchester not heard of outdoor heaters? Marquees and gazebos with open sides can protect against the rain
You’re talking about pubs. I’m talking about restaurants. How many restaurants do you know that have huge outdoor space available for gazebos, etc? Very few. Even in Norway.
Your middle-class leafy Epping perspective with your country pubs with huge car parks is clouding your ability to understand the rest of the country.
I’ve also discussed McDonalds. Not exactly a “dodgy operator”, who is not sitting punters outside, and not enforcing track and trace in my experience. It is optional, in the sense that you have to go out of your way to do it, rather than be refused entry if you do not.. Used by millions.
City Restaurants can still do takeaways even if they do not have much outdoor space but many restaurants do have tables outside.
McDonalds is mainly takeaway and indoor tables as with inner city restaurants should be socially distanced and at least 1.5 metres apart.
The police should take action if McDonalds are seating customers for eating and not pursuing track and trace
Sorry mate but you have no idea what you’re talking about.
City Restaurants are alive and kicking again - mainly eat in, not takeaways, and no outdoor seating.
McDonalds, Costa, and many other chains simply ask you to fill in your details. In my experience nobody checks if you have. Nobody asks you to. There are simply signs on the tables.
The original point to all of this was that there’s no logical reason why you can sit 1.5m away from multiple households in an underground restaurant, like I was in central Newcastle a few days ago, but can’t sit 1.5m away from multiple people in my own home.
Hence why it is being ignored. And it is being ignored.
Even the “Boris has killed 60k people” frothers who I know, who work for the NHS, etc, do not care.
They may well be but they still have to comply with the rules, that means tables at least 1.5m apart and track and trace.
If they are not then they are not only increasing the risk of more cases spreading but they are also breaking the law and the police should get involved.
This comment isn't just delusional, its completely bonkers. "They still have to comply with the rules". No, they don't. Because who is going to come round and check? You?
Just because this week's version of the covid rules was issued by your party doesn't mean that everyone else is doffing their cap the way you do. Significant numbers enter the UK every day without completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks. Which means no way to ensure self-isolation compliance. Significant numbers are going into pubs and restaurants and not completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks.
Here is reality. Our "world beating" track and trace system barely exists on the ground. And the woman who presided over this fiasco has now been put in charge of public health. She's useless, people will die because of it, but she's the right kind of Tory so who cares?
Hmmm
The ONS infection survey says that the infection rate is stable as of the 25 August. 2000 cases per day.
If that is correct, the case numbers mean that since then, we have gone from detecting 40% of all cases to 60%.
Something is causing an increased detection rate.
More tests? It isn't Test and Trace. They can't Test and Trace people whose details haven't been collected.
O/T (but FPTs), it looks like John Boulton - who is not a friend of Trump by any stretch of the imagination - has denied the Atlantic story re Trump’s alleged remarks on veterans.
Quick question for PBers - if this story does turn out to be false, should it be condemned or does the end justify the means in trying to stop Trump being elected?
If the case is faulty it should be called out, but it probably doesn't matter anyway, as the die has been cast.
If it is ok for Trump to base political discourse on fiction and get away with it, it is difficult to argue the opposite point of view on those few occassions he might be the victim. Pots and kettles.
My wife has friends at the college she used to work at. They are still doing all of their teaching remotely but have suffered isolation as well. Their solution is innovative. 3 or 4 of them get together at each other's houses each work day taking it in turn to host so that they can have a shared work environment WFH.
This wouldn't work for a lot of people but it is certainly working for them.
They can only do that outside, technically only 2 separate households can meet still inside at each others homes
Nobody cares.
Well they should do if we are to keep new cases down
I don’t know a single person who is bothering with the “only 2 separate households can meet inside a home”. For one it doesn’t make any sense considering you can go to a pub with 50 households, or an office with even more.
Well I certainly am, as is my partner and our famililies.
You can only go to a pub with social distancing maintained and enforced with tables clearly divided and 2 metres away from each other and most pub dining and drinking is taking place outside with foods ordered on apps, not inside. All pub goers have to give their details for track and trace too.
Most office workers are still wfh or at least not going in 5 days a week and offices have to ensure social distancing measures are in place too
Fascinating. Doesn’t change anything.
Also a load of b*llocks. Most pub dining and drinking is certainly not taking place outside.
How many pubs have you been to?
There’s also zero enforcement of track and trace. In every shop, cafe, pub, and restaurant I’ve been to its been entirely optional. I’ve forgotten to do it on a number of occasions, and I’m sure many other people have.
Wrong, I have been to a pub six times since lockdown, twice in or near Oxford and once near Epping and twice in Dorset and once in Fareham.
In Oxford and Fareham everyone was drinking outside, barely anyone inside, in Epping and Dorset you were only allowed to eat outside, there were no tables set up inside.
In every pub there was track and trace details required too before you went to your table.
In shops it is not needed but you have to wear a mask.
Does not say much about your area of Newcastle if there is such blatant disregard for the rules and the police should take action on those establishments breaching them
Not everyone in the country lives in your lovely South Eastern climate.
How many restaurants in Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle etc do you think are seating punters outside?
Norwegians for example live in a much colder climate even than those in the North of England and are able to respect the rules.
Plus have pubs in Newcastle and Manchester not heard of outdoor heaters? Marquees and gazebos with open sides can protect against the rain
You’re talking about pubs. I’m talking about restaurants. How many restaurants do you know that have huge outdoor space available for gazebos, etc? Very few. Even in Norway.
Your middle-class leafy Epping perspective with your country pubs with huge car parks is clouding your ability to understand the rest of the country.
I’ve also discussed McDonalds. Not exactly a “dodgy operator”, who is not sitting punters outside, and not enforcing track and trace in my experience. It is optional, in the sense that you have to go out of your way to do it, rather than be refused entry if you do not.. Used by millions.
City Restaurants can still do takeaways even if they do not have much outdoor space but many restaurants do have tables outside.
McDonalds is mainly takeaway and indoor tables as with inner city restaurants should be socially distanced and at least 1.5 metres apart.
The police should take action if McDonalds are seating customers for eating and not pursuing track and trace
Sorry mate but you have no idea what you’re talking about.
City Restaurants are alive and kicking again - mainly eat in, not takeaways, and no outdoor seating.
McDonalds, Costa, and many other chains simply ask you to fill in your details. In my experience nobody checks if you have. Nobody asks you to. There are simply signs on the tables.
The original point to all of this was that there’s no logical reason why you can sit 1.5m away from multiple households in an underground restaurant, like I was in central Newcastle a few days ago, but can’t sit 1.5m away from multiple people in my own home.
Hence why it is being ignored. And it is being ignored.
Even the “Boris has killed 60k people” frothers who I know, who work for the NHS, etc, do not care.
They may well be but they still have to comply with the rules, that means tables at least 1.5m apart and track and trace.
If they are not then they are not only increasing the risk of more cases spreading but they are also breaking the law and the police should get involved.
This comment isn't just delusional, its completely bonkers. "They still have to comply with the rules". No, they don't. Because who is going to come round and check? You?
Just because this week's version of the covid rules was issued by your party doesn't mean that everyone else is doffing their cap the way you do. Significant numbers enter the UK every day without completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks. Which means no way to ensure self-isolation compliance. Significant numbers are going into pubs and restaurants and not completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks.
Here is reality. Our "world beating" track and trace system barely exists on the ground. And the woman who presided over this fiasco has now been put in charge of public health. She's useless, people will die because of it, but she's the right kind of Tory so who cares?
Hmmm
The ONS infection survey says that the infection rate is stable as of the 25 August. 2000 cases per day.
If that is correct, the case numbers mean that since then, we have gone from detecting 40% of all cases to 60%.
Something is causing an increased detection rate.
More tests? It isn't Test and Trace. They can't Test and Trace people whose details haven't been collected.
It is Test and Trace.
They're not collecting 100% of details, but it was never intended to be able to collect 100% of details, they are collecting over 60% of details though.
Plus its possible via Test and Trace to get in touch with people whose details were originally missing. Lets say you, me and Bob go out and I then get tested positive. I tell the tracers I was out with you and Bob, I don't have your details but do have Bob's and give it to them. Bob gets tested and says he was out with you, he has your details and gives it to them. Their records presumably show that they weren't able to trace you from me, incomplete details, but they've still managed to trace you from Bob instead.
O/T (but FPTs), it looks like John Boulton - who is not a friend of Trump by any stretch of the imagination - has denied the Atlantic story re Trump’s alleged remarks on veterans.
Quick question for PBers - if this story does turn out to be false, should it be condemned or does the end justify the means in trying to stop Trump being elected?
If the case is faulty it should be called out, but it probably doesn't matter anyway, as the die has been cast.
If it is ok for Trump to base political discourse on fiction and get away with it, it is difficult to argue the opposite point of view on those few occassions he might be the victim. Pots and kettles.
Yup. Bit like Sammy Gravano being not guilty of *one* murder. The other 20.....
O/T (but FPTs), it looks like John Boulton - who is not a friend of Trump by any stretch of the imagination - has denied the Atlantic story re Trump’s alleged remarks on veterans.
Quick question for PBers - if this story does turn out to be false, should it be condemned or does the end justify the means in trying to stop Trump being elected?
It's John Bolton (not Boulton) and he said he 'didn't hear' Trump's reported comments disparaging troops but says they're not out of character. Other people did hear the remarks. Trump is also on video disparaging war hero John McCain a fellow Republican who spent time in North Korea as a prisoner of war. You'd have to be a Trump fan to think the story is false.
Why are Tories suddenly so interested in State Aid? Seems mighty suspicious to me. The party hasn't given a f about it since Heseltine was active.
Because "state aid" is a misnomer.
Under the EU's proposal actions we took to make ourselves more competitive, including changes of law and tax cuts, could be counted as "state aid". They're not actually arguing about state aid as it normally is considered to mean - the UK has already offered rules against that which are standard in normal FTAs eg CETA, but the EU is wanting to go miles above and beyond that.
It’s as much of a misnomer as “Level Playing Field”, which is EU-speak for future dynamic alignment - which definitely won’t be written to disadvantage the U.K., not at all.
Labour put the IRA into the Northern Ireland government.
Given that we're all supposed to be friends and forgiveness decades later I'm not sure that many people are going to be overly bothered about some person they've never heard of being in the HoL.
Doesn't detract from the fact that almost anybody else would have been a better choice for the HoL.
O/T (but FPTs), it looks like John Boulton - who is not a friend of Trump by any stretch of the imagination - has denied the Atlantic story re Trump’s alleged remarks on veterans.
Quick question for PBers - if this story does turn out to be false, should it be condemned or does the end justify the means in trying to stop Trump being elected?
Problem is, several other people admittedly unnamed have confirmed Trump did make those remarks. Bolton partially confirmed the Atlantic's story, said Trump didn't make those remarks in his hearing but may have done so later and in case it's the sort of thing he thinks Trump would say.
Not exactly an unsmoking gun. I don't expect the story to be found to be false. At most it will be a he said/he didn't say squabble.
However if it is found to be false, it should be called out. Just because Trump is the enemy of the truth there is no reason for the rest of us to descend to his level.
Why are Tories suddenly so interested in State Aid? Seems mighty suspicious to me. The party hasn't given a f about it since Heseltine was active.
Because "state aid" is a misnomer.
Under the EU's proposal actions we took to make ourselves more competitive, including changes of law and tax cuts, could be counted as "state aid". They're not actually arguing about state aid as it normally is considered to mean - the UK has already offered rules against that which are standard in normal FTAs eg CETA, but the EU is wanting to go miles above and beyond that.
It’s as much of a misnomer as “Level Playing Field”, which is EU-speak for future dynamic alignment - which definitely won’t be written to disadvantage the U.K., not at all.
And they want to unilaterally write the rules, be judge, jury and executioner over them too. Because that won't cause any problems now would it?
We have already seen the EU try to abuse its position to force Ireland to increase its tax rates calling their tax rates "state aid". Once we're outside the EU acting as judge, jury and executioner will have little reason to treat us in good faith.
Do I want us to be in a position where the EU might rule a Tory Tax Cut to be illegal State Aid? No, absolutely not.
This is absolutely a die in the ditch deal breaker for me. No deal is better than agreeing this.
O/T (but FPTs), it looks like John Boulton - who is not a friend of Trump by any stretch of the imagination - has denied the Atlantic story re Trump’s alleged remarks on veterans.
Quick question for PBers - if this story does turn out to be false, should it be condemned or does the end justify the means in trying to stop Trump being elected?
It's John Bolton (not Boulton) and he said he 'didn't hear' Trump's reported comments disparaging troops but says they're not out of character. Other people did hear the remarks. Trump is also on video disparaging war hero John McCain a fellow Republican who spent time in North Korea as a prisoner of war. You'd have to be a Trump fan to think the story is false.
Labour put the IRA into the Northern Ireland government.
Given that we're all supposed to be friends and forgiveness decades later I'm not sure that many people are going to be overly bothered about some person they've never heard of being in the HoL.
Doesn't detract from the fact that almost anybody else would have been a better choice for the HoL.
Because what the HoL is yet another establishment person.
O/T (but FPTs), it looks like John Boulton - who is not a friend of Trump by any stretch of the imagination - has denied the Atlantic story re Trump’s alleged remarks on veterans.
Quick question for PBers - if this story does turn out to be false, should it be condemned or does the end justify the means in trying to stop Trump being elected?
It was pretty obvious that it was made up bollocks from the start and I'm amazed anyone is still falling for this stuff.
"Mr Trump said the late Senator McCain was “not a war hero” and that he likes “people who weren’t captured” during his 2015 campaign
'The Atlantic' claims Mr Trump told senior staff: “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral.”
Reportedly three sources for The Atlantic said upon seeing flags lowered to half-staff, Mr Trump added: “What the f*k are we doing that for? Guy was a f***g loser.”
Mr McCain, who was one of the few major Republican figures who refused to back Mr Trump when he was elected, was captured by opposition forces in the Vietnam War. Mr Trump received five deferments from a military draft during the Vietnam War. Four of these deferments were due to academic reasons and one was for bone spurs which is a calcium build-up in the heels.
Comments
Talk to some of them - it will be an education.
"The beatings will continue until moral improves" - seems to be a managerial motto in some outfits...
And before various people pile in - it works by abusing the immigrants themselves. They are treated as rapidly expiring (couple of years) components - to be used and discarded.
My remedy starts with enforcing minimum wage and working conditions. With a very, very heavy hand.
Suggestions - something to watch for is the type of visa that effectively ties the worker to single company. That has been used, in a number of countries to absue workers.
Those Indians who are any good are not in India - they’re in the US, UK, Middle East and Australia.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/28/18200330/why-apple-cant-made-in-america
Hence the investment and trials of this - https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/salford-residents-selected-weekly-20-18869935
It you can test in 20 minutes, with much less lab kit, technicians etc....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-35
The presumably unwoke Dan Hodges doesn't go into his own coffee and sandwich buying patterns. But that's an irrelevant nitpick. Whether real staff at real businesses lose their jobs is unimportant. What matters is having the right ideological outlook.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1302514905334063110
One problem in the sector is that WeWork damaged the cost expectations - they tried an Uber style lose-money-until-we-get-big-or-the-underpants-plan-works plan.
Which has forced a lot of people into a super low cost, super low quality model....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeWork
Lovely, new clean quiet hospital, mind.
Context : The people behind the Raspberry PI wanted to make it in the UK. There was a differential tariff on components vs finished products. So buying in the resistors etc was more expensive than getting the finished Raspberry PIs.
They were told that changing it was impossible, since the Chinese government would throw toys out of the pram if it was changed...
https://twitter.com/LouHaigh/status/1302517694806347776
Toby is banging the free speech drum this morning:
https://lockdownsceptics.org/
In case he hasnt noticed the liberal left dont run the country, nor are they in charge of the decisions of individual businesses and employees as to where they work or who gets made redundant.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-smearing-of-tony-abbott
That is utter paranoid bollocks.
No solution offered either.
Other than get back to work as before yesterday.
Oh. And the socio economic changes wrought by Covid are the Guardian's fault.
He seems to also think people haven't noticed the economy is in trouble.
I could go on.
*She had a box belonging to a high end fibre provider ISP literally outside the shop.
It is possible they do, to be fair
No matter how much the people at the Mail want to visit their foreign villas.
I get that. When I worked at one Investment Bank nearly 20 years ago, they tried outsourcing their Equity Research side to India for junior tasks. It didn't work with the models coming back with all sorts of problems (mainly related to not being able to grasp the idea of adjusted numbers).
However, there are a lot of other countries that are not India and have cheaper labour costs. Associates I know rave about how good their IT staff based in the Baltics or the Balkans are. I am sure a lot of the work for sectors such as accountancy and advertising can be outsourced to cheaper countries.
Your point re commuting distance is a valid one but for many professional jobs, there won't be a need to drive to the factory, the calls can take place over Zoom and so can the discussions re how to fix things.
But I would say that a lot of people are ignoring *who* will be hit by a big drop in city centre offices.
In the past, I've caused a bit of moment, by pointing out to people patting themselves on the back about diversity, by pointing out the difference between the people who work in the offices, and those who clean, maintain etc
There's too much anecdata on service issues - you get competent and less competent people in all establishments. What I'm sure is true is that if there's a systemic support problem in one centre, it's hard to spot and resolve from a distance.
Given that we're all supposed to be friends and forgiveness decades later I'm not sure that many people are going to be overly bothered about some person they've never heard of being in the HoL.
A 20 minute test - particularly one, that by using an easier sampling method cuts down on the false negatives - would make airport testing effective. Hell, they want everyone sitting by the gate 30 minutes before boarding, anyway.
- London and Eastern Europe were tied for first place
- India was last. By a long way.
Superb response.
In Bulgaria, at one point, a middle level dev was making more than a high end medical consultant.
They would leave a job, if the company didn't give them a double digit pay rise, each year. And get another one the same day, at the rate they wanted.
London is quietly being shafted by Covid.
Just because this week's version of the covid rules was issued by your party doesn't mean that everyone else is doffing their cap the way you do. Significant numbers enter the UK every day without completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks. Which means no way to ensure self-isolation compliance. Significant numbers are going into pubs and restaurants and not completing track and trace forms. Nobody asks, nobody checks.
Here is reality. Our "world beating" track and trace system barely exists on the ground. And the woman who presided over this fiasco has now been put in charge of public health. She's useless, people will die because of it, but she's the right kind of Tory so who cares?
- Lower wage country makes sufficient reforms to health, infrastructure, rule-of-law to create a productivity gap. Workers are cheap
- Everyone piles in
- Wages rise. Productivity gap closes.
When I was young, Japan was supposed to in charge of the world by 2000....
No matter what we think of the media, not much in many cases, that doesn’t mean that they should be stopped from publishing. A free press is a cornerstone of democracy.
Talk about tension in the stand up....
Yes, you train these people, wage inflation skyrockets, they leave and so on.
Regardless, it still is much cheaper than to hire someone in the UK.
To be honest though, automation is the real job killer, at least in the short to medium term. If many professional jobs can be automated, they will.
The ONS infection survey says that the infection rate is stable as of the 25 August. 2000 cases per day.
If that is correct, the case numbers mean that since then, we have gone from detecting 40% of all cases to 60%.
Something is causing an increased detection rate.
Quick question for PBers - if this story does turn out to be false, should it be condemned or does the end justify the means in trying to stop Trump being elected?
The next generation version of that presents the system to you, the subscriber, over the internet. You only get to call in, if your computer is dead.....
I think there is an important difference between being sympathetic to workers losing their jobs due to reasons outside anyone's control (Costa, Pret) and government ideology that Dan Hodges supports directly leading to people losing their jobs.
It took the banks a little while to figure out the following cycle
- Outsource everything to save money
- Problems mount, productivity sucks.
- New guy comes in - brings it all onshore. Fixes the situation.
- New guy gets promotion
- Newer guy screams "why are we doing all the dev in a high cost location?"
- Outsource everything to save money
- Newer guy outsources, promises cost cuts.
- Newer guy gets promotion.
- Problems mount, productivity sucks.
- guess what?
Under the EU's proposal actions we took to make ourselves more competitive, including changes of law and tax cuts, could be counted as "state aid". They're not actually arguing about state aid as it normally is considered to mean - the UK has already offered rules against that which are standard in normal FTAs eg CETA, but the EU is wanting to go miles above and beyond that.
80% are being reached, over 90% of those within 48 hours.
If it is ok for Trump to base political discourse on fiction and get away with it, it is difficult to argue the opposite point of view on those few occassions he might be the victim. Pots and kettles.
They're not collecting 100% of details, but it was never intended to be able to collect 100% of details, they are collecting over 60% of details though.
Plus its possible via Test and Trace to get in touch with people whose details were originally missing. Lets say you, me and Bob go out and I then get tested positive. I tell the tracers I was out with you and Bob, I don't have your details but do have Bob's and give it to them. Bob gets tested and says he was out with you, he has your details and gives it to them. Their records presumably show that they weren't able to trace you from me, incomplete details, but they've still managed to trace you from Bob instead.
Trump is also on video disparaging war hero John McCain a fellow Republican who spent time in North Korea as a prisoner of war.
You'd have to be a Trump fan to think the story is false.
Not exactly an unsmoking gun. I don't expect the story to be found to be false. At most it will be a he said/he didn't say squabble.
However if it is found to be false, it should be called out. Just because Trump is the enemy of the truth there is no reason for the rest of us to descend to his level.
BTW, the Polish name is spelt Lwów.
We have already seen the EU try to abuse its position to force Ireland to increase its tax rates calling their tax rates "state aid". Once we're outside the EU acting as judge, jury and executioner will have little reason to treat us in good faith.
Do I want us to be in a position where the EU might rule a Tory Tax Cut to be illegal State Aid? No, absolutely not.
This is absolutely a die in the ditch deal breaker for me. No deal is better than agreeing this.
'The Atlantic' claims Mr Trump told senior staff: “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral.”
Reportedly three sources for The Atlantic said upon seeing flags lowered to half-staff, Mr Trump added: “What the f*k are we doing that for? Guy was a f***g loser.”
Mr McCain, who was one of the few major Republican figures who refused to back Mr Trump when he was elected, was captured by opposition forces in the Vietnam War. Mr Trump received five deferments from a military draft during the Vietnam War.
Four of these deferments were due to academic reasons and one was for bone spurs which is a calcium build-up in the heels.