politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Ministers are only just waking up to the Covid hangover

Fishing said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Nonsense. If there really is a WFH revolution, cities and towns won't be competing on proximity to London anymore, it will be on crime, livability, beauty, amenities, surrounding countryside, airports, and price. That will level up the North.

I agree, though people might also start thinking about the weather as well, in which case Scotland and the north are screwed.

HYUFD said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Black_Rook said:

tlg86 said:

Black_Rook said:

algarkirk said:

another_richard said:

Black_Rook said:

another_richard said:

IanB2 said:

another_richard said:

alex_ said:

WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.

My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.

Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.

Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.

But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.

True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.

Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.

But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.

Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.

Certainly.

But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?

These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.

In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.

I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-96468812.html

The long-term consequences of WFH should be to distribute wealth and opportunity more evenly throughout the country. However, in the short term the main beneficiaries will be relatively well to do towns in existing big city commuter belts - largely the Home Counties, but also in parts of Cheshire, N Yorks and so on. Retford ain't going to become part of the land of milk and honey next week.

Up to a point, Lord Copper. Paying London salaries to people WFH in Dunny-on-the-Wold might spread wealth around but when those people resign, they will be replaced by locals on local salaries so the squillionaire business owner can move higher up the Forbes rankings. (Arguably DotW is still a bit better off than it would have been otherwise.)

And not just this country. If your job can be done remotely from your home in Yarmouth or Accrington then it can be done remotely from someone else's home in Sfântu Gheorghe and more cheaply too.

Most people WFH tend to be middle class ie lawyers, business executives, accountants, those working in finance etc who do work that can be done online not on site.

Most of those workers also have degrees and professional qualifications, you cannot outsource those unless to workers similarly qualified

DecrepiterJohnL said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

OldKingCole said:

Mexicanpete said:

FF43 said:

Governments have done no planning that they have shared with the public for how to live with the virus in the medium term. They did a belated lockdown and then unlockdown. The last significant review was in May, I think.

By living with the virus, I mean how to go about something approaching normal life while keeping the epidemic in check.

The only planned control appears to be a vaccine that may prove effective some time next year. There is at least one winter to get through first and it will be grim.

I can understand the purpose of demanding people go back to work in offices to save ancillary services. But by putting people on buses, trains and inside mechanically ventilated offices we could be accelerating our way to a second wave, which would be even more catastrophic.

Johnson is a lucky politician. Maybe he is confident that a second wave can't happen on his watch.

Luck has a tendency to run out. Sometimes a 'lucky run' can be quite long, but then fall at the end tends to be more spectacular. And/or unexpected.

A question which has just occurred to me; did Johnson know when he first started campaigning to be Mayor of London, that the Olympics were definitely coming?

London was awarded the Olympics in 2005:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jul/06/olympics2012.olympicgames1

Boris became Conservative choice for Mayor in 2007, sfaict from skimming biographies of Boris and David Cameron.

It seems one of the first to suggest Boris should run for Mayor was his Spectator colleague Mary Wakefield, who several years later would marry Dominic Cummings.

HYUFD said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Black_Rook said:

tlg86 said:

Black_Rook said:

algarkirk said:

another_richard said:

Black_Rook said:

another_richard said:

IanB2 said:

another_richard said:

alex_ said:

WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.

My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.

Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.

Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.

But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.

True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.

Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.

But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.

Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.

Certainly.

But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?

These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.

In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.

I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-96468812.html

The long-term consequences of WFH should be to distribute wealth and opportunity more evenly throughout the country. However, in the short term the main beneficiaries will be relatively well to do towns in existing big city commuter belts - largely the Home Counties, but also in parts of Cheshire, N Yorks and so on. Retford ain't going to become part of the land of milk and honey next week.

Up to a point, Lord Copper. Paying London salaries to people WFH in Dunny-on-the-Wold might spread wealth around but when those people resign, they will be replaced by locals on local salaries so the squillionaire business owner can move higher up the Forbes rankings. (Arguably DotW is still a bit better off than it would have been otherwise.)

And not just this country. If your job can be done remotely from your home in Yarmouth or Accrington then it can be done remotely from someone else's home in Sfântu Gheorghe and more cheaply too.

Most people WFH tend to be middle class ie lawyers, business executives, accountants, those working in finance etc who do work that can be done online not on site.

Most of those workers also have degrees and professional qualifications, you cannot outsource those unless to workers similarly qualified

edmundintokyo said:

OnboardG1 said:

Morning all,

I had an interesting email the other day from a large defence contractor trying to headhunt me. I’m in a shortage area of engineering so I get these from time to time. However, what’s interesting is that the recruiter explicitly played up the WFH aspect. Last time I worked in defence trying to WFH was a nearly implausible nightmare. I think if major security restricted firms are now openly advertising roles as WFH friendly this might be here to stay. I’ve actually been surprised how much engineering I was able to do from home (although my role is fieldwork heavy so it’s not been perfect).

So this is the other angle: The people who used to work from the office might be expected to go back, but people who are getting hired now are getting hired at least on the basis of WFH for now, and potentially on the basis of WFH forever. Even in the "WFH for now" case this is going to be quite hard to reverse unless the employee is enthusiastic about it, and the path of least resistance will be to carry on the same.

noneoftheabove said:

IanB2 said:

These Google-derived mobility statistics are always interesting to see how behaviour is changing.

https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/

The latest data for the UK is that travel for retail and recreation is down 11% from the baseline, compared to a 40% decline back in July. Supermarket and pharmacy has been pretty consistent (over July/Aug) at 14% down, public transport consistent 44% down, workplaces 48% down. The published data has tons of local breakdowns.

Comparing for example Germany, retail categories pretty much back to normal, public transport -18%, workplaces -27%.

Or Italy, again retail normal, transport -27%, workplaces -37%.

Or the US, retail down 13%, public transport (probably not a very useful indicator in an American context) -32%, workplaces -37%.

I clicked on a few others but couldn't find any that had a decline in workplace mobility as large as the UK.

Interesting but isnt that just a natural reflection of our service based economy?

Andy_JS said:

edmundintokyo said:

OnboardG1 said:

Morning all,

I had an interesting email the other day from a large defence contractor trying to headhunt me. I’m in a shortage area of engineering so I get these from time to time. However, what’s interesting is that the recruiter explicitly played up the WFH aspect. Last time I worked in defence trying to WFH was a nearly implausible nightmare. I think if major security restricted firms are now openly advertising roles as WFH friendly this might be here to stay. I’ve actually been surprised how much engineering I was able to do from home (although my role is fieldwork heavy so it’s not been perfect).

So this is the other angle: The people who used to work from the office might be expected to go back, but people who are getting hired now are getting hired at least on the basis of WFH for now, and potentially on the basis of WFH forever. Even in the "WFH for now" case this is going to be quite hard to reverse unless the employee is enthusiastic about it, and the path of least resistance will be to carry on the same.

People will get fed up with WFH eventually.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

HYUFD said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

HYUFD said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Black_Rook said:

tlg86 said:

Black_Rook said:

algarkirk said:

another_richard said:

Black_Rook said:

another_richard said:

IanB2 said:

another_richard said:

alex_ said:

WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.

My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.

Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.

Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.

But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.

True, but there also big potential savings in office costs and the ancillaries (in house catering, security, office services etc) and also in travel expenses if people aren't travelling around the country/world so much.

Certainly, its a trade off and each employer and each employee will have their own calculations to make.

But that's a lot of jobs in service sector support industries you're killing off.

Home workers aren't to be held to blame for killing Pret a Manger any more than early motorists were to be held to blame for bankrupting the makers of horse-drawn wagons. Progress continues its relentless and unfeeling march onwards.

Certainly.

But what do all the people employed in coffee bars, sandwich shops, security, office cleaning and anything else dependent upon an urban office workforce do in future ?

These people will tend to be low skilled and located in the wrong places for an economic shift to commuter towns and rural areas.

In 1991 the population of London was 6,887,000. In 2019 it was 8,962,000. If it can gain 2 million it can lose 2 million.

I think the point is that there's nowhere out in the places where the new jobs might be located for less well-off Londoners to move to.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-96468812.html

The long-term consequences of WFH should be to distribute wealth and opportunity more evenly throughout the country. However, in the short term the main beneficiaries will be relatively well to do towns in existing big city commuter belts - largely the Home Counties, but also in parts of Cheshire, N Yorks and so on. Retford ain't going to become part of the land of milk and honey next week.

Up to a point, Lord Copper. Paying London salaries to people WFH in Dunny-on-the-Wold might spread wealth around but when those people resign, they will be replaced by locals on local salaries so the squillionaire business owner can move higher up the Forbes rankings. (Arguably DotW is still a bit better off than it would have been otherwise.)

And not just this country. If your job can be done remotely from your home in Yarmouth or Accrington then it can be done remotely from someone else's home in Sfântu Gheorghe and more cheaply too.

Most people WFH tend to be middle class ie lawyers, business executives, accountants, those working in finance etc who do work that can be done online not on site.

Most of those workers also have degrees and professional qualifications, you cannot outsource those unless to workers similarly qualified

Ah but they do have accountants overseas, and bookkeepers even more, and project managers and so on. It is ironic that Britain leads in service industries, and exports services from London. That might easily unravel.

There might be competition from elsewhere in the West for London professional services jobs but those are not going to be exported to the Third World that is clear or to areas of the UK with few graduates and low average income

Speaking as someone currently being made redundant along with tens of thousands of others whose educated middle class job roles were moved first to India and then to Eastern Europe, allow me to point to investment banks who were already moving their back offices out of the City and Canary Wharf to the seaside where office costs and salaries are lower.

GarethoftheVale2 said:

I'm getting quite miffed with all the articles in the Mail and the Telegraph blaming the lazy workers for not going back. It is partly up to employers as well. Most companies will already have budgeted for the cost of the office but if workers go back they will need to budget for daily deep cleaning, buying partitions etc etc.
Most modern offices are open plan and badly set up for social distancing.

Even when COVID is over (assuming we get a vaccine), I think most companies will move to a model of 2-3 days in the office and 2-3 at home, with smaller offices and hot desking.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is how completely screwed the RMT is. Their strike power which led to them getting 60+k a year has completely evaporated. If the authorities have any sense, it is time to start looking at driverless tubes.

NerysHughes said:

I see Rotterdam and Amsterdam are stopping the requirement for mask wearing after only a few weeks. Odd as apparently they work so well as demonstrated by the two countries where mask wearing is most prevalent in Europe France and Spain. It’s not like they have by far the highest number of new infections.

kle4 said:

To be totally fair another reason I dislike WFH is I only live 5 minutes from my office anyway, so I gain nothing from homeworking (and in fact lose plenty, as well as not having a proper set up), which obviously is not the case for people with long commutes.

HYUFD said:

NerysHughes said:

I see Rotterdam and Amsterdam are stopping the requirement for mask wearing after only a few weeks. Odd as apparently they work so well as demonstrated by the two countries where mask wearing is most prevalent in Europe France and Spain. It’s not like they have by far the highest number of new infections.

Italy had the most mask wearing now in Europe and fewer new cases than Spain, France or us now

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1252264351723110400?s=19

alex_ said:

kle4 said:

To be totally fair another reason I dislike WFH is I only live 5 minutes from my office anyway, so I gain nothing from homeworking (and in fact lose plenty, as well as not having a proper set up), which obviously is not the case for people with long commutes.

Yes, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens come winter and the demands for employers to start paying energy bills start coming in. Previously my employer had been operating limited WFH, but it was very much presented as “worker choice” (even though office configuration, desk ratios etc had been altered to rely on it to some extent). But the moment people are actually required to work from home this changes.

Andy_JS said:

HYUFD said:

NerysHughes said:

I see Rotterdam and Amsterdam are stopping the requirement for mask wearing after only a few weeks. Odd as apparently they work so well as demonstrated by the two countries where mask wearing is most prevalent in Europe France and Spain. It’s not like they have by far the highest number of new infections.

Italy had the most mask wearing now in Europe and fewer new cases than Spain, France or us now

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1252264351723110400?s=19

The UK has had fewer cases than most of those countries on many days recently.

rottenborough said:

alex_ said:

kle4 said:

To be totally fair another reason I dislike WFH is I only live 5 minutes from my office anyway, so I gain nothing from homeworking (and in fact lose plenty, as well as not having a proper set up), which obviously is not the case for people with long commutes.

Yes, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens come winter and the demands for employers to start paying energy bills start coming in. Previously my employer had been operating limited WFH, but it was very much presented as “worker choice” (even though office configuration, desk ratios etc had been altered to rely on it to some extent). But the moment people are actually required to work from home this changes.

HMRC are going to be very interested in all this, if it continues beyond a few months.

WFH peeps should be beware. iirc if a portion of your home is used for business purposes then you could be hit with a CGT bill for that part when you sell it.

rottenborough said:

alex_ said:

kle4 said:

To be totally fair another reason I dislike WFH is I only live 5 minutes from my office anyway, so I gain nothing from homeworking (and in fact lose plenty, as well as not having a proper set up), which obviously is not the case for people with long commutes.

Yes, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens come winter and the demands for employers to start paying energy bills start coming in. Previously my employer had been operating limited WFH, but it was very much presented as “worker choice” (even though office configuration, desk ratios etc had been altered to rely on it to some extent). But the moment people are actually required to work from home this changes.

HMRC are going to be very interested in all this, if it continues beyond a few months.

WFH peeps should be beware. iirc if a portion of your home is used for business purposes then you could be hit with a CGT bill for that part when you sell it.

alex_ said:

rottenborough said:

alex_ said:

kle4 said:

To be totally fair another reason I dislike WFH is I only live 5 minutes from my office anyway, so I gain nothing from homeworking (and in fact lose plenty, as well as not having a proper set up), which obviously is not the case for people with long commutes.

Yes, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens come winter and the demands for employers to start paying energy bills start coming in. Previously my employer had been operating limited WFH, but it was very much presented as “worker choice” (even though office configuration, desk ratios etc had been altered to rely on it to some extent). But the moment people are actually required to work from home this changes.

HMRC are going to be very interested in all this, if it continues beyond a few months.

WFH peeps should be beware. iirc if a portion of your home is used for business purposes then you could be hit with a CGT bill for that part when you sell it.

And that’s before you get onto the people who think they can work pretty much permanently from abroad without realising the tax consequences...

kinabalu said:

A great piece on the economic impacts of this revolution in working practices if it happens. My view is it will be a good thing long term but there will be pain for many on the road there and it’s the government’s duty to ensure that the costs – of the restructuring and the deficit reduction – are borne exclusively by those who can afford it and in proportion to how much they can afford it. If the government fails to do this I fail to see the point of the government.

And there’s another aspect which I sense is under appreciated. Forget the economy and the public finances for a minute and think about what the end of The Commute will do to the look & feel of life and relationships. In my opinion it will change things enormously and these changes will be as important as those flagged in the header.

One example from many that spring to mind. A different group of people will excel (struggle) at work. WFH is nothing like the office. Physical presence, charisma, assertiveness, are less important. Others things - concise precision in communication, quality of home environment, diligence and discipline - become more important. Some people are more effective digitally and on the phone than they are flesh & blood in a room. For others it is the opposite. Men and women will be affected differently. So will younger people as compared to older colleagues. Attached vs single. Family or not. Etc.

The office is a place where power is wielded and relationships are formed in a particular way based on particular characteristics. It is also a place which encourages the compartmentalization of “work” from “life”. Two separate and distinct worlds with the commute transporting a person from one to the other and back again. Eliminate this and you change the very fabric of life.

edmundintokyo said:

alex_ said:

rottenborough said:

alex_ said:

kle4 said:

To be totally fair another reason I dislike WFH is I only live 5 minutes from my office anyway, so I gain nothing from homeworking (and in fact lose plenty, as well as not having a proper set up), which obviously is not the case for people with long commutes.

Yes, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens come winter and the demands for employers to start paying energy bills start coming in. Previously my employer had been operating limited WFH, but it was very much presented as “worker choice” (even though office configuration, desk ratios etc had been altered to rely on it to some extent). But the moment people are actually required to work from home this changes.

HMRC are going to be very interested in all this, if it continues beyond a few months.

WFH peeps should be beware. iirc if a portion of your home is used for business purposes then you could be hit with a CGT bill for that part when you sell it.

And that’s before you get onto the people who think they can work pretty much permanently from abroad without realising the tax consequences...

I'm not sure how it works in the UK but the UK government has tended to make corporate tax rates low in the hope of attracting businesses, even under Gordon Brown, who really liked taxes; If the employees are located everywhere, and the businesses can locate themselves anywhere, won't the British government fix that aspect of the tax regime to prevent all the businesses sodding off to a less unfriendly jurisdiction? Or are they really, really committed to their domestic Pret a Manger industry?

another_richard said:

alex_ said:

WFH - my view is that in the long run I will be much less effective to my employer as a permanent home worker. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to regularly go to the office unless compelled to do so. Out of laziness if nothing else.

My experience is that the people I deal with who are WFH are operating less effectively than they were previously.

Now perhaps their effectiveness will increase as they discover an optimum work method.

Or perhaps a less effective workforce might be worth the reduced office, and possibly pay, costs to their employer.

But, I fear, many people are being complacent about the negative effects of WFH.

CorrectHorseBattery said:

A Lib Dem resurgence in the South East seems more likely in the short term, seats like Guilford and Winchester have probably gone Lib Dem already.

The Tories will continue to be pushed out of London

IanB2 said:

kle4 said:

Jonathan said:

WFH sucks, it just sucks less and in different ways to commuting and all the corporate bullshit you get with office life.

Perhaps, and on balance I can see that being the case for more than it is not the case for. But is it necessary for us to go around quite so confidently that society is changed forever quite so quickly?

The normal cycle is:

- During the crisis = "the world will never be the same again"
- After the crisis = "everything seems to have gone back the way it was before"
- A decade or so after = "actually a lot of things started to change back there"

HYUFD said:

City centre cafes and restaurants and stores have clearly been hit hard by the lockdown, home working and online competition. Even if workers do return to office working next year it is unlikely to be full time with part time WFH the norm.

However cafes and small shops in market towns and villages and suburbs where the Tory vote is concentrated have ironically been boosted as more workers working from home have been around at lunchtime or the early evening to shop there in the week

Gallowgate said:

Posting from the Metrocentre. Place is rammed.

rottenborough said:

alex_ said:

kle4 said:

To be totally fair another reason I dislike WFH is I only live 5 minutes from my office anyway, so I gain nothing from homeworking (and in fact lose plenty, as well as not having a proper set up), which obviously is not the case for people with long commutes.

Yes, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens come winter and the demands for employers to start paying energy bills start coming in. Previously my employer had been operating limited WFH, but it was very much presented as “worker choice” (even though office configuration, desk ratios etc had been altered to rely on it to some extent). But the moment people are actually required to work from home this changes.

HMRC are going to be very interested in all this, if it continues beyond a few months.

WFH peeps should be beware. iirc if a portion of your home is used for business purposes then you could be hit with a CGT bill for that part when you sell it.

Fishing said:

noneoftheabove said:

Tres said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

I'm getting quite miffed with all the articles in the Mail and the Telegraph blaming the lazy workers for not going back. It is partly up to employers as well. Most companies will already have budgeted for the cost of the office but if workers go back they will need to budget for daily deep cleaning, buying partitions etc etc.
Most modern offices are open plan and badly set up for social distancing.

Even when COVID is over (assuming we get a vaccine), I think most companies will move to a model of 2-3 days in the office and 2-3 at home, with smaller offices and hot desking.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is how completely screwed the RMT is. Their strike power which led to them getting 60+k a year has completely evaporated. If the authorities have any sense, it is time to start looking at driverless tubes.

Driverless tubes are like driverless cars, all marketing hype from those without a clue.

DLR says hello.

So does Singapore and various airport terminal trains.

CarlottaVance said:

Gallowgate said:

Posting from the Metrocentre. Place is rammed.

Is that busier than it had been? I'd read they'd lost a couple of anchor tenants and footfall was down.

HYUFD said:

City centre cafes and restaurants and stores have clearly been hit hard by the lockdown, home working and online competition. Even if workers do return to office working next year it is unlikely to be full time with part time WFH the norm.

However cafes and small shops in market towns and villages and suburbs where the Tory vote is concentrated have ironically been boosted as more workers working from home have been around at lunchtime or the early evening to shop there in the week

Casino_Royale said:

Black_Rook said:

SouthamObserver said:

Black_Rook said:

Foxy said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rottenborough said:

Black_Rook said:

tlg86 said:

Without commuters paying peak fares – particularly into London – then it’s hard to see how the sector could survive without serious cuts, given that significantly increased subsidies are likely to be off the table for a government that will need to rein in its budget deficit.

The government has something of a problem. Usage of National Rail is about a 1/3 of what it normally is:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-use-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic

Passengers pay c.£10 billion a year. Let's assume that those travelling at the moment are paying quite a lot less than the normal average (i.e. no one will buy a first class ticket, those travelling are probably more local, fewer tickets purchased for business use). Let's say that the government is getting around £2 billion a year (and we're assuming that August usage is maintained - it might be propped up by a higher share of leisure travel).

So as David says, the subsidy goes from £4.5 billion a year to £12.5 billion a year. But what can the government do other than pay it? The people using the trains are people who have to go to work. They are key workers. There would be a huge backlash if the government starts cutting services.

Oh, and one other thing. HS2. How can the government justify ploughing on with that whilst closing existing railways? They can't.

The Government can save some money by reducing the frequency of services, particularly at peak times - indeed, if we arrive in a situation where flexible working means that the remaining passenger journeys are much more spread out during the day, then I can see the entire peak/off-peak divide being tossed in the dustbin.

Certainly it's going to take a couple of years for such changes to come into effect: all those who had to endure the great TSGN timetabling disaster of 2018 will be all too acutely aware of the need to manage these things properly. But it must surely happen?

As for HS2, I think the London to Birmingham section will end up being built in full, for several reasons. Firstly, it's already underway so this Government has to deal with it (whereas the branches to the North can be placed under review and booted into the long grass for the next Prime Minister to worry about.) Secondly, it's being used as much as a means to dole out contracts to the construction industry and maintain and develop skills as it is to build infrastructure, and this arguably becomes a greater priority for Government during a recession. Thirdly, there will be the usual concerns about sunk costs involved in abandoning any partially completed project. Finally, the Tory West Midlands metro-mayor is an enthusiast for the scheme and is up for re-election next May.

However, I seriously doubt if the remainder of HS2 will ever get built.

And that leaves Johnson's levelling up with the North in tatters.

Nonsense. If there really is a WFH revolution, cities and towns won't be competing on proximity to London anymore, it will be on crime, livability, beauty, amenities, surrounding countryside, airports, and price. That will level up the North.

As a Northerner by birth, and Midlander by choice, I don't think many Northern and Midland towns would score very highly on those criteria. I like Leicester, and am not planning to move away, but it is not a tourist hotspot for a reason.

That may be being unnecessarily pessimistic about parts outside the Greater South East. London is hugely expensive and much of it is a complete shithole. There are plenty of nice places to live in the Home Counties but they're also very costly to buy into.

There is a reason why we hear reports of estate agents in Manchester getting a lot of enquiries from worried Hongkongers with BN(O) passports. They are not stupid and know a good deal when they see one.

My guess is that places on a train line within 60-90 minutes of London will see a surge of interest from younger people looking to start families/get on the property ladder who will end up doing one or two days a week down at HQ and the rest WFH. Some of our lot are looking at this right now. The political consequences of changing demographics in such places will be interesting.

It will. Fast forward ten or twenty years and we may find that great swathes of the South-East will have become marginals or fallen to Labour, whilst the Conservatives will have wiped Labour out in much of what's left of its former Northern strongholds.

If we had enough constituency level demographic data then it would probably be possible to accurately predict the outcome in the bulk of seats by plugging a few numbers into a formula: the percentage of voters from various ethnic minority groups, the median age of the electorate, the percentage of voters identifying primarily as British, and the percentage of voters who have a university degree. It's entirely possible that future General Elections will see Labour swapping seats in County Durham for others in Surrey.

I'm not so sure about this. Young people become more conservative as they get older, and their values can evolve too. They will become more concerned about car and home ownership and family responsibilities and conserving the look and feel of their local areas.

Remember: the radical flower-power hippies of the 1960s are the ultra-Boomers of today.

alex_ said:

edmundintokyo said:

alex_ said:

rottenborough said:

alex_ said:

kle4 said:

To be totally fair another reason I dislike WFH is I only live 5 minutes from my office anyway, so I gain nothing from homeworking (and in fact lose plenty, as well as not having a proper set up), which obviously is not the case for people with long commutes.

Yes, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens come winter and the demands for employers to start paying energy bills start coming in. Previously my employer had been operating limited WFH, but it was very much presented as “worker choice” (even though office configuration, desk ratios etc had been altered to rely on it to some extent). But the moment people are actually required to work from home this changes.

HMRC are going to be very interested in all this, if it continues beyond a few months.

WFH peeps should be beware. iirc if a portion of your home is used for business purposes then you could be hit with a CGT bill for that part when you sell it.

And that’s before you get onto the people who think they can work pretty much permanently from abroad without realising the tax consequences...

I'm not sure how it works in the UK but the UK government has tended to make corporate tax rates low in the hope of attracting businesses, even under Gordon Brown, who really liked taxes; If the employees are located everywhere, and the businesses can locate themselves anywhere, won't the British government fix that aspect of the tax regime to prevent all the businesses sodding off to a less unfriendly jurisdiction? Or are they really, really committed to their domestic Pret a Manger industry?

The point/risk is that people might start becoming liable for income taxes in the countries they are working from. Not much the U.K. govt can do about that.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53524486?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business&link_location=live-reporting-story

Casino_Royale said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

I'm getting quite miffed with all the articles in the Mail and the Telegraph blaming the lazy workers for not going back. It is partly up to employers as well. Most companies will already have budgeted for the cost of the office but if workers go back they will need to budget for daily deep cleaning, buying partitions etc etc.
Most modern offices are open plan and badly set up for social distancing.

Even when COVID is over (assuming we get a vaccine), I think most companies will move to a model of 2-3 days in the office and 2-3 at home, with smaller offices and hot desking.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is how completely screwed the RMT is. Their strike power which led to them getting 60+k a year has completely evaporated. If the authorities have any sense, it is time to start looking at driverless tubes.

They are reflecting the prejudices of their readers, most of whom are retired and had to do the same throughout their working careers.

stodge said:

HYUFD said:

City centre cafes and restaurants and stores have clearly been hit hard by the lockdown, home working and online competition. Even if workers do return to office working next year it is unlikely to be full time with part time WFH the norm.

However cafes and small shops in market towns and villages and suburbs where the Tory vote is concentrated have ironically been boosted as more workers working from home have been around at lunchtime or the early evening to shop there in the week

I enjoyed a very nice lunch at Roza in Epping High Street yesterday. Have to say, despite the frequent showers, the High Street was vibrant and busy but Epping benefits from having fewer of the same shops and a more diverse retail profile than many towns.

I still prefer the food at Zaikaa.

CarlottaVance said:

alex_ said:

edmundintokyo said:

alex_ said:

rottenborough said:

alex_ said:

kle4 said:

To be totally fair another reason I dislike WFH is I only live 5 minutes from my office anyway, so I gain nothing from homeworking (and in fact lose plenty, as well as not having a proper set up), which obviously is not the case for people with long commutes.

Yes, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens come winter and the demands for employers to start paying energy bills start coming in. Previously my employer had been operating limited WFH, but it was very much presented as “worker choice” (even though office configuration, desk ratios etc had been altered to rely on it to some extent). But the moment people are actually required to work from home this changes.

HMRC are going to be very interested in all this, if it continues beyond a few months.

WFH peeps should be beware. iirc if a portion of your home is used for business purposes then you could be hit with a CGT bill for that part when you sell it.

And that’s before you get onto the people who think they can work pretty much permanently from abroad without realising the tax consequences...

I'm not sure how it works in the UK but the UK government has tended to make corporate tax rates low in the hope of attracting businesses, even under Gordon Brown, who really liked taxes; If the employees are located everywhere, and the businesses can locate themselves anywhere, won't the British government fix that aspect of the tax regime to prevent all the businesses sodding off to a less unfriendly jurisdiction? Or are they really, really committed to their domestic Pret a Manger industry?

The point/risk is that people might start becoming liable for income taxes in the countries they are working from. Not much the U.K. govt can do about that.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53524486?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business&link_location=live-reporting-story

Most/many will be on PAYE and will have to get confirmation from where they ARE tax resident to stop HMRC deducting tax at source - so their new home country will be after them for tax....and then they face the "non resident" tests which will constrain property ownership and visits to the UK. It's far from straightforward. They could get HMRC to stop deducting tax at source, but then HMRC could still come after them because.....they can.

HYUFD said:

stodge said:

HYUFD said:

City centre cafes and restaurants and stores have clearly been hit hard by the lockdown, home working and online competition. Even if workers do return to office working next year it is unlikely to be full time with part time WFH the norm.

However cafes and small shops in market towns and villages and suburbs where the Tory vote is concentrated have ironically been boosted as more workers working from home have been around at lunchtime or the early evening to shop there in the week

I enjoyed a very nice lunch at Roza in Epping High Street yesterday. Have to say, despite the frequent showers, the High Street was vibrant and busy but Epping benefits from having fewer of the same shops and a more diverse retail profile than many towns.

I still prefer the food at Zaikaa.

Yes Epping has some good local restaurants and cafes and an excellent butchers going back 150 years, glad you enjoyed your lunch.

Fewer Epping residents commuting means more having lunch in town not in London

Casino_Royale said:

Casino_Royale said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

I'm getting quite miffed with all the articles in the Mail and the Telegraph blaming the lazy workers for not going back. It is partly up to employers as well. Most companies will already have budgeted for the cost of the office but if workers go back they will need to budget for daily deep cleaning, buying partitions etc etc.
Most modern offices are open plan and badly set up for social distancing.

Even when COVID is over (assuming we get a vaccine), I think most companies will move to a model of 2-3 days in the office and 2-3 at home, with smaller offices and hot desking.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is how completely screwed the RMT is. Their strike power which led to them getting 60+k a year has completely evaporated. If the authorities have any sense, it is time to start looking at driverless tubes.

They are reflecting the prejudices of their readers, most of whom are retired and had to do the same throughout their working careers.

PS. One way to make railways more sustainable is to fully digitise operation.

We don't have nor need signalman, brakemen or firemen anymore.

There is no need for a guard either.

Andy_JS said:

Interesting that the New Statesman stopped accepting comments on its articles in 2012. Maybe this was an indication that a lot of things they didn't like — like Brexit, Trump, 3 Tory election victories — were going to happen in the near future.

https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/internet/2012/04/dont-leave-comment

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

stodge said:

HYUFD said:

City centre cafes and restaurants and stores have clearly been hit hard by the lockdown, home working and online competition. Even if workers do return to office working next year it is unlikely to be full time with part time WFH the norm.

However cafes and small shops in market towns and villages and suburbs where the Tory vote is concentrated have ironically been boosted as more workers working from home have been around at lunchtime or the early evening to shop there in the week

I enjoyed a very nice lunch at Roza in Epping High Street yesterday. Have to say, despite the frequent showers, the High Street was vibrant and busy but Epping benefits from having fewer of the same shops and a more diverse retail profile than many towns.

I still prefer the food at Zaikaa.

Yes Epping has some good local restaurants and cafes and an excellent butchers going back 150 years, glad you enjoyed your lunch.

Fewer Epping residents commuting means more having lunch in town not in London

When they get sacked like Boris says they will, they won’t have the money to have lunch in Epping. 🤷‍♂️

Boris is talking rubbish on this, it is not commuters WFH whose jobs he is trying to save anyway but Pret workers and bar and TfL workers in city centres who rely on commuters but jobs moving from city centres to market towns and villages should actually boost the Tory vote given the provinces are Tory and the cities are Labour

Alistair said:

Casino_Royale said:

Black_Rook said:

SouthamObserver said:

Black_Rook said:

Foxy said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

rottenborough said:

Black_Rook said:

tlg86 said:

Without commuters paying peak fares – particularly into London – then it’s hard to see how the sector could survive without serious cuts, given that significantly increased subsidies are likely to be off the table for a government that will need to rein in its budget deficit.

The government has something of a problem. Usage of National Rail is about a 1/3 of what it normally is:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-use-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic

Passengers pay c.£10 billion a year. Let's assume that those travelling at the moment are paying quite a lot less than the normal average (i.e. no one will buy a first class ticket, those travelling are probably more local, fewer tickets purchased for business use). Let's say that the government is getting around £2 billion a year (and we're assuming that August usage is maintained - it might be propped up by a higher share of leisure travel).

So as David says, the subsidy goes from £4.5 billion a year to £12.5 billion a year. But what can the government do other than pay it? The people using the trains are people who have to go to work. They are key workers. There would be a huge backlash if the government starts cutting services.

Oh, and one other thing. HS2. How can the government justify ploughing on with that whilst closing existing railways? They can't.

The Government can save some money by reducing the frequency of services, particularly at peak times - indeed, if we arrive in a situation where flexible working means that the remaining passenger journeys are much more spread out during the day, then I can see the entire peak/off-peak divide being tossed in the dustbin.

Certainly it's going to take a couple of years for such changes to come into effect: all those who had to endure the great TSGN timetabling disaster of 2018 will be all too acutely aware of the need to manage these things properly. But it must surely happen?

As for HS2, I think the London to Birmingham section will end up being built in full, for several reasons. Firstly, it's already underway so this Government has to deal with it (whereas the branches to the North can be placed under review and booted into the long grass for the next Prime Minister to worry about.) Secondly, it's being used as much as a means to dole out contracts to the construction industry and maintain and develop skills as it is to build infrastructure, and this arguably becomes a greater priority for Government during a recession. Thirdly, there will be the usual concerns about sunk costs involved in abandoning any partially completed project. Finally, the Tory West Midlands metro-mayor is an enthusiast for the scheme and is up for re-election next May.

However, I seriously doubt if the remainder of HS2 will ever get built.

And that leaves Johnson's levelling up with the North in tatters.

Nonsense. If there really is a WFH revolution, cities and towns won't be competing on proximity to London anymore, it will be on crime, livability, beauty, amenities, surrounding countryside, airports, and price. That will level up the North.

As a Northerner by birth, and Midlander by choice, I don't think many Northern and Midland towns would score very highly on those criteria. I like Leicester, and am not planning to move away, but it is not a tourist hotspot for a reason.

That may be being unnecessarily pessimistic about parts outside the Greater South East. London is hugely expensive and much of it is a complete shithole. There are plenty of nice places to live in the Home Counties but they're also very costly to buy into.

There is a reason why we hear reports of estate agents in Manchester getting a lot of enquiries from worried Hongkongers with BN(O) passports. They are not stupid and know a good deal when they see one.

My guess is that places on a train line within 60-90 minutes of London will see a surge of interest from younger people looking to start families/get on the property ladder who will end up doing one or two days a week down at HQ and the rest WFH. Some of our lot are looking at this right now. The political consequences of changing demographics in such places will be interesting.

It will. Fast forward ten or twenty years and we may find that great swathes of the South-East will have become marginals or fallen to Labour, whilst the Conservatives will have wiped Labour out in much of what's left of its former Northern strongholds.

If we had enough constituency level demographic data then it would probably be possible to accurately predict the outcome in the bulk of seats by plugging a few numbers into a formula: the percentage of voters from various ethnic minority groups, the median age of the electorate, the percentage of voters identifying primarily as British, and the percentage of voters who have a university degree. It's entirely possible that future General Elections will see Labour swapping seats in County Durham for others in Surrey.

I'm not so sure about this. Young people become more conservative as they get older, and their values can evolve too. They will become more concerned about car and home ownership and family responsibilities and conserving the look and feel of their local areas.

Remember: the radical flower-power hippies of the 1960s are the ultra-Boomers of today.

That doesn't map to France where the radical students of the 60s are now far more left wing than the general population.

The flower power hippies were a tiny proportion of the population.

Carnyx said:

Casino_Royale said:

Casino_Royale said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

I'm getting quite miffed with all the articles in the Mail and the Telegraph blaming the lazy workers for not going back. It is partly up to employers as well. Most companies will already have budgeted for the cost of the office but if workers go back they will need to budget for daily deep cleaning, buying partitions etc etc.
Most modern offices are open plan and badly set up for social distancing.

Even when COVID is over (assuming we get a vaccine), I think most companies will move to a model of 2-3 days in the office and 2-3 at home, with smaller offices and hot desking.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is how completely screwed the RMT is. Their strike power which led to them getting 60+k a year has completely evaporated. If the authorities have any sense, it is time to start looking at driverless tubes.

They are reflecting the prejudices of their readers, most of whom are retired and had to do the same throughout their working careers.

PS. One way to make railways more sustainable is to fully digitise operation.

We don't have nor need signalman, brakemen or firemen anymore.

There is no need for a guard either.

Signals have been massively automated already, with networks hugely simplified by the removal of points and sidings and conflicting routes (presumably why the multiple crossover at Newcastle, under the Castle tower, sadly no longer exists).

Brakemen are so C19.

Firemen are so C20.

But guards ... especially on non- commuter trains.