Anyone listening to the governor of the Bank of England being questioned by the Treasury Select Committee would not be comforted by his comments, as the combination of the Ukraine war with it's effect on the supply of wheat to the world, to the likelyhood of oil and gas price hikes continuing for an inderminnate period as reliance on Russia as a supplier is sidelined, and the looming disaster of the effects of covid and China's zero covid policy, leaves them virtually powerless to mitigate the economic damage in a meaningful way
I think I'm right in saying UK inflation was at 5% before the Ukraine crisis started, partly as a result of Bailey cranking up the money printing machine to bankroll Johnson and Sunak.
You would think the tory MPs would be grateful. Now they want to put Bailey in the dock. Imagine if Bailey had refused to keep printing at some point.
Nonsense. The government are not to blame for inflation, the bottom line is the Bank of England is INDEPENDENT.
An INDEPENDENT institution messing up its main job controlling inflation, and hypocrites trying to blame government for this.
So, you’re a “Lib Dem” are you?
You fail the duck test.
Oh dear you are having a terrible afternoon bulldozey, wrong with every post. Maybe you should log off log back in again to see if your posts can be any better. What I posted is 100% accurate - Bank of England independent, it’s main responsibility control inflation - unless you want to state Boris can move interest rates up an down?
In what persons mind are Lib Dems ever left wing? libdems is all right of centre stuff, individual choice individual freedom, and liberalism, in every way, life, love and money. Like all my posts 🙂
The BoE has limited operational independence. To call an institution wholly owned by government, and completely subject to directions from government 'independent', without serious qualification, is somewhere between misleading and plain wrong.
You are wrong Nigel. in practise, government have little or no influence over the Bank’s monetary policy.
The Tory government are not responsible for the inflation crisis, or the mistakes getting here so succinctly summed up by Tory Grandees in recent days.
The government says " you have the right to 28 days holiday" but doesn't set a minimum.
GS is saying "you must take at least 15 days including five consecutive" but (for senior staff) isn't setting a maximum.
Banks and some other financial services companies are required by the regulator to ensure that employees have a minimum of a certain number of consecutive days' holiday annually. It's a bit of an oddity. The reason for it something to do with fraud being easier to cover up if a dishonest employee never takes holiday.
Yup, classic sign of covering up losses or fraud is being there before everyone arrives and after everyone leaves and not taking any holidays. One of the seniors who got embroiled in an investigation of one his reports for hiding losses said he spotted it from the holiday pattern as this person would still be working on UK bank holidays that didn't align to US public holidays.
That would put me on the suspects list. I used to take one day a week off, so working only four days a week, for the second half of each year.
Thinks the UK govt should buy a golden share and 25.1% of ARM to prevent Softbank taking it public on the Nasdaq.
Germany has partial stakes in companies. There is no reason we could not, except it would become a political football with Tories selling and Labour buying more.
The government should butt out of WFH and if it has a problem with public sector productivity it needs to own it and deal with it.
In reality it’s all a culture war for the benefit of oldies who last clocked in when flares were fashionable.
I note that office occupancy in Manhattan and Central London are still at c. 60% of pre-pandemic norms and mass transit ridership at c. 70%. I don’t see that changing now.
We’ll never go back to the old ways. That era is over.
The Northern Ireland protocol is part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement signed by Johnson in 2019. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement agreed in 2020 by the two sides allows British goods tariff-free access to EU markets.
At first glance my impression is that either party can complain and demand arbitration, but I don't see a reference to the Northern Ireland protocol per se.
Its not mentioned specifically but the connection would fall under supplementing agreements , any bilateral agreement that the UK and EU have can fall under that.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
Many people who live in towns and cities yearn for rural life. Hence programmes like 'Escape to the Country'. But those people are at least a little mistaken about Country Life. What they yearn for is the picture perfect villages they visit on a Sunday, possibly at the end of a long walk. Possibly a village in the Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales or the Costwolds. A village which, due the presence of people like them, has pubs and coffee shops and cafes out of all proportion to its size. But most villages aren't like that. Most villages are small and unremarkable and dead. They might have a pub, and it might be a good pub, but it probably isn't. They might have a cafe, but it probably doesn't open very often. They might have a shop, and it might be a lovely little community owned thing where you can buy fudge and artisan coffee and vegetables at three times supermarket prices; or it may be a Happy Shopper in which nothing has changed since the 1970s. And even in the good villages, living there is very different from visiting them for the afternoon or the weekend.
I idealise the Lake District. I've whiled away man a happy hour thinking how nice it would be to live there. But even so, there are only two or three places in the Lake District I'd actually like to live: the towns. And they are only liveable because tourism gives them far more vitality than most towns of their size.
There is a third option we are all forgetting, which is suburbia.
For most people outside of central london, or the tiny few enjoying village life, life is largely the purpose built housing estate, the identikit streets, the endless ring roads, the drive to the out of town tescos.
When we speak of WFH, most aren't thinking about swapping inner city urban life for bucolic bliss, they're thinking about more time spent in their rabbit hutch three bedroom new build on the outskirts of town.
So we can assume if the majority of WFHers aren't swapping inner city life for village life, their reasons for WFH from dreary old suburbia are as follows.
1 - The person wants to spend more time at home with family / pets.
2 - The person hates office life / the commute, usually the former. They hate their co-workers, office gossip, being forced to sing "happy birthday" to some 50 year old colleague in accounts whose name they can't remember, etc. And would prefer to WFH to cut out the whole dreary saga and get on with their job.
3 - Their job, like most office jobs I've ever had, require about two hours worth of work per day, but their jobs require them to sit at their desks for 8 and pretend to look busy, lest their line manager feel the need to hand them some pointless busywork. They have therefore concluded that they can do exactly the same amount of work as they were doing in the office, but have an extra 6 hours to watch tv, play x box, work out, etc. This is not a problem with the worker - it is a problem with the job.
My guess is that most jobs are a combination of the above.
Great point with 3. Pretending to be busy is one of the biggest sources of stress at work - note it falls heaviest on the middle ranks because low grades are genuinely busy and high grades don't have to pretend - and it takes its greatest toll in an office as opposed to WFH.
In a previous job, I soon learned that doing my work quickly and asking for more work was not rewarded with a pay rise, promotion, or even extra responsibilities. I was simply handed the very worst projects of my very slowest colleagues in order to "free them up to work on their important projects", which were invariably worse than the ones I was being given.
After a few months, I stopped asking for extra work. Then they introduced timesheets, ostensibly to keep track of what everyone was doing, but all this really did was give people unfeasibly long amounts of times to complete simple tasks. One time, I was given two days to complete a job that consisted of cutting and pasting some text from one word document into another. It took me less than an hour. I took the two days allocated.
A lunchtime pint or three was essential. Even then. The boredom - I still remember it now.
There was simply no incentive to work hard, and hardly any incentive to work at all. If I was still working that job, hell yes I would want to WFH every day.
UK productivity failure in a nutshell?
I honestly wish I could say it was a one off, but I could name half a dozen jobs either I or a friend has done that amounts to the same thing.
Perhaps it is a symptom of being "in the middle", where the junior staff have loads to do (and are still learning, which takes time in itself) and the more senior staff are busy doing the actual important things.
But I can name a frightening number of white collar jobs that either I've worked, or a friend has worked, where we've been paid to do the square root of bugger all, and the hardest part of the job was finding ways to pass the time.
As I say, going looking for work in any of those jobs wasn't rewarded, so eventually I stopped.
Replacing colleagues with a script never goes down that well...
Just replace yourself with a script and go to the pub / golf course / Caribbean
The government should butt out of WFH and if it has a problem with public sector productivity it needs to own it and deal with it.
In reality it’s all a culture war for the benefit of oldies who last clocked in when flares were fashionable.
I note that office occupancy in Manhattan and Central London are still at c. 60% of pre-pandemic norms and mass transit ridership at c. 70%. I don’t see that changing now.
We’ll never go back to the old ways. That era is over.
I think it will slowly creep up over time just from turnover and new contracts requiring some form of hybrid work. But unlikely to ever reach 100%.
Anyone listening to the governor of the Bank of England being questioned by the Treasury Select Committee would not be comforted by his comments, as the combination of the Ukraine war with it's effect on the supply of wheat to the world, to the likelyhood of oil and gas price hikes continuing for an inderminnate period as reliance on Russia as a supplier is sidelined, and the looming disaster of the effects of covid and China's zero covid policy, leaves them virtually powerless to mitigate the economic damage in a meaningful way
I think I'm right in saying UK inflation was at 5% before the Ukraine crisis started, partly as a result of Bailey cranking up the money printing machine to bankroll Johnson and Sunak.
You would think the tory MPs would be grateful. Now they want to put Bailey in the dock. Imagine if Bailey had refused to keep printing at some point.
Nonsense. The government are not to blame for inflation, the bottom line is the Bank of England is INDEPENDENT.
An INDEPENDENT institution messing up its main job controlling inflation, and hypocrites trying to blame government for this.
So, you’re a “Lib Dem” are you?
You fail the duck test.
Oh dear you are having a terrible afternoon bulldozey, wrong with every post. Maybe you should log off log back in again to see if your posts can be any better. What I posted is 100% accurate - Bank of England independent, it’s main responsibility control inflation - unless you want to state Boris can move interest rates up an down?
In what persons mind are Lib Dems ever left wing? libdems is all right of centre stuff, individual choice individual freedom, and liberalism, in every way, life, love and money. Like all my posts 🙂
The BoE has limited operational independence. To call an institution wholly owned by government, and completely subject to directions from government 'independent', without serious qualification, is somewhere between misleading and plain wrong.
You are wrong Nigel. in practise, government have little or no influence over the Bank’s monetary policy.
The Tory government are not responsible for the inflation crisis, or the mistakes getting here so succinctly summed up by Tory Grandees in recent days.
The Northern Ireland protocol is part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement signed by Johnson in 2019. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement agreed in 2020 by the two sides allows British goods tariff-free access to EU markets.
At first glance my impression is that either party can complain and demand arbitration, but I don't see a reference to the Northern Ireland protocol per se.
Our guy said months ago the scope for cross retaliation within the bounds of the treaty is extremely low, which is why the EU is talking up the suspension option rather than tariffs or measures that are in scope of the TCA because there isn't much available.
The pretence is that the UK will override the protocol unilaterally on our side (we won't) and on the EU side it's that they will unilaterally suspend the TCA (they won't).
A deal will be done and a temporary application of A16 will be agreed to ease community tensions or whatever wording they want to use while the trusted trader scheme is finalised and made operational.
Yes.
Further, the DUP will keep blocking the Executive until fresh elections; elections which they will not win. There won’t be a Unionist FM for some time now.
And we’ll have to wait for a non-Boris, non-Tory government to get an agreement on equivalence.
This story, from more than ten years ago in the Washington Post, makes me think that the discussion here of best places to live is missing something important:
A young single mother in DC was worried about her two boys, thinking that they would soon be old enough to be tempted by the gang culture of that city. So she decided to move to a safer place, a small town in . . . Montana.
When she visited to check it out, she stopped at the local restaurant, which is often the social center in such towns, and was a little disturbed that a group of people seemed to be discussing her.
She moved there anyway, and when she got to know some of the people, she asked them about that scene in the restaurant. They explained that, having seen an attractive, single black woman, they were trying to decide whether to call the single black guy in the area, and tell him to come in so he could meet her.
The locals were match making, one of the favorite hobbies in small town America.
So, for those discussing the best places to live in Britain, this question: Where are the best places in Britain to raise children?
Interesting question to which I can imagine dozens of answers. It depends on your budget and what sort of people you hope the kids will grow into. But if you're an open-minded parent ready to accommodate different futures, perhaps outer London - close enough to both the bright lights and the countryside as to give a choice for different tastes, pretty peaceful, a choice of schools, GPs, etc., and moderately diverse in both cultural and ethnic senses.
The Northern Ireland protocol is part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement signed by Johnson in 2019. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement agreed in 2020 by the two sides allows British goods tariff-free access to EU markets.
At first glance my impression is that either party can complain and demand arbitration, but I don't see a reference to the Northern Ireland protocol per se.
Our guy said months ago the scope for cross retaliation within the bounds of the treaty is extremely low, which is why the EU is talking up the suspension option rather than tariffs or measures that are in scope of the TCA because there isn't much available.
The pretence is that the UK will override the protocol unilaterally on our side (we won't) and on the EU side it's that they will unilaterally suspend the TCA (they won't).
A deal will be done and a temporary application of A16 will be agreed to ease community tensions or whatever wording they want to use while the trusted trader scheme is finalised and made operational.
Yes.
Further, the DUP will keep blocking the Executive until fresh elections; elections which they will not win. There won’t be a Unionist FM for some time now.
And we’ll have to wait for a non-Boris, non-Tory government to get an agreement on equivalence.
There's never going to be any agreement in equivalence, it's not within the gift of the UK government to grant and there's no way we ever sign up to dynamic alignment.
All of our trade with the EU will be done within the scope of the TCA and that doesn't include equivalence.
The Northern Ireland protocol is part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement signed by Johnson in 2019. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement agreed in 2020 by the two sides allows British goods tariff-free access to EU markets.
At first glance my impression is that either party can complain and demand arbitration, but I don't see a reference to the Northern Ireland protocol per se.
Our guy said months ago the scope for cross retaliation within the bounds of the treaty is extremely low, which is why the EU is talking up the suspension option rather than tariffs or measures that are in scope of the TCA because there isn't much available.
The pretence is that the UK will override the protocol unilaterally on our side (we won't) and on the EU side it's that they will unilaterally suspend the TCA (they won't).
A deal will be done and a temporary application of A16 will be agreed to ease community tensions or whatever wording they want to use while the trusted trader scheme is finalised and made operational.
Yes.
Further, the DUP will keep blocking the Executive until fresh elections; elections which they will not win. There won’t be a Unionist FM for some time now.
And we’ll have to wait for a non-Boris, non-Tory government to get an agreement on equivalence.
There's never going to be any agreement in equivalence, it's not within the gift of the UK government to grant and there's no way we ever sign up to dynamic alignment.
All of our trade with the EU will be done within the scope of the TCA and that doesn't include equivalence.
I believe the EU could grant us similar equivalence on agricultural standards as they’ve done for NZ, but they will not do so to a Boris / Tory government.
Said agreement does not require dynamic alignment.
Mr. Dean, remote working makes it much more viable to live in remoter, more rural areas (provided there's sufficient comms infrastructure). If you demand everyone goes into an office for vague and mystical reasons then that just returns to the pattern of cramming people into and near cities.
The internet might yet be the first thing in history that (through success rather than collapse) leads to cities diminishing and villages proliferating. But it needs remote working to happen.
Who wants to live in a fucking village? Inbred nerds
Anyone who wants to keep away from towny twats like yourself.
If the peak of your ambition in life is to live in, and work in, a village, then you have the mindset of a medieval peasant and you should get the equivalent wage
Indeed, I am pretty sure this is what will happen. People who WFH will end up earning less and less, because they are demonstrably less efficient, until the inferior wages and opportunities are such a deterrent they go back to the office for most of the week
Only really senior people will get the option to WFH at full salary. A perk and an incentive
I'm all for getting people back to the office, but I am amused at the idea a preference for 'village life', whatever that means, is akin to being a medieval peasant. I think far fewer would yearn for village life if it was in any way alike that of a medieval village!
Many people who live in towns and cities yearn for rural life. Hence programmes like 'Escape to the Country'. But those people are at least a little mistaken about Country Life. What they yearn for is the picture perfect villages they visit on a Sunday, possibly at the end of a long walk. Possibly a village in the Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales or the Costwolds. A village which, due the presence of people like them, has pubs and coffee shops and cafes out of all proportion to its size. But most villages aren't like that. Most villages are small and unremarkable and dead. They might have a pub, and it might be a good pub, but it probably isn't. They might have a cafe, but it probably doesn't open very often. They might have a shop, and it might be a lovely little community owned thing where you can buy fudge and artisan coffee and vegetables at three times supermarket prices; or it may be a Happy Shopper in which nothing has changed since the 1970s. And even in the good villages, living there is very different from visiting them for the afternoon or the weekend.
I idealise the Lake District. I've whiled away man a happy hour thinking how nice it would be to live there. But even so, there are only two or three places in the Lake District I'd actually like to live: the towns. And they are only liveable because tourism gives them far more vitality than most towns of their size.
There is a third option we are all forgetting, which is suburbia.
For most people outside of central london, or the tiny few enjoying village life, life is largely the purpose built housing estate, the identikit streets, the endless ring roads, the drive to the out of town tescos.
When we speak of WFH, most aren't thinking about swapping inner city urban life for bucolic bliss, they're thinking about more time spent in their rabbit hutch three bedroom new build on the outskirts of town.
So we can assume if the majority of WFHers aren't swapping inner city life for village life, their reasons for WFH from dreary old suburbia are as follows.
1 - The person wants to spend more time at home with family / pets.
2 - The person hates office life / the commute, usually the former. They hate their co-workers, office gossip, being forced to sing "happy birthday" to some 50 year old colleague in accounts whose name they can't remember, etc. And would prefer to WFH to cut out the whole dreary saga and get on with their job.
3 - Their job, like most office jobs I've ever had, require about two hours worth of work per day, but their jobs require them to sit at their desks for 8 and pretend to look busy, lest their line manager feel the need to hand them some pointless busywork. They have therefore concluded that they can do exactly the same amount of work as they were doing in the office, but have an extra 6 hours to watch tv, play x box, work out, etc. This is not a problem with the worker - it is a problem with the job.
My guess is that most jobs are a combination of the above.
Great point with 3. Pretending to be busy is one of the biggest sources of stress at work - note it falls heaviest on the middle ranks because low grades are genuinely busy and high grades don't have to pretend - and it takes its greatest toll in an office as opposed to WFH.
In a previous job, I soon learned that doing my work quickly and asking for more work was not rewarded with a pay rise, promotion, or even extra responsibilities. I was simply handed the very worst projects of my very slowest colleagues in order to "free them up to work on their important projects", which were invariably worse than the ones I was being given.
After a few months, I stopped asking for extra work. Then they introduced timesheets, ostensibly to keep track of what everyone was doing, but all this really did was give people unfeasibly long amounts of times to complete simple tasks. One time, I was given two days to complete a job that consisted of cutting and pasting some text from one word document into another. It took me less than an hour. I took the two days allocated.
A lunchtime pint or three was essential. Even then. The boredom - I still remember it now.
There was simply no incentive to work hard, and hardly any incentive to work at all. If I was still working that job, hell yes I would want to WFH every day.
UK productivity failure in a nutshell?
I honestly wish I could say it was a one off, but I could name half a dozen jobs either I or a friend has done that amounts to the same thing.
Perhaps it is a symptom of being "in the middle", where the junior staff have loads to do (and are still learning, which takes time in itself) and the more senior staff are busy doing the actual important things.
But I can name a frightening number of white collar jobs that either I've worked, or a friend has worked, where we've been paid to do the square root of bugger all, and the hardest part of the job was finding ways to pass the time.
As I say, going looking for work in any of those jobs wasn't rewarded, so eventually I stopped.
Replacing colleagues with a script never goes down that well...
Just replace yourself with a script and go to the pub / golf course / Caribbean
Yep, the old jacket on chair then down the cinema (or pub) Kinabalu mentions worked well. Until I realised if anyone questioned my absences, I could just say "I've been in a meeting with HR, it's confidential, I can't talk about it" and nobody would question it further. The pub did a brisk trade that year...
The Northern Ireland protocol is part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement signed by Johnson in 2019. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement agreed in 2020 by the two sides allows British goods tariff-free access to EU markets.
At first glance my impression is that either party can complain and demand arbitration, but I don't see a reference to the Northern Ireland protocol per se.
Our guy said months ago the scope for cross retaliation within the bounds of the treaty is extremely low, which is why the EU is talking up the suspension option rather than tariffs or measures that are in scope of the TCA because there isn't much available.
The pretence is that the UK will override the protocol unilaterally on our side (we won't) and on the EU side it's that they will unilaterally suspend the TCA (they won't).
A deal will be done and a temporary application of A16 will be agreed to ease community tensions or whatever wording they want to use while the trusted trader scheme is finalised and made operational.
Yes.
Further, the DUP will keep blocking the Executive until fresh elections; elections which they will not win. There won’t be a Unionist FM for some time now.
And we’ll have to wait for a non-Boris, non-Tory government to get an agreement on equivalence.
There's never going to be any agreement in equivalence, it's not within the gift of the UK government to grant and there's no way we ever sign up to dynamic alignment.
All of our trade with the EU will be done within the scope of the TCA and that doesn't include equivalence.
I believe the EU could grant us similar equivalence on agricultural standards as they’ve done for NZ, but they will not do so to a Boris / Tory government.
Said agreement does not require dynamic alignment.
Unlikely, the EU isn't going to do us any favours. Our trade strategy needs to reflect this as well.
This story, from more than ten years ago in the Washington Post, makes me think that the discussion here of best places to live is missing something important:
A young single mother in DC was worried about her two boys, thinking that they would soon be old enough to be tempted by the gang culture of that city. So she decided to move to a safer place, a small town in . . . Montana.
When she visited to check it out, she stopped at the local restaurant, which is often the social center in such towns, and was a little disturbed that a group of people seemed to be discussing her.
She moved there anyway, and when she got to know some of the people, she asked them about that scene in the restaurant. They explained that, having seen an attractive, single black woman, they were trying to decide whether to call the single black guy in the area, and tell him to come in so he could meet her.
The locals were match making, one of the favorite hobbies in small town America.
So, for those discussing the best places to live in Britain, this question: Where are the best places in Britain to raise children?
Interesting question to which I can imagine dozens of answers. It depends on your budget and what sort of people you hope the kids will grow into. But if you're an open-minded parent ready to accommodate different futures, perhaps outer London - close enough to both the bright lights and the countryside as to give a choice for different tastes, pretty peaceful, a choice of schools, GPs, etc., and moderately diverse in both cultural and ethnic senses.
I grew up in the outer suburbs of Stockport. It was perfect. Never felt any need to be particularly streetwise, but also no end of opportunities for things to do. And when I did grow up and move away, I found myself more worldly than those who had grown up in small towns and villages, without really feeling I had had to strive to become so. My wife grew up in a small hamlet in Cheshire. It was idyllic up until the age of 11, then suffocating. Ability to reach other places without a car is a major plus if you are a child.
The government should butt out of WFH and if it has a problem with public sector productivity it needs to own it and deal with it.
In reality it’s all a culture war for the benefit of oldies who last clocked in when flares were fashionable.
I note that office occupancy in Manhattan and Central London are still at c. 60% of pre-pandemic norms and mass transit ridership at c. 70%. I don’t see that changing now.
We’ll never go back to the old ways. That era is over.
I think it will slowly creep up over time just from turnover and new contracts requiring some form of hybrid work. But unlikely to ever reach 100%.
In Britain's other big cities, though, public transport is not too far off pre-covid levels. I fully expect it to get back to and surpass 2019 levels.
I visited Torquay over the weekend, which I'd hitherto only encountered through Fawlty Towers. I was quite surprised how rough and down on its luck much of it felt. (Apologies to anyone who lives there.)
I put off commenting on WFH but I'll throw my experience of it into the debate. About ten years ago I was head of a team that was working to correct the accuracy of the company's data records. One of my team was underperforming and I asked him why. His marriage was failing because of the stress that looking after the schooling of their child was causing at home. When it was his turn to take the infant to the nursery he could not get into work on time and had to sneak away before work end. He lived an hours drive from work and I reasoned he could do his work from home as we could log into the corporate system from outside the office (and the internet was good enough for that). I told him to work from home, unheard of in my day, but I reasoned that all Iand my team needed to do was to ensure that my Boss achieved all her performance targets and I would be OK. That saved him a daily two hour commute, saved his marriage and delivered to my Boss all those important targets (and in so doing got me an outperformance award).
Having seen how well this worked I extended this offer to all of my team with the caveat that they needed to be in the office twice a week. Most were local so they came in each day (as I would do). I held monthly (mandatory but arranged to suit those working from home) office based team meetings where we shared what our current workload and our problems were. It was a stunning success and my team outperformed for the next two years. (At which point, at the age of 59, I was asked to retire because 'I was blocking the career path for younger people', LOL!)
I visited Torquay over the weekend, which I'd hitherto only encountered through Fawlty Towers. I was quite surprised how rough and down on its luck much of it felt. (Apologies to anyone who lives there.)
Paignton is worse. But it is where the steam train to Dartmouth begins. I hear Brixham is more pleasant.
I visited Torquay over the weekend, which I'd hitherto only encountered through Fawlty Towers. I was quite surprised how rough and down on its luck much of it felt. (Apologies to anyone who lives there.)
To think, it had a branch of Chanel in the fifties.
There's plenty of poverty in south Devon, in amongst.
I visited Torquay over the weekend, which I'd hitherto only encountered through Fawlty Towers. I was quite surprised how rough and down on its luck much of it felt. (Apologies to anyone who lives there.)
Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain? I was underwhelmed by Torquay in 1979 tbh.
Looks like the Ukrainians may finally be surrendering Azovstal.
More national heroes there than the Alamo.
They have likely served their purpose.
Russia has given up trying to trap Ukrainians in a cauldron between Izyum and the south and look how to be largely digging in to hold onto existing territory.
I visited Torquay over the weekend, which I'd hitherto only encountered through Fawlty Towers. I was quite surprised how rough and down on its luck much of it felt. (Apologies to anyone who lives there.)
Paignton is worse. But it is where the steam train to Dartmouth begins. I hear Brixham is more pleasant.
Brixham is on the up (although a place with a pirate festival can only rise so far...)
The signs for forthcoming events with mediums and spiritualists tells you all you need to know about Paignton.
I visited Torquay over the weekend, which I'd hitherto only encountered through Fawlty Towers. I was quite surprised how rough and down on its luck much of it felt. (Apologies to anyone who lives there.)
To think, it had a branch of Chanel in the fifties.
There's plenty of poverty in south Devon, in amongst.
If Torquay wants to regenerate (a legitimate question, given the pathetic lack of ambition by local leaders in many places), the shortest and truest path is to become a foodie destination.
Looks like the Ukrainians may finally be surrendering Azovstal.
More national heroes there than the Alamo.
They have likely served their purpose.
Russia has given up trying to trap Ukrainians in a cauldron between Izyum and the south and look how to be largely digging in to hold onto existing territory.
Ukraine could really do with taking back some decent territory in the South. It’s been sitting there fairly thinly covered by Russian troops for weeks but the action all seems to be to the North East. Winning back Kherson would be a good riposte to temporarily losing Mariupol.
I visited Torquay over the weekend, which I'd hitherto only encountered through Fawlty Towers. I was quite surprised how rough and down on its luck much of it felt. (Apologies to anyone who lives there.)
To think, it had a branch of Chanel in the fifties.
There's plenty of poverty in south Devon, in amongst.
Certainly not in Salcombe though where the average house price is now £902,171 ie even higher than the average London house price let alone the UK average
Indeed it is. A point for Spurs at Norwich and it's all over. Mind you. We can sort it out with a win against Palace anyway. However, Moshiri's Muppets can't be relied on.
European Commission, France and Germany all announced that European energy companies should be allowed to pay for gas in rubles at a closed meeting between EC representatives and EU diplomats in Brussels on late Friday evening.
Poland & the Netherlands were outraged.
Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki says that he is disappointed by how the EU is handling the issue and says that Russia unilaterally cut Poland off from Russian gas in breech of the contract signed between the two.
At the meeting, the French side went even further and said that European companies could open bank accounts in rubles in Russian banks without this being an act that goes against EU sanctions.
The German diplomat told the EC he had consulted the EC’s new position with all German companies importing Russian energy & that they were pleased with the new stance.
The Polish diplomat wondered how the German had managed to consult them all within minutes of the announcement.
The EU - and France and Germany in particular - have given unnecessary succor to Putin. If they had made it clear that they would not do this, it would put further pressure on the Putin regime from inside Russia.
Utterly disgraceful and sadly not remotely surprising.
There has been some real leadership in this issue from some EU nations but sadly not Germany or France who have been utterly atrocious. Stopping Nordstream 2 was the bare minimum that should have been done and at least it was, but beyond that they're backsliding badly.
They only stopped nordstream 2 because the Americans pointed out how vulnerable it was to an accident
The Northern Ireland protocol is part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement signed by Johnson in 2019. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement agreed in 2020 by the two sides allows British goods tariff-free access to EU markets.
At first glance my impression is that either party can complain and demand arbitration, but I don't see a reference to the Northern Ireland protocol per se.
That's why I was asking for help
I've read certain sections - especially the fishing ones etc. But I'm not up to the whole lot.
I visited Torquay over the weekend, which I'd hitherto only encountered through Fawlty Towers. I was quite surprised how rough and down on its luck much of it felt. (Apologies to anyone who lives there.)
Paignton is worse. But it is where the steam train to Dartmouth begins. I hear Brixham is more pleasant.
Brixham is on the up (although a place with a pirate festival can only rise so far...)
The signs for forthcoming events with mediums and spiritualists tells you all you need to know about Paignton.
What time's Clinton Baptiste on? I'm getting nonce.
I visited Torquay over the weekend, which I'd hitherto only encountered through Fawlty Towers. I was quite surprised how rough and down on its luck much of it felt. (Apologies to anyone who lives there.)
Paignton is worse. But it is where the steam train to Dartmouth begins. I hear Brixham is more pleasant.
Strictly speaking, the steam train to Kingswear, then a ferry across the Dart to Dartmouth.
The Northern Ireland protocol is part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement signed by Johnson in 2019. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement agreed in 2020 by the two sides allows British goods tariff-free access to EU markets.
At first glance my impression is that either party can complain and demand arbitration, but I don't see a reference to the Northern Ireland protocol per se.
That's why I was asking for help
I've read certain sections - especially the fishing ones etc. But I'm not up to the whole lot.
Page 384 has the relevant section . Section 1, you’ll see note of other international agreements . It doesn’t mention the NI protocol but it would fall into that category . Then section 4 is the key bit regarding what you can do .
WFH is a tricky one. I think that people do need to go back to the office because it isn't all that healthy to spend your life in a continuous bubble on video calls and never actually meeting people in real life. However, contrary to what Johnson is saying, I find it a lot more productive in terms of getting high quality work done because you can actually shut everything off and concentrate. I would go for about 1 or 2 days a week at home, the rest in the office, for me that would be the optimum.
Must be confident he isn't going to even get his wrist slapped.
I honestly though that was going to be the politically convenient fudge for everybody. Plod say looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules. Then, Starmer gets to play man of integrity card.
Apologies if I'm getting my scandals mixed up, but surely that won't wash since, I believe, plod were there?
Yes. Security detail were at Partygate and Beergate. No one can get away with lying.
Except possibly the police.
“ looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules.”
so what you thinking was the minor breach? Rules for mixing indoors not same as partygate, all they need to at currygate is isay they worked through takeaway and on afterwards, they don’t even have to prove it, it had to be proved they didn’t - sounds like they did or they didn’t, what can be a minor breach of those rules? Not keeping two poppadoms apart?
It had to be reasonably necessary for work. They could, for example, have given everyone an hour to go to a takeout or eat alone outdoors at a pub etc. Inconvenient, but that's what the rest of us were stuck with. Hence they needed to be doing something as part of the 15 person meal workwise that required them to all be there. 'It wouldn't have made sense to all go off on our own' is not an excuse. Which is the point- the rules he eagerly supported were complete bollocks
Still doesn’t answer the question though, what exactly are you proving they did wrong, even for just an advisory note?
They need to show the meal and being 'gathered together we 15' was reasonably necessary for work purposes, or rather the police merely need to say they do not believe it was and a breach of the guidelines and law, technical or otherwise, has occurred
Edit - 15 people were not allowed to eat together indoors except where reasonably necessary for work. 15 people did, the onus is on them to show it was reasonably necessary
Shouldn’t be too difficult that? Top politicians in election campaign wouldn’t expect to be standard hours, and to make the most of all in one place opportunities for wash up and planning. Especially as they passed police phone and server logs to prove they were working, can’t really leave police with much of a doubt?
Well, given witnesses present have said no work was done and some of them were pissed there's clearly some doubt from some that it was necessary, dilligent work. And 'wash up and planning' do not require you to breach the rules on numbers indoors together. It can be done remotely, via zoom etc. 'Making the most of all in one place opportunities' was indeed explicitly against the guidelines for campaigning during Covid. In person meetings were to be minimized.
I believe the whistleblowers only went as far as saying some people didn’t do much work, treated it more as a social, and this has in turn been disputed. Can the police actually use that to prove guilt on anyone? Trusting so much on testimony of a whistleblower has caused police so much grief in other cases hasn’t it, they are bound to be cautious, or even have a different take direct from whistleblower witnesses than we have via the media?
Well, we will see what they have gathered I guess but essentially if there's enough 'doubt' they can fudge it, say it looks like there may have been a breach, that they aren't issuing retrospective fines but have spoken to all concerned to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities 'should such a situation arise in future'. Or 'spoken to everyone about the importance of following the law in its entirety' And Starmer is left with a tricky choice. Also note there is no need to 'prove guilt' for a FPN, they just need to be reasonably sure it would hold up if taken to court in dispute.
Edit - and from a public perspective, it remains the case that we all had to jump through stupid hoops, so there is simply no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps, but it would have been convenient for a lot of us to do a lot of things we couldn't
“ Starmer is left with a tricky choice.”. Tricky choice? I think he would declare himself exonerated if the outcome was as you described.
With Partygate, where there was no excuse to be socialising indoors with a beer, but they paid taxpayers money to a photographer to show them socialising indoors with a beer, open and shut case not likely to go to court. Anyone at beergate though, as it’s not so obvious to show wrongdoing, might feel aggrieved enough to take it to court, police will have to be very “reasonably sure” they wouldn’t lose in court.
“no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps”. Absolutely right. But it’s not what they did though, they worked, grabbed takeaway whilst working. 100% smack bang in middle of rules at the time.
He declares himself a lot of things. Others will differ. And it will taint him in the eyes of many.
They did not 'grab a takeaway', the meal was pre-planned, it does not state on the plan that it is a working meal, some have said no work took place, others differ. Time will tell, but it's certainly impossible to conclude either it was legal or not at this stage as we weren't there, we can only believe what we believe to be the case.
Exactly. We’ll trust the police. 🙂
You know the meal wasn’t in the same room as the working?
You trust the police most of the country thinks they are lying conniving shit bags
Must be confident he isn't going to even get his wrist slapped.
I honestly though that was going to be the politically convenient fudge for everybody. Plod say looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules. Then, Starmer gets to play man of integrity card.
Apologies if I'm getting my scandals mixed up, but surely that won't wash since, I believe, plod were there?
Yes. Security detail were at Partygate and Beergate. No one can get away with lying.
Except possibly the police.
“ looks like there was probably a minor breach, but even if they had known about it at the time, they would have just advised how to ensure better adherence to the rules.”
so what you thinking was the minor breach? Rules for mixing indoors not same as partygate, all they need to at currygate is isay they worked through takeaway and on afterwards, they don’t even have to prove it, it had to be proved they didn’t - sounds like they did or they didn’t, what can be a minor breach of those rules? Not keeping two poppadoms apart?
It had to be reasonably necessary for work. They could, for example, have given everyone an hour to go to a takeout or eat alone outdoors at a pub etc. Inconvenient, but that's what the rest of us were stuck with. Hence they needed to be doing something as part of the 15 person meal workwise that required them to all be there. 'It wouldn't have made sense to all go off on our own' is not an excuse. Which is the point- the rules he eagerly supported were complete bollocks
Still doesn’t answer the question though, what exactly are you proving they did wrong, even for just an advisory note?
They need to show the meal and being 'gathered together we 15' was reasonably necessary for work purposes, or rather the police merely need to say they do not believe it was and a breach of the guidelines and law, technical or otherwise, has occurred
Edit - 15 people were not allowed to eat together indoors except where reasonably necessary for work. 15 people did, the onus is on them to show it was reasonably necessary
Shouldn’t be too difficult that? Top politicians in election campaign wouldn’t expect to be standard hours, and to make the most of all in one place opportunities for wash up and planning. Especially as they passed police phone and server logs to prove they were working, can’t really leave police with much of a doubt?
Well, given witnesses present have said no work was done and some of them were pissed there's clearly some doubt from some that it was necessary, dilligent work. And 'wash up and planning' do not require you to breach the rules on numbers indoors together. It can be done remotely, via zoom etc. 'Making the most of all in one place opportunities' was indeed explicitly against the guidelines for campaigning during Covid. In person meetings were to be minimized.
I believe the whistleblowers only went as far as saying some people didn’t do much work, treated it more as a social, and this has in turn been disputed. Can the police actually use that to prove guilt on anyone? Trusting so much on testimony of a whistleblower has caused police so much grief in other cases hasn’t it, they are bound to be cautious, or even have a different take direct from whistleblower witnesses than we have via the media?
Well, we will see what they have gathered I guess but essentially if there's enough 'doubt' they can fudge it, say it looks like there may have been a breach, that they aren't issuing retrospective fines but have spoken to all concerned to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities 'should such a situation arise in future'. Or 'spoken to everyone about the importance of following the law in its entirety' And Starmer is left with a tricky choice. Also note there is no need to 'prove guilt' for a FPN, they just need to be reasonably sure it would hold up if taken to court in dispute.
Edit - and from a public perspective, it remains the case that we all had to jump through stupid hoops, so there is simply no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps, but it would have been convenient for a lot of us to do a lot of things we couldn't
“ Starmer is left with a tricky choice.”. Tricky choice? I think he would declare himself exonerated if the outcome was as you described.
With Partygate, where there was no excuse to be socialising indoors with a beer, but they paid taxpayers money to a photographer to show them socialising indoors with a beer, open and shut case not likely to go to court. Anyone at beergate though, as it’s not so obvious to show wrongdoing, might feel aggrieved enough to take it to court, police will have to be very “reasonably sure” they wouldn’t lose in court.
“no valid reason from a fairness perspective for SKS to have sat down and had booze and supper with 14 other people indoors. It was simply unnecessary. Convenient, perhaps”. Absolutely right. But it’s not what they did though, they worked, grabbed takeaway whilst working. 100% smack bang in middle of rules at the time.
He declares himself a lot of things. Others will differ. And it will taint him in the eyes of many.
They did not 'grab a takeaway', the meal was pre-planned, it does not state on the plan that it is a working meal, some have said no work took place, others differ. Time will tell, but it's certainly impossible to conclude either it was legal or not at this stage as we weren't there, we can only believe what we believe to be the case.
Exactly. We’ll trust the police. 🙂
You know the meal wasn’t in the same room as the working?
You trust the police most of the country thinks they are lying conniving shit bags
If I am burgaled and I have been if its not just stuff I want back of insurance. I do not even bother with the police I go talk to one of the criminal gangs and I get my stuff back because the police are a waste of time an energy
The idea that people working from home will be as productive as folk working alongside colleagues (and managers) is obviously laughable - unless they are a novelist or poet.
Whether the politics of pointing this out is smart, I don't know, but most people surely recognise this, even if they are enjoying the freedom and cost-savings of not commuting.
Surprised this is even being debated TBH. But then the entitlement of some people, usually white-collared professionals with handsome pension provision, never ceases to amaze.
What utter bollocks. I have worked from home for over 20 years and no-one is more productive.
Comments
https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/46/monetary-policy/the-mpc-and-setting-of-interest-rates-in-uk/
Telegraph more than happy
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/08/nothing-wrong-bank-englands-mandate-just-needs-do-better/
The guardian argues BoE needs even more political interference.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/04/the-guardian-view-on-the-bank-of-england-independence-and-accountability
The Tory government are not responsible for the inflation crisis, or the mistakes getting here so succinctly summed up by Tory Grandees in recent days.
In reality it’s all a culture war for the benefit of oldies who last clocked in when flares were fashionable.
I note that office occupancy in Manhattan and Central London are still at c. 60% of pre-pandemic norms and mass transit ridership at c. 70%. I don’t see that changing now.
We’ll never go back to the old ways. That era is over.
Just replace yourself with a script and go to the pub / golf course / Caribbean
Further, the DUP will keep blocking the Executive until fresh elections; elections which they will not win. There won’t be a Unionist FM for some time now.
And we’ll have to wait for a non-Boris, non-Tory government to get an agreement on equivalence.
All of our trade with the EU will be done within the scope of the TCA and that doesn't include equivalence.
Said agreement does not require dynamic alignment.
My wife grew up in a small hamlet in Cheshire. It was idyllic up until the age of 11, then suffocating.
Ability to reach other places without a car is a major plus if you are a child.
Having seen how well this worked I extended this offer to all of my team with the caveat that they needed to be in the office twice a week. Most were local so they came in each day (as I would do). I held monthly (mandatory but arranged to suit those working from home) office based team meetings where we shared what our current workload and our problems were. It was a stunning success and my team outperformed for the next two years. (At which point, at the age of 59, I was asked to retire because 'I was blocking the career path for younger people', LOL!)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=sunil060902+bank+2022&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image
There's plenty of poverty in south Devon, in amongst.
I was underwhelmed by Torquay in 1979 tbh.
Arsenal might be a bit meh on Sunday.
Arsenal are a bit Spursy.
Russia has given up trying to trap Ukrainians in a cauldron between Izyum and the south and look how to be largely digging in to hold onto existing territory.
The signs for forthcoming events with mediums and spiritualists tells you all you need to know about Paignton.
Ragıp Soylu
@ragipsoylu
Guys Erdogan still didn’t definitively say he would block Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO.
Still signalling. Underlying the sanctions. Beware.
https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1526252741676482567
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/salcombe.html
Mind you. We can sort it out with a win against Palace anyway.
However, Moshiri's Muppets can't be relied on.
Some riots happening; indiscriminate killing by police etc.
I've read certain sections - especially the fishing ones etc. But I'm not up to the whole lot.
Calling @MarqueeMark .
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61463365
I'm getting nonce.
That should cheer the Ukrainians no end.