It will always be "too early" for that lot. They are either scared witless that they will die with COVID if as much as just one person in the whole of the UK is infected or they are just wind up merchants.
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Boris Johnson's address to the nation - Friday 17th July 11am
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It will always be "too early" for that lot. They are either scared witless that they will die with COVID if as much as just one person in the whole of the UK is infected or they are just wind up merchants.
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Skymonster
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A lot of people have become very scared, while plenty of other have got used to the idea of staying at home while being paid somewhere close to normal salaries. You only need to look at all the comments claiming "its too soon" / "Johnson is playing to big business, ignoring the science and doesn't care about people" / "he doesn't know what he's talking about because there will be a second wave" to realise what a mountain the government has to climb.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Which if they're able to do their full job while being at home, as I do, is not actually a problem!
High Dyke
Established Member
I know. Coupled with the reduction in employer NI contributions will be most welcome by many businesses. The important thing is for those businesses to survive.
bramling
Veteran Member
Seems silly coming out with dates and times, when no one knows what is going to come next. Christmas presumably been just plucked out of thin air in planet Boris in the thought that people can look forward to their Christmas holiday.
And if no dates had been mentioned then people would have complained "Where's the road map?", "What's the timescale?", "it's too vague".
Exactly - we now have a clear list of dates when we can at least expect things to happen. We can't stay in a state of uncertainty for ever.
The Ffestiniog Railway is starting up at the weekend. Is that essential travel? Admittedly it's for advance bookings only, but that will be the case for all heritage railways to start with.
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
Whats not to like about that other than people fail to realise that the whole economy is agglomeration of lots of transactions so if your not at work buying your lunch someone else is losing that custom and that business underpins dozens of other jobs in its supply chains. They then fold so they don't need services like insurance and then the office jobs go as well so they need to be careful what they wish for.
I was thing that the other day. I went into town late afteroon and it was like Sunday. I couldn't help thinking how the small sandwich shops will survive with people working from home. Must be very worrying for them, especially as I've had an email today to say that wfh will continue for the rest of the year at least.
That's possibly 5000 people who won't be in the city centre each day.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Heritage railways are tourist attractions, not public transport operations. It makes more sense to sit them with things like fairgrounds than public transport.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
One thing I find I like to do when working from home is pop out for lunch, as being with other people breaks up the isolation. So such businesses might do well to consider moving to the suburbs and becoming more of a sit-in sandwich type cafe instead. Will save them on rent too!
Exactly this except people don't see it. Just wait till the tax take goes drastically down and we can't fund the NHS
bramling
Veteran Member
I just can’t see any value in naming dates when no one has the first clue how things are going to pan out. It’s completely meaningless. Even going on something like “if infections reduce to X then we will do Y” would be more valuable. Any promise bound by dates is utterly pointless, just naming something out of thin air to appease people. If we do get the “second wave” then Christmas for normality is about as much promise as a chocolate teapot delivered by Father Christmas. Likewise if things continue as they are then I’d hope to be back to normal a lot sooner.
I do have to wonder whether, on March 23rd, if Boris said “some of these restrictions will continue for at the very least 8 months until November” people would’ve been anywhere near as willing to comply. I most certainly wouldn’t have been.
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
Tax on petrol and diesel has to go up (burning them causes pollution too - worsens Covid) - I just can see any other way. Covid is respiratory disease - so surely tobacco taxes have to go well above inflation to help too.
If we aint got an economy we cant fund the NHS. end of
nr758123
Member
Much as I would like things to return to something which might be described as normal, my actions are not going to be influenced by what Dominic has told Boris Johnson to say.
Instead, I might listen to people who haven't built their entire sorry careers out of lying, bluster and three-part slogans.
Instead, I might listen to people who haven't built their entire sorry careers out of lying, bluster and three-part slogans.
I don’t think that anybody at the time knew how long it would continue for.
This appears to be a completely new virus that there is so far no known vaccine for.
How could anyone put a time limit on a complete unknown ?
I think anyone with a slight bit of common sense would recognise that fact.
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
1 million smokers have given up apparently so thats another hole to fill
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
Wow - now as a glass is half full person that is good news.
thejuggler
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Completely agree. Every decision has been date lead, not data lead. If it were data lead with a strategy and plan for meeting targets everything could be fine and dandy by October! Now the data will be twisted to meet the date target.
There has been no clear messaging since stay at home and Government is now in knots about what the message should be.
Enthusiast
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But it is, as explained here:
But they are not the only businesses that need to survive (see above)
There is no capacity for so many businesses to be accommodated in the suburbs. Most areas are already more than adequately supplied with such outlets. More than that, like many people, my nearest shopping centre (actually a small parade of shops) is more than a mile away. If I was working at home I'm hardly likely to schlep down there in the cold and rain whan I can simply knock up a sandwich at home.
bramling
Veteran Member
Another point which has been made is that mentoring of staff suffers greatly when people aren’t together in the workplace sharing knowledge, experience and expertise with each other.
I bet employers will start to find performance issues too. It’s been one thing having people at home when there hasn’t been that much to do during lockdown, but how many times will employers tolerate people taking a sneaky day out to Bournemouth beach when the weather is fine?
HSTEd
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The Ferguson study used to justify this mess certainly said so.
It said 67% of the time until a vaccine exists.
People just decided to stop reading before that part
brad465
Established Member
Over many decades, if not centuries, the economy has evolved with technology and the population behaviour and will continue to evolve. I believe working from home more often, for those that can, is part of that evolution.
If businesses reliant on office use diminish, opportunities to boost other sectors will come around, just like with other parts of that evolution before, providing it's possible to train up those who lose out to take on new roles. Rather than try and stop evolving, we should perhaps allow this evolution, especially for the environmental sustainability benefits.
It's worth noting that the model of having shops in railway stations and office districts almost entirely supported by office workers wasn't a tremendously good one in the first place. An enormous amount of the money people spent there was going on rent, not on good quality products or wages for their employees. Most of the proceeds were due to the landlords who owned the retail property - various enormous global firms in turn often owned by hedge funds. Why we are all so desperate to get back to medium or low quality goods and services at exorbitant prices that offer low wage insecure employment I don't understand. Of course city centre retail goes way wider than this, but people are having a specific discussion about office-focused retail.
The Conservative Party is allergic to this idea I think, as they will certainly be in power for a long time yet I wouldn't get your hopes up. It's a good bit of populism keeping it so low. Unfortunately people are usually unwilling to vote for political parties that will cause them to have to pay more.
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I agree that retail in too many stations has been generic and overpriced. I think NR will need to work harder to get that space occupied in future.
I would like to see a wider range of outlets at stations including more independant and some high quality ones. As I've said on other threads, quality station pubs are a good bet, because they become a destination in their own right, and they have a tendancy to be open in the evening when other buffet's tend to close, and therefore provide somewhere to wait.
I also wonder whether there's something NR can do to incentivise outlets to remain open later in the day.
I would like to see a wider range of outlets at stations including more independant and some high quality ones. As I've said on other threads, quality station pubs are a good bet, because they become a destination in their own right, and they have a tendancy to be open in the evening when other buffet's tend to close, and therefore provide somewhere to wait.
I also wonder whether there's something NR can do to incentivise outlets to remain open later in the day.
MontyMinerWA
Member
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Well exactly. This is what I've been able to do since lockdown and I'm in no hurry to go back to the office. Going back to the office isn't going to be of any benefit to me and will make very little difference to my employer.
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