COVID19

[Banquo]

Someone better have a plan for the tens of thousands of people whose jobs rely on people commuting in to cities. It’s not necessarily about saving Pret, it’s saving all the jobs at Pret and it’s supply chain.
I’m all for home working, for numerous reasons, but if we’re doing it in huge numbers in one fell swoop I hope someone comes up with a brilliant plan to re-employ all those that lose their job.

Surely this situation is basic income o'clock, even if only temporarily? Massive paradigm shift, huge job losses and the collapse of industries that just plain might not come back. Is it better for the economy to spend money propping up dinosaur industries just to keep people employed, or spend the money to see if a different system would work better?

Puja

Such as?

(though I assume you mean summat like UBI, unless you have something else in mind)

Also- which 'industries' are 'dinosaur'?

[Puja]

Someone better have a plan for the tens of thousands of people whose jobs rely on people commuting in to cities. It’s not necessarily about saving Pret, it’s saving all the jobs at Pret and it’s supply chain.
I’m all for home working, for numerous reasons, but if we’re doing it in huge numbers in one fell swoop I hope someone comes up with a brilliant plan to re-employ all those that lose their job.

Surely this situation is basic income o'clock, even if only temporarily? Massive paradigm shift, huge job losses and the collapse of industries that just plain might not come back. Is it better for the economy to spend money propping up dinosaur industries just to keep people employed, or spend the money to see if a different system would work better?

Puja

If working in city centre and public transport service industries are dinosaur industries then a very large part of the UK’s entire economic model is completely fecked. Think of the list that are highly predicated on commuters:
food outlets
cleaners
taxi drivers
security/concierge
pubs/bars
tube/train workers
bus drivers
refuse workers
the supply chain for all of the above

That's kinda where I came in. If commuting is over, or even mostly over, there's gonna be a lot of industries and jobs going bye-bye and, if we've got a choice between artificially trying to keep those industries alive and giving people a basic income that will allow them to cover basic needs so they can retrain, start a business, go back to education, etc, then I'm all for the latter.

Puja

[Stom]

I’m with puja here. If it’s possible to get rid of some of those chains and create opportunities for small business ideas to flourish, do it.

But that means a complete u-turn for the Tories with their focus on the profits of Whetherspoons, Pret, et al.

[Banquo]

I’m with puja here. If it’s possible to get rid of some of those chains and create opportunities for small business ideas to flourish, do it.

But that means a complete u-turn for the Tories with their focus on the profits of Whetherspoons, Pret, et al.

So, kill off many service industries and public transport in cities and their huge supply chains, and replace with what? I don't disagree that it looks likely, but just making the problem statement and some partial outcome (destroy multinationals ) doesn't really help. I suspect you are talking in the 10's of millions of jobs, and restructuring the economy overnight in effect- quick search says 85% of UK workforce works in the service industries (a broad brush, but you get the picture).

[Stom]

I’m with puja here. If it’s possible to get rid of some of those chains and create opportunities for small business ideas to flourish, do it.

But that means a complete u-turn for the Tories with their focus on the profits of Whetherspoons, Pret, et al.

So, kill off many service industries and public transport in cities and their huge supply chains, and replace with what? I don't disagree that it looks likely, but just making the problem statement and some partial outcome (destroy multinationals ) doesn't really help. I suspect you are talking in the 10's of millions of jobs, and restructuring the economy overnight in effect- quick search says 85% of UK workforce works in the service industries (a broad brush, but you get the picture).

Let’s take, for example, the train companies. They have been fighting with their unions for years to try and reduce the workforce to make more profit. No guards means worse service for the users, so it can’t be argued that this is a fight driven by anything other than corporate greed and making the companies sole purpose to make profit for their shareholders.

New regulations demanding minimum 2 guards on each train and suddenly running fewer trains doesn’t reduce the workforce. Ditto adding more staff back into stations, as if you have a problem you press a button, wait until your train comes and leave it still ringing. That’s appalling service.

Of course, those companies will scream it’s unfair and many will just leave, so those services will need to be denationalized, which makes sense as it’sa natural monopoly and those do not work in the interests of their users.

Offer many of those others who have gone from being underpaid “baristas”, in inverted commas because most of those chains couldn’t make a nice cup of coffee to save their life, the opportunity to retrain as, for example, a va. That puts them firmly in the service industry but one that is growing like hell and one where many small businesses and entrepreneurs are looking for high quality, native speaking vas to take work of them. They’ll generally get paid more than they were getting, I believe three ball park figure for a native va is around £10/h.

There’s a lot more but I’m not an economist to be able to dig deep into the figures, not that most economists are scientists anymore.

[Which Tyler]

If working in city centre and public transport service industries are dinosaur industries then a very large part of the UK’s entire economic model is completely fecked. Think of the list that are highly predicated on commuters:
food outlets
cleaners
taxi drivers
security/concierge
pubs/bars
tube/train workers
bus drivers
refuse workers
the supply chain for all of the above

That's kinda where I came in. If commuting is over, or even mostly over, there's gonna be a lot of industries and jobs going bye-bye and, if we've got a choice between artificially trying to keep those industries alive and giving people a basic income that will allow them to cover basic needs so they can retrain, start a business, go back to education, etc, then I'm all for the latter.[/quote]
You mean "learn the lessons from the 80s in favour of repeating the same mistakes and condemning cities to the same fate as mining / manufacturing towns for decades to come"?

It'll never happen

ETA & IMO, if a sector has died, then it's died (whether that's office-based work and it's support industry, whatever AI ends up replacing, or anything else).
Government's job is to manage the transition to something else; not to simply support it without an eye on replacement, or to kill it dead at a stroke.

It won't be easy, and I don't have any answers (I like UBI, but it's not an "answer"). Anyone who though governing is easy shouldn't be in government (even though a cursory look at our cabinet would suggest otherwise )

[Digby]

Who knows what the future brings, though it does seem to be apt time to be playing The Last of us 2, that's now almost an educational tool

[Mellsblue]

I’m with puja here. If it’s possible to get rid of some of those chains and create opportunities for small business ideas to flourish, do it.

But that means a complete u-turn for the Tories with their focus on the profits of Whetherspoons, Pret, et al.

So, kill off many service industries and public transport in cities and their huge supply chains, and replace with what? I don't disagree that it looks likely, but just making the problem statement and some partial outcome (destroy multinationals ) doesn't really help. I suspect you are talking in the 10's of millions of jobs, and restructuring the economy overnight in effect- quick search says 85% of UK workforce works in the service industries (a broad brush, but you get the picture).

Let’s take, for example, the train companies. They have been fighting with their unions for years to try and reduce the workforce to make more profit. No guards means worse service for the users, so it can’t be argued that this is a fight driven by anything other than corporate greed and making the companies sole purpose to make profit for their shareholders.

New regulations demanding minimum 2 guards on each train and suddenly running fewer trains doesn’t reduce the workforce. Ditto adding more staff back into stations, as if you have a problem you press a button, wait until your train comes and leave it still ringing. That’s appalling service.

Of course, those companies will scream it’s unfair and many will just leave, so those services will need to be denationalized, which makes sense as it’sa natural monopoly and those do not work in the interests of their users.

Offer many of those others who have gone from being underpaid “baristas”, in inverted commas because most of those chains couldn’t make a nice cup of coffee to save their life, the opportunity to retrain as, for example, a va. That puts them firmly in the service industry but one that is growing like hell and one where many small businesses and entrepreneurs are looking for high quality, native speaking vas to take work of them. They’ll generally get paid more than they were getting, I believe three ball park figure for a native va is around £10/h.

There’s a lot more but I’m not an economist to be able to dig deep into the figures, not that most economists are scientists anymore.

Not certain what a va is (virtual assistant) but there had better be a shed load of vacancies for them if it’s going to solve the problem. You’d also better hope that people with a poor education attainment and possibly poor English language skills can do these new jobs. Further, you’d also better hope that the numerous managers, head office staff etc, in both the city centre jobs and supply chains are happy to drop down to £10p/h. There are so many jobs directly and indirectly tied in to people commuting into cities to work that it’ll be beyond any govt, competent or otherwise, to manage the transition, especially in any timescale such a scenario would require.
As for an extra guard on each train and more staff at stations, if people don’t commute for work then there will hardly be any trains. Those that do run for peoples pleasure and leisure will be absurdly expensive, unless heavily subsidised by the (now highly indebted) state, and people will move to their car.

[Digby]

people will move to their car.

As they increasingly can't afford a house/flat

[Which Tyler]

I see the lovely Mr Hancock has re-written history to suggest that the government did follow SAGE's advice to lockdown on the 16th.
Do they genuinely believe this double-think? or they forgotten that A] people have brains, B] Google exists, C] written records exist?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... orrorshow/

[Banquo]

I’m with puja here. If it’s possible to get rid of some of those chains and create opportunities for small business ideas to flourish, do it.

But that means a complete u-turn for the Tories with their focus on the profits of Whetherspoons, Pret, et al.

So, kill off many service industries and public transport in cities and their huge supply chains, and replace with what? I don't disagree that it looks likely, but just making the problem statement and some partial outcome (destroy multinationals ) doesn't really help. I suspect you are talking in the 10's of millions of jobs, and restructuring the economy overnight in effect- quick search says 85% of UK workforce works in the service industries (a broad brush, but you get the picture).

Let’s take, for example, the train companies. They have been fighting with their unions for years to try and reduce the workforce to make more profit. No guards means worse service for the users, so it can’t be argued that this is a fight driven by anything other than corporate greed and making the companies sole purpose to make profit for their shareholders.

New regulations demanding minimum 2 guards on each train and suddenly running fewer trains doesn’t reduce the workforce. Ditto adding more staff back into stations, as if you have a problem you press a button, wait until your train comes and leave it still ringing. That’s appalling service.

Of course, those companies will scream it’s unfair and many will just leave, so those services will need to be denationalized, which makes sense as it’sa natural monopoly and those do not work in the interests of their users.

Offer many of those others who have gone from being underpaid “baristas”, in inverted commas because most of those chains couldn’t make a nice cup of coffee to save their life, the opportunity to retrain as, for example, a va. That puts them firmly in the service industry but one that is growing like hell and one where many small businesses and entrepreneurs are looking for high quality, native speaking vas to take work of them. They’ll generally get paid more than they were getting, I believe three ball park figure for a native va is around £10/h.

There’s a lot more but I’m not an economist to be able to dig deep into the figures, not that most economists are scientists anymore.

Not true on guards- I've been using guardless trains on commutes for years on a generally excellent service. Train companies make tiny profits in general btw. In your scenario with declining footfall on the trains, existing fixed costs on rolling stock leases etc, and more staff, no-one in their right minds, including govt would want to run them. I assume you mean renationalised, but then you are in a scenario where tax payers are likely to hugely subsidise others travel needs.

What's a va?

anyway, the point I am making is really about how quickly you can utterly reshape perhaps 85% of the economy. It needs more than an aspiration and some ideology about breaking up global entities. Not that I have any answers

[Mellsblue]

To me, the sensible option is a wholesale change of the working week/routine. No more 8 - 6, Monday to Friday. People spending eg 3 days in the office over seven days a week, starting earlier or later, dependent on their life styles would be a happy medium. This was on its way, regardless; though, probs without it being spread over seven days.
I don’t say this solely to save Pret etc but there are numerous industries where it is impossible to solely work from home and most must surely be finding it inefficient. I know I am and, speaking to friends, many others are, too.

[Banquo]

If working in city centre and public transport service industries are dinosaur industries then a very large part of the UK’s entire economic model is completely fecked. Think of the list that are highly predicated on commuters:
food outlets
cleaners
taxi drivers
security/concierge
pubs/bars
tube/train workers
bus drivers
refuse workers
the supply chain for all of the above

That's kinda where I came in. If commuting is over, or even mostly over, there's gonna be a lot of industries and jobs going bye-bye and, if we've got a choice between artificially trying to keep those industries alive and giving people a basic income that will allow them to cover basic needs so they can retrain, start a business, go back to education, etc, then I'm all for the latter.

You mean "learn the lessons from the 80s in favour of repeating the same mistakes and condemning cities to the same fate as mining / manufacturing towns for decades to come"?

It'll never happen

ETA & IMO, if a sector has died, then it's died (whether that's office-based work and it's support industry, whatever AI ends up replacing, or anything else).
Government's job is to manage the transition to something else; not to simply support it without an eye on replacement, or to kill it dead at a stroke.

It won't be easy, and I don't have any answers (I like UBI, but it's not an "answer"). Anyone who though governing is easy shouldn't be in government (even though a cursory look at our cabinet would suggest otherwise )[/quote]
That's very fair, especially true on 'sector death'- GPs for example could well be all but redundant with the convergence of AI and diagnostics in the mid-term. But dying a natural death vs a forced death is a balance that's needs striking. Maybe this has just accelerated the inevitable loss of work that technology and the need to be green would deliver anyway.

[Which Tyler]

That's very fair, especially true on 'sector death'- GPs for example could well be all but redundant with the convergence of AI and diagnostics in the mid-term. But dying a natural death vs a forced death is a balance that's needs striking. Maybe this has just accelerated the inevitable loss of work that technology and the need to be green would deliver anyway.

That's basically my take on it - the tech has existed for a few years to allow a lot of WFH - not all, by any stretch, but enough to make a huge difference on a national scale - even a 10% change over a decade would be tough to manage - this could well see a 50% change happening inside a year.
Government should really have had a plan in place to manage the transition, but A] were too busy with other things, like infighting, leadership contests and Brexit B] don't particularly want to put plans in place for an uncertain future time when they may not hold the reigns of power and C] aren't that competent to start with.

Both the move towards WFH and the rise of AI were already taking place - the former has been sped up massively by lockdown - shown up both some strengths and weaknesses of it; and will fairly quickly become more practicable for more people.

[Banquo]

That's very fair, especially true on 'sector death'- GPs for example could well be all but redundant with the convergence of AI and diagnostics in the mid-term. But dying a natural death vs a forced death is a balance that's needs striking. Maybe this has just accelerated the inevitable loss of work that technology and the need to be green would deliver anyway.

That's basically my take on it - the tech has existed for a few years to allow a lot of WFH - not all, by any stretch, but enough to make a huge difference on a national scale - even a 10% change over a decade would be tough to manage - this could well see a 50% change happening inside a year.
Government should really have had a plan in place to manage the transition, but A] were too busy with other things, like infighting, leadership contests and Brexit B] don't particularly want to put plans in place for an uncertain future time when they may not hold the reigns of power and C] aren't that competent to start with.

Both the move towards WFH and the rise of AI were already taking place - the former has been sped up massively by lockdown - shown up both some strengths and weaknesses of it; and will fairly quickly become more practicable for more people.

I'm not sure a plan for the speed of this potential transition is/was possible tbh, but it seems that plan a is to assume we can get back to 'bau' from all sides, either by getting everyone back doing what they were (not going to happen) or to prop up every sector until such time as you...don't. If no vaccine appears or some treatment which is effective, many sectors that aren't 'dinosaurs' may suffer the same fate as dinosaurs.

Home working is definitely accelerated- just spoke to a mate of mine who I thought would never work from home in a million years, very old school in a very old school culture (though a very modern and adaptable business), who have all embraced working from home, find it more productive and are closing their offices in Mayfair and all the execs are working from home, and most PA's laid off. Incidentally, he also told me of a lucky escape for his brother, who was due to be at a box at Cheltenham (yes, that meeting), but was poorly; everyone who was a guest in that box is now dead. Chilling.

[Digby]

Communes the way forward then? We can put Raggs in charge with his background in hippy communities

[Banquo]

Communes the way forward then? We can put Raggs in charge with his background in hippy communities

Raggs to wretched?

[Mellsblue]

To add to the list of statistical balls ups, PHE have been registering anyone who has ever tested positive for COVID and who later dies as having died of COVID. No check on what they actually died of, just added to the list of COVID deaths.

[Digby]

Communes the way forward then? We can put Raggs in charge with his background in hippy communities

Raggs to wretched?

something about this seems inferior

[Galfon]

To add to the list of statistical balls ups, PHE have been registering anyone who has ever tested positive for COVID and who later dies as having died of COVID. No check on what they actually died of, just added to the list of COVID deaths.

Couldn't make it up.. (unlike the numbers it seems, from some quarters.)
Just adds to the impression that all along we have been comparing apples with oranges, with regard to wine production.

[Sandydragon]

To add to the list of statistical balls ups, PHE have been registering anyone who has ever tested positive for COVID and who later dies as having died of COVID. No check on what they actually died of, just added to the list of COVID deaths.

Couldn't make it up.. (unlike the numbers it seems, from some quarters.)
Just adds to the impression that all along we have been comparing apples with oranges, with regard to wine production.

The government has been in the back foot over stats for months. Only deaths in hospitals certified by doctors are going to be completely accurate over the cause. Carehome deaths probably are but there is less certainty and ditto home deaths.

But this takes the biscuit.

[Sandydragon]

That's very fair, especially true on 'sector death'- GPs for example could well be all but redundant with the convergence of AI and diagnostics in the mid-term. But dying a natural death vs a forced death is a balance that's needs striking. Maybe this has just accelerated the inevitable loss of work that technology and the need to be green would deliver anyway.

That's basically my take on it - the tech has existed for a few years to allow a lot of WFH - not all, by any stretch, but enough to make a huge difference on a national scale - even a 10% change over a decade would be tough to manage - this could well see a 50% change happening inside a year.
Government should really have had a plan in place to manage the transition, but A] were too busy with other things, like infighting, leadership contests and Brexit B] don't particularly want to put plans in place for an uncertain future time when they may not hold the reigns of power and C] aren't that competent to start with.

Both the move towards WFH and the rise of AI were already taking place - the former has been sped up massively by lockdown - shown up both some strengths and weaknesses of it; and will fairly quickly become more practicable for more people.

I'm not sure a plan for the speed of this potential transition is/was possible tbh, but it seems that plan a is to assume we can get back to 'bau' from all sides, either by getting everyone back doing what they were (not going to happen) or to prop up every sector until such time as you...don't. If no vaccine appears or some treatment which is effective, many sectors that aren't 'dinosaurs' may suffer the same fate as dinosaurs.

Home working is definitely accelerated- just spoke to a mate of mine who I thought would never work from home in a million years, very old school in a very old school culture (though a very modern and adaptable business), who have all embraced working from home, find it more productive and are closing their offices in Mayfair and all the execs are working from home, and most PA's laid off. Incidentally, he also told me of a lucky escape for his brother, who was due to be at a box at Cheltenham (yes, that meeting), but was poorly; everyone who was a guest in that box is now dead. Chilling.

It’s time to work out how to adapt to a more flexible future. It would also be good for the environment. But we must keep Pret going. Apparently.

[Galfon]

Home by Xmas ?. - should have specified which year really..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53488142

As sure as eggs-is-eggs,  cases will rise if there's more mingling with no vacc, they're on a wing and a prayer about the effects of that it seems:
uk on the up..romania quadrupled..spain trebled..france,holland,denmark,belgium
doubled(ish) in recent weeks.
..global cases haven't even peaked yet.

The next battle will be convincing peeps of the advantages of returning to the workplace and accepting fast-track vaccines., and the old society v. self die-lemur.

All that personal welf (there is lots of this apparently) will need divvying out a wee bit more - but will they come quietly ?

[Son of Mathonwy]

New ONS numbers up to 10 Jul are out, so as of that date we have:
Positive test UK Covid-19 deaths: 44,650
All UK Covid-19 deaths (ONS number): 55,460
So the total UK number is 24% higher than the government number.

Excess deaths compared with 5 year average to 10 Jul: 63,943
which is 43% higher than the government number.

[Mellsblue]

Prof Whitty confirming that the R0 rate was dropping even before lockdown and that they had no comprehension of how quickly it would rip through old people’s homes. Scottish epidemiologist saying that other than one possible case in Oz there is no evidence of child to teacher transmission in the world and, therefore, coupled with how unaffected kids are, schools shouldn’t have been shut (for those under 16).
Just shows how blind we were going in to this and how the elderly, particularly those with dementia, and the young have been shafted.