to think some people would be weirdly excited if WFH came to an end?

I didn't make a counter claim. I said you needed to back it up.

That being said, Martyn Oliver is full of shit and was rightly slagged to high heaven for this at the time. He offered no evidence at all, which isn't a surprise because there won't be any. Schools don't have the necessary data on parents work location.

It’s generally the people who can’t wfh home (hairdressers, retail workers, patient-facing healthcare etc) who object. I presume they think we’re all skiving off (I’m sure some do). Hybrid working is here to stay.

I think it's more a class thing. The people they are trying to appeal to are working-class people, who typically are not office workers so don't have a WFH option, and retired people who are often of the mentality of 'I had to bloody put up with it so why shouldn't the next generation?' It's an attack on the middle class people who'd never vote Reform.

Your husban is a fuckwit.

I always enjoy the jump to AI replacement in these discussions too. Obviously people doing AI vulnerable jobs are going to be kept on in greater numbers if they're doing it in an office, which makes them even more expensive to employ because premises cost money.

@binus,

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/feb/16/parents-working-from-home-affecting-school-attendance-ofsted-chief

Now, how about you back up your counter claim that it isn’t?!

That is amusing that a man with no job has such a strong opinion on people with jobs.

He is trying to appeal to his core voters who cannot get an office job

How on earth has WFH caused school refusal? Whats your link between them?

If you don't work, then why have either of you got an opinion on whether people are more productive in the office or not? What are you basing that on?

Of course Reform want to stop people working from home. It has vastly benefitted women and disabled people. It doesn’t fit with their ethos of keeping women at home having babies.

@beasmithwentworth ,

If you see your parents putting on their ‘uniforms’ and leaving for work, it is an example.

If your parents log on to their computers half dressed, why wouldn’t you feel that was fine for you too?

Loads of people don’t like WFH, so jobs that are office based will still be wanted.

Certainly hasn’t impacted recruitment in DH’s company - their jobs simply can’t be done from home and they still have 50+ applications for jobs at all levels.

Have you not thought at all about how the traditional social structures you're praising here completely screwed over some people?

For a long time there was no choice but to accept in person work as the norm, when most of us needed to have physical access to things we couldn't keep in our homes. Now that there's a choice for some jobs, actually a great deal of research needs to be done before we accept that in person work is an inherently beneficial norm. That assumption very much needs to be questioned.

And you're going to need to back up your claim about school refusal.

How does adults working from home lead to the school refusal epidemic?

My husband calls it "shirking from home".
Neither of us work, we live off land and rental properties (commercial and domestic).
No jealousy there.
Home workers, as someone else commented, will likely be replaced by AI.
Please don't bother to reply or quote me, this stuff is none of my business or interest whatsoever.

I work in a profession where people come and see me for appointments. The amount of people that come in with laptops open or say “I just need to keep my phone on me as I’m working at the moment”. Then they need to jump up if someone rings them. Or they keep stopping during it to check emails. I’ve called people in from the waiting room and they’ve walked all the way to the treatment room without so much as acknowledging me as they are “just writing a quick email for work”. I once had someone end an appointment early as their boss rang and they absolutely panicked and said they needed to get to their laptop and she left! (Without paying anything I should add)

So I might not work with any of these people. But it very much is affecting MY work.

I think WFH has done a lot of damage to society in a really insidious way.

That is not to say occasional flexibility isn’t a good thing and a flexible understanding work place is a positive.

However, there is no good example to the younger generation being set, which leads to the school refusal epidemic. Many young people have huge social anxiety and just aren’t used to being with other people . And huge chunks of all the businesses that supported work places have disappeared, further hollowing cities out.

Traditional mentoring and social structures within workplaces are dying. Teams just isn’t the same as a casual lunch with your boss!

I think a lot more research should be done before we accept WFH as the norm.

But there might also be people who are otherwise isolated and value productive interaction with others.

I didn't think about the vegan alternatives. It made me think about click,clack, moo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click,_Clack,_Moo

A book about left wing milk

Farage has railed against oat milk, almond milk etc, calling it left wing and saying he just wants some 'proper bloody milk'.

I love it. 'Left wing milk' 👌

The oh I saw one woman with a laptop on the school run or I know my uncles friends cousin watches Netflix all day instead of working. I always find a weird argument to always put forward, you can see lots of ridiculous behaviour in an office too, people dicking about not working, people being rude etc, but no one is suggesting closing all of them down on just one off cases, I was sexually assaulted in my first office job (hence I now do wfh roles) but I don’t think that’s representative of every office job, but people think one off peoples shitty behavior is representative of the whole wfh culture?
if people are taking the piss in either office or wfh roles, that’s for their boss to deal with, not Nigel farage doing nanny state for working.

Yanbu OP. Not sure some of the whiners would be too keen on ponying up for enough office space to cover the whole public sector again, mind!

Due to the nature of my job can't really do a great deal from home but there are some that do one or two days at home. Some people really work their socks off and have sent multiple emails and answered queries before others have even logged on and continue like that the whole day. Others don't seem to do very much including having been seen at the shops etc by people who work part-time

But they were the same at work - those who spent most time walking back and forth to the coffee machine in the office are those that do least at home.
We do get a fair few interruptions when in the office - most of mine tend to be "how do I do something" sort from the juniors which can be answered quickly and easily.

What is a left wing milk? Is it from a communist cow? Is it red top?

I don't understand why the issue has become politicised.
I retired 10 years ago way and working from home was common and even encouraged then! No one complained, cared or were even aware if it.
Why does it matter to anyone else? We are in very strange times when this has become an issue for people