Boris briefing at 11am today

[Scottishgirl85]

More easing? Please 3 households indoor at a time so our holiday can go ahead!

I realise he's a buffoon, but surely he could have listened, while he was being briefed this morning?

It's going to be an 'interesting' time for central London real estate....👀

Boris's attitude to the work from home policy will do him as much damage as his attitude towards Dominic Cummings
He's transparently self-serving and that's never a good look

I really hope there is massive push back, but am scared it will all die down as it did about Cummings.

The economist Andrew Sentance was on BBC Breakfast this morning talking such sense, I was looking for a link to the interview but can't find one. Basically saying that the government should think carefully before telling employers how to run their businesses, and that for many there will be benefits to many employees working from home, which they will want to keep. That it is not the place of government to intervene in this. He went on to say that city centre businesses might yes, take the hit, but that it was wrong for the government to think we should go back to the old normal - that change should happen around the wfh culture.

He was so calm, sane and rational, but will this extremely incompetent and self-serving government listen to people like him? No.

A clever competent government would long have been thinking about and planning the economic change which needs to happen.

And that's without even taking into account the fact that they are now actively ignoring scientists' advice, so we effectively have to dread the winter more now.

I can't understand why he is such a poor public speaker. Surely he took part in debates and discussions while at Eton and Oxford. And he seems unable to answer the simplest of questions coherently.

I've struggled through WFH while home schooling.

I'm now facing the prospect of having to return to the office while having no childcare available through the summer holidays.
DH and I have got 3 weeks covered with AL, but goodness knows how DD is going to entertain herself for the other 3 weeks.

Basically saying that the government should think carefully before telling employers how to run their businesses, and that for many there will be benefits to many employees working from home, which they will want to keep

Boris doesn't care, he never has done. As Marina Hyde put it "Boris always wanted to be PM, he always wanted to have been PM, its the bit in the middle he has trouble with".

People who can perfectly well work from home are now being told to go back into the office. Even if you can distance in the office that requires people, even with health issues to navigate the sardine special of public transport.

It makes no sense to shove people back into the workplace who don't need to be there unless you want to bring the second wave forward (because late summer/autumn is a less busy time in the NHS than Winter).

Women in particular have been thrown under the bus during this - bearing more of the home load, more of the job losses, more of the pension losses and losses of childcare (which disproportionately fall on women).

Madcatenthisiast I saw this coming, and because my situation is complicated with more than one family member shielding, I quit my job at the beginning of July. Pretty drastic, but necessary for me. I can thankfully take 6 months or so out then re assess. However, I'm still going to have to do something to earn money, so it will be ebay, etsy and other ways and means (we sell honey and other products too) It's a fucking joke though, and in a way, handing my notice in feels like sticking two fingers up to the institution - I know it's not, but humour me.
When it comes down to it, I have to look after myself and my family in the best way I see fit. Crap situation for all shielded folk to be in though. Hope you can find a way around it all. Madness.

@labyrinthloafer I'm very concerned but not surprised as it's the type of company they are. It's a shame as it has been working really well from home

Surely he took part in debates and discussions while at Eton and Oxford
He would make the effort for wealthy important people like him, but the peasants are just an homogeneous mass to him, they are to be fobbed off with joshing and bulshit

The sardine special of public transport
This is a MASSIVE problem
Public transport is just about the highest risk situation, it is now no longer viable
and there isn't enough capacity on the roads for everyone to drive instead of taking public transport
Get on your bike is a nice sound bite but not feasible for most of us

Get on your bike is a nice sound bite but not feasible for most of us

Its feasible for MAMILs who live closer to city centres and don't combine the journey to work with kids, pushchairs, drop offs, shopping etc and who are fully able bodied. Who else matters?

Nothing wrong with encouraging cycling to work for those who can but IME people who can avoid public transport (in London at least) already do. If I go to my base office or a London client by 7am the tubes are already packed,. even well out along the lines. Further in they are so squashed you can't get another person through the doors.

Even masks won't help that.

I start a new job in August and if the tube is rammed I will walk. One hour and 15 minutes each way - just about doable, but loads of people commute much further than that of course.

This is what a populist government does - basically nothing that has anything to do with properly governing or looking after citizens’ best interests.

A lot of people have realized how nice it is WFH and don't want to go back to the office. Fair enough, but with the number of "soon to be jobless" you might want to rethink your reluctance, or change jobs!

@FrolickingLemon

Madcatenthisiast I saw this coming, and because my situation is complicated with more than one family member shielding, I quit my job at the beginning of July. Pretty drastic, but necessary for me. I can thankfully take 6 months or so out then re assess. However, I'm still going to have to do something to earn money, so it will be ebay, etsy and other ways and means (we sell honey and other products too) It's a fucking joke though, and in a way, handing my notice in feels like sticking two fingers up to the institution - I know it's not, but humour me. When it comes down to it, I have to look after myself and my family in the best way I see fit. Crap situation for all shielded folk to be in though. Hope you can find a way around it all. Madness.

I mean I have to be thankful I'm doing a master's and not working this september but then again, 200 people in one lecture hall? Especially with young people who haven't been socially distancing? My idea of hell.

Sadly trump was right when he observed that: 'Boris is Britain's Trump'
They are both populists; part of an elite who's strategy is to distract the people with 'bread and circuses' so that they can continue to indulge themselves

From what I saw Boris didn’t mandate the end of WFH. He left it up to employers/employees to sort out after August 1. He acknowledged that for many WFH worked well, and that it’s not up to the government to decide how arrangements between employer and employee are agreed.

But he did state that he considers working in the office is safe as long as it’s made “Covid secure” which to me is BS. It’s too early to know it’s safe. Anyway, it’s not as cut and dried as some on here are making out.

I am another one who has loved WFH and my employer is happy for us all to continue, at least until 2021 when they will review the situation.

They are also planning to sell three expensive regional offices (none in London or big cities)

There's going to be a lot of commercial real estate up for sale...

I listened to the briefing today and he wasn't telling business/ people what to do. He clearly said that it is up to businesses to decide with their employees. What else would you want him to say??
Honestly so much of this thread seems to be from people happily working from home and wanting to refuse to go to the office for ever and ever with no thought to the fact that some people are already back in the office, want to go back to the office or have never stopped working out of the home in the first place, allowing all you guys to have the luxury of staying at home. You all sound so priviledged with your disdain of being forced to buy sandwiches and a coffee and your glee that coffee shops go bust.
Fine if you don't care if pret workers lose their jobs but surely you can understand that others do care, particularly pret workers

I swear he cannot string words together to make a sentence. It's so hard on the ears!!

Damn missed it. And not much clearer reading here he’s so muddled.

Is there a transcript somewhere to read?

Especially the part on wfh

@crosseyedMary

Sadly trump was right when he observed that: 'Boris is Britain's Trump' They are both populists; part of an elite who's strategy is to distract the people with 'bread and circuses' so that they can continue to indulge themselves

This is such hyperbole

I listened to the briefing today and he wasn't telling business/ people what to do. He clearly said that it is up to businesses to decide with their employees

I had understood this too from snippet on news.