Johnson: please go back to the office to save Pret A Manger

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Daily Mail:

Boris Johnson is poised to rip up the Government's work from home guidance and urge people to start using public transport to physically return to their jobs.

The Prime Minister is expected to deliver a press conference in Downing Street tomorrow afternoon when he will say it is time for people to go back to their workplaces.

At the moment people are still being advised to work from home if they are able to while public transport is only supposed to be used as a last resort.

But Mr Johnson will tell the UK it is now safe for more people to start returning to offices - and to use buses and trains to get there.   

The proportion of adults working from home saw a small decrease to 27 per cent between 8 and 12 July, while the number of people travelling to work reached 50 per cent for the first time since lockdown was announced, according to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures.

...

The expected change in approach to be advocated by Mr Johnson comes after Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, told Tory MPs that deserted town and city centres risk holding back the UK's economic recovery. 

The PM will reportedly set out a 'road map' for the further easing of lockdown measures to take place over the next few months.

He will focus on spelling out to the nation that the Government's 'whack-a-mole' strategy of trying to contain localised coronavirus outbreaks means there can now be more of a return to normal life.

The changes on working from home are likely to apply from next month but it is thought employers will not be able to force staff to return if they do not want to.

BUT, from The Times:

Boris Johnson%u2019s top scientific adviser has warned him there is %u201Cabsolutely no reason%u201D to change the advice to work from home, denting the prime minister%u2019s plan to urge people back to their offices.

Sir Patrick Vallance said that Britain was likely to see waves of the virus %u201Cover a number of years%u201D and that he could see no reason to abandon one of the most successful social-distancing measures.

I am genuinely stunned by the stupidity of this, especially since they must know that any business that is currently functioning as a mostly work from home operation isn't going to change that while there's a chance that by forcing people to come back they risk exposing their employees to a deadly virus completely needlessly. All to, maybe, keep a few branches of Pret in business?

And in the process setting back the moment we actually defeat this thing and can start participating in the world again.

Also: there might be lawsuits right, from any employee who gets the rona from travelling to work?

[PlanktonSideburns]

permanent lung damage for a 5 quid sandwich?

yes please!

[DrGreggles]

"The proportion of adults working from home saw a small decrease to 27 per cent between 8 and 12 July, while the number of people travelling to work reached 50 per cent for the first time since lockdown was announced, according to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures."

Hang on. If the other 23% aren't working from home OR travelling to work, where the fuck are they working?

[Captain Z]

Prat a manager

[dissolute ocelot]

Hang on. If the other 23% aren't working from home OR travelling to work, where the fuck are they working?

EDIT: furloughed, both, or neither: other "The main reasons for respondents neither working from home nor travelling to work (other) in the past seven days include temporary closure of business or workplace, on annual leave or sick leave, variable hours, being on maternity or paternity leave or being unable to work because of caring responsibilities." (link is an older version but I assume the same thing).

[Cuntbeaks]

Why isn't this CUNT dead yet?

I wouldn't even trust the jibbering fuck-knuckle to take the bins out let alone oversee the running of a country.

[Chedney Honks]

When I was at uni, I went into town with a Geordie lad who was doing a PhD and he said 'let's get a butty from Peter Manager'.

Unironically.

[bgmnts]

Why are you stunned by the supidity of this?

[PlanktonSideburns]

Not enough people throwing shoes at politicians in this country.

We've all got shoes

There ALL cunts

What gives?

[olliebean]

Sir Patrick Vallance said that Britain was likely to see waves of the virus "over a number of years" and that he could see no reason to abandon one of the most successful social-distancing measures.

Yes, waves of the virus over a number of years is precisely the strategy.

[pigamus]

When I was at uni, I went into town with a Geordie lad who was doing a PhD and he said 'let's get a butty from Peter Manager'.

Unironically.

I've just said 'Peter Manager' out loud in my best Geordie accent and it works beautifully, so I think it's going to be citation needed on the 'unironically'.

[idunnosomename]

Not enough people throwing shoes at politicians in this country.

We've all got shoes

There ALL cunts

What gives?

i dont want to risk losing a shoe

[Chedney Honks]

I've just said 'Peter Manager' out loud in my best Geordie accent and it works beautifully, so I think it's going to be citation needed on the 'unironically'.

I assure you, PhD at Oxford and thick as fuck.

[PlanktonSideburns]

i dont want to risk losing a shoe

All you have to loose is your shoes

And you might get banged up

[steveh]

Someone I know who works in Canary Wharf was saying the biggest choke point on companies there returning are the lifts as there just isn't the capacity to safely get people into their high rise offices.

There's a study that has just come out about a woman with asymptomatic Covid who rode in a lift alone for 60 seconds and spread it to 71 people.

[dissolute ocelot]

Someone I know who works in Canary Wharf was saying the biggest choke point on companies there returning are the lifts as there just isn't the capacity to safely get people into their high rise offices.

There's a study that has just come out about a woman with asymptomatic Covid who rode in a lift alone for 60 seconds and spread it to 71 people.

Covid-sensitive tattoos or implants for everybody!

[BlodwynPig]

Ash Sarkar well worth a morning read

Dying For A Sandwich?

In the report compiled by 37 scientists and senior doctors, modelling suggests the winter months (with more time spent indoors, less ventilation, and the spread of seasonal flu) would see a peak in hospital admissions and deaths in January and February of next year. The number of fatalities depends on a) what happens to the R rate between now and September and b) whether our government is planning on doing much to prepare and avert a second wave as bad or worse than the first.

The prime minister faces pressure from the more hawkish elements of his benches to announce that work-from-home advice is fully finito. Tory hardliners like Iain Duncan-Smith fear that, without the return of zombified commuters to the city centre, businesses which rely on work traffic like Leon and Pret a Manger are, well, toast. With the average London commute being 13 miles, quite how a million or more people are meant to manage journeys which are too far to walk or cycle without cramming onto public transport is beyond either the reckoning of myself or Prof Duncan-Smith, but I'm sure these are the kind of issues which just work themselves out in the end. Teleportation is simply a matter of belief.

The might of the Tory's pro-Pret contingent, however, is up against the government's chief scientific adviser. Yesterday Sir Patrick Vallance told MPs that both he and SAGE at large see "absolutely no reason" for the guidance on WFH to change, adding that: "Of the various distancing measures, working from home for many companies remains a perfectly good option because it's easy to do." While Boris Johnson has shuffled in various directions around the issue over the last week and a bit, any clear departure from previous advice would bring him into direct conflict with his own advisers. Any pretence to have been "following the science" (remember that tune?) will have gone out of the window - however, as the government prepares for an almighty blame game over the country's late lockdown, distancing themselves from advisers might be just the thing.

Other than WFH and funding for increased testing capacity (half a million a day by November) and maintenance of Nightingale hospitals, keep an eye out for new 'lightning' lockdown measures being announced. Leicester's lockdown - which took 11 days to come in after the outbreak alarm was first sounded - isn't quite the gold standard. But with the government looking to avoid another national lockdown, local councils are being given powers to shut pubs and cafes without having to ask Alok Sharma first. How this might work in places like London, Manchester and Birmingham at the borough and citywide level is still a bit ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, but whatever. It's only our lives on line.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I agree with the opening poster. That's as divergent Vallance has been from the government line and we should be worried about that. I think it is unnecessary to force people back to the office when they can work from home. It is arbitrary and the increasing sense that We Owe The Economy like a ritual worship is disgusting and totally typical of a government devoid of imagination.

While working from home I still need to eat lunch? Yes i don't need to take the train or bus but that's a... Good thing, for lots of reasons.

[idunnosomename]

I LOVE A STRONG ECONOMY LIKE A BEAUTIFUL BABY I SWORE TO PROTECT

[Sebastian Cobb]

Ash Sarkar well worth a morning read

Where was this written?

[Gurke and Hare]

Pret A Manger is fucking shit anyway. Supermarket sandwiches for twice the price? Macaroni cheese spoiled by putting fucking cauliflower in it? No thanks.

[BlodwynPig]

Where was this written?

an e-mail missive....curtado?

[BlodwynPig]

Pret A Manger is fucking shit anyway. Supermarket sandwiches for twice the price? Macaroni cheese spoiled by putting fucking cauliflower in it? No thanks.

the inevitable end-point of restricted competition and destruction of local businesses... cf. the decline of WHSmith

[steveh]

WH Smith pre-Covid was very profitable, it's just that they choose to use the money for shareholder dividends rather than spending anything on the shops, especially those they plan to give up when the leases run out.

[BlodwynPig]

WH Smith pre-Covid was very profitable, it's just that they choose to use the money for shareholder dividends rather than spending anything on the shops, especially those they plan to give up when the leases run out.

I meant the decline in standards

[Huxleys Babkins]

Pret, yesterday.

[seepage]

excellent selection of Scooby Snacks there

[badaids]

Pret, yesterday.

Why is veal 3p cheaper than chicken yo?

[Consignia]

How sage is the liver? So sage.

[Barry Admin]

I really wanna freeze the shit out of all that and live off sarnies for the next few months. I bet they're tasty af too.