The head of one of the largest care home groups was quite rightly railing against the government’s disgraceful treatment of the sector in the early days of the pandemic, when they were largely ignored, told there wasn’t a big problem and denied PPE. Citing Boris’s remark that the fault lay with the care homes for not following the rules, he quoted ’1984’: ’Those who control the past, control the future. Those who control the present, control the past’. Of course, 1984 was always a political satire rather than science fiction. And more relevant today, in our world of fake news, Huawei and, as detailed above, attempts to rewrite even recent history, then ever.
“The working-from-home illusion fades”
Are workers working from home more or less productive than those catching the 7.02am to London Bridge every day? ‘Probably sitting at home in their bleedin’ jim-jams’, said someone recently of a less-than-helpful call centre employee, the assumption being that, were they surrounded by colleagues and with a manager cracking the whip, he or she would have sorted his energy bill more efficiently.
