So what does this say for the 10 years of Pre-Pan, Pre-Boris austerity? Has it done any more than cut public services to the bone, with overstretched, privatised probation services losing track of murderers and 6 hour ambulance waits (87 year old client in December, before the strike, broken arm, not unusual). There is, I’m afraid, an awful lot to the theory that the only way to cut the deficit is to focus not on stopping money going out, but on getting more in. By growing the economy. That worked well for a while in both the late 60s and 90s, the days of Swinging London and Britpop. Neither, however, had a happy ending, due in both cases, I’d say, to poor regulation (of unions and banks respectively). Someone somewhere in government needs to both learn the lessons of history and look north to countries where, yes, it’s cold and a glass of wine costs £30, but people are, according to most surveys, happy, things, including healthcare, seem to work and there’s a far more consistent record of success in the Eurovision Song Contest. A Triple Whammy. To coin a Conservative phrase.
“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.
