[Andy McDandy]

Comments having none of it. Plenty pointing out that "up to £30" covers a lot of numbers, including zero.

[Crabcakes]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/arti ... a-job.html

He's back, and cunty as ever. Yay for Boris and everything he says, boo for everything his government does, and no, there's no link between the two. He also shows a wilful ignorance of economics and industry, and blames everything on everyone else. Finally some jabs at eco-protesters (rehashing an old anecdote about a fleeting sleb from 25 years ago), and has a sneer about men dancing together.

You can see why he likes Johnson.

Well he and Johnson do have a lot in common. By which I specifically mean their surnames and the nomnative determinism that they are both utter dicks - with a special bonus for Richard for going one step further and being "Dick Smalldick".

[Bones McCoy]

Littlejohn seems to think that the job of broccoli picking is a full time job for 12 months of the year. He clearly doesn't understand the concept of seasonal work.

Any recent picture of Littlejohn says "This man knows little about vegetables".

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/arti ... eches.html

Boo NHS, boo civil servants, boo unions, boo asylum seekers. Getting a roasting in the comments though.

[Youngian]

WTF is motivating this Mail obsession with homeworkers? Not convinced its just a favour to property developers. Are they worried about the metropolitan wokes moving into Mail Land?

[Andy McDandy]

Home workers are less likely to buy newspapers.

[Crabcakes]

WTF is motivating this Mail obsession with homeworkers? Not convinced its just a favour to property developers. Are they worried about the metropolitan wokes moving into Mail Land?

Extended culture war. Make older people (the Mail’s main audience) resentful that younger people are “shirking off” (as opposed to, say, losing over a year from their lives shut in trying to protect older people from a disease that will universally be worse for them). Get them angry and annoyed that they are somehow being hard done by, and they keep buying papers and voting for the party that seems willing to tell these young people to get off their backsides.

It’s the same fostered Mail reader mentality as “exams are easier these days” (when your typical gammon can barely use a set-top box, let alone pass a modern GCSE in computing), “so what if we have job losses because of brexit” (they’re retired), “so what if some foods are much more scarce/expensive these days” (I had it shit but then enjoyed decades of plenty of choice - I insist you now have it shit too while I can still enjoy the choice as I’m better off now), “young people should stop drinking lattes and save for a house” (I bought a house on a single wage and paid it off by 50, so have no concept of the price these days - but it’s bound to be the difference between £1000 on coffee or not).

[mattomac]

Not just the Mail, the BBC seemed obsessed with posting articles on why someone thought office work was essential, it was usually someone finance related at first but then they just seemed to have randoms after a while.

It was usually balanced out with a survey from 700 businesses that were in favour of some hybrid working. The charity sector seems to have further with it as have Universities and councils so that probably explains the opposition. Effectively anywhere with expensive overheads, lack of space or places cut to the bone.

It’s a fundamental shift and I understand it’s not for everyone and some jobs have no aspect of it but it’s helped my work life balance and my mental health.

It may once it settles down be one of the only good things to come out from it. Yes I probably have worked less hours because I’ve been at home but I’m only measuring that on the hours I did rather than trying to pretend work at times in the office (Advice is a very peak and troughs service in a University).

However when it is busy I have worked far longer and instead of being stuck in an office overcompensating in the busy periods I can be at home and done once I’ve replied to that last student for the day.

Being stuck on an empty campus catching up at gone 9pm wasn’t helping in the slightest, also there is the situation that students don’t work 9-5. Early in the pandemic I took at a zoom at 12am from west coast America but it suited us both.

I think my 9pm days are now done, if it gets past six I’ll probably head home and do it there, I’ll be settling into a 3 at home, 2 in the office pattern from next week. And that’s fine.

[Andy McDandy]

Littlejohn doesn't help his own argument when he admits to WFHing himself, and his recollections of his newsroom-based days are largely long boozy lunches, slacking off, and filing knowingly bogus copy.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

That's journalism in a nutshell.

[mattomac]

Similarly finance….

I was surprised how full the pubs were in the business district of London on that Monday afternoon I walked around. Ironically who are the two pushing for a return to the office?

[Rosvanian]

WTF is motivating this Mail obsession with homeworkers? Not convinced its just a favour to property developers. Are they worried about the metropolitan wokes moving into Mail Land?

Extended culture war. Make older people (the Mail’s main audience) resentful that younger people are “shirking off” (as opposed to, say, losing over a year from their lives shut trying to protect older people from a disease that will universally be worse for them). Get them angry and annoyed that they are somehow being hard done by, and they keep buying papers and voting for the party that seems willing to tell these young people to get off their backsides.

It’s the same fostered Mail reader mentality as “exams are easier these days” (when your typical gammon can barely use a set-top box, let alone pass a modern GCSE in computing), “so what if we have job losses because of brexit” (they’re retired), “so what if some foods are much more scarce/expensive these days” (I had it shit but then enjoyed decades of plenty of choice - I insist you now have it shit too while I can still enjoy the choice as I’m better off now), “young people should stop drinking lattes and save for a house” (I bought a house on a single wage and paid it off by 50, so have no concept of the price these days - but it’s bound to be the difference between £1000 on coffee or not).

I think your analysis is spot on. What I find endlessly fascinating though, is how these people end up a so embittered and seething with anger and resentment.

[Rosvanian]

And, I should have added, such easy prey for cynical twats like Littlejohn.

[Andy McDandy]

As I've said before, it's not as if the target audience in all these Proms/National Trust/Shakespeare furores are avid consumers of those particular brands of culture. I don't mean to be snobby, but does anyone think that some thick as shit Sun reader is going to spend their Sundays dragging their kids round an art gallery? Or taking them to the theatre to enjoy Measure for Measure?

It seems to be about pushing a certain brand of culture - one that's rooted in 'heritage', a simplified and whitewashed view of the past. One in which everyone was proud to be British, or envious of us, and rightly so because we were not only best at wars but weren't beastly like the foreigners were to the natives and could write plays and shit.

And that's the thing - anyone with even a passing familiarity with Shakespeare would tell you that colour and gender blind casting, time shifts, and so on are nothing new. In fact they're what sets him apart because he doesn't put in character descriptions or detailed set layouts. Read one of his plays. It's dialogue, and a few enters and exits. Everything else is up to the director and cast. Or the Proms - they've been awash with EU flags and foreign musicians for years too. Yes, they sing Rule Britannia, but almost in a tongue in cheek way. It's an expression of patriotism for sure, but in an outgoing and upbeat (and inclusive) way.

In the end, people are fed an image of how things should be, and get upset when they realise things aren't that simple. But rather than investigate the complexity, it's easier to just whinge.

[Crabcakes]

I think your analysis is spot on. What I find endlessly fascinating though, is how these people end up a so embittered and seething with anger and resentment.

I think in a lot of cases some people get to a certain age (or a certain level of physical ability), realise they never got round to doing that thing they always wanted to, then realise they now have neither the money and/or the energy to do it and become immensely jealous of those who have a wealth of something they don't and can never have again - time.

[Andy McDandy]

I think that another part of it is being told from an early age that there is a "right" way to live and do things, and generally they've followed that and achieved a level of comfort and security. Then they see people not following that way and apparently enjoying themselves and having a good and fulfilling life - whether it's LGBTQ+ people living in loving relationships or partying hard (or both), or a poor person (most likely through a deal they could apply for if only they thought of it) enjoying a gadget or possession they would have had to save up for.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Like I once said on here, they live to begrudge.

Because they are failures.

[mattomac]

Let’s be fair there is plenty to get angry about and it’s nothing that ever comes out in a Richard Littlejohn article.

Unless you class his homophobia as a thing to get angry about.

[Bones McCoy]

I think your analysis is spot on. What I find endlessly fascinating though, is how these people end up a so embittered and seething with anger and resentment.

I think in a lot of cases some people get to a certain age (or a certain level of physical ability), realise they never got round to doing that thing they always wanted to, then realise they now have neither the money and/or the energy to do it and become immensely jealous of those who have a wealth of something they don't and can never have again - time.

Never underestimate the skill with which these highly trained and paid professionals (Never through I'd say that about leader writers) scratch the itch of jealousy, resentment, and the message that you are somehow missing out compared to "them".

[Cyclist]

There's an element of truth in this