Being a bit thick, it hadn’t occurred to me why the two biggest selling and worst newspapers in the land – The Sun and the Mail, obvs – were so relentlessly obsessive in attacking people for working from home. And, as per usual, they both told lies about the effects of people not having to spend many dreary and expensive hours of their lives sitting in traffic jams or pay rip-off prices to travel on trains that are often late or don’t turn up at all. Chief Liar and convict Boris Johnson said he had experience of working from home, presumably on the grounds that this is literally what he does: “My experience of working from home is you spend an awful lot of time making another cup of coffee and then, you know, getting up, walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop and then forgetting what it was you’re doing.” This may help explain why the country is so deeply in the shit, but why are we being badgered by newspaper proprietors and editors, and then politicians, for working from home? It’s all to do with newspaper sales.
Johnson’s last actual job, if you could call it that, was as a journalist (I use the word in the most general sense). His shtick was writing allegedly humorous columns for the Telegraph and Spectator, often making cheap jokes and of course outright lies about the EU, as well as taking the piss out of people of minorities like the LGBT community and majorities like women. Clearly, he has not forgotten his past, quite possibly because he knows that it will be his future once he has finished off the bits of Britain that he hasn’t already destroyed. Now his future employers, led by Rupert Murdoch and tax dodging non dom Lord Rothermere, are all over Johnson, like a rash, demanding that he stops ordinary folk from working at home.
Can you imagine – hard, I know – Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and the other members of this Shit Show government telling the truth about why they think working from home is such a terrible idea? “It’s like this,” Johnson would say. “My billionaire pals who own the newspapers that tell you how great I am are really struggling. When you all worked in your offices, you bought newspapers at train stations and newsagents (one for the kids there), to read in the office when you should have been working. Rupert and his lordship are now losing money thanks to you and it’s not fair. And what with inflation running at 9% and rising, utility bills increasing by 54% with another 40% increase coming in the autumn and extortionately priced public transport, someone has to help my media friends, otherwise I won’t be re-elected. Get back to work you lazy bastards.” But no. Johnson thinks all you do is make coffee and eat cheese all day and doubtless many Sun and Mail readers see him speak truth to bone idle workers.
So, when you next see a Sun and Mail headline, attacking workers who, in my experience, are working their butts off, in some instances harder still than they did in offices, at least you know why. This isn’t just politicking: it’s billionaires grifting.
Working from home, solely or by way of hybrid working is A Good Thing. Many people are happier, more productive and, in some instances, better off by working from home. So, if you’re working from home and, under pressure from Johnson and Rees-Mogg, are forced back to the office for no obvious reason you can bite back: don’t buy any newspapers that have been rubbishing your working arrangements. Even if for some reason you love the Sun and the Mail just read it for free on-line. Trust me: it can be done. Until recently, I bought the print edition of The Guardian but stopped because I tired of subsidising the living of the likes of Owen Jones, that poisonous hard left bully and (yet another) grifter and instead voluntarily subscribe for a fiver a month because I like a lot of the Guardian’s writing. The only papers I miss now are the Sundays, but not that much.
And just remember: The Sun and Mail exist to make money. Nothing wrong with that, but they hate you, too. Fight back, don’t buy their newspapers. You know it makes sense.
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