Andy Richardson: 'Lives depend on the Government getting this right'
Ah, Bank Holiday Weekend. Bliss.
A time to unwind from an arduous summer spent slaving at a desk.
Or, in the case of 2020, a time to refocus and get back into the groove after a summer of topping up the tan. The year that went wrong has taken kids out of schools and workers out of their offices and factories. Now, it’s time to dust down the uniform – overalls, shirt and tie or school blazer and cheap Asda shoes – and get back to it.
Businesses have been making workplaces Covid-secure and workers can look forward to ending their obsession with daytime telly as they renew acquaintance with rusty old coffee machines that spew steaming brown liquid which tastes of petrol. Some things don’t change; pandemic or no pandemic.
The Cabinet is gearing up to get us all back to work – as it should. It has town centres and city centres to protect and presently they resemble ghost towns. Eat Out To Help Out may have assisted some businesses and furlough saved the bacon of others, but if we don’t use our cities and towns soon, they will become unrecognisable and more and more businesses fail. The footfall that sustains numerous outlets has disappeared. Without it, companies will fold.
Except it’s not that simple. Workers who’ve been productive from home are unlikely to be steam pressing their office clothes on Bank Holiday Monday. The savings made – time, transport costs and the like – will have been of benefit to their employers too, meaning the picture becomes a little more complicated. Covid-19 has brought about a paradigm shift; things will never go back to what they were, there’s been a spring and summer of natural evolution.
More nuanced discussions are required between employers and employees – and the progressive, organised, forward-thinking among those were doing that months ago.
Besides, the Government has more thinking to do in terms of keeping us safe in the future. As we move ever closer to developing a vaccine, attention has turned to the way in which it will be delivered. With tens of millions forming an orderly queue, work must soon begin on training health professionals and others to administer it.
Having failed so appallingly on track-and-trace – just checked, still not working properly, it’s a flip of a coin whether they’ll reach you – the Government must get this right. Lives depend on it.
