DESPITE daily coronavirus cases reaching their highest level since June this week, Boris Johnson wants Brits back in work.
His government has launched a newspaper and television “blitz” to convince workers – for some reason concerned about catching a highly contagious and potentially deadly virus – back into confined spaces with lots of people from different households.
It all kicked off with a Tory source, naturally unnamed, telling the Telegraph that those opting to work from home could make themselves more "vulnerable" to redundancy in any post-Covid business shake-ups.
Labour shadow business minister Lucy Powell hit back at the remarks, calling them "unconscionable" and demanded Downing Street "condemn this briefing". She said: "It beggars belief that the Government are threatening people like this during a pandemic."
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But not everyone was so appalled. Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn, for instance, is desperate to get fear-mongering Covid cowards back into the workplace.
“You can hear them every single day on radio phone-ins, boasting smugly about their exciting new ‘work/life balance’ and the amount of money they are saving on their railway season tickets,” he wrote in today’s article.
Littlejohn added: “Most of those WFH depend on others to maintain essential services, from repairing internet and telephone lines to emptying the dustbins and delivering the groceries. So why is it safe enough for White Van Man to go to work, but not White Blouse Woman?”
It wasn’t until paragraph 24, however, that the columnist dropped this bombshell: “In the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that, like most people who write for a living, I’ve worked from home for the past 30-odd years, unless I’ve been broadcasting and needed to be in a studio.”
But don’t worry, Littlejohn plays his part by regularly travelling to the English capital to get pissed. “I get into London as often as possible, for meetings, for boozy lunches, for the sheer joy of interacting with others,” he wrote.
The Independent’s political sketch write Tom Peck confirmed the columnist’s account.
I have worked in the same office as Richard Littlejohn for eleven years and I am happy to be corrected but to the very best of my knowledge he has never once been into it. https://t.co/4Cynnk4Xrs
— Tom Peck (@tompeck) August 27, 2020
The FT’s Sebastian Payne also raised a salient point: “Richard Littlejohn lives in Florida, writing columns from his beach home rallying against the decline of England.”
His colleague Henry Mance added: “In fairness, Richard Littlejohn is a very good argument against working from home for too long.”
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