OT: any idea what "travel to essential work" means?

Sadiq Khan has defined it as "travelling to work only if you work in a critical industry like the NHS", but is "essential work" defined anywhere else?

This is what Boris has been doing wrong for weeks; giving unclear instructions. Everyone will say that it?s essential that they go to work, whether they?re a nurse, bricklayer, or pizza delivery boy. A few days of continuing chaos will prevail before he forced to make another proclamation. Oh, and Brexit will be delayed by May.

I don?t have a care in the world, mate. Bills well covered, and I?ll be Plague Immune in a few days to boot. No vaccine for 18 months they say, though, so you?re nailing your front door shut till September 2021 then, Jimmy Livers?

According to EDF Energy today (that's the power station bit) they are still waiting for government clarity on who counts as essential and can therefore send children to school.

I have seen nothing about "essential work". Only the Mayor's statement which echoes the PM's "travelling to and from work, but only where this is absolutely necessary and cannot be done from home".

I've yet to see any legislation (draft or otherwise) of the powers for police to enforce that. But I suspect it won't have a definition of "necessary" in the sense of an exhaustive list or a formula. There are too many variables. I expect much will be left to the ordinary meaning in the context of the purpose. So e.g. cleaners travelling to clean hospitals, milk bottling plants and buses would be "necessary" but cleaners travelling to clean private homes probably not. (The "probably" is there 'cos there's bound to be exceptions to that: e.g. the homeowner is a disabled asthma sufferer allergic to dust.)

In article snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, snipped-for-privacy@aolbin.com writes

According to tonight's announcement its is permissible to got o work if it is essential and you can't work from home.

Some reporters (wrongly imo) interpreted that as meaning if your work was "essential", whereas I take it to mean if you cannot work from home you can go to work as it is then essential to doing your job.

That was my impression. Why do we pay for a Civil Service if there is no office boy who can predict this ambiguity and nail it in the announcement? This has been the problem all along - for instance there was nothing in the previous instructions to stop people all migrating 300 miles for a mass assault on Snowdon. The draughtsmen may have thought it obvious but they did not *make it clear*.

Bunch of amateurs - have they never thought about how to write an unambiguous office memo?

Because it's a deliberate political fudge.

If people tried to interpret it too strictly then everything would grind to a halt. . Whereas if people interpret it to loosely, then not so much will grind to a halt and the politicIans can then blame people for getting infected.

While actually enforcing it is made even more impossible if a sufficient number of tbe people who would be enforcing it are self isolating as advised by the government.

That's how democrarcy works. In a democracy people can blame the politicians they elected for not solving probems to which there are no really satisfactoiry solutions. Only compromises and fudges, offered by the more convincing liars which may or may not fool sufficient of the people for enough of the time.

Basically the more a country is in decline - or in the s*it economically the more this becomes apparent.

michael adams

...

I generally am not averse to likely conspiracy theories; but I really find it hard to believe the government has decided to halt all "non-essential" industrial and commercial activity without saying so, or indeed defining "non-essential"; and doubly incredible that it intends to do it by democratic pedal vote of individual employees (and perhaps patrolling police officers) as to whether they 'feel' that their employer is doing essential work.

The only sane interpretation of the instruction is that people should carry on working if fit to do so and their employer is offering work; and that they should go to their workplace if home work is not practicable after negotiation with their employer. The word "essential" is just an egregious piece of mis-drafting.

You could be right, but I prefer the incompetence rather than conspiracy interpretation.

PS do you think Dominic Cummings is arrogant enough to have drafted this himself, despite all the obvious pitfalls of not thoroughly checking public announcements?

In other news, May is no longer PM and can't delay Brexit even if she wanted to.

In message snipped-for-privacy@ghcq.uk, at 23:37:32 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020, bert snipped-for-privacy@bert.bert.com> remarked:

Part of the problem here is that most "essential" workers (as in NHS etc) can't work from home anyway [and if they could, they wouldn't need to send their kids to school as childminders]. So their travel is in effect doubly necessary, and that form of tautology is disapproved of in official circles.

So if we assume they've avoided tautology, then "essential" travel must refer to any situation where a worker is still needed and they fundamentally can't work from home.

I'd say somebody who is employed by me to do shopping or cleaning or assisting me with sight related tasks. It would be silly if people I pay could not do their jobs, after all its a human right. Likewise I would imagine an emergency plumber would be allowed to do his job to stop a house becoming uninhabitable. There has to be common sense here. Brian

Where please was the word "essential" used by the PM in his TV address?

It is only unclear to thickos like you.

After your behaviour over the safety equipment for NHS staff, you are in no position to criticise anyone.

Have you reported for duty at the local hospital yet?

The problem is Brian, people like Steve, Roger, etc are devoid of common sense. They are the type of people who need everything laid out in detail, then they can claim they were Just following orders. Ask Roger about the special rules.

Never take political advice from someone who bet on a Labour landslide at the last GE.

Reading some of the stuff in the press and social media it feels like common sense has already left 99% of our population.

When the Govt introduces some new rules as a matter of urgency it can't possibly have identified and answered all of the "what if" questions, and will try and address these after the event, otherwise we'll be a month or more behind.

I suspect that, if you have to ask, your work won't be classed as essential.