Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, has attacked the good people of South Cambridgeshire District Council for introducing a four day work week following a trial. The MP for North East Somerset labelled the idea an ‘idler’s charter’.
He added, somewhat slow-wittedly: ‘Councils need to remember they are providing a public service and the public expect it to be provided five days a week.’
There’s always a mean-spirited Rees-Mogg waiting in the wings to carp when progressive ideas approach reality
He doesn’t appear to realise that a four day week doesn’t mean that every council worker will now spend the whole of Friday tippling in the alehouse and playing shove ha’penny. What it means in practise is that a shift system is put in place. Efficiencies result.
The four day week used to be a fringe idea, but no more. Professor Brendan Burchell of Magdalene College, Cambridge is the academic behind a recent trial which involved 61 companies giving their staff reduced hours on the same pay.
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