Employment

Sometimes the opposite of a good idea is, as Niels Bohr said, another good idea. But the converse is also true. The opposite of a bad idea can easily be an even worse idea. Something like this seems to have happened with the expansion of British higher education. When I left university in 1988, if you wanted a reasonable first job, a degree from a Russell Group university was probably sufficient but not necessary. Now it seems to be necessary but not sufficient. The result is that a large number of perfectly capable but non-academic people are excluded from having a stab at many jobs, where for all we know

Among the horrors, some aspects of lockdown were bizarrely less gruelling than expected; indeed for some people, the experience was mildly positive. It’s time to ask ourselves why. One possible explanation is ‘jomo’ — the joy of missing out. Much ostensibly voluntary human activity is not really voluntary at all. Like dressing for dinner in the 19th century, many elements of life are performative — things done to signal commitment or driven by social pressure. John Stuart Mill observed that ‘Society can and does execute its own mandates… and practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties,

The phrase ‘rich people’s problems’ has its uses. I once overheard a group in a Knightsbridge restaurant sympathising with a companion in tones fit for a bereavement or life-changing injury. ‘Oh, poor you!’ It turned out that their nanny had been ill for two days while they were in Zermatt, and that Farrow & Ball was temporarily unable to supply an obscure shade of paint. To be fair, there are problems unique to the seriously rich. Take Marci Klein, daughter of Calvin. Not only was Marci kidnapped aged ten, but she later complained that in the midst of any passionate encounter with a new boyfriend, she would suddenly find herself

An advertisement from GCHQ provoked angry comment because it seemed to suggest that some ballet dancers would be better working with computers, or as it put it: ‘Fatima’s next job could be in cyber.’ The angry brigade said that ballet dancers should not have to give up their art. I suspect too an element of hatred of the state’s security apparatus. No doubt the advert gave the dancer the name ‘Fatima’ hoping to attract people of a Muslim background (Fatima being Mohammed’s daughter). The man who took the original photograph expressed outrage. The woman depicted, from Atlanta, Georgia, is called Desire’e Kelley, who apparently uses an apostrophe in her first

Kristie Higgs, a 44-year-old school assistant, didn’t realise that criticising the sex education curriculum at her son’s school on Facebook would get her fired. For one thing, her account was set to ‘private’, so only her family and friends could read it. For another, she was posting under her maiden name, so no one could connect her with her employer. Finally, the school that sacked her for expressing these views wasn’t actually her son’s, but another one altogether. This seems a pretty clear case of a person losing her livelihood for dissenting from progressive orthodoxy. Kristie’s case is being heard at an employment tribunal in Bristol this week. The dispute

A few nights ago on Twitter, I quipped that I was planning to launch a trade union for remote workers. With dues of £10 a year, but membership of 200 million worldwide, I planned to become the Jimmy Hoffa of Zoom (my colleague Jamie McClellan, clearly a Microsoft fan, suggested we call ourselves the Teamsters). If our demands for swivel chairs were not met, we would threaten to homework-to-rule — sitting with our backs to brightly lit windows, perhaps, or running vacuum cleaners in mid-presentation. But in a way, a million or so Londoners are already doing something similar by refusing to travel to work. This is a white-collar strike