That said, we shall have to wait and see whether Neil continues to be vigorous in his questioning of those on the right when he's on a channel that doesn't have the BBC's theoretical commitment to non-partisan neutrality.

> Meanwhile, they’re climbing over each other to fill their faces with state-subsidised chicken and chips at Nando’s, while at the same time pretending to be too frightened to turn up for work.

I walked around town at the weekend. Town seemed as busy as I'd expect during a holiday, which is to say people everywhere in crowds. I noticed Nando's was jam-packed with people inside and outside, as densely as I've ever seen it, no social distancing and little mask use was apparent including among the people crowded on the pavement outside. Same as I walked past other places, and some pubs were heaving, inside and outside.

To be honest, I didn't feel safe walking around the streets with the way people were outside; it became difficult to avoid densely packed groups at some points. The "rule of six" was a joke, I saw groups of 20 people who were obviously together with no masks. Every so often, I'd find myself in the middle of a group who would just surround me on their way past, 0.5m away if that, no masks, and no way for me to avoid them. I'd make the effort to keep out of people's way, and I'd be occasionally thanked for it. But most people seemed to make no effort or have any awareness. About half of all people outside had masks, but of those with masks, about half were not wearing them.

So is that WFH people in the restaurants? I don't know, but I suspect the folks who have lost their jobs, or getting by doing manual labour like food deliveries, or working in hospitals and care homes, aren't the ones spending much at the pubs and restaurants at the moment.

Among my friends who are programmers, about half talk about their social meetups (face to face) at the pub, houses, in the parks etc and seem to have some disdain for CV restrictions. The other half are like me, have high respect for CV restrictions and generally avoiding town and avoiding non-virtual social meetups, and don't think highly of those people who don't wear masks or keep a distance.

I think the Daily Mail anti-WFH rant is typical Tory "get back to work" top-grade bullshit because WFH isn't about people individually saying they are "scared", it's about protecting people at work, which is a company and institution responsibility. The fact some people will densely pack themselves at Nando's etc adds more reason to keep them away from offices for the protection of other people, not less reason. But I thought it did highlight some interesting contradictions going on in society at the moment.