The campaign to encourage people to stop working from home is ill-judged and ill-timed

Editorial: The return to work should be a matter for employers and their staff. Each workplace will have its own priorities

You can’t buck the market, and you can’t stop people working from home (AP)

Whatever happened to the protective arm around the British people? It seems to have been replaced by something altogether more stern, as ministers urge the nation to go back to work or else risk the sack because bosses are supposedly more inclined to get rid of people they can’t see in situ. Just what a still fearful nation really doesn’t need.

The campaign to “encourage” people to stop working from home and start working from work is illogical, ill-judged and ill-timed. It may not be ill-intentioned, however the finical hardship caused by the crisis is a reality and will be more painful still when the furlough scheme is wound down by November.

Understandably, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, are concerned about the fate of city centres – already facing challenges before Covid-19 kept customers away. Businesses such as sandwich bars, pubs, dry cleaners, shops, cabs, gyms and many others that rely on office workers popping out in the lunch hours or after work are facing sudden extinction.