Improve English Fluency With Slow British News Ep 784
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Hi there, and welcome to this podcast from Adept English. Today, a little news roundup to help you practice your English. Interesting news items. So today, how can I ignore Donald Trump and his election victory? And I'll also cover some interesting happenings in big tech.

the technology sector, to use this podcast to learn the everyday English vocabulary that you need. It's very topical, lots of good phrases about politics and about the world of work. Useful to you, particularly if you work in technology or you would like to work in the tech sector. Don't forget to listen to this podcast several times so that new words and phrases will stick in your mind.

Hello, I'm Hilary and you're listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works.

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New Activate Your Listening will boost your English conversation. All of that is available on our website at adeptenglish.com. Just think how much your English will improve. So if I'm doing a news roundup today, how can I ignore the US election? It's been difficult here in the UK to get any other kind of news. And Donald Trump remains a very controversial figure.

Often people outside of the US struggle to understand why Donald Trump is so popular. If someone or something is controversial, that's C-O-N-T-R-O-V-E-R-S-I-A-L, it means that people disagree on it or them. So Donald Trump is a controversial figure. So for that reason, I'm not going to say too much on Trump himself, but...

Something which amused me this week was how people in the new government of the UK suddenly started to make positive comments about Trump and wanted to try to make some connection with the new president-elect.

When previously, well, let's just say they'd been rather negative. I'm sure this uncomfortable difficulty is being echoed in governments around Europe. Lots of politicians thinking, oh dear, what was it I said on social media about Donald Trump?

The new British Foreign Secretary is a man called David Lammy. And the job of Foreign Secretary is very important. The Foreign Secretary is the person who deals with Britain's relationship with other countries around the world. It needs diplomacy. That's D-I-P-L-O-M-A-C-Y. And the UK likes to think it has a special relationship

with the US. Now, even more so after Brexit. So this week, David Lammy had some back tracking to do in what must have been a very uncomfortable interview with Chris Mason of the BBC. In it, David Lammy said that President-elect Donald Trump was someone we can build a relationship with. Well, no choice now, it seems. The problem is that social media doesn't for

get what people said previously. And Chris Mason was reminding David Lammy of this. His previous comments about Trump? Well, in 2018, David Lammy described Donald Trump as a tyrant.

That's T-Y-R-A-N-T. And as a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath. That's a bit of a tongue twister. See if you can practice saying that one a few times. Then in 2019, ahead of Trump's state visit to the UK, David Lammy was at it again. He posted that the then president was deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, nonsensical.

narcissistic and no friend of Britain. In the interview, David Lammy dismissed these comments as old news and insisted that the president-elect was not only someone we can build a relationship with in our national interest, but Lammy also praised Trump's election campaign as very well run, adding that

He felt in his bones that there could be a second Trump presidency. David Lammy also called the incoming president a very gracious host who offered him a second portion of chicken during their dinner together.

He described Trump as warm about the UK, especially towards the Royal family. And he noted that Trump loves Scotland. I'm sure Trump doesn't love David Lammy, but I guess this is the job of a politician. We have a phrase in English to eat your words.

which means to say now that something you said previously was wrong. Quite a lot of words for the British Foreign Secretary to eat this week then. Now some general news out this week, and this one probably isn't going to be a surprise to you if you work in the technology sector.

An article in the magazine Wired this week proclaimed big tech wants you back in the office. For many tech workers, their roles have been either remote or what's called hybrid for the last few years.

Hybrid means half and half, or in the case of work from home, perhaps two days in the office, three days working from home. People like work from home or remote or hybrid working. If you have a long commute, that's C-O-M-M-U-T-E, and it means your journey to work.

Then clearly it's much less stress doing that twice a week rather than five times a week. But now tech companies are starting to demand that workers return to the office. Why, people are asking. Well, household names like Amazon are leading the way on this.

They've issued a directive that all workers must return to the office. Contrary to what many people think, Amazon is much more than a website where you can buy books and cosmetics and stationery. Many Amazon employees say

are there to support big technology platforms that are used by companies and governments all around the world. But this mandate, this command to return to the office, is problematic for many employees who now live in places nowhere near the Amazon office.

and Apple, Meta, Google, Zoom, the online meeting company, and Slack. They're all doing the same. And famously, Elon Musk made all his ex-employees come back into the office. No choice in it. So it's bums on seats, as we say in the UK. A slight irony there, but many of

the companies that are doing this are the ones that helped us work from home in the first place. They supplied the technology that enabled us to do work from home. But as one Amazon manager said, there are other companies you can work for. Ouch. There's also a bit of a downturn in the tech jobs market.

fewer jobs around at the moment. So it means companies like these are in a much more powerful position. So for many workers, it means no more being able to put your laundry on during the working day, go for a run at lunchtime or pick your children up from school. You'd think

that the big technology companies, whose work is largely suited to work from home, would see many advantages in it. For one thing, it means less office space to rent, and employees pay their own utility bills, their gas, their electricity, their internet connection, and there is no need for coffee machines and fresh fruit in the office.

Employees tend also to buy their own technology equipment, saving employers even more money. And if it's about productivity, that's P-R-O-D-U-C-T-I-V-I-T-Y, that means how productively

someone is, how much work they do. If it's about that, then a 2024 study from Stanford University said that employees working from home or doing hybrid working are just as productive, if not more than people working in the office. And there are other studies which back this up. Employees like to be trusted as adults that they will produce their deliverables and

even when trusted to work from home. Employees really like that. Also, not having to have everyone in one physical location means that big tech companies can find people with the skills they need. It doesn't matter where in the world they are.

These are all quite compelling reasons for remote working, don't you think? So why is it bums on seats? Why are people being told they must come back to the office? Well, the reason that the employers give, it's very hard to set up what's known as corporate culture. When your workforce, your employees are remote. By this,

Company managers mean it's harder to persuade your employees to adopt the goals and values of your company.

to hold these as though they were as important as personal goals and values. It's hard to set up that culture where people work from home. It also tends to mean that relationships between colleagues at work are less important. If you sit next to someone in an office for a year, you get to know them. You perhaps build a friendship with them. If you're remote working, that just doesn't happen or not in the same way.

Also that famous phrase, the water cooler conversation.

Just doesn't happen either, of course. This may be true, but actually there's a much bigger effect of this mandate, this directive to return to work. Lots of people have to look for another job because returning to the office is impossible, undesirable or simply too expensive. It simply costs too much. The cost of the commute may mean that the job just isn't worth it anymore. So actually what's happening is

This is a bit of an underhand way for tech companies to do layoffs or redundancies, as they're called in the UK. That means where your job doesn't exist anymore. So the big tech companies aren't doing layoffs or redundancies, they're mandating return to work instead. The word underhand, U-N-D-E-R, under, and hand, H-A-N-D, means not quite honest.

You have a different motivation from the one that you're saying you have. That's underhand. And why do they need to do layoffs or redundancies? Well, many companies took on a lot of employees during the pandemic. Now they need fewer. So if you want to reduce your workforce without formally doing layoffs and redundancies,

And being subject to all the regulations and rules which govern that, just tell people they have to come into the office instead and see how many people leave. It's not exactly honest, is it? So that's my little bit of comment on two news items which were around this week. It gives you some really good vocabulary

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