Jimmy McLoughlin’s Notebook: Has the office romance been killed off?
We recently polled 1,000 people on romantic relationships in the office with the polling company FocalDate. It had been my hypothesis that the office romance had been squeezed over the last decade by the rise in dating apps, the #metoo movement and of course the pandemic. All these factors, leading to greater choice in partner and spending less time with colleagues would mean less Brits meeting through work.
However, it was not that clear cut, overall, 40 per cent of Brits have had a romantic relationship in the office. Strikingly, almost 1 in 3 Gen Zs those aged between 18-24 have already had a romantic relationship with a fellow employee. The office is still the third most likely place to meet a partner after friends and family or a pub or bar setting.
Some other eye-catching date was around workplace flirting, with 37 per cent saying it was appropriate in the office, whilst 48 per cent said that it was not and the rest fell in the “unsure” camp. Flirting is obviously a very subjective word, and I was intrigued that over 51 per cent of Brits believed employers should provide guidance about what is and isn’t appropriate when it comes to flirting. The demographic breakdown of this was also noteworthy, with more men wanting flirting guidelines than women and the least supportive age group was Gen Z. Perhaps the thought of ExCo’s made up of people of their parents’ age providing the guidance was too cringe-worthy to bear.
We also examined which sectors were most desirable for a potential partner to work in and which would make maintaining a relationship difficult. Good news for the main readership of this paper is that, finance came in as the second most desirable sector for a partner to work in, only second to those in the healthcare profession. Intriguingly only 7 per cent named finance as the toughest to maintain a relationship within, whether readers of Morning Wire agree with that statistic remains to be seen.
The independent bookstores live on
Last week I attended a brilliant live event at London’s newest independent bookstore, Backstory in Balham. Tom Rowley quit his job at the Economist last year to go on the daunting task. He has been innovative in his approach and hosted a live screening of Putin vs The West with legendary producer, Norma Percy. It didn’t have a direct link to books, but the room was sold out weeks in advance. It was brilliant and shows that there are many ways for the high street to survive in the new world.
Ruthless reinvention, regicide. Lots to get into.
You can say that again, Ben Riley-Smith, Political Editor at the Telegraph announces his book on the last 13 years of Conservative Government
Morning Wire columnist Mark Kleinman reported last week that the Premier League video game rights are being sold to Electronic Arts for £500 million in a six year deal. This is twice the previous amount that had been previously agreed. It shows two megatrends of the future of our economy, an increase in the rise of the Sports economy, but also that of video games. The UK is a world leader in both and we should be very proud.
Recommendations
Always make friends with a food and wine critic is one of those pieces of life advice that weirdly gets left out of PHSE classes. Sometimes it can lead to Michelin star dinners, but other times you have to try something more left field. I had slight trepidation when my friend said we have to try this Blueberry wine from Northamptonshire. However, it turns out the English wine making revolution is not just limited to the south coast. Blue Aurora are growing 500 tonnes of Blueberries and turning the 15-20 per cent waste that are too small or too soft for supermarkets into a delicious wine, it has a similar taste to a rose style wine.