22nd March, the Commons Privileges Comittee investigation into Partygate

It's so inconvenient for people who want to defend Boris that the law at the time was about what was essential for work. They really have to show themselves up trying to relativise it.

I worked in an office all through the pandemic. We didn’t have leaving parties, we had to adhere to very strict rules regarding food. Lunch was to be ate at your desk (which had been arranged so there was at least two metres between employees) or in your car. We weren’t even allowed to share a tub of Celebrations at Christmas. Alcohol isn’t allowed on the premises pandemic or not.

Once schools reopened most school staff rooms were closed because of keeping in strict "bubbles". Teaching staff were reporting eating lunch on their own in their car or classroom because congregating with staff outside your bubble was not allowed.

I don't know where Nadiine gets her ideas of staff congregating with cake and booze in school staff rooms from!

@Janiie so you're 100% OK with Sir Keir's beer, and you definitely think he should not have been investigated twice, the second time at the prompting of the Daily Mail and a Conservative activist, because it was a work event. That's what you think, right? Right?

😂😂😂

Yes. And yet Poor Me Boris just had to boost morale because two people left at once.. And we must understand that. Far more gruelling for him than an ICU nurse on their feet masked up all day with no break. All that steadying of the ship must've been terrible for him. Poor Boris.

if your assertion was true

Janiie, as a pp above pointed out, even **if your assertion that staffrooms up and down the country were stuffed with cakes and sarnies, that doesn't mean rules were broken. The point is, did staff all crowd in at the same time to eat said food stuffs and drink alcohol? That is what happened at No.10.

I find your denigration of ICU staff really offensive. My mother was in ICU when she was dying and the staff were wonderful. My brother was an ICU nurse and I know how dedicated he was and how emotionally and physically draining it is.

You don't answer questions but expect others to do so.

Do you think that a leaving do, (more than one actually) not distanced, with booze and food was essential work like BJ said yesterday?
Because that would be like a wake wouldn't it? People mixing, not socially distancing, booze, food.

When he was 'steadying the ship' that sort of thing for the general public was not allowed.

If it wasn't reasonably necessary for the purposes of work the "gatherings" shouldn't have happened.
Don't make legislation if you can't stick to it.

Why are you comparing work places to funerals? 2 very different things.

Let me explain. There was a pandemic so to reduce risk of spread the mixing of households sadly had to be restricted. Workplaces were different as people were there if unable to wfh so the risk was already present.

I'm still waiting to hear about BJ attending a funeral, which would be an actually comparable situation but so far zilch.

I wonder if posters who think loads of people were doing the same thing as Boris also think those people assured Parliament that they were acting lawfully too?

@OhYouBadBadKitten - yes and that is the kind of truth that sticks. Johnson will probably be remembered for that, the liberal who shut down a country and ignored his own rules.

Not very Churchillian. And not the kind of legacy that will ever be given a favourable mention in the history books as he so evidently wanted.

It is like Blair with the Iraq War; a mark upon him forever - the rule maker who could live by his own rules and punished a people as he partied.

Alcohol is a sanitiser so if you have enough of it the virus will die (virus are not alive anyway) and failing that enough alcohol will help you forget about the awful mess you have made of the country, so it was essential for work in Johnson's government.

It will, it already has elsewhere.

Downing Street was full of parties, sorry, gatherings with alcohol, while we couldn't go to funerals. That is unforgivable.

No, it’s appreciated. Thank you.

@Blossomtoes sorry for bringing it up, just want to see if the usual double standard emerges.

I am increasingly under the impression that some posters have no idea what working in ITU is like. Whilst I haven't worked in ITU I have spent weeks there as a parent. It is called Intensive for a reason. The care given to patients is intensive, a nurse looking after a single patient may well have little time to sit around and rest and if they do have a break then another nurse needs to cover them. The condition of a patient on a variety of different medications, ventilated, and so on, could have their condition change rapidly, their breathing can change, an IV line can get blocked and need sorting. When one additionally factors in the time taken to ensure infection control measures are adherred to, going for a break is not simple.

Oh Christ, not Keir’s beer again.