Do govt employee find out early about the Queen’s death?

[Ginandpink]

My brother said they were told early, doesn’t make sense?

I agree!

In my experience, people who have access to sensitive info through work (not royal info, but e.g. market sensitive or legally privileged info) are usually very careful not to compromise confidentiality.

This is reported:

Prime minister alerted to queen's death 2 hours prior to public. No. 10 Downing St., the office of the British prime minister, said that Liz Truss was told of the queen's death at 4:30 p.m. GMT by the Cabinet secretary, about two hours before it was shared publicly.

Bullshit.

I work in the public sector with confidental information. I'd get sacked if I put something like that on a WhatsApp message to my spouse!

Agree. But it was only a matter of time till the news was "official ". Like a bit more than an hour or so.

Like I said before, it's not the 1930s and the abdication.

What time?

the same thing happened with covid where many MNs knew before the WHO 😆

Exactly.

My OH would know and said nothing to me all afternoon when I was texting looking for hints.

The press (at least some of them) did know by mid-morning that her death was imminent, eg that it would be hours rather than days.

I reckon logistics.

William, Andrew, Edward and Sophie all live in Windsor. Easy for them to helicopter to Northolt and fly up all together.

The news was also leaked by a socialite on YouTube this afternoon. The Queen died before 3pm this afternoon.

Entertainingandfactual, looking at my emails it was...12:47.

My neighbour is in the armed response unit and was told his October week holiday might be cancelled but they weren’t told why. He thought there would be a state visit or something. I think they knew she didn’t have long and made preparations

A bbc reporter leaked it on Twitter around 3.30 ish and then had to remove it sharpish. Most likely sacked now. I can't remember the name of them but they sent out another tweet saying so sorry gave false information when clearly it was true

Just checked, it was Yalda Hakim.

nypost.com/2022/09/08/bbc-correspondent-falsely-claims-that-queen-died/

You were told by someone else, who says they were officially told by an anonymous person early.

This is getting boring. And probably for everyone else.

There was no 'anonymous' person. They were told via an announcement at work. ie officially. They told me via Wapp. They work in local government.

And I bet it was happening all over the UK. I don't think I'm special.

The whole of the BBC was being rescheduled fgs.

Doctors know when it’s iminant(unless sudden death etc) usually within hours.and often they are waiting to give a last injection of pain relief or sedation which does the job pretty quickly to end the looooong suffering.
either way they might have known how many hours or not lasting the day,among those limits therefore preparations would be in place and of course family called for last goodbyes like in all situations like this with a death of a family member.

so even if they we re not told of death happening,whether it had or not,they would known it WASgoing to happen.

If someone in the Home Office briefed nearly a week ago that a woman who was fit enough to meet Liz and Boris the other day was going to die today I'd say they were in the wrong job.

Psychics can probably make a fortune...

I knew last year and my team have been responsible for the CGI up until now.

I mean it was fairly clear that the 12:30 ish statement had enough code words to indicate the seriousness of the situation and that it was likely to happen that afternoon or certainly within 24 hrs

its also fairly obvious that before 10 no one was aware

I got the impression that the bbc newsreaders were aware itwas protocol but werent clear when it was coming until after 6 although that it had

the minute lunchtime programmes were cancelled it was obvious it was being managed to get things in place

I was in the forces and a tiny minority would have been told on a very strictly need to know basis beforehand. Equerrys, security staff, very senior chiefs.

But I’m talking a hand full of people. Most people can be told when everyone else finds out. this nonsense that ‘my cousins brother found out’ is crap because the risk of it getting out is too high.

By that time the initial statement was out it was on mumsnet by 12:44

Give over.

The message you quoted didn’t say who he was told by. Just that he was ‘told’

And apparently he was officially told around the same time as the PM? Despite him not needing to know at all. And first thing he did was text you to tell you. Even though any official communication would have been confidential.

I find this sort of thing quite funny, personally.

They find out before we do, for sure. There’s a protocol to follow.
If Lady Colin Campbell is to be believed (I can’t bring myself to take much of what she usually says with more than a pinch of salt!) she died at 14:37 this afternoon, according to a YouTube video she released hours before we all found out.

The press must’ve known something was seriously awry before 2.30pm because the BBC had already gone to rolling news on the basis of the palace statement.

That decision isn’t taken lightly and wouldn’t have happened immediately, so they’d been alerted around midday/1pm imo to then go rolling news from 2pm.

Once you’ve got Huw Edwards reporting in a black tie ahead of an official announcement you’re not going back from that to standard schedules.

That's interesting.

There would have been a delay in emails while staff were being told that the building needed to be cleared.

Nothing stays secret.

Do they have mobile phones? Surely people check the news during the day? Unless they work in an environment with no internet access and no mobile phones how in earth could the news be deliberately kept from them??