To ask if your essential meetings involve sitting around in the garden with wine and cheese, with your spouse in attendance?

[AlexaShutUp]

So the justification for the pictures of Boris in lockdown is that they were essential work meetings and therefore allowed. The wine and cheese was apparently because people were working long hours. I have seen no explanation of why Carrie was present.

Do you have essential work meetings of this nature? I don't.

AIBU to think that, in the midst of a pandemic, I'd rather that our decision makers stayed off the booze while carrying out their essential functions? And that unelected individuals who are not employed by the government in an official capacity have no business sitting in on such meetings?

@Watapalava

Re comparing to funeral behaviour - I’m sorry but only an idiot doesn’t comfort a family member at a funeral - rule or no rule. I never understood how people could be so calllus as to watch someone upset and stay 2m away because Boris said. Have some bloody compassion and common sense

Sadly some crematoriums were very strict in the rules. Don't you remember seeing the video footage of one set of officials forcibly preventing two sons from comforting their grieving ,other?

And yes if some of the general public did bend rules over difficult times it's a massive difference to the large number of who make the rules blatantly disregarding them large scale, for social reasons (not to comfort a grieving relative, which is understandable) and to party and to do so in such away they could be photographed doing so.

During our family's difficult times back then I can't say that every single rule wasn't bent, or broken. We did break some - we let my bil stay overnight when he came down to see his dying father so that he didn't have to do the same 3 hour drive back home alone whilst very upset. We let Dd see her boyfriend for an hour or two outside, distanced, in our garden 4 days later in her 18th birthday as she was really struggling with the idea of losing her grandad, her great grandma stuck in hospital alone very ill, not having any in person contact with anyone her own age, her 18th celebrations cancelled, her exams being cancelled, etc.

So yes we didn't always follow every rule fully all the time.
But we did it discretely.
And we were not the ones making the rules for everyone else to follow.
And we weren't doing it for fun and games, it was to manage incredibly difficult times.

As previous posters have said, Carrie does NOT live at No 10. That's mostly all offices, though it is the 'official residence' of the UK PM and there is a small amount of private living accommodation. But SFAIK, PMs Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May alllived at 11 Downing Street, because it had more room .

www.scotsman.com/news/politics/11-downing-street-why-boris-johnson-and-carrie-symonds-do-not-live-in-number-10-and-charity-controversy-explained-3151670

Boris and Carrie also live No 11 Downing St - the one they've spent so much on, refurbishing.
You can see a picture of them smiling outside their front door at No. 11 here, and read a bit more about the flat:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56878663

[quote Clavinova]Getyourarseofffthequattro
There is nothing you can say that makes it okay, literally nothing.

Oh well, at least you won't be voting for Keir Starmer either;

www.thesun.co.uk/news/14826418/keir-starmer-beer-indoor-gathering/[/quote]
Poor old Sun, it's getting seriously desperate. But it's very revealing of the fact that it knows it can't defend Johnson so it's best course is to try to divert attention.

Was this about the same time that Cummings was testing out his vision at Barnard Castle? Trying to contextualise the thing.

[quote scottishnames]As previous posters have said, Carrie does NOT live at No 10. That's mostly all offices, though it is the 'official residence' of the UK PM and there is a small amount of private living accommodation. But SFAIK, PMs Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May alllived at 11 Downing Street, because it had more room .

www.scotsman.com/news/politics/11-downing-street-why-boris-johnson-and-carrie-symonds-do-not-live-in-number-10-and-charity-controversy-explained-3151670

Boris and Carrie also live No 11 Downing St - the one they've spent so much on, refurbishing.
You can see a picture of them smiling outside their front door at No. 11 here, and read a bit more about the flat:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56878663[/quote]
Was the gathering in the no 10 or no 11 garden, do we know?

1. Who took the photo
2. Why not share the photo at the time and get all their nonsense stopped?
3. Let he without sin cast the first stone. (Did everyone stick to the rules all of the time?)
4. What's going on NOW that they're hiding or covering up, or Ooo look a distraction. What should be on the front pages of the papers right now?

Getyourarseofffthequattro
But again, he didn't make these rules, did he?

I think he [Starmer] called for stricter rules on several occasions.

Cummings was 27th March I think.

It’s all one garden behind No 10 and No 11 apparently.

@Clavinova

Getyourarseofffthequattro But again, he didn't make these rules, did he?

I think he [Starmer] called for stricter rules on several occasions.

Yes, but he didn't make them. Are you struggling to understand that?

Here is Clav in 2020 suggesting that 'staff interaction during rest breaks' should be investigated as a covid risk.

Only when it's nurses and teachers, eh, Clav?

Let he without sin cast the first stone. (Did everyone stick to the rules all of the time?)

I did, actually, to the best of my knowledge. So yes, I do expect our politicians and civil servants to do likewise.

@JaniieJones

'Have a look at this then. If you're not outraged, you really should be.'

The staff at that crematorium should hang their heads in shame.

Not sure of the relevance though tbh. The Downing Street photo shows people who have worked together all day sat outside having a break. It was allowed to have a break when at work you know.

Let's see the party photos. I wonder if there actually aren't any or if we are to be kept in suspense?

I wonder what work Carrie and Wilf had been doing? I'd have thought Wilf was a bit young and wasn't Carrie on maternity leave?

@cauliflowersqueeze

Was this about the same time that Cummings was testing out his vision at Barnard Castle? Trying to contextualise the thing.

That was earlier, around the middle of April.

Poor old Sun, it's getting seriously desperate. But it's very revealing of the fact that it knows it can't defend Johnson so it's best course is to try to divert attention.

The Sun article was published earlier in the year.

Not sure of the relevance though tbh. The Downing Street photo shows people who have worked together all day sat outside having a break. It was allowed to have a break when at work you know.

Just that most people have a hot drink and a biscuit during their breaks, rather than cheese and wine.

@CurzonDax

But how would he have taken the picture without her seeing? Maybe a hidden camera in a waiter's pocket?

And yes, I do have an image of Dominic Cummings as a cartoon Disney villain, rubbing his hands together in glee as he selects the next picture from the stash next to the ominously bubbling cauldron, in the dark, thorn-covered castle.

[quote Clavinova]Getyourarseofffthequattro
There is nothing you can say that makes it okay, literally nothing.

Oh well, at least you won't be voting for Keir Starmer either;

www.thesun.co.uk/news/14826418/keir-starmer-beer-indoor-gathering/[/quote]

1. He wasn't the one making the rules.
2. Wasn't this at the end of the working day, apparently that would make Boris OK in the garden. Of course it doesn't show Keir's wife and kids at the occasion which would have made it slightly different.

So yes I will vote for Keir.

Yes, in lockdown we had meetings outdoors.
Civil servants and SPADs have Downing Street garden meetings all the time and alcohol is often involved (paid for by the taxpayer) They would have carried on right through.

But - Carrie was there - why?

What surprises me is that Alex Johnson had only got over Covid 19 (when apparently he was very ill) a month prior (someone tell me if I have got that wrong) and casting your mind back to that time, no-one knew for sure how it was transmitted or whether he would have still had virus in his body. Wouldn't he have been ultra careful not to catch it again and not to pass it on?

He was not afraid. He seems to have known something that we didn't.

@mumda

1. Who took the photo

1. Why not share the photo at the time and get all their nonsense stopped?
2. Let he without sin cast the first stone. (Did everyone stick to the rules all of the time?)
3. What's going on NOW that they're hiding or covering up, or Ooo look a distraction. What should be on the front pages of the papers right now?

Try this;

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/19/piers-corbyn-arrested-on-suspicion-of-calling-for-mps-offices-to-be-burned-down

@PhilCornwall1

They all work together all day in a small building, and they'd all already had Covid. There is no threat here.

So you know every bugger in that photo had already had covid then. No you don't know that.

Isn't it funny that it is a huge building when Boris was unaware of "gatherings" and then suddenly it becomes a small building. Poor little Wilf must have had covid when he was a tiny baby.

That's nice they get the free brain poison on the taxpayer😂.

How unlike the workplaces of our own dear proles!

Or if you want to go down 'memory lane ' try this one;

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1282753/tony-blair-news-downing-street-expenses-parliament-cosmetic-costs-spt

[quote Clavinova]If Carrie not in Govt, she shouldn't be there & alcohol is hardly a "refreshment"

She has 9 years experience working for the Conservative Party - as press officer/media advisor/director of communications - and the meeting followed a press conference. Plus she lives there.

when the rest of us were not really allowed to leave our houses?

At the time you were allowed unlimited exercise, access to public parks and gardens, picnics etc...

Keir Starmer a year later, but under similar rules...

LABOUR have dismissed an election ‘booze row’ after Sir Keir Starmer enjoyed a beer after a day on the campaign trail.

He was seen mixing with party workers in a constituency office in Durham.

A Labour spokesman said: “Keir was in the workplace, meeting a local MP in her constituency office and participating in an online Labour Party event. They paused for dinner as the meeting was during the evening.”

www.thesun.co.uk/news/14826418/keir-starmer-beer-indoor-gathering/[/quote]
She lives nextdoor at No 11.