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?

I guess it's not surprising that they make such poor decisions if that's how government business is conducted.

From what i can see its totally within rules - work or social

The rules were you can sit at table outside with 2 other people - which they did

The fact that 17 others sat in garden too is irrelevant s long as on separate tables

IT WAS ALLOWED

the fact it was work, with wine etc is irrelevant.

Anyone remember those nurses vilified in the press for having the time to make a TikTok dance in PPE after one shift?

@Alarmset

Absolutely, it just shows what a damaging effect the government's lack of moral probity is having on people's willingness to do what it is required to minimise the impact of this pandemic.

Completely agree with what @Eleganz said. And of course if this was the only party that had come to light people may have been less bothered. But it's the fifth if I've been counting correctly. All using the excuse of work. May be legally correct because of how the regs were drafted, but a lot of the guidance the govt were pumping out wasn't enforceable in law (1 hour, once a day) and they certainly expected us to comply.

Even when I have had work meetings round my house, they never included wine, or a cheeseboard, or my spouse.

And they'd still get re-elected as the Labour Party are no competition.

And they know it.

@Watapalava

From what i can see its totally within rules - work or social

The rules were you can sit at table outside with 2 other people - which they did

The fact that 17 others sat in garden too is irrelevant s long as on separate tables

IT WAS ALLOWED

the fact it was work, with wine etc is irrelevant.

Was it though? Were you allowed that many people in your private garden? I don't think you were.

@Watapalava

From what i can see its totally within rules - work or social

The rules were you can sit at table outside with 2 other people - which they did

The fact that 17 others sat in garden too is irrelevant s long as on separate tables

IT WAS ALLOWED

the fact it was work, with wine etc is irrelevant.

So that massive gathering at the top of the picture was just 3 people? What about social distancing?

God, some people are so lacking in moral fibre that they will defend anything to save Boris and his big project.

Is anyone really surprised though, did anyone really think they were following any of the rules they put in place.

If the defense is it's a private garden, you weren't allowed guests in the garden in May 2020.

I'm a bit less able to get worked up about this one from a pandemic restriction POV because for a group of people who've been working in the same room all day to take a bottle of wine outside in the evening and have a social chat poses absolutely zero additional risk.

And yes I've had wine and cheese at work events a zillion times so I could perhaps accept (at a stretch) that they were taking the meeting outside to continue discussions with a glass of wine.

Like so many of these things, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up which does the damage, because if they were in fact having a permitted work meeting discussing vital government business what the fuck was some random woman who's not elected or a government employee doing there?

"I have seen no explanation of why Carrie was present."

maybe because she lives there?

Working in local government we were banned from drinking on the premises about 30 odd years ago. Not even if a long standing member of staff retired. Any do's had to be out of the office, out of office hours.

I’ve had team meetings prior to going out on our Christmas lunch at which prosecco and nibbles - provided by staff - were served. But the actual work aspect of the meeting took around 5-10 minutes and the rest was taken up by a quiz.

@Alarmset

If the defense is it's a private garden, you weren't allowed guests in the garden in May 2020.

Indeed, but even then the huge group and lack of social distancing would have made it against the rules that did not come in until June 2020.

Sometimes, as a special treat, we get a croissant.

Also what additional risk is there, you’ve been in a meeting all day and you go outside and have a glass of wine after. It’s not like they got together just for a piss up.

Well then they should have made rules that reflected that. When schools reopened, kids that spent all day sitting in a classroom together couldn’t then go and play at the park together. What is the additional risk there? A teacher and a TA who spent all day in the same room couldn’t sit in one of their gardens and have a glass of wine - what’s the additional risk there?
They made the rules. If they didn’t like them, if they were there thinking “hang on, are some parts of these rules, now we’re actually living them day to day, a bit illogical and restrictive? Maybe we should adapt them”, then change them. Don’t go “ah well, we’ll just break them as we please but everyone else can carry on”.

And that’s completely ignoring the fact that the baby was born April 29th and this pic was taken in May. The baby is less than a month old. Babies born around the same time weren’t allowed to meet their grandparents, people saw newborns through windows. But Boris’s colleagues could be around his newborn?

Friends in the Civil Service tell me that it is not uncommon to have wine and a hamper from Harrods at meetings.

For me, the key thing isn't that they broke the rules while others followed them (though that does make me very angry).

It is that THEY WEREN'T AFRAID.

We were told that the virus was dangerous. We were told we would kill people if we mixed - we might be vulnerable but not know it, or our friends might be, or we might be fine but would pass it on to someone who would then die, and we would have blood on our hands.

That we must not leave our houses, sit in a family member's garden, sit down at a picnic bench with a friend - BECAUSE IT WAS DANGEROUS.

That if we didn't follow the rules, the NHS would be overwhelmed and the dead would pile up in hospital corridors.

WE WERE TOLD TO BE AFRAID.

Clearly, looking at those pictures, they weren't afraid. The people who had access to all the data, all the sage advice and scenarios, they made their own risk assessment and it said "you're fine".

If they weren't afraid of covid then, they aren't afraid now.

So now, I will ignore their attempts to control me and me family by fear. I will ignore their attempts to direct my actions through guilt.

I will do my own risk assessment, just as they did. I will make my own choices about who I mix with and how, just as they did.

And I will not be made to feel fear and I will not be made to feel guilt - because they certainly aren't.

As much as this was a bloody disgrace I don’t like the way these pictures are being wheeled out years after the event. Same with the Christmas parties. Clearly the pictures were available, so why wait until we’re at a crucial point to bring them out? It’s pure manipulation on the part of the press

Do you seriously think the press have been sitting on these for months? They are being leaked from somewhere within government. Speculation on Twitter is that this picture was taken from No. 11 - ie Sunak. He is known to be against further restrictions and is a contender for the leadership.

I've never worked anywhere where consumption of alcohol on the premises was allowed. As I suspect most people have.

My view is that they should make this a rule for all government buildings and also ban the sale of alcohol at the HoC while parliament is in session.

Naw...they're having a laugh.

I wonder how many pictures it will take before it all falls over? Labour isn't a threat to Boris - the Tory machinery is.

More Allegra video's coming out apparently - all surrounding Boris's personal life.

@CheshireKitten123

"I have seen no explanation of why Carrie was present."

maybe because she lives there?

My dp and Ds live with me but they've never attended my work meetings weirdly enough.

@Plantsandpuddlesuits

I had an essential meeting on zoom around that time, I'm deaf and struggled through for 2 hours only catching every other word, when it finished I broke down in sobs I was so exhausted and had to go for a nap.

But those were the rules, in person wasn't allowed.

And before anyone asks, no you can't lipreading on zoom, only about 30percent of the English language is lipreadable anyway.

Glass of wine would probably have got me through it to be honest!!

Did you not have the live subtitling on? It's not perfect but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing and takes a lot of the strain off (admittedly my experience is Teams on Zoom).

What does it really matter?

It matters because my friend died of covid, alone, with none of her family there for comfort. Her funeral was limited to ten people who had to stay two metres apart and weren't allowed to have food/drinks together afterwards.

It matters because my great-uncle died of covid, alone, with none of his family there for comfort. His funeral was limited to ten people who had to stay two metres apart and weren't allowed to have food/drinks together afterwards.

It matters because my elderly neighbour died of covid, alone, with none of her family there for comfort. Her funeral was limited to ten people who had to stay two metres apart and weren't allowed to have food/drinks together afterwards.

It matters because my FIL died, not of covid, but alone and with none of his family there for comfort due to covid rules. His funeral was limited to ten people who had to stay two metres apart and weren't allowed to have food/drinks together afterward.

It matters because 730,000 jobs were lost due to lockdowns, those employees didn't have the option of working from the garden instead of being laid off.

It matters because £18bn of our money was spunked away on dodgy contracts to ministers mates at the same time as those ministers were attempting to take free school meals and the UC uplift away from the most vulnerable members of our society.

It matters because Boris Johnson missed five critical Cobra meetings at the start of the pandemic that could have meant we responded sooner and more decisively, he also dicked off on holiday in that time with instructions that he was not to be disturbed, but apparently he can drag his useless arse to a "work meeting" when it involves the garden, booze, and pizza?

It matters because the NHS is on its knees, its staff are on their knees, burn out is at an all time high and the backlog caused by covid is going to take years to clear.

It matters because children's education was thrown to the wall. Schools were told to close with no plans in place for consistency or standards in how they would be taught. Know what the home schooling provided by my younger DCs school was? A text message with a link to Twinkl and that was it with no further communications from them until the week before schools reopened. My older DCs school did set work but there were children who didn't do any of it. Countless children slipped through the cracks without the safeguard net of school. Children with SN and SEN were thrown under the bus when EHCP provision was suspended and special schools closed to all pupils.

It matters because there was a 33% rise in domestic abuse reports, a 20% rise in safeguarding reports, and a 163 people were killed in domestic abuse incidents during lockdown. It matters because those people were locked away with their abusers and left to get on with it.

It matters because this government is so fucking arrogant, so contemptuous of the people of this country, that they think they can gaslight us into accepting that this was a standard business meeting and that it is us who are in the wrong for being angry about it. The country is fucked, the economy is fucked, and none of them give a shiny shit because they've been laughing at us the entire time with their wine and cheese.