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?

@Bluntness100

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.

We were asked not to in order to limit the amount of time we spent with other people to reduce the risk of catching the virus from them. Someone could not be infectious during work and then becomes infectious whilst socialising with them. Work time that was strictly necessary face to face was fine but any other reason (ie socialising after work) was not

@MrsLargeEmbodied

someone has got it in for the tory party and has access to incriminating photos

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was someone within the Tory party.

@CheshireKitten123

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

And Carrie wasn't attending a "work meeting" because she isn't in government.
This seems to be the refreshments being supplied after the meeting was over.
Neither is it clear what date the photo was taken or what time.

Typical Guardian bo££ock$ from a paper that hasn't any proper news to report.

the meta data in the picture shows the date and time, Downing St do not deny or question the pic.

If Carrie not in Govt, she shouldn't be there & alcohol is hardly a "refreshment"
even Raab said it was a meeting "after work"

@MrsLargeEmbodied

someone has got it in for the tory party and has access to incriminating photos

More likely someone from inside the Conservative party IMO.

Doesn't mean the points aren't valid though.

yes, did you see the whatsapp when they chucked out andrea ledsom

@Hospedia
Great post. Very sad to read and let it all sink in. This is all bringing me to tears and making me so angry, but the people who make me angriest are those who continue to vote them in. I wish the rest of us could be protected from their amoral folly but we also have to bear the consequences.

@RozHuntleysStump

This is such a non story.

Only to Tories and people who have zero principles.

This is scraping the barrel…Do people not understand that No 10 is the office taking all the decisions relating to the pandemic? That the staff members will have been working face to face in the office (ie already at risk of getting civic and already in a type of bubble) because it is the type of job where fast and effective communication is vital. That actually if ‘Bob’ spends an hour on the phone to IT that could mean millions of pounds wasted or unnecessary lives lost. That they will have worked round the clock, including weekends (while millions of Brits were furloughed and sunned themselves in gardens). So if these individuals walked out into the garden on a stuffy day to finish a meeting then had some drinks at the end, they would not have increased the risk of transmission at all. Perhaps it was needed for morale because, you know, they were working bloody hard. In fact, the risk would have been lower in the garden. Carrie lived there, as PM wife she would have got to know the staffers well and wanted to join them after the meeting.

@Bluntness100

They probably had been at work (you'd hope so given the circumstances!) but this is clearly after work drinks

But it’s not is it. Plenty of meetings can have an hour of discussion at the end, break out groups or small individual meetings, and yes wine and whatever can be served. It doesn’t mean it’s after work drinks.

I’ve been to many like this, and I’m expected to stay. And this is where it makes it subjective. Because this could easily have been part of the meeting.

I agree

@MrsLargeEmbodied

someone has got it in for the tory party and has access to incriminating photos

And his name may or may not rhyme with Hominic Hummings...

These are all very carefully curated, and I'll bet this isn't the last thing that comes out.

If it all came out together it wouldn't have the same impact as a slow relentless cascade.

@Thewiseoneincognito

The joke being I bet a huge chunk of people on here voted for this shady government. Vote a clown, get a circus.

Ask yourselves, does this not feel strikingly similar like the tactic used to undermine Matt Hancock? Who is waiting in the wings to really give us the Tory government we don’t want or need? Pennywise?

As much as it makes me sick in my mouth it’s better the devil you know.

it’s better the devil you know. What a ridiculous idea

TwoLeftSocksWithHoles:
I think I've seen a picture of a meeting in the 10 Downing Street Cabinet Room where one can clearly see what looks like Carrie ironing in the background.

Seems a bit unlikely, given that the Johnsons don't live at No.10 (they have the flat above No.11).

Weird that anyone is trying to justify this social gathering as ‘socially distanced’ or a ‘work meeting’ when it is clearly not.

These are the same people who took their wife to Barnard Castle for their birthday when it wasn’t allowed, had Christmas parties when it wasn’t allowed, had their best mate over for Christmas when it wasn’t allowed. And these are the things we know about.

These people were clearly not following the rules that they set, when many others were, in extremely tragic circumstances, to the detriment of their mental health.

Piss-takers.

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

Apparently Carrie was there because "number 10 is her home" and she "legitimately" uses the garden.

I think I've seen a picture of a meeting in the 10 Downing Street Cabinet Room where one can clearly see what looks like Carrie ironing in the background.

I can almost guarantee that Carrie does not do her own ironing!

@Crumble012

This is scraping the barrel…Do people not understand that No 10 is the office taking all the decisions relating to the pandemic? That the staff members will have been working face to face in the office (ie already at risk of getting civic and already in a type of bubble) because it is the type of job where fast and effective communication is vital. That actually if ‘Bob’ spends an hour on the phone to IT that could mean millions of pounds wasted or unnecessary lives lost. That they will have worked round the clock, including weekends (while millions of Brits were furloughed and sunned themselves in gardens). So if these individuals walked out into the garden on a stuffy day to finish a meeting then had some drinks at the end, they would not have increased the risk of transmission at all. Perhaps it was needed for morale because, you know, they were working bloody hard. In fact, the risk would have been lower in the garden. Carrie lived there, as PM wife she would have got to know the staffers well and wanted to join them after the meeting.

because it is the type of job where fast and effective communication is vital.

hahahahahhahahahahahahahhaha

We once got told off for having alcohol free wine at work because it was something like . 5 alcohol.

It looked like no meeting I've ever been in but I've been largely public sector.

I want to know where the laptops, the pens and paper, dictaphones, work meeting stuff is!

@Booklover3

^ that was supposed to say baboons not buffoons

Both words interchangeable when you are talking about Boris.

I've done it at a big tech company. So I could happen. We even get wine at lunchtime some times.

We all know it wasn't actually dangerous. The issue is it was against the rules. Nobody else was allowed to do this, but they still did it.

Yes, the rules were and still are fucking stupid. Completely fucking ridiculous. But if they made these rules they should have bloody well stuck to them.

That's the point.

I’m loving the clutch of justifications being wheeled out to defend this. They all contradict each other beautifully. It was Carrie’s private garden - in which case what were her husband’s colleagues doing there? It was a work meeting - in which case what was Carrie doing there? It was a workplace - in which case why was there wine? They’d finished work before they started drinking - in which case why hadn’t they gone home in accordance with the rules? Any one of the ‘explanations’ works for any one bit of the overall picture, but they don’t work together at all - without a lot of double-think.

@SickAndTiredAgain

the garden image shows distancing? You can sit with one family which they did and the rest are all 2m apart.

Are we looking at the same picture? That’s a genuine question because Boris and Carrie are sitting with two other men (not family), not distanced. The table of four isn’t distanced, neither is the group at the top. They are not 2m apart. The only distanced person is the man weirdly crouched in the top right (Cummings? Don’t know what he’s doing).

I’ve already said it isn’t the worst breach of the rules, but I’m sick of the lying from them of “this was allowed”.

Are we looking at the same picture? That’s a genuine question because Boris and Carrie are sitting with two other men (not family), not distanced. The table of four isn’t distanced, neither is the group at the top. They are not 2m apart. The only distanced person is the man weirdly crouched in the top right (Cummings? Don’t know what he’s doing).

He’s kneeling on the grass talking to a woman and they are certainly not distanced.

@Crumble012

This is scraping the barrel…Do people not understand that No 10 is the office taking all the decisions relating to the pandemic? That the staff members will have been working face to face in the office (ie already at risk of getting civic and already in a type of bubble) because it is the type of job where fast and effective communication is vital. That actually if ‘Bob’ spends an hour on the phone to IT that could mean millions of pounds wasted or unnecessary lives lost. That they will have worked round the clock, including weekends (while millions of Brits were furloughed and sunned themselves in gardens). So if these individuals walked out into the garden on a stuffy day to finish a meeting then had some drinks at the end, they would not have increased the risk of transmission at all. Perhaps it was needed for morale because, you know, they were working bloody hard. In fact, the risk would have been lower in the garden. Carrie lived there, as PM wife she would have got to know the staffers well and wanted to join them after the meeting.

I actually agree that the behaviour itself, in isolation, isn’t massively unreasonable.

For me, the issue is that there was a big gap between what was reasonable, and what was legally allowed. This was within that gap. And they are lying to say it was allowed. It wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t unreasonable - I can absolutely see that if they’ve been working in the same room all day that this isn’t an additional risk. But that’s not what the rules said.
But they obviously can’t now say “well the rules were a bit much”. So they have to lie and say this was within the rules. Which it wasn’t. And I can’t bear the outright lie.

oh yes,
good old hummings

betrayal and deceit

He’s kneeling on the grass talking to a woman and they are certainly not distanced.

Oh I thought that was a bush