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?

@SirSamuelVimes

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.

I agree with @SirSamuelVimes to an extent

When people see that Ministers, who have access to all the data, were socialising, it completely undermines the public health messages that it wasn't safe to do so

So now, when they say X isn't safe, then they have lost credibility

And the arrogance of all the lies gives me the rage

We're stuffed

No.
And that photo shows clearly it was not a 'work meeting'.
It was socialising. Less than 2m apart too.
when the rest of us were not really allowed to leave our houses?
Relatives dying unvisited. kids needing Social work help left to suffer.
'ordinary people' worried about jobs / housing / food.

If the Govt claim this is a 'work meeting' then why is alcohol involved ?
why are there no ipads/ laptops / pen & paper even?
why are spouses there if important Govt business is being done?

The lack of respect to do this then, & to describe it so now, is simply
STAGGERING to me.

'But it's clearly not a meeting is it?'

It's the outdoors area of their workplace where they've all spent all day together. So what if they had a break I don't get the outrage.

Like i say let's see the party footage, if there actually is any featuring ministers.

Carrie isn't a government employee, is she?
And wasn't she on maternity leave?

So why should she be at a government meeting?

I WFH and due to start in a couple of hours. I'll tell my DC they can wander in, no problem, maybe give an opinion or two, replenish my wine glass. FFS.

@starfro

Carrie has a huge input into how the running of the Government and is responsible for many firing and hiring decisions.

Some really misogynist views on here suggesting she should have been shut up inside the house whilst the men discuss the important stuff.

But she's not actually a government employee is she?

I don't think she shouldn't be involved because she's a woman, she shouldn't be involved because she doesn't bloody work there.

I honestly can't believe how people are defending their actions.
It's not just what the photo shows, it's the government response - the arrogance, the superiority complex is astounding.

If it's a 'breather', call it that - but don't make us all out to be fools. Tired of the excuses coming out after photo after photo ...

What a joke of a government. They need to go.
I'm sure Dominic has some more tricks up his sleeve.

The usual minimising from the usual posters. No surprises there, then. They'll bombard the thread until people get disgusted and give up.

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.

The Daily Mash has its finger on the public pulse:

www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/thats-not-a-work-meeting-thats-a-piss-up-says-uk-20211220215504

@JaniieJones

'But it's clearly not a meeting is it?'

It's the outdoors area of their workplace where they've all spent all day together. So what if they had a break I don't get the outrage.

Like i say let's see the party footage, if there actually is any featuring ministers.

Well quite, so why could nobody else do that?

Again, we all know it wasn't dangerous, but they made the rule that nobody could do that, so they should have followed it.

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/

@starfro

Carrie has a huge input into how the running of the Government and is responsible for many firing and hiring decisions.

Some really misogynist views on here suggesting she should have been shut up inside the house whilst the men discuss the important stuff.

No, I don’t think Phillip May should have been at government meetings if not elected or an employee.

I’m not foolish enough to think things don’t get discussed at home privately, but it’s absolutely not misogynistic to say that the prime minister’s spouse doesn’t really have a place at government meetings. Unless this meeting was about ocean conservation, which I believe is her job.

If you substitute "wine and cheese" for "mug of tea and a sandwich", and swap "garden" and "spouse" for "meeting room" and "colleagues" then yes, I participate in this kind of work meeting all the time!

Otherwise, no.

[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]
He's an arsehole as well. Not disputing that.

Her previous jobs are irrelevant. She doesn't work there.

I used to work in a hospital, I don't get to go back and have meetings with the consultants and drink wine with them.

Even if they had all had COVID already, the rules didn't state that you could socialise if you'd already had COVID. And anyone who could work from home, should have been.

If it was/is a dangerous virus - only essential meetings should have been taking place - and then, people should have gone home.

I just can't believe how angry this has made me - thinking of all those hard-working NHS staff, docs and nurses in full PPE caring for the nation's sickest, the retail staff, care workers - everyone busting their gut ... and then seeing this bunch of clowns relaxing and enjoying cheese and wine together after 'a hard day's work'. Sickening.

Always. Dunno about anyone else, but I always take my partner along as well.

Can't help feeling that picture does rather beg the question about who's really been running the country for the last couple of years...but then I've thought that for a while...

@Splatling

Carrie isn't a government employee, is she? And wasn't she on maternity leave?

So why should she be at a government meeting?

Because she is running the country?

It's not about the threat anyway. No one else was allowed to break the rules because they'd already had it.

The actual threat here is that the example they're setting means the public won't comply with restrictions as a result of government officials flaunting them.

Carrie has a huge input into how the running of the Government and is responsible for many firing and hiring decisions.

Well she bloody well shouldn’t. She is not a member of the government.

Some really misogynist views on here suggesting she should have been shut up inside the house whilst the men discuss the important stuff.

Nothing to do with her being a woman. Everything to do with her not being a member of the Government. I’d say the same about Denis Thatcher or Philip May.

Some really misogynist views on here suggesting she should have been shut up inside the house whilst the men discuss the important stuff.

It's not misogynist to say that someone's spouse should have no part to play in their work meetings (unless the spouse also works in the same organisation, obviously).

I don't allow DH to sit in on my work meetings and vice versa.

Carrie has a huge input into how the running of the Government and is responsible for many firing and hiring decisions

Some really misogynist views on here suggesting she should have been shut up inside the house whilst the men discuss the important stuff

This is a joke, yes? Carrie is not a government official or an MP. Why would she be at a "work meeting"?

Starmer wasn't making the rules. You can't accept your grotesque buffoon of a man, Johnson, is as hypocritical, corrupt and useless as they come.

So if Carrie is Agrippina and pulling the strings, what does that make of Johnson? Caligula?

@starfro

Carrie has a huge input into how the running of the Government and is responsible for many firing and hiring decisions.

Some really misogynist views on here suggesting she should have been shut up inside the house whilst the men discuss the important stuff.

How is it misogynist to think that somebody who wasn't voted in by the UK population, should get a say in how the government run our country?

If Carrie wants a say, she should run as an MP herself. Once voted in, she should get her fair chance to have an put, like any other.