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AIBU?

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Original poster

AIBU to say that people in the “real world” absolutely do care about Downing Street parties?

349 replies

PuzzledObserver · 09/02/2022 18:54

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60318610

According to Mark Spencer MP, the new leader of the House of Commons, people don’t care about partygate because what really matters to them is their jobs, NHS backlogs and energy prices.

Personally I am capable of caring about all of those AND being incensed by the “do what I say not what I do” attitude of certain members of the Government and its officials.

YABU = of course nobody cares, move on

YANBU = it absolutely matters that they told us one thing and did another themselves.

OP posts:
SEE123 · 09/02/2022 20:30

YANBU! Absolutely raging at the audacity of it.

ProfYaffle · 09/02/2022 20:31

One of the positive things to come out of this is that, of the people I know, it's united them like nothing else has. I've lost count of the number of people who have said how angry they are and how much they hate him now. Most of them used to like him and voted for him.

SilverGlitterBaubles · 09/02/2022 20:33

@Millionairesshortbreadshort

underneaththeash

I don't care either - they were under massive pressure in the office anyway and I really do not give a shit.

ICU doctors and nurses were under massive pressure too. Didn’t see any of them partying. No drinking at work for them! They’d be sacked!!

Indeed, no drinking in most workplaces not to mention the actual PM and senior officials in the government during the greatest crisis since WW2. Is it any wonder they made so many bad decisions and wasted billions on useless PPE.
Vintagevixen · 09/02/2022 20:34

@Millionairesshortbreadshort

underneaththeash

I don't care either - they were under massive pressure in the office anyway and I really do not give a shit.

ICU doctors and nurses were under massive pressure too. Didn’t see any of them partying. No drinking at work for them! They’d be sacked!!

I did! No word of a lie I went to a huge party last year stuffed with ITU nurses (including myself!) and doctors when there were still restrictions on indoor meet ups. Obviously no drinking at work but boy was there drinking that Saturday night.
ethelredonagoodday · 09/02/2022 20:35

@elfycat

I care that while many of us were following the flipping rules, trying our best to flatten curves, avoid needing NHS care, missing family, remembering why I hate doing a big weekly shop etc, they were sneaking around doing whatever they wanted.

While people were stressed to the point of being brittle in temperament, the police telling walkers off, cancelling weddings and funerals, and people actually dying of this illness, they were having parties.

And then standing in the heart of government and lying about it. Lying because they knew it was wrong. Sorry because they got caught. Non apologies abound. DARVO at government level.

I care. I have many other things in my life, but I care about this.

Exactly this. Pretty much everyone I know cares. The only people who seem less bothered are those who are Boris Johnson fans.
Daphodils · 09/02/2022 20:36

Some people do, I really don't (although can't stand the Tories and enjoy seeing them squirm Grin)

HowlingKale · 09/02/2022 20:36

People I know are appalled.
Apart from one who likes to be a renegade.😂

MorrisZapp · 09/02/2022 20:38

I don't care and I'm sick of hearing about it. So they got drunk, as my Aberdonian granny would say 'fa didny'.

So much utter crap needing to be sorted out and this is the main news, day after day after day.

AppleKatie · 09/02/2022 20:39

I care that our prime minister is a demonstrable liar.

I care that he has so little respect for the laws of the land that he doesn’t think he has to follow them.

I care that in a time when he thought it was ok to behave as he did he didn’t object publicly to the police being heavy handed with two women out for a walk with a coffee.

I care because of the injustice. Of course I care because of the comparison with all the things I and my loved ones gave up on it that time.

Mostly though I care because if we can’t trust them with this we certainly can’t trust them with the larger social/financial/international issues.

Unfit to govern.

maltravers · 09/02/2022 20:40

It’s not about sausage rolls and canapés. It’s about integrity, respect for your electorate, setting an example and accountability. Or not if you’re some in government it seems.

EcoCustard · 09/02/2022 20:41

I care, I lost my business. My children didn’t get their birthday parties, one of them twice. On one of the days they partied our outdoor visit to Santa was cancelled due to their fucking tier restrictions. I had to console one of my kids because they sent them to school for one day and then closed them. They followed the rules, but those at the top couldn’t, wouldn’t and didn’t want to. And after all his lying he then lies some more. Party gate is the tip of the iceberg for me. I cannot fathom how he continues after so many lies to parliament. All the MP’s that continue to support him by submitting letters of no confidence are as compliant now too in my opinion. My useless MP included.

PinkiOcelot · 09/02/2022 20:43

I care! Whilst they were partying away and swapping bodily fluids, my mam has been incarcerated in a care home. I’ve seen her through a Perspex screen for half an hour once a fortnight. That was after I hadn’t seen her at all for months on end.
She’s now nearing end of life and I’m still only allowed a fortnightly visit. So yes, I definitely care. I can only presume those people who don’t care have nothing personal to relate to. Must be nice!

EveryFlightBeginsWithAFall · 09/02/2022 20:48

Yes a fucking care that they were breaking their own rules and having parties while my young children couldn't play with friends or go to a park. Bunch of intolerable pissants

HamSandwichKiller · 09/02/2022 20:48

So bored of it. Zero interest in what anyone was doing in May 2020. It's all crappy politics and riling people up to be perpetually offended.

PaintYourDreams · 09/02/2022 20:49

Everyone is entitled to care as much or as little about this as they choose to. And then cast their vote accordingly at the next election if it's a deciding factor for them.

But the whole media/campaigner circus screaming hysterically about it and constantly telling us we should be outraged is ridiculous. And the deliberate conflation of very different events with different attendees. And the anonymous drip feeding of photos/allegations.

It sits uncomfortably with me that there is a very determined campaign to remove an elected prime minister but not by an election.

Peregrina · 09/02/2022 20:50

The next general election is several years away and I don't see it being a factor by that point. I'm not convinced that Labour or any other politicians wouldn't have done any different.

It's not. It's due on the first Thursday in May in 2024. So just slightly longer than we've been living with Covid.

Whether we forget depends what happened to you - if you couldn't be with a dying relative and then couldn't hold a proper funeral, you aren't likely to forget in a hurry.

SilverGlitterBaubles · 09/02/2022 20:50

@MorrisZapp

I don't care and I'm sick of hearing about it. So they got drunk, as my Aberdonian granny would say 'fa didny'.

So much utter crap needing to be sorted out and this is the main news, day after day after day.

The point is how they behave shows you the characters they are. The parties are just the latest in a long list of things they have lied about and got away with and they will just keep going. They have funnelled billions of our money to donors and cronies while telling us taxes need to rise. Do you think they actually care one jot about us, about food banks or energy costs?
CaveWoman1 · 09/02/2022 20:51

Seriously those saying they don’t care are missing the point completely. Whilst the rest of us were struggling under the pressure of a pandemic, obeying the rules this Govt. set for us, foregoing last chances to say goodbye to dying relatives, cutting our social contacts, suffering new degrees of loneliness & isolation, raising babies alone, without support networks or toddler groups or normal community activities - children scared & confused & stripped of their normal routines; ALL OF THAT……….

Whilst we followed the fucking rules, the people who set them wilfully broke them to have parties whilst everyone else was going through hell.

It makes me so so angry & they have outed themselves for the selfish, ignorant villains that they are. Moreover they have completely lost the moral authority to impose another set of rules upon us, so in effect this Govt. cannot lead. No-one will take them at their word ever again. So it matters & this is why I don’t understand people who say “I don’t care.” It’s a strange response given the above.

LethargicActress · 09/02/2022 20:52

I don’t care. I think there are benefits to Boris’s overall attitude to covid and it’s that same attitude that led to him allowing work drinks. Plus, there are far more interesting and important things that the media could have been talking about for weeks instead.

OhWhyNot · 09/02/2022 20:53

Many people do many people don’t

I care more about the dishonesty and the huge amount of money wasted and the deals it’s criminal

Theworldisfullofgs · 09/02/2022 20:56

I don't think there is any benefit to Johnson at all.

Everything is 'an example of'.

He's an impulsive overgrown child who lies to get himself out of the shit.

Zeewest · 09/02/2022 20:57

I really don't care, loads of people round here just ignored all the rules

DearlyBeloathed · 09/02/2022 20:57

I don't really care because everyone I know broke the rules, and if I didn't care when they did it, I'd be a hypocrite to care about anyone else doing it.

NETSRIK · 09/02/2022 21:00

I am sick of Boris and the rest of them telling us what we care about and that we should move on. I care about a liar not being our PM.

Attictroll · 09/02/2022 21:02

I care...I think of friends who lost their parents, of children missing out on school friends and birthday parties...I think of the queen at prince Philips funeral ( and I am a republican) I think of people who died alone, who lived alone, of people who gave birth or lost babies alone and I think of the mental health impact on our kids and I am sad and angry.