Posted on 12/20/2021 5:03:21 AM PST by dynachrome
A photo of Boris Johnson, his wife and 17 staff members in the Downing Street garden with bottles of wine and a cheese board shows them having a "work meeting", No 10 has said.
The Guardian, which published the image, says the gathering took place in May 2020, after a press conference held during the first lockdown.
At the time, there were strict restrictions on mixing.
No 10 said work meetings often took place outside during summer months.
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told BBC Breakfast: "If you think how hard [people in Downing Street] are working under the pressure of the week, they sometimes have a drink, and that's what's happening there."
But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was "a stretch" to call the gathering a work meeting, noting a "contrast" between the picture of the PM and people who were unable to attend funerals at the time because of the lockdown.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
13 November 2020: Sources have told the BBC there were impromptu drinks to mark the exit of the former director of communications at No 10, Lee Cain - but it was staff having drinks at their desks and was over by 20:30 GMT.
13 November 2020: Also the date Dominic Cummings left as chief adviser to the PM. Sources told the BBC that several Downing Street staff members attended a gathering with Carrie Johnson in the flat where the prime minister and his wife live above No 11 after exits. A source said music was blaring and could be heard elsewhere in the building. But others said to be at the party denied it took place, as did a spokeswoman for Mrs Johnson.
25 November 2020: The Times reported Treasury officials held a drinks party in their office to celebrate Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spending review during the lockdown. The newspaper said two dozen civil servants were understood to have attended the event. But a spokesman for the department insisted it was an “impromptu” event, with a “small number” of staff who celebrated around their desks.
27 November 2020: Another No 10 aide, Cleo Watson, left Downing Street marked by an event. Again, sources said it was not formally organised, but people were having drinks and Mr Johnson made a speech.
10 December 2020: The Department for Education has confirmed it had a gathering in the office to thank staff for their work during the pandemic. Drinks and snacks were brought by those who attended and no outside guests or support staff were invited.
14 December 2020: The Conservatives have confirmed a report in the Times that there was an “unauthorised social gathering” in the basement of their party’s building, held by the team of the London mayoral candidate at the time, Shaun Bailey. It was described as “raucous”, with No 10 aides
15 December 2020: Multiple sources told the BBC there was a Christmas quiz for No 10 staff in the Cabinet Office, with invites sent out in advance via email, telling people to form teams of six. Downing Street have said it was a “virtual gathering” but while some joined in that way, sources said there were groups in the room sat in their teams. This is the event the Sunday Mirror released a picture of the PM attending virtually.
17 December 2020: The BBC understands a quiz was held for members of Cabinet Secretary Case’s private office, and invitations were sent out beforehand titled “Christmas Party!” About 15 people were invited to the gathering at 70 Whitehall, near Downing Street, although it is understood not everyone turned up.
18 December 2020: A Downing Street Christmas party took place on this date, as first reported by the Mirror. A source told the BBC there was food, drinks and games at the gathering that went on past midnight.
DWP gatherings: The Department for Work and Pensions confirmed a “core team” of staff drank alcohol and ate takeaways “on a number of occasions” whilst working late in the office while Covid restrictions were in place. It followed a report in the Sunday Mirror alleging political staff and officials working for minister Therese Coffey frequently drank after work until the early hours of the morning.
I knew that guy was a fake from the beginning.
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told BBC Breakfast: “If you think how hard [people in Downing Street] are working under the pressure of the week, they sometimes have a drink, and that’s what’s happening there.”
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Just like Pelosi. Drinking on the job.
Government should be a crappy job with no benefits, poor pay, painful forensic accounting of all employees to ensure no one is getting rich, and nothing like a “Do You Know Who I Am?” attitude tolerated by anyone. The cleaning staff should command more respect than a government bureaucrat.
Who would take such a job? Almost nobody.
Which would mean that government would be incapable of doing much of anything. Which would be a vast improvement.
The man can’t comb his hair but people thought he could run the country. Much the same here.
When I speak with those on the "right" who think government is too big, too expensive and too well fattened, they agree without hesitation.
It is a funny thing similarly when I speak to the so-called Leftists about fat government, they trot out excuses as of they are of the “Left.” Oddly few have ever heard the very Marx-Engels concept of the “withering of the state.”
Even for the more orthodox Leftist, the state is supposed to be seen over time as something to wither away, not fatten.
For the Marxists’ side of this:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/hardcastle/1946/wither_away.htm
For the Austrian economics side:
https://mises.org/library/marxs-theory-stages-withering-away-state-under-socialism
A true conservative AND a true liberal should be able to agree on an overweight state being put on a severe diet in terms of both money and control.
That leaves us only to consider who are these advocates of the ever-gourging state, hurling whole nations into debt. I use a third classification to describe them.
The rent-seeking corrupt. They appears as if conservative, and they appear as if liberal but they are neither. They are the corrupt using politics for their own ends.
You are so insightful to see a potentially "vast improvement" available. If only....
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