Boris' Christmas Party car crash

there's just not enough pop corn

Who gives a tug if there was a party in 10DS. Mainly people who already hate Boris and the Tories I would guess. I don’t give a tug.
 

Who doesn’t give a tug? Mainly people who fooking love Boris and the Tories I guess.

The more parties come to light the better.

Then more people will realise that we are governed by creeps and crooks.

I am looking for Italian levels of contempt for the governing class.

I didn’t follow the rules back then. I’m not following them now. Doubt many rofers did either tbh. Bunch of bed wetters causing parties to be cancelled now from what I can gather. 

There’s a debate on Twitter as to whether s.73 of the Public Health etc Act 1984 applied to exempt 10 DS from the regulations as it is owned by a government department.

There’s a certain strain of Tory voter who won’t care, they’ll see a blue rosette on the ballot paper and have their usual Pavlovian response.

you’d think they would care that the state cancelled Christmas parties and then the various departments of the executive held a Christmas party. They lack that level of critical thinking.

The ‘nobody cares about this!!!’ brigade are determined not to learn the lessons of Barnard Castle aren’t they? Baffling really. 

by election in a week, the fvcking Lib Dems are now 13/8 in a constituency packed with frothing brexiteers

As others have said, you can’t persuade a Tory voter that this is wrong. Boris could grope the Queen in public and Tories would say, “I like a man who takes what he wants. That resonates with me.” When you voted for Boris, you voted for there to be no bar. It was the same with Trump. 
 

Ive had it with Tories. No moral life whatsoever. 

The only people who care are those who wouldn’t vote Tory anyway. 

Bollocks. This is straight up hypocrisy of the kind that everyone can understand, on an issue that affected everyone who wanted to have a normal Christmas last year - that is to say, virtually everyone.

that press rehearsal footage is brutal 

they can all go to fvck tbh - there were loads of people following guidance last xmas (at great personal sacrifice) so there’s a special place in hell for the tossers who created the rules laughing about breaking them behind the publics back 

I am so bored of this story now. I wonder whether the general public gives a fook.

Had to laugh at the pear-clutcher-in-chief, David Lammy on Radio 4 just now being outraged at the press sec being “humorous”. 

It gets worse , people apparently left no 10 , went home to get into their glad rags , and then returned. Doesn’t sound like an impromptu drink to me .

whose head do you think will roll 

Team 'sane' all Pro Tory now?

I get someone will have to be sacked but what is more worrying for me is that nobody in our political classes that attended the party seemed to think 'hang on, maybe this is against the rules so I won't go'.

Thick as mince?

Crypto is right to an extent but it is misplaced complacency.

The kind of people who don't vote Tory that are appalled by this dishonesty are the same people who actually gave the tories the red wall. Those votes are long gone.

there were plenty of businesses that lost hundreds of thousands from the decisions made to cancel Christmas.  Caterers, hotels, restaurants - and the whole supply chain associated with that - on top of course of the emotional issues suffered by more or less the whole of the country in being told that they could not get together.  He truly is a khunt.  

I’m just not sure this has the kind of cut through that some posters are imagining it has. An election isn’t going to be won or lost on this and I’d suggest that in the (albeit subjective) litany of Johnson scandals this is fairly low down the list. 
 

What is useful, however, is that it makes it harder for any other lockdown to be brought in because of lost credibility. 

Javid has just cancelled his morning round of tv interviews - doesn't want to be forced to defend his indefensible boss presumably 

he wasn't in the cabinet this time last year was he - unblemished by association with all this. Maybe he's busy getting supporters to write letters to the 1922 committee 

Crypto there's no election to be won or lost right now - it could take bojo out tho. He is dead man walking anyway, I reckon several tories fancy taking over next summer when hopefully covid is abad memory. this could accelerate all that by 6 to 12 months. 

He’s got no chance given his move towards closer alignment with the mediban and “the science”. He’s supporting the things that hate such as the travel restrictions. 

The problem for Boris is this just adds to the pile of previous mishaps, which seem to be happening almost weekly now.  Also this one is watchable, and has senior staff very obviously taking the piss which will not go down well with voters.  

This is cutting through way more than a bunch of dead afghans or dodgy PPE contracts.

thick knuckle draggers can understand this (“they has party when i cant has party!”) and the british public generally despises hypocrisy. 

I can see this going on for a while and, hopefully, more salacious details being revealed. Its all very very amusing. 

Ant and Dec were joking about this on I’m a Celeb. People made big sacrifices last Xmas at Boris’ behest whilst he had a cheese and wine night. This has cut through. 
 

A nice 20 second clip, perfect for social media, just adds to the cut through. 

It fooks me off that the lobby “journalists” breathlessly reporting on this now have definitely known about it all along and decided it wasn’t worth mentioning last January when we were all actually in lockdown. Because they’re mates with all the people involved. 

he had a cheese and wine night

No, it was a party... The no 10 spads were flirting with the idea of calling it a cheese and wine do in case that sounded better. Or they were just taking the p1ss, whatever.  

Loving this. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of cowardly authoritarian aunts. The rank hypocrisy of those shrieking about it (of course I visited Aunty Maud, but I was very careful) just makes the whole stinking insanity even more stark. 

It looked like the public who were obeying the rules were being laughed at by those in power - that will cut through.  It wont alter the next election on its own of course but the drip drip drip continues.

What is fookin weird is not that the government broke the rules, of course they did, its in their nature, its that they adopted this fooking ridiculous media strategy of denial.  If they had just said, yes colleagues did get together, we thought ok because they work together anyway but in retrospect a mistake this would be half forgotten by now.

Imagine him standing up there now saying “you must stay at home and not meet other people” flanked by grim faced experts. He’ll be more ridiculed than ever. 

I wonder who else they have dirt on. Hancock and that Dr Doom fella have already been caught out. I am virtually certain that they have something on most senior ministers and staff. A constant drip feed of this over the next few months will be most amusing.

The problem is the utter corrupt mendacity of the govt is already priced in to the polling. 

Bojo is on the record arranging to have a journalist beaten up and lieing to eveyone he has ever known in a personal or professional capacity - and the public still voted for him. Not sure having a party will make that much difference despite the rank hypocrisy of it. I mean most of us probably had similar jokey conversations with family and friends

I think the vuvu freaks who followed every detail of the law, despite undue public prominence, are probably quite a small cohort and anti Tory anyway. That said its all so bad I could be wrong. It really seems to me pretty random what story cuts through and what doesnt.

(And what someone else said about how everyone in the media must have known about this but stayed quiet - equally despicable).

"The fact that the BBC is spending so much time on this is a bit of a joke really. Are there not more important things going on in the world right now?"

NOTHING TO SEE HERE!

Tbh it is an important story. In any sensible democracy this sort of rank hypocrisy in relation to authoritarian rules that have made peoples lives miserable - compounded by complete dishonesty across the PM and the senior cabinet - would be a massive story and would bring down a govt.

The fact that people can shrug about it tells its own story about how low public standards have fallen.

As has probably already been said above, this is all for the good as (a) it makes it harder for govt to launch any more ludicrous restrictions and (b) it makes the lockdown fanatics froth with impotent rage.  Plus, as I said above, if it makes more people lose faith in those who rule them then perhaps they'll start to think and stand up for themselves.  The more of this the better.

Do you what. If this brings the government down it will be the most depressing thing to happen in the last 2 years against stiff competition. Obviously I would be delighted to see them go in some ways (although we would only get worse instead. There is absolutely no way Starmer is becoming PM) but honestly.  If this is what brings down this bunch of lying thieving scumbags there will be no justice in the world. 

Heh. I’m really enjoying the righteous anger from the blue hearts. Worth it for that alone. Allin-Khan’s face contorted with rage and hatred that her “frontline duties” of holding an iPad were for nothing. 

"I think the vuvu freaks who followed every detail of the law, despite undue public prominence, are probably quite a small cohort and anti Tory anyway. That said its all so bad I could be wrong. It really seems to me pretty random what story cuts through and what doesnt."

You didnt have to be a "vuvu freak" to forgo parties and seeing family and friends last year.  It was the law and most people obeyed it, whether they agreed or not.   I cant see why you would be any less angry just because you didn't agree with restrictions given they were the ones setting them.  Indeed by way of analogy if the government banned me from drinking and then they all had a big piss up I would probably be more angry if I was drinker than if I was teetotaller in favour of the ban.

With these latest abysmal revelations, I can only be thankful I didn't lose anyone in a lockdown. The incredible sacrifices people have made - not going to dying parents, children etc. - small wonder that doctor whose dad died just after the No 10 event described the Stratton et al video as "a bullet to the chest". That's exactly how I would feel. For any PM to be caught up in this is a mindblowing new low. 

I'm not a zealot on lockdowns. But we respected the lurchy rules last Xmas as we believe it's important to stick by public health rules and teach our kids the same, as we wanted to protect my elderly parents, as there were no vaccines at that point (bar a tiny handful of people) and as cases, hospitalisations, deaths were all racing upwards. Having just been through a difficult patch in life, I really wanted to see my parents, my mum in particular, as did their grandkids. When you get to their time of life you know you don't have so many Christmasses left. 

I know we've had awful Governments before (Lloyd George springs to mind). But that's not an excuse to tolerate this stuff. I feel I am watching some kind of slow death of my own country. Make it stop please. 

I'm really not sure most people obeyed to the letter to be honest. I think most people probably bent the rules a bit and got away with what they thought they could get away with/justify to themselves.  Certainly where people were working together there will have been more than a few glasses of wine and bits of cheese on sticks consumed I am sure. 

Now, if there is video footage of there being about 30 of them, all snogging each other under the mistletoe and photocopying each other's bums at 3am then it might be different but if it comes out that they had a couple of glasses of wine and swapped secret santa gifts I honestly think most people will have some sort of empathy for people doing that. 

 

and yes, I do get that if you were caught up in some of the really, really sh1t stuff like not being able to see a dying relative (which was clearly obscene and must never, ever be allowed to happen again) then you would feel differently but (fortunately) most people weren't. 

If this is what brings down this bunch of lying thieving scumbags there will be no justice in the world.

 

Don't really get this. They stopped everyone else having Christmas while having one themselves. Now there's footage of them lolling about it. It's very easy to understand. Why would it be unjust? Because they did other, worse stuff? Sure but that's frequently the case when a government is hit by some kind of PR disaster.

The only people who care are those who wouldn’t vote Tory anyway
 

Well yes, Tory voters tend to be somewhat self-selecting with regard to caring about hypocrisy and corruption.

"Medley08 Dec 21 10:13

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With these latest abysmal revelations, I can only be thankful I didn't lose anyone in a lockdown. The incredible sacrifices people have made - not going to dying parents, children etc. - small wonder that doctor whose dad died just after the No 10 event described the Stratton et al video as "a bullet to the chest". That's exactly how I would feel. For any PM to be caught up in this is a mindblowing new low. 

I'm not a zealot on lockdowns. But we respected the lurchy rules last Xmas as we believe it's important to stick by public health rules and teach our kids the same, as we wanted to protect my elderly parents, as there were no vaccines at that point (bar a tiny handful of people) and as cases, hospitalisations, deaths were all racing upwards. Having just been through a difficult patch in life, I really wanted to see my parents, my mum in particular, as did their grandkids. When you get to their time of life you know you don't have so many Christmasses left. 

I know we've had awful Governments before (Lloyd George springs to mind). But that's not an excuse to tolerate this stuff. I feel I am watching some kind of slow death of my own country. Make it stop please. "

 

Strong post.

I have ignored the rules as much as possible, travelled throughout the pandemic and done my level best to live my life as if Covid wasn’t happening. I have been vaccinated, but only because I had to in order to travel.

 

My approach is vindicated (yet) again by another instance of the overlords saying “do as I say not as I do”. What amazes me is that this comes as a surprise to anyone at all.