Bye Bye Boris!

[Barry]

We're doing largely the same thing, Just-Eat vouchers and a Zoom quiz. Better than nothing (WB have decreed no in-person parties) altho there's precious few eatieries local to me, unless I want £30 worth of cold McDonalds. (hint: I don't want any McDs)

[Rich B]

We had our do last week down in Bristol - glad we did it then, probably the last proper session out for a while. I was supposed to be at a black tie event tonight at Ascot Race course but that's been cancelled.

[dinny_g]

We had a nice team lunch on Tuesday. Bit rushed as I had meetings afterwards but it was good to catch up face to face. Got to say hello to 3 or 4 people who've only existed in Teams world up to now.

But about the whole Government, Christmas Party thing. Yes it's unacceptable, yes it does show very poor judgement and at any other time I'd say it should bring down the government but right here, right now, with so much of society on a knife edge - from Brexit to Immigration to Covid Variants, I don't think it's enough.

Next election, this should have a bearing but not right here, right now IMO

[Broccers]

Doms on one again.

I think Bozza will be gone next year.

[Simon]

We're having a virtual Christmas party today. Oh joy.

They've given us pre-loaded cash cards so that we can order our own food, so at least I can have something edible for a change.

I have many questions.

So will you all be on camera eating whatever food you've chosen, while wearing party hats and Christmas jumpers etc? Will anyone be in an actual pub/restaurant? Is it mandatory? Where can you use the cash cards? What have you ordered? Will the virtual party video coverage extend to people getting drunk after the meal? Will it be utterly cringeworthy like many of these virtual team building/forced social gathering things have been?

I'll take those in order...

Christmas jumpers yes, if you have one. No I won't be eating on camera. No to the hats.
No, everyone will be at home
No it's not mandatory
It's just a 'debit card' like thing, so I can stick it on Just Eat, Deliveroo, or whatever.
I haven't ordered anything. There's enough cash to order for both me and the wife and she's ill so I'll save it for tomorrow.
No.
Yes. There is a quiz apparently. We've used our mobiles for that kind of quiz interaction before. I doubt this will be any different. I hope the prizes are decent.

The voucher is valid till the end of the month so I'd be surprised if people don't keep it to the weekend.

[duncs500]

We're supposed to be having a proper Christmas do this year, I'm bracing myself for cancellation, nothing as yet. Will let you all know if there's any exciting developments.

[Jobbo]

I confirmed to my staff that our office party is going ahead this year. They haven't been restricted unless numbers are so vast they fall under the rules about mass gatherings,

[Brannen]

I had a team lunch yesterday which was good, nice to meet some people I'd only spoken to on Teams prior to that. I know from speaking to some mates at work that their teams are now being told to cancel theirs, so looks like the one I went to just scraped through.

That virtual one doesn't sound enjoyable to me, but hard to complain at a free take away.

[ZedLeg]

We postponed a small night out we had planned this weekend and the ceo cancelled the big thing that was being planned too so we'll not be doing anything til after christmas now.

[Marv]

Had my Christmas do yesterday in London.

Hope my slightly sore throat today is from talking over loud music, rather than Omicron

[Ascender]

A lot of the team here are furloughed from this week so we went out for an actual meal last week which was nice. It was midweek so the place wasn't open late so it was all very civilised. A few of us then went to a gig on Saturday night which had been planned for a while so that was also good to get out, have a drink and catchup. Also have managed not to get covid which is a bonus.

[Ascender]

We're having a virtual Christmas party today. Oh joy.

They've given us pre-loaded cash cards so that we can order our own food, so at least I can have something edible for a change.

I have many questions.

So will you all be on camera eating whatever food you've chosen, while wearing party hats and Christmas jumpers etc? Will anyone be in an actual pub/restaurant? Is it mandatory? Where can you use the cash cards? What have you ordered? Will the virtual party video coverage extend to people getting drunk after the meal? Will it be utterly cringeworthy like many of these virtual team building/forced social gathering things have been?

I'll take those in order...

Christmas jumpers yes, if you have one. No I won't be eating on camera. No to the hats.
No, everyone will be at home
No it's not mandatory
It's just a 'debit card' like thing, so I can stick it on Just Eat, Deliveroo, or whatever.
I haven't ordered anything. There's enough cash to order for both me and the wife and she's ill so I'll save it for tomorrow.
No.
Yes. There is a quiz apparently. We've used our mobiles for that kind of quiz interaction before. I doubt this will be any different. I hope the prizes are decent.

The voucher is valid till the end of the month so I'd be surprised if people don't keep it to the weekend.

Thanks for replying so comprehensively!

I was just interested to see what others are doing actually. I've been to some informal after works catchups with drinks on Zoom/Teams and its definitely a bit strange at first, not sure how to make it more "natural", especially as I can't see things going back to normal regardless of COVID so we're all going to be working on our own from what I can see.

[Swervin_Mervin]

We have a meal booked for the 19th - no plans currently to cancel that. Especially not as 4 of the 6 of us will have had Covid in the last month, as well as 3rd jabs. The small restaurant chain we're booked with is already seeing the effects of yesterday's announcement apparently, so if we can put a bit of business their way, to help out, then we will.

[Delphi]

We had our team (9 of us) Christmas meal today. Our main Christmas party has been split. One was on the 3rd and the other one tomorrow. I'm going to the one tomorrow. I'm looking at it as the last decent night out I'm going to have in a while. Most (if not all) people are doing a test before attending so I'm not unduly concerned.

[Simon]

I have many questions.

So will you all be on camera eating whatever food you've chosen, while wearing party hats and Christmas jumpers etc? Will anyone be in an actual pub/restaurant? Is it mandatory? Where can you use the cash cards? What have you ordered? Will the virtual party video coverage extend to people getting drunk after the meal? Will it be utterly cringeworthy like many of these virtual team building/forced social gathering things have been?

I'll take those in order...

Christmas jumpers yes, if you have one. No I won't be eating on camera. No to the hats.
No, everyone will be at home
No it's not mandatory
It's just a 'debit card' like thing, so I can stick it on Just Eat, Deliveroo, or whatever.
I haven't ordered anything. There's enough cash to order for both me and the wife and she's ill so I'll save it for tomorrow.
No.
Yes. There is a quiz apparently. We've used our mobiles for that kind of quiz interaction before. I doubt this will be any different. I hope the prizes are decent.

The voucher is valid till the end of the month so I'd be surprised if people don't keep it to the weekend.

Thanks for replying so comprehensively!

I was just interested to see what others are doing actually. I've been to some informal after works catchups with drinks on Zoom/Teams and its definitely a bit strange at first, not sure how to make it more "natural", especially as I can't see things going back to normal regardless of COVID so we're all going to be working on our own from what I can see.

OK, so when I said 'there is a quiz' I should've said 'it's just a quiz'. Hosted by the people from the quiz company directly. Even so, it was all a bit rubbish. Especially as a director won, so he gets whatever prize they put in the post to him. When the quiz was over mgmt was like 'err, that's it, goodnight' kinda thing. Some of my colleagues had their younger children taking part, most had a silly Christmas jumper. TBH you needed to be drinking to enjoy it. I'm not a pub/club person but would much rather have had a team (12) in person event rather than a whole UKI virtual one.

[mik]

<snigger>

[nuttinnew]

[Explosive Newt]

The university XMas party was cancelled… the rationale given that it was impossible to separate us and if just one person tested positive then everyone would have to isolate, which would also take out half the hospital’s cardiology doctors too!

Meanwhile, Boris. It’s not just the party thing; it’s a sum of failings. We were hearing about the failures at the foreign office with regards to getting out Afghans with interference from Boris/Carrie and mishandling by Raab, until the Christmas party thing came along and eclipsed that. It’s not a competent government.

Also I’m amused to hear that Dominic Raab threw a hissy fit on the Today programme and mouthed wanker at Nick Robinson as the questions grew ever more tetchy.

[Nefarious]

Meanwhile, Boris. It’s not just the party thing; it’s a sum of failings. We were hearing about the failures at the foreign office with regards to getting out Afghans with interference from Boris/Carrie and mishandling by Raab, until the Christmas party thing came along and eclipsed that. It’s not a competent government.

You're right that it's a sum of failings, but "incompetent" is very generous. I would say "deliberately and systematically corrupt" is probably fairer.

In Russian, there is a word "Vranyo". It means to lie, but specifically to lie whilst knowing that everyone knows you're lying but has to nod along anyway. It could have been invented for Putin, but it very much encapsulates the ethos of the current Tory mob.

The party debacle, and now the emerging lies to Lord Geidt as part of the flat refurb investigation, aren't the primary crimes of this government, but demonstrate the absolute depth of corruption because these are the things they can't even be bothered to hide. Smirk, lie, sack a couple of civil servants, move onto the next thing.

The really terrifying stuff is the conscious and systematic efforts to dismantle any kinds of checks and balances to their behaviour. The writing was on the wall from the proroguing of parliament and Geoffrey Cox's subsequent denials of the High Court's ruling - showing that they always had every intention of gaming, evading and cheating the very system that sits behind the democratic process. The went on to sack, disempower, or replace-with-yes-men any major civil servants that could police their actions, disband or sideline any committees where they could be called to account, and just dismiss, discredit and ignore any remaining checks and balances that could directly hold their feet to the fire.

I could list many examples, but just two that demonstrate the blithely arrogant way they're playing the system are the Priti Patel bullying investigation and the Owen Patterson lobbying scandal. In the first, the Cabinet Office investigation unequivocally found her guilty of breaking the ministerial code, but Johnson unilaterally overruled and forced the resignation of Alex Allan, who'd led the investigation (incidentally, they did effectively admit guilt later with a half million quid settlement after Philip Rutnam threatened to take the case to employment tribunal). In many ways, the Owen Patterson thing was even worse, because it attempted to overturn the decisions of both the cross-party committee for standards, and the investigation by the independent watchdog, Kathryn Stone. And lets not mince words, Owen Patterson was 100% and knowingly guilty - he lobbied, asked questions in parliament and directly secured contracts for a private company that was paying him hundreds of thousands of pounds, was repeatedly warned about it and unapologetically carried on regardless. When their best efforts to influence the investigation/committee decision failed, they tried to retrospectively change the law to get their mate off the hook and allow them to carry on regardless.

These are the things they're happy to just do openly and lie to our faces about (although, to be fair, they didn't make *much* more effort to hide the billions of pounds they collectively embezzled through the covid contracts). It does rather raise the question of what is the "big" play that they consider important enough to hide and distract from?

As an aside, I can't not mention the judicial review and courts bill currently going through parliament (with little or no media coverage) despite massive cross-party objections and heavy criticism from the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life. Basically, it will remove any judicial oversight of government actions and allow the cabinet to act with impunity. (Incidently, it came about after former justice secretary, Robert Buckland, resisted further curbs on judicial powers, was sacked and was replaced by Dominic Raab)

[DeskJockey]

They lost North Shropshire a seat they've held for 200 years. Let it be the beginning of the end for Johnson and his cabinet of clowns liars, cheats and thieves.