[1andrew1]

I've just been reading a really good thread on a side to Partygate that's not been covered yet.

Every essential worker I know, for bodies small or large (and my partner is one such essential worker), was subject to strict shift rotations, staggered arrival times, work bubbles - to minimise the chance of infection leaving the organisation without even a skeleton staff.

Not Downing St. Not even after several ministers were infected and the PM, reportedly, nearly died. No. The PM would meet MPs (one of them infected), then have a COBRA meeting, then speak at a leaving do with senior staff packed in a room, then go to another party in his flat.

The PM would toast his birthday, with his Cabinet Secretary, wife and decorator, in the same room as the Chancellor (any basic risk planning would keep those two, during an infectious pandemic), then usher his entire scientific staff for a Covid meeting IN THE SAME ROOM.

THIS, in my view, is the most shocking and truly unforgivable aspect of #Partygate. And the aspect that cannot be explained away by any rules interpretation. What was happening in Downing St was not just a breach of the rules. It was dangerous - for them and for us.

At a minimum, staff should have been split into three multi-discplinary teams which never came into physical contact with each other. At a minimum, the offices key to our response - PM, Chancellor, Health Sec, Home Sec, Foreign Sec, should never have breathed the same air.

https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/statu...39456068067328