Thread by @AndrewPRLevi

Bring your own brain.

Most have no idea what the 10 Downing St set up is. Of course not.

Only a tiny minority of us do, from first hand experience.

I’m going to share a bit with you, because clearly we’re starting to hear a torrent of lies & misdirection.

A 🧵/1.

For years at a time I spent countless hours working in No 10: office work/meetings, conferences, dinners, receptions, having a cup of coffee with colleagues …

The (relatively) modest house you see on the news is just the front. A terraced house. With office space. /2.

The larger part is a small mansion, behind, with a walled garden behind & to the side of that, & containing the Cabinet Room, & numerous handsome rooms, some grand.

The terraced house at the front & the mansion at the back are interconnected. It’s one, integrated entity. /3.

As fans of “Yes Prime Minister” will remember, the Cabinet Office, with main offices at 70 Whitehall, has a connecting door (these days a high security arrangement) to No 10.

The PM’s immediate staff, such as Martin Reynolds, work in No 10 itself. A larger number in the CO. /4.

The No 10 flat is at the top of the terraced house. The No 11 flat (which is bigger) is at the top of the neighbouring terraced house. The current PM uses the No 11 flat. No 10 & No 11 are separate houses & office spaces but, as with the CO, there are connecting doors. /5.

So what’s all this stuff about socialising in the garden (with “booze”) being work, not private?

Let’s be clear. Just because the PM has a private residence there (at No 11, but let’s not quibble), that doesn’t mean anything else going on in the building is private. /6.

Unless it is.

For example, getting together for drinks, or quizzes. In any of the rooms. Or the garden. Or the flat, of course.

Unless those drinks, quizzes etc are part, say, of an official training programme. You know: “team building”, that sort of thing. /7.

What you’ll find in No 10 on a typical day, if there is such a thing, is work going on in offices, in functional meeting rooms, in grand state rooms. Staff grabbing a coffee & chat in the small cafe, or in a corridor. Even, sometimes, the garden. /8.

In short, what looks from the inside like a grand residence with offices, & a walled garden outside, is one big workspace.

And those who work there are very busy. All the more so during times of crisis. /9.

Taking just the direct No 10 staff, even though they share the same workspace, is it work if they have a “get together” (see my non-exhaustive list of examples, above) in No 10 or its garden?

As I’ve already indicated: of course not.

No more than if they’d gone to the pub. /10.

Not because the PM has a flat upstairs. But because of the nature of the activity.

What about colleagues from the CO? Clearly they’re not “just spilling out into the garden” (as one MP has suggested) if they come over to No 10 for a “get together”. /11.

They certainly don’t share the same workspace as No 10 colleagues. And they’re not coming over for work, if they’ve been asked to “bring your own booze”.

Similar considerations apply to colleagues from other government departments. /12.

Was it OK for people from the a shared workspace to gather in the manner reported? After all, they’d been pretty much cheek by jowl anyway.

Well, no.

Neither down the pub, nor in No 10/ garden.

It wasn’t work. It wasn’t two people. And it’s wasn’t a family group at home. /13.

So, anyone invited from the CO or beyond didn’t even have the (invalid) shared workspace excuse.

Still, we can believe they’d all been working very hard. So shouldn’t we cut them a bit of slack? /14.

It’s true that very few people have any idea of the intensity of what often goes on in No 10.

An extended, unprecedented, deadly crisis inevitably placed extraordinary strains on those involved.

Maintaining morale matters greatly, of course. /15.

But it’s also obvious, as a matter of principle & from the reported comments of some of the team, that socialising in a way which looked a lot like it was unavailable to others in the country - without the threat of criminal sanctions - was just plain, dreadfully wrong. /16.

The email sent by Martin Reynolds (or his assistant, as it appears, on his behalf) refers specifically to the garden, & to social distancing. The sender understood that normal socialising was unacceptable. /17.

It will no doubt be claimed the social distancing requirement was only mentioned out of an abundance of caution. Not because the gathering was otherwise illegal. (If it was illegal, which will be denied, the social distancing wouldn’t have avoided the fact of the offence). /18.

The trouble with this line is not just the obvious, insulting sophistry involved.

It’s also inconsistent with the (invalid) “shared workplace” argument. Why socially distance if you’ve all been packed together in No 10 anyway? /19.

The social distancing could only be to protect those from the CO & beyond. They’re not part of the No 10 shared workspace, or (fake) No 10 “family group” - an absurd suggestion offered by increasingly desperate “sources”. /20.

Nor, as already noted, can they just “spill out” with their work into the garden.

That simply isn’t an option through the high security CO to No 10 connection. /21.

And, anyway, most of those invited almost certainly had to go via the police security in Downing Street, then through the No 10 front door. The internal route is restricted to a relatively few key officials. /22.

Do different laws apply in government offices, perhaps specifically No 10, than elsewhere? It’s complicated. And that will be important for the police: they shouldn’t investigate what isn’t illegal. We must bear that in mind.

But this is only partially about the law. /23.

The law may well have been broken. Multiple times.

But even if, technically, it wasn’t, what went on was a travesty.

As have been the evident concealment, misdirection & lies, subsequently. /24.

We all honour genuine commitment to serving the public good.

We respect the strain many were under. And those who have gone above & beyond in time of crisis.

But No 10 isn’t a family.

“Bring your own booze” isn’t work.

And we aren’t fools. /25. End

P.S. If no one beyond No 10 was invited (we don’t yet know, although there is one “No 10 only” reference on the email, which may or may not refer to its distribution) we can safely the ignore the CO/ other depts aspects.

We’re still left with a travesty.

(Apologies for the odd typo in this long 🧵).

P.P.S. This has turned into four 🧵s … Here’s the fourth👇, with the first three embedded at the end, for reference.

https://twitter.com/andrewprlevi/status/1481296639398752256