Thread by @sturdyAlex

There is one angle of #Partygate that is not being discussed. I have heard not a single journalist ask questions about it so far. And it is, in my view, one of the most important - if not the most important, in terms of learning lessons. THREAD 1/

That angle is #Partygate in the context of a deadly pandemic. Not the breaking of law. Not the vapid debate of whether a leaving do is work. Not the lurid details of people puking and fighting. But the national security risk the country was put in. Let me explain. 2/

The rules and guidance were in place to prevent transmission. Mitigation measures were seen as essential to prevent the paralysis of work which had to go on during the pandemic. Coordinating the national pandemic response, was probably the most important work at that time. 3/

This means that strict adherence to pandemic protocols, was MORE, not LESS important in the UK's administrative nerve centre. It means that Downing Street should have been implementing stricter, not more relaxed, measures. 4/

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. 5/

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. 6/

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. 7/

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. 8/

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. 9/

Breaking the rules was a national security risk. The lack of protocols is amateurish. It is only by sheer coincidence that the virus did not plunge the coutry into much worse chaos.

And what has changed about those processes, in case of another public health crisis? NOTHING. 10/

Which brings me to my final point.

What if there were a worse Covid variant next month? Or another pandemic? Or a biological attack, like in Salisbury? Or a terrorist threat?

How could this gov't ask people to trust it and do as instructed? And how many of us would comply? /END

PS. A current context: The first thing the Zelenskyy gov't did when attacked was separate the PM, deputy PM, head of armed forces and his second in command. They are never together. Our gov't in contrast kept using war analogies, but acting as if it were on Spring Break.