The emergence of the Omicron variant and its arrival in the U.K. has lead to many firms cancelling their traditional large-scale Christmas parties in favour of hosting smaller gatherings. The decision by many companies to postpone their usual Christmas celebrations will make it harder for venues to recover from the impact of previous restrictions, with the Chief Executive of U.K. Hospitality adding that businesses had “invested heavily” in implementing a ‘Covid-safe’ environment. MailOnline has more.
The emergence of the new Covid strain has forced companies to scrap parties for large numbers of people, turning instead to smaller departmental gatherings as the pandemic threatens the festive season for a second year.
Law firm Osborne Clarke in London said they were now opting for “low key festivities” rather than “big shindigs”.
The firm’s managing partner Ray Berg told MailOnline: “We asked our people and their preference is for local team-level celebrations, so we’re opting for low key festivities rather than big shindigs this year.
Given the emergence of a new variant I think we made the right call, no one wants to have a second lockdown Christmas.”
While the U.K.’s hospitality sector said businesses recovering from the pandemic had “invested heavily” in making their venues safe for the public with measures including ventilation, hygiene and sanitation, events planners said the Omicron variant was causing concern.
One senior events planner in London said they were now “on the cusp” of clients stalling with balance payments for New Year’s parties.
They said: “I definitely sense that we’re on the cusp of people stalling with balance payments for New Year parties now. By Friday I think it’ll be panic stations for corporations who are planning bashes.”
But a spokesperson for Mitchells & Butlers, said they had no plans to make any changes and will instead have Covid protocols in place.
They told MailOnline: ‘We are excited to be heading into the busy festive period and celebrating Christmas with our guests and colleagues.
“We have no plans to make any changes to our Christmas party plans but we will have Covid protocols in place and continue to monitor Government guidance to ensure we maintain a safe environment for everyone.”
The U.K. Chair of the accounting group EY said they would not be hosting any Christmas parties this year amid fears of hosting parties that would turn into super spreader events.
Hywel Ball, U.K. Chair of the company, told the Financial Times: “We used to have big London office parties with thousands [of people] but we’re not doing any of that.”
Meanwhile Phil Urban, Chief Executive of the pub chain Mitchells & Butlers, said he had seen a rise in smaller party bookings.
He said: “We are expecting fewer big office parties: venues that would typically have big office parties and do £300,000 a week I can’t see that happening this year.”
Chief Executive of the catering group Compass, Dominic Blakemore, said that companies were “reluctant to fully commit to [Christmas bookings] at this point.”
Worth reading in full.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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I would willingly attend any event where the participants raise a glass to the speedy demise of Johnson, his evil regime and the hangers-on e.g. Vallance, Whitty, Michie & Ferguson etc.
And yet the Crypto bitcoin…Omicron rises by 1000% in value.
“The emergence of the new Covid strain has forced companies to scrap parties for large numbers of people”. How have they been “forced”? They have simply been influenced by yet another outburst of project fear by the BBC.
MSM is trying to make fun of people wanting to protect themselves with cheap and proven drugs. Ivermectin has been FDA approved for human use since 1996. It also beats Pfizer’s new wonder drug hands down, and costs next to nothing. Ivermectin doesn’t make tons of money. So they know the Covid shot is on its final gasp, so they take it add something different to it, rebrand under another name and charge 20 times what they would for ivermectin. I cannot wrap my head around this nonsense. When I explain this to my relatives they label me as crazy and ask me if I know better than science. I don’t make up these information out of my ass. All this information is true and proven. For some people it is near impossible for them to wake up. They are comfortable in their clown world life. If you want to get Ivermectin you can visit https://ivmpharmacy.com
https://twitter.com/UsforThemUK/status/1465029150914355209
https://usforthem.co.uk/resources/template-letters/
————-
Dear
Re: Face coverings. NAME AND FORM
I am writing to let you know that my child NAME is not able to wear a face covering. Therefore as stated in the most recent government guidance on face coverings (20th July 2021) is not required to wear one. There are a wide variety of reasons people are exempt from wearing face coverings and it is unlawful to request proof of exemptions. This means that NAME will not be required, or able, to wear a face covering at school, at any time.
I would appreciate it if you and other staff could ensure they are not made to feel uncomfortable or singled out because they are unable to wear a face covering.
Kind regards
I never get invited anyway, Bah Humbug…
just imagine how terrifying it would be if our amazing scientists hadn’t come up with our amazing ‘vaccines’ – Covid bless our stupidity
The more people/businesses react like this, the longer this shit will continue. If the company you work for cancels their Christmas party, just crack on and organise your own with colleagues. You’ll definitely have to pay your way for the evening if you don’t already but at least you’ll have you Christmas get together and know that you’ve helped another business to not get completely shafted by a lock down they had no choice over!
Good idea….and we don’t have to invite the management arseholes. Win win!
Our local Stand in the Park group is taking over a local Gurkha restaurant for a Christmas bash. We’ll be supporting a local business during these difficult times and also enjoying each others’ company with a glass or two.
excellent well done. Rounding up a few colleagues who will also not be going to my xmas party and going down the pub. Hopefully they won’t be forced to shut in the next few days
See government hyping all this crap up, and MSM loving and lapping it up. Just the snippets on YT were enough to make me want to reach for the vom bucket. I notice too all the comments are switched off as well as the dislike button. These mendacious, evil entities ARE the sickness on this planet right now.
“We must learn to live with COVID.”
…you call this living?
Just had a reminder for ours so for now it’s going ahead (without me, as they are asking people to do LFTs – social committee idea rather than the bosses). I did ask them if it made sense to ask people to test for a party but not to come into the office, but got no response. They said they were aware people might be “anxious” – presumably that was a reason for the LFT requirement, but not sure if that was based on anything people actually voiced or just another “safety”-first woolly-headed assumption. I did point out anxious people probably wouldn’t come to a crowded party anyway, but again the point was not responded to. Standard to get no response to any logical point regarding covid, people just shut down, can’t cope. Pathetic.
“They said they were aware people might be “anxious”“
And they are too stupid to grasp that making a big fuss about testing everyone just reinforces the anxiety, rather than helping it.
Granted this is modern British culture, in contrast to former days – pander to fear and discomfort and offence, rather than expecting people to grow up, man up, and get over it.
And hence the situation we find ourselves in.
can’t these companies just make employees sign a waiver accepting responsibility :P?
As I said it was the social committee. I don’t think the bosses had anything to do with it. Certainly my boss didn’t. I don’t think he’s going either. In general, having a social committee with a degree of autonomy is a good thing….
I know somewhere else a bit like that. A friend of mine told me that all staff wishing to go to the Christmas bash must take a test in the office on the day of the party to be able to attend.
Note the “in the office” bit, as if they cannot be trusted. Talk about invasion of privacy.
So….they can all be in the office, but to go to another location they need to take a test? It’s so mind bogglingly stupid.
I really would advise all staff members to decline, and get together quietly at another time.
And yes……I believe all staff are already double jabbed!
I’m sure almost all of my colleagues are “fully” “vaccinated”. I only know for sure of one who is not.
There was no expectation of going to the office to take the test, and no enforcement/checking planned, was all done on trust, but I am not going to lie just to go to my own Christmas Party and in any case I would not want to go to a party full of people who have either tested or pretended to test themselves.
This year it feels like Christmas at Stalingrad, no?
Of course – this will do very nicely. It won’t evoke rebellion – a majority will suck it up as a wartime sacrifice after they ditch their meaningless poppies which have forgotten a purpose.
Not allowed to go anyway. My place requires 1) to be fully vaccinated 2) to take a test and 3) to present vaccine passport. This is here, in the UK. A US company
How is Biden’s unconstitutional mandate legal here in the UK?
I’ve no idea. I will start giving them a hard time but I want to get my bonus first and start looking for a another job. My “status” is not disclosed so a couple of simple questions will get them
Isn’t it more lucrative to wait to be fired then sue for coercion and a clause that was not in your employment contract (mandatory injection of an unknown experimental substance)?
I’m sure Law or Fiction, Francis Hoar or other lawyers would like the work 🙂 Good luck anyway.
Bastardoes.
Time to seek alternative employment? I got sacked for essentially calling my employer the Nazi Party when they asked for vaccination status of their employees. Have since got a new job where ‘so far’ the control freaks haven’t taken over. Christmas Party currently still on with the option of doing a LFT if you would like to. Masking in the office is personal choice still too.
Christmas 2021
Don’t give the masktards ideas! I know some that would lap that up!
https://craigpkooper.wixsite.com/vaccine/reasons-to-be-concerned
Craig Paardekooper, a pharmaceutical sciences student at Kingston University. He is a member of NHS Staff for Choice – a group of 2400 doctors, nurses and research staff who believe that vaccination should be by consent, and there should be no restrictions imposed on those who refuse it.
October 2020 the UK Government changed the Law, so that they can administer UNLISENCED vaccines (those that have not been fully tested and are therefore illegal under European law). They also changed the law so that pharmaceutical manufacturers will face no liability for any illness, maiming or death caused by the vaccines.
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/patterns-in-the-deployment-of-toxic-covid-vaccine-batches_x3LiCNOENb23dnk.html
“the UK Government has repeatedly threatened to make the vaccine mandatory, administered without consent.
Their advisers suggested that a vaccine could be made mandatory if a person was judged to be mentally ill and therefore incapable of giving consent. Consequently, the Coronavirus Act 2020, stipulates that any person can be detained as mentally ill on the say so of a single doctor. (previously 2 doctors were required).”
Does anyone know if this provision is still in the Covid Act???
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10253611/Could-Omicron-GOOD-news-Variant-speed-end-pandemic-causes-mild-illness.html
new variant might be mild and spread rapidly and make everyone immune. probably will still kill very old people and will have been detected within 28 days of old age deaths
seems no different to alpha or delta. mild, only kills the dying.
otherwise how can sweden have got through the pandemic with not restrictions, no masks and no excess deaths?
And there you have it from the horses mouth. Global governance. No autonomy. “transcend election cycles”, so elected governments are irrelevant. It was always the plan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RYQYe0m8h4
Enter the Health Security Agency to make sure there are no threats to the NWO
I suspect it’s not COVID that’s the reason for firms cancelling their parties; it’s “let’s jump before we’re pushed”, and perhaps get some of our money back. They want to cancel their parties before Saint Boris does it for them, which gives them the illusion of having the upper hand over the govt, and means they are “seen to do the right thing”. Unfortunately, all it’s doing is feeding into Saint Boris’s state of fear, which is exactly what his merry men want, and is probably part of his plan. Ditto the schools cancelling Nativity plays “just in case”.
“Christmas Work Parties Cancelled Over Omicron Variant Fears”
Probably just as well:
Engaged Met Police detective who groped female officer’s breasts and bottom as they danced together at Christmas party is sacked from force
A cop is right royally shat on by another cop. They deserve each other.
Good job those kinds of standards weren’t applied a few decades back….
“He continued: ‘The public rightly expect senior police officers to conduct themselves in a professional manner at all times.”
Well not particularly – I mean it would be nice if they’d first apply the same kind of severity to officers who assault coronapanic protesters or make up fantasy absurd interpretations of supposed powers to harass ordinary folk in the street.
Provided it’s legal and all involved are consenting, I couldn’t care less what plods do when they are off-duty.
So is the female officer ALSO an ex officer after all she gyrated on him?
Apparently being a tart is perfectly reputable. It’s only being a potential philanderer that is not. And doubtless they will claim it’s to do with seniority as well, because apparently we aren’t to criticise those who tart themselves to authority for gain, only those in authority who respond to it.
Could have been worse, they usually hit women with batons or murder them
Exactly. Personally I’d rather they cracked down as hard on that kind of behaviour rather than on ordinary human weaknesses within the force. But I’m old fashioned that way.
Unbelievable. I bet if we looked back to this time last year there were people saying they weren’t planning parties because they might be super spreader events (or were we already in lockdown? I really can’t remember). But since then the cavalry has ridden to the rescue, the vaccines are here and ………..oh, things haven’t changed one bit.
We are on the cusp of Stage Three. There will be further lockdowns and injections, but broadly speaking it runs
There are indications that part of Stage 3 will be aimed at children. (See for example Thursday’s war game in Israel.)
It is vaccine resistant
1) there’s no vaccine.
2) kids ignore COVID
3) They’ve done more harm to kids locking down than any illness.
COVID safe. Yaaaawwwnnn
…and what does that (COVID safe) even mean?
It’s a safe they keep the covid in
Whatever they want it to mean! A useful meaningless catch-all phrase to discourage anyone challenging their nonsensical restrictions and rituals.
After all, you wouldn’t want to be Covid-Unsafe now would you?! That would be terrible.
The Covid myth is safe.
Surely we should be banning ALL parties associated with Christmas? After all, they must be insulting to someone who doesn’t like Christmass or parties?
I will say this only once, but I have reached my limit with the number of times I have read the word “bedwetter” here. “Bedwetting” is a f***ing horrible term that expresses contempt for small children as young as 7 or 8 who retain enough humanity so as not to be able to “cope” with incarceration in the obnoxious English institutions called private boarding schools, and who as a result pee the bed a lot.
This is also where the political use of the term “wet” comes from.
Those who use the term “bedwetter” are well aware of this. Those who don’t use it may not be – hence this post.
These institutions which still exist were highly admired by the German Nazis, who visited several in order to learn from them when they were developing their own “Napoli” schools.
Sadly “bedwetting” seems to be a concept that is really big for some people, who see themselves as anything but bedwetters, as the anti-bedwetters of this world.
They don’t see anything morally wrong in expressing derision and even hatred against small children who suffer mental problems as a result of being abused.
The idea behind the contemptuous use of this… Read more »
I believe the term was common on this site a while back and there was considerable agreement that it should be dropped. It’s a bit puerile and very divisive.
And then Toby decided btl was a ‘swamp’ and instigated the nightly purge of comments…
Most who use the term here do so because it was used early on by some public school types (such as Young and Delingpole), and it became a standard term for panickers, mostly because it is so appropriate for them.
It has been controversial here before because some, like you, find it difficult to cope with, but many others have no problem with it.
After some discussion a few months back, Toby Young agree not to use it above the line any more.
I don’t have a problem with it, because I don’t generally bother to look for ancient or irrelevant connotations to words in order to get upset about issues that probably aren’t in the mind of the person writing them. That’s for the wokeists and identitarian obsessives.
I have thought about this and realise I am uncomfortable with terms of contempt when they apply to /relate to the weak.
So I agree with Star’s post.
I am fine with any amount of contempt directed at oppressors and rich powerful people.
The oppressors here are those who collaborate with, enable and in practice enact the crimes of the state against dissenters from the panic.
If they are weak, it’s usually only in the moral sense, in that they have failed in their most basic responsibility as supposed adults to stand up for the basic liberty they claim to be entitled to. Very often they are physical and social bullies of the worst kinds.
It’s working out who are the ‘weak’, though.
A clip on today’s UK Column (about 33mins in) showed a man confronting another man who had been filming the former’s young daughter because she wasn’t wearing a mask.
The man filming her was clearly absolutely terrified out of his wits and was quite pitiable as well as contemptible, but that can’t excuse his inflicting that on somebody weaker than himself. I would bet my house that he wouldn’t attempt that on a couple of big blokes, no matter how scared he was.
Well, I’m a twerp and I strongly object to your use of the term in your last paragraph.
I see your point. I had not appreciated the “etymology “ of the phrase, but it always struck me as crude and derisive.
My go to term is “idiots.” 😬
“Pathetic idiots” works for me
I, too, succumb to insulting name-calling. It really doesn’t matter what choice you make – it’s just impotent frustration.
But it’s not very clever or insightful; no more so than railing at the captives in – say Vietnam’s cages as ‘cowards’ or ‘surrender monkeys’ – or randomly lifted Guantanamo hostages as ‘terrorists’.
The vast majority of the population are captured – but by the most thorough psy-op we have ever known, rather than by physical constraints, and most, genuinely, have no idea that a key can be within their grasp.
Are they adults claiming an entitlement to personal liberty and to participation in a democracy, or are they not?
If you are saying that a large proportion of the population are not even notionally capable of being responsible for their own lives, how can you claim to believe in either liberty or democracy?
I say we must assume that all adults are, notionally at least, responsible for these things. That’s the only basis on which liberty and democracy can work, long term.
Here is an example of the kind of person who might be described here as a “bedwetter” – consider the words and attitudes of the bearded twat (not sure who he is):
Broadcasters clash over Boris Johnson’s latest Covid restrictions
He’s perfectly competent, probably happy to bully people when he can, and an absolute authoritarian twat. Pretty typical of supporters of these measures in my experience. Why make excuses for them, when they will be perfectly happy to report you to the police and watch you be harassed and/or carted off?
“If you are saying that a large proportion of the population are not even notionally capable of being responsible for their own lives, how can you claim to believe in either liberty or democracy?”
It’s a good point and an interesting debate. I think covid has demonstrated that subjected to brainwashing a large proportion are indeed incapable – at least in our view. I would say that the larger measure of guilt lies with the exploiters, but that the exploited are also guilty. So they have what they deserve, but because of the weak protections for liberty that exist here and elsewhere, they are inflicting the same on us, indirectly.
Brainwashing makes it sound like some kind of intrusive procedure, but in fact what we are talking about here is basically very well funded advertising and elite lying, reinforced by mass gullibility. Granted the liars are advised by professionals.
If you are an adult and you can’t learn to deal with people lying to you, how can you function in the real world?
“I would say that the larger measure of guilt lies with the exploiters, but that the exploited are also guilty. So they have what they deserve, but because of the weak protections for liberty that exist here and elsewhere, they are inflicting the same on us, indirectly.”
Yes. Pretty directly, actually.
Yes, I take your point about resistance to advertising and lying. Obviously as we’ve discussed before there should be protections against governments being able to fund this kind of advertising and a ban on the use of “nudge units”. But ultimately it’s up to the people to protect their own liberty.
I don’t honestly know how people can function – badly I suppose, at least by our lights.
The future looks bleak.
These ordinary people do have moral culpability.
Because our governments have murdered thousands of civilians in the middle east in illegal wars and stolen their assets and we all know they have done this.
Therefore the representatives of our western governments cannot be good people and are also unlikely to be caring of their own populations. It is quite simple reasoning.
So those who persist in believing the opposite and thinking our politicians well-meaning cannot really have felt compassion for the innocent civilians of those abused countries.
So there is a lack of human feeling. And they do bear responsibility for this insensitivity. It is not just brainwashing or gullibility.
You can’t live in a free country if most of the population is fast asleep.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
My Butler topped himself after someone called him a twerp you cruel uncaring person
You seem to be a total bedwetter as well
Thanks
Seems an awful lot like woke, offense-taking activity to me. Everyone here knows the sense in which the term is used – and, if you try, you can find offense all around (consider, for instance, the term ‘cock-up’)!
Bedwetting is normally associated with small children, and often caused by irrational nightmares. It’s therefore quite appropriate in the circumstances when referring to adults with an irrational terror of a not-very-dangerous virus.
Triggered! Stop being such a snowflake.
I don’t use the term myself to be fair but still 🤣
Maybe we should go for “dandelions” instead, as a chapeau tip to the French “pissenlit”.
You read too much into it, it’s a jovial term to describe people so frightened of their own shadows that they piss the bed. ie Cowards. There are connotations to abused children, only lily-livered fascist adults.
Surely an apt description for those forcing all this misery upon humanity is ‘New Nazi‘.
And that is because that is exactly what they are, and they must be dealt with in a similar fashion to 76 years ago.
Does the same apply to gatherings related to the ‘religion of peace’?
Bunch of fucking bedwetters
Pure bio-terrorism based on lies. Shame on these stupid people for falling for these transparently fake tricks, about new variants. The threat to your health is if you are dumb and brainwashed enough to take their poison. This is a modern form of Nazism. These people going along with this and those peddling these lies are literally setting us up for Nazi Germany Mk2. Boris Johnson is NAZI filth who is presiding over a regime which is destroying this place. Shame on him and his putrid soul.
The Prison Camps Are Coming. Unless.. A Historical Perspective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebWkRtVdsqo
Anna de Buisseret – 11th November 2021
https://www.bitchute.com/video/8Cpz6ssw146C/
I’m afraid the rot is within. The globalists are exploiting it, that’s all.
You think he has a soul?
The companies backing out must be stuffed with tight-arsed, bed wetting cowards. The senior people should be ashamed of themselves.
What an indictment of this country.
I’ve just been sent a seasonal greeting… straight in the bin!
I actually like the implied irony. Mind, the reindeer ought to be shitting on them from on high…