Helen MacNamara, who is giving evidence to the Covid Inquiry today, was the Government ethics chief who was at the heart of a very unethical lockdown-busting party at the height of the pandemic. The Mail has more.
The mother-of-four was in charge of making sure the Government upheld the highest standards of behaviour while the country was reeling from the privations of the pandemic in June 2020.
But Ms. MacNamara played a central role in a drunken party that saw staff vomiting and fighting in government buildings – even bringing along a karaoke machine to liven things up.
At the time Brits were banned from meeting together indoors as the virus swept the nation.
Sue Gray’s 2022 report into rule-breaking at the heart of Government revealed a bacchanalian event, writing: “The event lasted for a number of hours. There was excessive alcohol consumption by some individuals. One individual was sick. There was a minor altercation between two other individuals.”
Ms. MacNamara was Director General for Propriety and Ethics at the Cabinet office before becoming Deputy Cabinet Secretary, the second most senior civil servant in the country.
She was among the first people to be fined by the Metropolitan Police as part of its probe into Downing Street. She later apologised for her behaviour, saying it had been an “error in judgement”.
Today she told the inquiry rules were being broken on a daily basis just in the conduct of Government business.
“I definitely wasn’t partying in Number 10, I was either at work or at home,” she said.
“I think that acknowledging what had happened, acknowledging that some of it was a symptom of the situation, being honest about the fact that – actually, I would find it hard to pick one day when the regulations were followed properly inside that building.”
She said there was “one meeting where we absolutely adhered to the guidance to the letter” – the Cabinet meeting – “and everybody moaned about it and tried to change repeatedly”.
“So, I know how exceptional it was to really, really, really properly follow the guidance. I think that, in retrospect, obviously, all sorts of things were wrong.”
All sorts of things. Like the guidance, for instance, which even those who made it thought was unworkable and unencessary.
The Gray report outlined details of a “raucous” party involving “excessive alcohol consumption”, which began at 7.40pm on June 18th and continued until 3.13am the following day. The party took place at a time when all indoor gatherings were banned and mourners were prevented from singing hymns at funerals in an effort to ‘stop the spread’.
Worth reading in full.
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Thousands – how many thousands? – dying of ‘Sudden’ and ‘Unexplained’, a gene therapy mRNA agent foisted on the population by a ‘toxic’ mix of fear-mongering, coercion, intimidation, emotional blackmail, gross abuse of Human Rights – but no police investigation.
A karaoke machine, now that’s a different matter. Glad to see Plod has its priorities set right.
See the video I posted in the NR showing the Khant’s plod at work.
Boris was hounded out for highly disputed attendance at an event organised by others. The tax payer funded people get away with far far worse.
who runs the government.
Bozo wasn’t hounded out. He was and is a traitorous barsteward who deserves far worse than losing a job he was totally incapable of doing properly. He is a disgusting globalist patsy.
Pretty much all of them are Hux, so if you look at their other characteristics at least Boris understood that shutting down the economy was the worst of ideas and would lead to huge problems.
Of course the Covid regulations did not apply in Crown buildings, precisely to avoid interfering with the activities of government.
But what’s an exemption between enemies?
Oh look another passive aggressive head girl civil servant, refusing to take responsibility , and hinting that its all down to the culture. Read male toxic variety. But don’t expect coiffed clown Hugo Keith KC to hold her to account. Not a bit of it. Much as i despise Johnson and the poor man’s machiavelli Campaign Cummings, the whole exercise is about pouring ordure on the wrong half if the uniparty. Its als above all about keeping the pot boiling through the election period. .
Well said!
This enquiry is both part of the problem and usefully illustrative of the problem.
The freak show that runs this country exposed to our disbelieving gaze!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12694513/M-S-Christmas-advert-2023-marks-spencer.html
This is causing a stink over on the Readers Forum at TCW and no wonder with M & S trashing Christmas.
Helen McNamara? Isn’t she a Dame yet? How shoddy.
She’s funny though isn’t she – Director General for Propriety and Ethics at the Cabinet office. In charge of running Downing St ‘s biggest piss up and she made sure she got her ethics in order by taking along a karaoke machine. This was either bought on expenses or via her ‘wages’ but whichever the taxpayer still funded it.
Damehood in the pipeline for sure.
Not quite a Dame but she was made Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in June 2021, for outstanding, exemplary service.
That’s funny.
What more do we expect when a History graduate is asked to comment on a scientific problem?Her Chicken Little, hysterical reaction and blaming the chaps is par for the course. How exactly do such incompetents rise to positions of such authority in the Blob?
Yet again we have one of the weirdos from inside government exposed and it causes great concern.
Just how dim are these people that they cannot spot the inconsistency between their (apparently continuing) belief that covid 19 was extremely dangerous and their behaviour in flouting, on a daily basis, the rules that they themselves had stated were vital for protection.
Can they really not comprehend that covid was just another common cold coronavirus, still?
No wonder the country wants to punish this dreadful government.
But the same back office lunatics will still be running the asylum.
How do we get rid of them?
Except at work which is where this party was held and was within the law
‘MacNamara received a £50 fine on Friday after police found she broke Covid laws by attending a leaving party for the then No.10 private secretary Hannah Young on June 18, 2020.
The karaoke party took place in then-cabinet secretary’s Mark Sedwill’s office at 70 Whitehall. At the time, indoor gatherings were banned and people were advised to not sing in public.’
Civil Service World
For some reason, she decided to accept the fixed penalty rather than go to court.
Curious…..or not really?
Within the law perhaps (although presumably not given that she was fined, since having a party doesn’t constitute “work”), but certainly not within the rules and guidance, which all us normies had to follow as if it were law.
The law was, and is, an ass.
To keep the narrative alive it is important that people maintain the illusion that Lockdowns were necessary and therefore these punitive fines for meeting up with other people. We not that many generations away from the time when 30,000 women were burned alive for being Witches. At no time during that delusion did anyone say that Witches, or rather their supposed power, did not exist and that burning people alive for an imaginary crime was wrong. Perhaps this is not on the same scale but the ability for mass delusion has not gone away. Just wait for AI to start ‘learning’ and creating runaway feedbacks.
“punitive fines”
This useless grifter is probably being paid more than the PM. A fifty quid fine which she will probably get back using an expenses fiddle.
I agree, but there were a range of fines with some of the worst being a Plympton coffee-shop owners that were ordered to pay up £42,000 or face jail. All the fines were completely unjustified, They have gone out of business.
Is she still on the tax payers payroll? Did the Judge and the QC treat her with the same deference they gave to the other criminals, Valance etc. How disgusting she is, and again what a laugh she and the rest of them were having her title, responsible for ethics!. She clearly has no idea what the word or concept means, and yet she was happy to take the cash, why didn’t she resign? just like the rest of them she went along with the cruelty, the callous disregard for the people outside of her clan. I wonder if her children are ashamed of her,
Please don’t tell me her genetic material continues after her death,
Why are Civil Servants, SpAds and Ministers who blatantly broke the rules and guidance they were party to imposing on the country still in their jobs?
Of course, they all knew the restrictions were pointless, unnecessary and impossible to adhere to. But goodness knows they ENJOYED imposing them on everyone else and intimidating them into compliance.
Ethics Chief? I assume she is still in that position. If so, why?
Hypocrisy doesn’t begin to describe her behaviour or her current posturing at the Enquiry!
I can only presume she thinks her job title is somehow related to the county below Suffolk
They Knew ( & we knew ) it was all a Hoax & Fear Porn… Every Politician involved committed a crime
Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.