Next time you have a bunch of mates – excuse me, COLLEAGUES – over for a few nibbles, some fine cheese and a suitcase or two of wine, here are some Downing Street-approved WORK EVENT games to help your OFFICE MEETING go with a swing:
PIN THE BLAME ON THE INTERN
Players take it in turns to be blindfolded; they’re handed a pre-typed letter of resignation accepting full and sole responsibility for the unacceptable collapse in standards.
They’re then spun round three times and must try to attach the letter to one of their work colleagues. The one who pins it to the most junior and inconsequential member of staff wins.
TWENTY QUESTIONS
One player has to think of a famous person living or dead; the rest of the players must then guess that person’s identity by asking 20 questions, the answer to each of which has to be “I think it would be unwise and premature of me to anticipate the findings of Sue Gray’s internal enquiry”.
MURDER IN THE DARK
One party guest takes the role of “victim”; they are found “dead” in a room in the house surrounded by clues as to the identity of the “murderer”. These clues are then handed over to the Metropolitan Police, who conclude that there’s no grounds for a criminal investigation until an internal enquiry produces evidence of wrongdoing.
MUSICAL CHAIRS
A group of eager, fresh-faced 2019 intake Red Wall newbie Tory MPs run round and round in circles as it becomes more and more apparent that one way or another, they’re all going to lose their seats.
BLIND MAN’S BLUFF
Each player has to spend at least half an hour at a social gathering surrounded by wine-drinking, canapé nibbling guests exchanging chit-chat and racy stories as they get gradually more and more inebriated while somehow remaining completely oblivious to the fact that they’re at a party, and believing wholeheartedly that they’re at some sort of surprisingly relaxed committee meeting (nobody has ever won this one).
DARE OR DARE
Everyone sits in a circle; someone retrieves a bottle from the suitcase and places it in the middle of the room. They then spin the bottle and whoever the bottle is pointing towards when it stops must choose to tell a truth or perform a dare. Naturally, they will choose to perform a dare.
CHARADES
A new spin on an old favourite; rather than a film, book or TV show, each player in turn has to think of a political scandal engulfing the prime minister (plenty to choose from).
They must then perform a transparent charade of supporting the PM to the hilt and predicting a long and successful tenure for him at Number 10, while secretly relishing his torment and gleefully anticipating his abject humiliation and downfall.
CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY
The players are dealt a series of cards, from which they read out the heart-rending testimonials of ordinary citizens who had to watch their Covid-stricken loved ones die slowly over Zoom, before burying them at sparsely attended socially-distanced funerals and then returning alone to their locked-down homes. The player who laughs loudest wins.
TWISTER
Players take off their shoes and stand on a mat, upon which is written a list of unavoidable facts: there was a series of booze-fuelled parties in Downing Street throughout the lockdown period; the PM was present at at least one; there has been a half-hearted attempt to cover all of this up which is now collapsing.
The players must then perform bizarre logical and ethical contortions in order to twist these facts into a new, government-sanctioned version of events in which it’s somehow all the BBC’s fault.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT
The players take it turns to try and steer the general discourse away from the pressing matters of the hour, such as the prime minister’s having presided over a culture of hedonism and disdain in Whitehall, or the government’s death-spiralling poll numbers, by introducing ever more lightweight and banal topics into the conversation.
The winner is the one who remembers to bring an actual dead cat.
HIDE AND SEEK
He’s in the fridge.
POEM OF THE WEEK
Is your administration
Up the creek and all at sea?
Well just do what they always do
And bash the BBC!
Are you beset with scandals
And bereft of policy?
Just squeeze out a press release
And bash the BBC!
‘Cos no matter how compliant
And uncritical and tame
The BBC will always be
The ones who get the blame
For years the Beeb’s been sucking up
And swallowing its pride
Forgetting that a bully
Is never satisfied
So Tories, just remember
Your favourite remedy
To your own faults and failures
Just bash the BBC
