In May 2020, a month after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was discharged from the hospital following a serious case of Covid-19, he sat in the Downing Street garden with his top adviser, Dominic Cummings, and private secretary Martin Reynolds.

Before them was a cheese platter, an empty bottle of red wine and a half-empty glass of wine, according to a photo of the gathering. Other Downing Street staffers chatted on the manicured lawn in the late afternoon sun.