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Cabinet Office Briefing Room A

COBRA (for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A) is a name used to describe ad-hoc committees within the UK government for responding to emergency situations.

It meets in the Cabinet Office[?] briefing rooms (COBR) , which are located underground beneath Whitehall. Depending on your sources, COBRA is either a permanent operation on 24-hour standby, or a fanciful name made up by the UK press based on the fact that crisis meetings tended to be held in briefing room A.

Not all meetings in briefing room A are COBRA meetings, and the room is also used to host ordinary meetings.