Parties the day before Prince Philip’s funeral: Downing Street apologizes to Queen Elizabeth II

“The troubles, it always flies in a squadron”, as Jacques Chirac said. Targeted for several days by calls for resignation within his own majority, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is struggling to remain at the head of the British government after his mea culpa for his presence at a party in Downing Street in full confinement in 2020 However, the situation has just become even more complicated following the revelations Thursday evening from the British media The Telegraph.

According to the daily, two parties in full containment were organized by staff members working in the office of the British Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street and this on the eve of the funeral of Prince Philip.

Until the early morning of April 17, 2021, in a period of national mourning, Downing Street collaborators were celebrating the departure of two members of the team, according to The Telegraph, communications director James Slack, since deputy editor of the tabloid The Sun, and a personal photographer for Boris Johnson.

These two very drunk pots bringing together around thirty people, including one organized in the basement of the building where a manager was the DJ, had joined in the gardens of the official residence, according to the daily close to power . A person had been sent to a supermarket to buy bottles of wine which they brought back to Downing Street in a suitcase, he said.

At the time, indoor meetings were banned, with only a maximum of six Britons able to meet outside.

The day after these two very drunken celebrations, Elizabeth II and the royal family buried Prince Philip. The image of the nonagenarian queen, all in black dressed up to the mask, sitting alone in the chapel of Windsor castle during the funeral had shown the rigor of the confinements at the time.

Following these revelations, Downing Street apologized this Friday to Queen Elizabeth II by official means. “It is deeply regrettable that this took place at a time of national mourning and on the 10 (Downing Street) apologized to the palace”, said a spokesman for the Conservative leader. These apologies were made through official channels.

Already overwhelmed by a series of other scandals, the Conservative leader apologized to Parliament on Wednesday for attending a party on May 20, 2020 in the gardens of his official residence, saying he then thought it was “of a work meeting”. The event, for which an invitation had been sent by his secretary to around 100 people with the suggestion that they bring their bottles, took place during a traumatic time for Britons. In the midst of the first wave of Covid-19, only two people were allowed to meet outside and many Britons were unable to say goodbye to their dying loved ones.

Immediately, the opposition parties, Labor in the lead who accused him of being a liar, demanded his resignation, while the members of his government in their majority gave him their support, on Twitter or in the media.