Johnson apologizes to queen for parties before funeral
LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain apologized Friday to Buckingham Palace for raucous parties held in Downing Street the night before Queen Elizabeth II buried her husband, Prince Philip, in a socially distanced ceremony.
Johnson, who apologized in Parliament on Wednesday for attending a garden party during a lockdown in 2020, was not present at either of the two gatherings. But the reports of more alcoholfueled socializing at Downing Street, on the eve of a funeral ceremony remembered for its poignant image of an isolated, masked monarch, dealt a fresh blow to an already reeling prime minister.
“It’s deeply regrettable that this took place at a time of national mourning,” a spokesperson for Downing Street said as outrage over the parties mounted, “and No. 10 has apologized to the palace for that.”
The Downing Street spokesperson did not say whether Johnson planned to apologize personally to the queen the next time he has a weekly audience with her. His display of remorse for the party in May 2020 has failed to calm the tempest swirling around him, with opposition leaders and even a handful of Conservative Party lawmakers saying he should step down.
The bacchanalian details of the two parties on April 16, first reported in the Daily Telegraph, are vivid. For one of them, the newspaper said, a staff member was dispatched to a nearby shop to fill up a suitcase with bottles of wine.
Johnson has asked lawmakers to wait for the findings of an internal investigation of the parties by a senior civil servant, Sue Gray. That is not expected until next week at the earliest.