Royal family gets apology for funeral-eve party
LONDON — Boris Johnson’s office apologized to the royal family Friday for holding staff parties in Downing Street on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral last year — the latest in a catalog of lockdown-breaching gatherings that are threatening to take down the British prime minister.
Farewell parties for Johnson’s departing spin doctor and another staffer, complete with late-night drinking and dancing, took place April 16, 2021, the night before Queen Elizabeth II sat alone at her husband’s funeral because of social distancing rules in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Johnson spokesman Jamie Davies acknowledged that news of the gatherings had caused “significant public anger.”
“It’s deeply regrettable that this took place at a time of national mourning and No. 10 has apologized to the palace,” he said, using a term for the prime minister’s 10 Downing Street office.
Johnson’s office said the prime minister wasn’t at No. 10 Downing St.t, where he lives and works, on April 16, and had been unaware that any gatherings were planned.
But each new revelation about social events in the prime minister’s office while most people in the U.K. were enduring lockdowns has weakened his hold on power and strengthened calls for him to resign. A scandal that began weeks ago with a report of a December 2020 Christmas party has grown to about a dozen alleged social events in 10 Downing St. and other government buildings.
The Daily Mirror reported that Johnson encouraged his office staff to “let off steam” at regular after-work “wine time Fridays.” The paper said the staff had a wine fridge delivered to No. 10 Downing St. to hold supplies for the gatherings.
So far none of the parties have been denied by Johnson’s office.
The prime minister is not alleged to have attended many of the soirees. But this week Johnson apologized for going to a Downing Street garden party in May 2020, when the U.K. was under strict lockdown and people were banned by law from meeting more than one person outside their households. Millions were cut off from family and friends, and even barred from visiting dying relatives in hospitals.
Most indoor social gatherings were also banned in April 2021, and funerals were limited to 30 people.
The symbolism of the April parties’ timing has appalled many in Britain. The Daily Telegraph, which broke the news, said Downing Street staffers drank, danced and socialized late into the night, and that at one point an employee was dispatched with a suitcase to a nearby supermarket to buy more alcohol. The next day, the widowed queen sat alone in a church at Windsor Castle to say goodbye to her husband of 73 years.
Photos of the monarch, clad in black and wearing a mask, became a powerful image of the isolation and sacrifice endured by many people during the pandemic.
Many Conservatives fear “partygate” will become a tipping point for a leader who has weathered a series of storms over his expenses and his moral judgment.
In a sign of growing Conservative anger at the revelations, the party’s association in the staunchly Tory district of Sutton Coldfield in central England voted unanimously Thursday night to withdraw its support from Johnson.
“The culture starts at the top, doesn’t it?” said Simon Ward, a Conservative local councilor. He said people across the country had been asked to make “massive sacrifices.”