Starting pots watered in full confinement and national mourning. The services of the British Prime Minister apologized, Friday, January 14, to Elizabeth II for parties organized while the queen was preparing to bury her husband. This new twist humiliatingly concludes a week of disastrous revelations for Boris Johnson.
This is one of the symbolic images of the rigor of confinements in the United Kingdom: the nonagenarian queen, all black dressed to the mask, sitting alone in the chapel of Windsor Castle during the funeral of Prince Philip. Until the early hours of April 17, 2021, Downing Street collaborators – without the Prime Minister – 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 from Boris Johnson.
The revelers, about thirty, had joined in the gardens of the official residence, according to the daily close to power. One 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 prohibited, as the British could only meet up to six outside.
These official apologies are particularly humiliating for the conservative leader, now openly criticized in his majority and facing his worst crisis since coming to power. Boris Johnson, 57, was not present but these new revelations extend an already long list of parties organized in circles of power during periods of confinement. They also highlight, according to witnesses quoted in the media, a real drink culture in Downing Street.
They push even further the conservative leader who, contact Covid case, has not been seen in public since his mea culpa Wednesday in Parliament for his presence at one of these parties in May 2020. He said he then thought he was was about a business meeting. Now very weak in the polls, which he has long skimmed over after his triumphant arrival to power in July 2019, he is fighting today to remain at the head of government.
Very critical, several Conservative MPs, some of whom were fervent supporters until now, joined the opposition to demand the resignation of Boris Johnson. Denouncing “a moral vacuum at the heart of government”Andrew Bridgen is the latest to send a letter of confidence to a powerful committee governing the parliamentary organization of the Conservative Party. If he receives enough, the latter will have to organize a new leadership race to replace the Prime Minister.