The British already knew for the end of 2020 Christmas parties in Downing Street, with board games and all-you-can-eat canapes, when they were all deprived of family gatherings. They also discovered on Monday January 10 the proven existence of a “Booze party” (an alcoholic evening) on May 20, 2020, in which Boris Johnson admitted to having participated, violating the rules of confinement, while picnics in parks were still prohibited and participation in funerals limited to thirty people.
Thanks to Daily Telegraph, they also discovered with dismay Thursday 13, that the music resounded until the middle of the night in the most famous dead end of the country, April 16, 2021, the day before the burial of Prince Philip, in full national mourning . These events are “deeply regrettable”, said a spokesman for the Prime Minister on Friday 14, assuring that “Downing Street has apologized to Buckingham Palace”.
The photograph had gone around the world: on April 17, 2021, Queen Elizabeth II, 95, faced her husband’s coffin in St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. She stands alone, social distancing rules oblige. Prince Philip is a controversial figure, but the British largely commune with the mourning of their sovereign, ultra-popular, while tens of thousands of them mourn their deaths from Covid-19. Even in Belfast, young people in Protestant neighborhoods put an end to street fights sparked by their rejection of Northern Irish protocol, out of respect for the Queen.
Culture of impunity
Yet the night before, the wine is flowing downstairs at 10 Downing Street where two parties are in full swing, including one in honor of James Slack, Boris Johnson’s communications director , who is stepping down to become deputy editor of the Sun. With a luxury of details, the Telegram, strong support until then of the Prime Minister, says that the music was provided by Shelley Williams-Walker, special adviser to Mr. Johnson. The bottles were bought at the Co-op, a convenience store at the end of the Strand (the boulevard passing in front of Downing Street) and transported in a suitcase. At the end of the evening, in the walled gardens of Downing Street, a diner even tried the swing of Wilfred (18 months), the son of Boris and Carrie Johnson, and broke it.
Boris Johnson was not present that evening: he had already left for his second home in Checkers, specifies the Telegram. Nevertheless: this ” booze party shows to what extent a culture of impunity seems to have largely developed at the heart of the British executive. The people responsible for defining the health constraints were the first, obviously, not to respect them.
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