A starting pot watered in full confinement and national mourning. The services of the British Prime Minister apologized, Friday, January 14, to Elizabeth II for a party organized while the queen was preparing to bury her husband. This new development brings to a humiliating conclusion 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 morning of April 17, 2021, Downing Street collaborators – without the Prime Minister – celebrated the departure of two members of the team, according to The Telegraph, communications director James Slack, who became deputy editor of the tabloid The Sun, and a personal photographer of Boris Johnson.
The revelers, around 30, had gathered in the gardens of the official residence, according to The Telegraph, a conservative daily. A person had been sent to a supermarket to buy bottles of wine which they had 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 apologies sent through the official channel 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 add to 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 drinking culture in Downing Street.
This scandal further sinks the head of government who, in the case of Covid contact, has not been seen in public since his mea culpa on Wednesday in Parliament for his presence at one of these parties in May 2020. He claimed to have then thought it was 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 have been fervent supporters so far, have joined the opposition in demanding the resignation of Boris Johnson. denouncing “a moral vacuum at the heart of the government”, Andrew Bridgen is the latest to have sent a letter of no-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.