PM’s lockdown ‘party’ was held on eve of Philip funeral

Johnson is facing calls to resign over a slew of alleged parties held at his Downing Street office while the country was locked down as part of restrictions to stem the spread of coronavirus…reports Asian Lite News

Staff at the office of under-fire British Prime Minister Boris Johnson drank alcohol at two leaving events during lockdown on the eve of Prince Philip’s socially-distanced funeral, The Telegraph reported Thursday.

Advisers and civil servants gathered after work on April 16 last year to mark the departure of James Slack, PM Johnson’s director of communications, and one of the prime minister’s personal photographers, the paper reported.

Johnson is facing calls to resign over a slew of alleged parties held at his Downing Street office while the country was locked down as part of restrictions to stem the spread of coronavirus.

Eye-witnesses told The Telegraph that alcohol was served and guests danced as the gatherings stretched late into the night.

The events came the day before Queen Elizabeth’s late husband, Prince Philip, was laid to rest, and while the country was in a period of public mourning.

The queen sitting alone in church due to the Covid regulations provided one of the starkest images of the lockdown in Britain.

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister offered “heartfelt apologies” for attending a lockdown-breaching party held in his Downing Street garden, but deflected calls to resign as the opposition leader called him a “man without shame”.

Breaking his silence over the latest of a slew of allegations regarding top-level misbehaviour, Johnson said he regarded the boozy get-together in May 2020 as a work event for Downing Street staff.

He added that he did not appreciate how it would look to millions of Britons who were respecting Covid rules, even missing out on farewells to dying relatives.

“And to them and to this House I offer my heartfelt apologies,” Johnson told a stormy session of questions in the House of Commons.

Keir Starmer, leader of the main opposition Labour party, dismissed the apology as “worthless” and mocked Johnson for belatedly speaking out after “months of deceit and deception”.

“Is he now going to do the decent thing and resign?” Starmer said, demanding the Conservative leader’s head for the first time and arguing: “The prime minister’s a man without shame.”

Even some on his own side want Johnson to go, but in response to Starmer, he urged all sides to await the findings of an internal inquiry he has commissioned by a senior civil servant.

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