Around thirty Downing Street staff held two parties the night before the Queen sat alone at Prince Philip’s funeral, according to new reports.
Advisors and civil servants have been accused of hosting a party and ‘drinking into the early hours’ of the morning of April 16th 2021, just hours before Queen Elizabeth was forced to sit alone at the socially-distanced funeral of Prince Philip, The Telegraph reports.
Eyewitnesses claim people at the party danced to music and went to the Co-op on the Strand ‘with a suitcase’ to stock up on wine.
🚨EXCLUSIVE
Number 10 held two boozy parties the night before the Queen mourned Prince Philip alone.
Staff drank and at points danced until the early hours of the night of April 16.
Hours later, the Queen went to a socially-distanced funeral for Philip. https://t.co/sWrFcOrplE
These eyewitnesses claim that some partygoers ‘worried there was too much wine spilling on the basement carpet’, while one person broke a child’s swing allegedly belonging to the prime minister’s son Wilf.
At the time, the rest of the country was under instructions to not socialise indoors with anyone but their own households, and to only meet others outdoors in groups of six or two households.
The Prime Minister said he went into the garden just after 6pm on May 20th 2020 to thank staff but ‘believed implicitly that this was a work event’.
Number 10 / Flickr
He said: “With hindsight, I should have sent everyone back inside. I should have found some other way to thank them.
“I should have realised that even if it technically fell within the guidance, there would be millions who did not see it that way. I offer my heartfelt apologies.
“I know people up and down the country have made huge sacrifices and I understand the anger and rage they feel that people in Downing Street were not following those rules.
“I regret the way the event was handled and I wish we could have done things differently.”