No 10 sorry for meat and alcohol at Diwali event

No 10 has apologised aft nutrient and intoxicant were served astatine a Downing Street lawsuit to observe the festival of Diwali, held past month.

In a missive to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Conservative MP Shivani Raja said the determination was "not successful keeping with the customs of galore Hindus" and displayed a "disappointing deficiency of cognition of the customs and traditions that galore British citizens clasp dear".

In a statement, first reported by Politico, a Downing Street spokesperson said "a mistake was made successful the organisation of the event".

"We recognize the spot of feeling connected this contented and truthful would apologise to the assemblage and guarantee them it volition not hap again," helium added.

Downing Street archetypal began hosting events to observe Diwali successful 2009 nether then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The contented has continued nether successive premier ministers, including Rishi Sunak, who successful 2022 became the UK's archetypal Hindu premier minister.

The five-day festival, celebrated by Sikhs and Jains arsenic good arsenic Hindus, symbolises caller beginnings, the triumph of airy implicit darkness, bully implicit evil and cognition implicit ignorance.

There are antithetic interpretations connected however Hindus should dainty animals, nevertheless cows are considered a ineffable carnal and galore take not to devour beef, portion others debar nutrient altogether.

Practising Sikhs and Jains are besides vegetarians and abstain from alcohol.

A Downing Street spokesperson said: "The premier curate was pleased to invited a scope of communities celebrating Diwali to a reception successful Downing Street.

"He paid tribute to the immense publication the British Hindu, Sikh and Jain communities marque to our state and however the authorities is driven by the shared values of hard work, ambition and aspiration."