It’s definitely Gove and Cummings - only have to listen to how suddenly Kuenssberg has “sources” again.

Oh for ****'s sake just get it over and done with Tories! You know he's toast. We need to know which ghoul you have lined up next.

Equally, assuming it's done to a high standard you got easily blow £30k on a small kitchen alone. Really just depends what is being done and by who.

I mean I presume he would have used an interior designer, selected only the best materials and been paying the best workmen to do the job. I'm also not sure what extra costs would have been added on in terms of security or whatever - they may need to use preapproved government contractors for the work which will add cost no doubt.

The great British public don't mind because the pubs are open and there's a good chance that they'll be able to go off to the Costas for their summer holidays. :rolleyes:

In any case, you cannot expect a toff like Boris Johnson to have to follow the same rules as lesser mortals.

Yes, the costs do quickly add up, as we have recently found. An extension, new kitchen, patio, oil tank and garden remodelling in the last 9 months and we're already well past 2 years worth of Number 10 budget. :o

I'm sure costs are not cheap, and they will use decent contractors etc. - can easily add up to quite a lot of money.

But £30k every year ?

Of which only 'new kitchen' could apply to #10 and, as has been mentioned, every year?

Just a slight clarification - the PM lives in the flat above #11 - because it's a bit bigger than #10. Since Tony Blair, pretty much all PMs have used #11.

Yep, my mistake.

From the reporting , it's not entirely clear whether the £30k budget has been in place for some time or whether it is a fairly new innovation. It's also not clear whether the budget accumulates from year to year in the event that it isn't spent.

Reportedly, the Camerons refurbished No. 11 in 2011 and spent all of the £30k, and perhaps some of their own money.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13580108

Tatler has a story about the work and who is doing it.

https://www.tatler.com/article/lulu-...carrie-symonds

May didn't. To be fair to previous incumbents Blair & Brown swapped because Blair had children & Brown didn't at the time. May swapped back as she doesn't have children but Phillip Hammond did. Johnson took the 4 bed Chancellor's apartment over the two bed PM's residence (forgetting Chequers for a moment) despite him having, at the time, no children living with him & Sajid Javid having four. Still I suppose Sunak doesn't care, if by some chance he ever finds himself more than ten minutes from one of his multiple homes I guess he can just buy another one to cover the shortage.

Reports of hand made wallpaper at £850 a roll and a £10,000 sofa.

Defenders jumping in to say it's only right as it's a 'listed building' and the official residence of the head of the govt so it has to be of the highest quality.

Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey says she believes Boris Johnson after he denied saying he would rather see "bodies pile high in their thousands" than have another lockdown.

"I take the prime minister on his word."

Imagine knowing the track record of Boris and saying this on TV!

According to the Taker article, Theresa May's furnishings were too John Lewis.

As part of a government building, I am surprised reasonable* redecoration costs aren't the responsibility of some civil service/ministerial department.

* - If it's a private residence, where guests are not being hosted then I don't have a problem with it being of lesser priority than official function rooms.

Well, there is an official allowance of 30k for 'refurbishment'

I don't think it runs to new sofas though.

You know this is going to turn out as something like:

he would rather hear about "bodies pile high in their thousands" than have another lockdown

Or

he would rather see "dead bodies pile high in their thousands" than have another lockdown

If he said it to Dom (and he probably did) he was comfortable saying it, knowing that Dom agreed. It was Cummings who was reported at the start of the pandemic saying "protect the economy and if that means some pensioners die, too bad"

Didn't the Mail break a load of the most recent stuff?

And doesn't Sarah Vine work for the Mail?

And remind me who her husband is?

Coincidence? Or just another inevitable part of the too knotty relationships between Tory politicians and the more right wing elements of our Fourth Estate?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...tory-rebellion

Just change your name to Alexander Johnson and your address to 11 Downing Street and see what will happen...

This ******* country...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...on-flat-refurb

I would be very surprised if it did accumulate, as that would fly in the face of all government spending rules. Mind you, now I say that...

"No 10 says Johnson will retain final say over internal inquiry into whether he broke ministerial code" (over the funding of his flat's refurbishment).

link to early reports. (Rolling coverage, so you might need to follow one of the links on the left for this particular aspect of the saga.)

Oh dear. Will even the Tories put up with this?

Well who better to judge the Prime Minister than the one person who knows all the facts of the case, ;)

If he delivers them gains in the local elections and keeps them well ahead in the polls - of course.

Arlene Foster to resign as the leader of the DUP.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-56910045
https://mydup.com/news/statement-by-...TBwEcF8MUd8yjC

Apparently she isn't hard-line enough for the Protestant Taliban and they want a leader who is truer to the cause - which is worrying :(

Surprised anyone actually thinks your average punter in the UK actually cares how much Johnson spent on the flat or where the cash came from at the moment.

I think quite a few Brits will feel offended that Carrie Symonds said that the refurb of Downing Street flat was to remove a 'John Lewis furniture nightmare', given that John Lewis is a somewhat up-market chain. Johnson's gaffes are, I strongly believe, having a cumulative effect, not least on his own mood. Today at prime minister's questions he was red in the face and raging.

Oh, and John Lewis seem to be be fighting back, by taking the mickey, and when The Daily Mail seems to find that amusing then maybe it's a bad sign for Johnson?

Exactly.

It's one thing to call people "tank-topped bumboys" or "picaninnies with watermelon smiles" - after the sort of person who likes Johnson for telling it like it is, is fine with a bit of contempt for *those* sections of what they don't really consider to be society.

However many of those people would aspire to John Lewis - so he's now showing contempt for them. And it's gaining traction in the media they consume.

Also the opulence is probably not a good look even amongst them when many will have been struggling with Covid. And although it doesn't look like taxpayer's money "we're all in it together" and "we can't afford to pay nurses more" doesn't sit well with this, or the continual dripping of cronyism.

Jonathan Pie nails it, as ever ;)

The comment near the end about how much is Carrie Symonds' taste to be trusted when she has seen Boris Johnson naked isn't even the funniest bit :D

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

And I shudder to think what raging is happening in that flat, maybe even as we type.

Remember this, from just 2 years ago? -

"Police were called to the home of Boris Johnson and his partner, Carrie Symonds, in the early hours of Friday morning after neighbours heard a loud altercation involving screaming, shouting and banging."

link

Worrying for anyone who wants effective governance in NI.

Also note that for a long time the standard for whether MPs expenses were reasonable or not was to compare to John Lewis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_List

Robert Peston tweeted

@Peston
I understand that @BorisJohnson's first conversations about having the Downing Street flat funded by donors were as long ago as February 2020. At the time Ben Elliot, joint chairman of the party suggested the PM borrow to pay the costs. The PM then came up with the idea...

of a blind trust, again funded by donors. But the Cabinet Office could not sort the proprieties. According to an email leaked to the Daily Mail, the Tory donor Lord Brownlow then contributed £58,000 "to cover the payments the party has already made on behalf of the soon...

to be formed 'Downing Street Trust'" - which was never formed. The Tory Party had seemingly already paid back the Cabinet Office for the decorating bills it had paid on the PM's behalf. And the PM has now paid back the Tory Party. We don't know when the...
Robert Peston
@Peston

PM paid the Tory Party, or how he found the funds to do that when he didn't have them in February of last year. We also don't know whether Brownlow has also been repaid. And we don't know who in the Cabinet Office and among Johnson's advisers knew what was going on. Cummings...

says he was clear with the PM from last summer that he should dig into his own pocket, by taking out a personal bank loan, to pay for the furnishings and decoration of his home. There are so many unanswered questions. And prima facie there are an astonishing number of...

disclosure rules that have been breached, along with rules of common sense. For what it's worth, a source tells me "Ben Elliot tried to stop the madness repeatedly". He seems to have failed.

That was the point where Carrie went off IKEA furniture.

Oddly, many folk are capable of thinking about more than one thing at once...

And this "thing" is of a piece with many other things around at present, such as Johnson's lackadaisical attitude to anything and everything, typical Tory "One rule for us" BS and nest feathering (just look at the derisory amount they want to give to NHS staff in this year's pay round), another example of Johnson lying, another example of Tory financial shenanigans and more.

Robert Hutton tweeted

@RobDotHutton
I have already made it clear that I will cooperate fully with the supermarket security guard, and - please let me finish, and if he finds the bottle of gin that I've hidden down my trousers, I will hand it back.

And Johnson trousering someone else's money, quite likely illegally, to pay for the refurbishment of the flat which he's given as part of his sodding job (just one of the properties...) compares very badly with this - https://www.theguardian.com/society/...e-safety-bills.

Just to repeat what I posted earlier.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...anda.mandelson

"The home loan scandal, which forced Peter Mandelson to resign as trade and industry secretary two years ago, has come back to haunt him. The man who gave him most of the money, the former paymaster general and millionaire Geoffrey Robinson, claims in his new memoir that Mr Mandelson solicited the loan."

What Boris Johnson wrote about that scandal in 1998 when he was a journalist;

https://twitter.com/pickardje/status...11363748470785

The hypocrisy is staggering and part of Johnson's manner and why he not fit to be PM, let alone an MP.

"In February xxxx, told parliament: “No leaseholder should have to pay for the unaffordable costs of fixing safety defects that they didn’t cause and are no fault of their own.” Campaigners say he has now broken that promise.

I wonder who xxxx might be?

What a quality rant - I haven't come across him before. Excellent stuff - thanks!