Creeping cost of Downing St redecorations
EXPECTATIONS have clearly risen since Margaret Thatcher slapped down a proposed refurbishment of the No 11 flat in 1979, saying the public would not be impressed.
She dashed the hopes of her chancellor Geoffrey Howe, who had complained the 1960s-style kitchen was ‘positively antediluvian, with iron gas rings, antique sinks and sombre décor’, records show.
So the flat remained a product of the 1960s – until Tony and Cherie Blair took up residence in 1997.
‘I won’t sleep in Ken Clarke’s bed,’ Mr Blair declared of the Conservative chancellor, the most recent tenant, when he became PM and opted for the four-bedroom No 11 flat instead of the smaller one at No 10.
In the Blair years, the flat above No 11, frequently littered with toys belonging to baby Leo, born in May 2000, had £127,000 spent on refurbishments between 1999 and 2005, according to official records.
In came £70-a-roll wallpapers, new artwork and a set of custom-made glass-fronted bookcases for Mrs Blair’s office. When Gordon Brown moved in with his wife and two sons, in 2007, he appears to have been perfectly content with it – there are no records that he spent a penny on upgrades.
But in 2010, David and Samantha Cameron went to town on the place, which clearly fell well short of their Notting Hill standards.
Out went a mirrored exercise room where lifestyle guru Carole Caplin had put the Blairs through their paces. Old carpets were ripped out too, and expensive black granite worktops installed in a new kitchen.
As part of a £64,000 makeover, extensive work was carried out in a bathroom, with everything apart from a towel rail stripped out and a new floor and ceiling installed. Some of the costs were met from the flat’s annual £30,000 maintenance grant, and the rest by the Camerons.
The couple went for an ultra-modern, minimalist design of brushed steel and floating shelves in the second kitchen, leaving the original 1960s- style kitchen in its original state. A £3,400 Britannia range cooker – complete with dirty oven gloves – was the centrepiece.
Theresa May is not reported to have changed anything during her time in Downing Street.
‘Complete with dirty oven gloves’