Sleepless Whitehall nights Babes in arms at No10
The prospect of sleepless nights and dirty nappies may fill Boris Johnson with a modicum of dread. After all, his job is said to be probably Britain’s most demanding.
However, he will not be the first prime minister to bring a baby into No10. In recent decades, it has become the thing to do.
David and Samantha Cameron welcomed daughter Florence Rose Endellion in 2010, shortly after Mr Cameron had formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.
Despite her being born while they were on holiday in Cornwall, Mr Cameron revealed that they had not bought a cot, so she slept in a cardboard box decorated by their then six-year-old daughter, Nancy.
In 1997, Tony Blair had moved into Downing Street as a father of three but his wife, Cherie, gave birth to Leo in the summer of 2000 – the first child born legitimately to a serving prime minister for more than 150 years.
Mr Blair’s memoirs may, perhaps, offer a salutary lesson if Mr Johnson is minded to seek many years in power.
He wrote how “it is always unconscionably dangerous for a prime minister to have teenage children”.
The previous Downing Street baby was born to Lord John Russell and Lady Russell, who had sons, George and Francis, during his first stint in office between 1846 and 1852.
After a century-and-ahalf gap between prime ministerial babies, Downing Street has had to wait only 10 years for the patter of tiny feet to return to its corridors.