Monday 26 April 2021

So, Keir Starmer, will you keep Boris's refurbishments if you ever take over Downing St?

I am already sick of all the hypocritical whingeing going on about whether Boris Johnson spent too much on refurbishing the flat above Number 11 Downing Street and whether he arranged for a loan from a Tory donor to help pay for it. Let's get a few things straight first. This is the official London residence of the prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It's not Boris's personal apartment which he can sell at some huge profit after he has stopped being prime minister. It's the flat over the shop and surely, if the prime minister of the day hates the furniture and decorations etc of the residence left by his or her predecessor, shouldn't it be ok for the new leader to choose different curtains and sofas and a fancy kitchen and perhaps a better TV set, or whatever? If ever Keir Starmer becomes prime minister, won't he want to chuck out everything Boris and Carrie have done and do his own makeover? When a new president takes over in the White House there's always a big makeover. John Kennedy and his elegant wife Jacqueline spent a bunch of dollars to turn the White House into a Camelot-style residence, Bill and Hillary Clinton changed a lot, even George W Bush changed the curtains if I remember rightly. But of course with Boris it's all about the money spent. Under the rules governing British prime ministers and the Downing Street residence, they are allowed to use a grant of £30,000 to make alterations, put new carpets down etc. But Boris and his longstanding fiancee Carrie had bigger and better ideas and wanted a total makeover to make sure they had a decent home for themselves and their young son Wilfred. It looks like a Tory donor offered to make up the difference between £30,000 and whatever it was going to cost. Some reports say the final estimate was £60,000, others suggest £200,000. This should have been declared in an open and fully transparent way but it seems it wasn't. Well not straightaway. Now Boris is saying he paid or would pay the difference himself. But thanks to devilish leaking by his old friend Dominic Cummings it has now turned into a massive political scandal and Labour's leader Keir Starmer is having a field day bashing Boris whenever he opens his mouth. My only thought is this: why on earth would Boris contemplate spending so much money on a flat he is never going to own? He knew the cost would come out at some point because you can't keep something like this secret. It's all so ridiculous and it's taking up crucial political time when the whole government and opposition should be focusing on the pandemic and getting this country back to normal. It's what we Brits call a storm in a teacup.

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