Since it was created by Boris Johnson over the Covid pandemic, the media briefing room in Downing Street has been resplendent in a rich blue.
But journalists returned after Parliament’s Christmas recess yesterday to find the room looking a bit different.
Gone were the big backdrop featuring a subtle nod to the UK’s Coat of Arms and the navy carpet. In its place, more wood panelling and a carpet featuring a sober grey pattern.
Redecoration work over the festive period cost is understood to have cost somewhere around £80,000.
As a result, the room features significantly less of the ‘Tory blue’, as one insider put it to the Times.
Sir Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson said today that the ‘one-off refresh’ took place to ‘restore the room to a politically neutral setting’.
He pointed out it had now returned ‘back to its original state’, adding: ‘You’ll be aware the cost was obviously a fraction of what the previous administration had spent on the room.’
It would have been difficult to match that spending. Boris Johnson’s government splashed out £2.6 million to create the space in Number 9 Downing Street, with Labour slamming it as a ‘vanity project’ at the time.
The then-PM intended it as a dedicated space for holding his regular Covid press conferences, but it soon became notorious for something else.
Allegra Stratton, who was Johnson’s press secretary at the time, was filmed in the room joking about Christmas festivities in December 2020. It was one of the first stories to break in what would become Partygate.
The exact amount spent on the latest revamp will be revealed when the Cabinet Office releases its annual accounts.
Asked if there was a real need to make a blue room ‘politically neutral’, the PM’s spokesperson said the government has taken £80 million each year out of communications and campaign budgets.
He added that Sir Keir would now use the room for press conferences, something he had not done since winning last year’s election.
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