There is palpable public outrage about the flagrant lockdown rule flouting of 10 Downing Street during Partygate. But for oenophiles everywhere, by far the most disturbing revelation is not that the Prime Minister broke the rules (even though he made the rules) or that he might have lied about it, but that staff in No. 10 scuttled to the local Tesco Express with a ‘wheelie’ suitcase in which to smuggle enough vino back to the office for ‘wine-time Fridays’. Talk about tasteless.
It’s admirable that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland lives in a modest flat above the shop instead of in some grand, sprawling neo-classical mansion surrounded by parkland. It’s appropriately British and democratic and helps stop the incumbent getting ideas above his or her station.
But, whatever the rights and wrongs of that other recent hullabaloo – ‘wallpaper-gate’ – it was somewhat demeaning to see our PM apparently so cash-strapped that he had to have a bit of a whip round among his mates to get the spare bedroom done up to the missus’s satisfaction.
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