‘Gaudy, gilded tat’ … a Rudolph Nureyev Trolley like
the one at No 11. Photograph: Soane Britain
‘Trump-like madness!’– our critic’s verdict on Boris
Johnson’s £200,000 No 11 refurb
‘Gaudy, gilded tat’ … a Rudolph Nureyev Trolley like
the one at No 11.
Carrie and the PM blew £7,560 on sofas, £8,500 on
lamps – and £3,675 on a ‘Nureyev drinks trolley’ that actually features two
pairs of brass hands desperately clinging on. Is this the most metaphorical
home accessory ever?
Oliver
Wainwright
@ollywainwright
Fri 8 Jul
2022 16.22 BST
“We shape
our buildings,” said Winston Churchill, “thereafter they shape us.” He was
referring to the rectangular design of the House of Commons chamber, and its
influence on the adversarial nature of British politics. But he may just as
well have been predicting the maniacal psychosis induced on Boris Johnson by
his £200,000 flat renovation.
The newly
revealed invoice for the gaudy makeover of the No 11 apartment, by
“boho-Sloane” interior designer Lulu Lytle, has raised eyebrows with its lavish
list of £7,560 sofas, £8,500 lamps, and a £3,000 “paint effect” in the hallway.
But it also provides a revealing window into what might have triggered
Johnson’s recent bout of Trump-like madness.
The £3,650 Leighton table and the £3,800 Hurlingham
bookcase would both be at home in a Raj-era governor’s palace
Take the
£3,675 Nureyev trolley. At first glance, it looks like your standard Kensington
oligarch’s drinks cart. Its tempered glass shelves are protected by ornamental
rails topped with twiddly finials – always handy to stop bottles falling off
when your superyacht hits choppy waters. But look closer and you will find two
pairs of polished brass hands emerging from the top of the frame, their clenched
fists clinging firmly on to the handles of the trolley. It is the perfect
ostentatious allegory of Johnson’s desperate attempt to cling on to power, his
chubby, unyielding fingers lovingly hand-wrought in solid brass by the finest
Sheffield craftsmen.
A dedicated
page on the website of Lytle’s company, Soane, recounts how the design is based
on a pair of 1940s French drinks trolleys that were once owned by ballet dancer
Rudolph Nureyev, in his “fabulously decorated” Paris apartment – a place where
the chintzy carpet seems to have devoured not only the sofa but also the walls.
Nureyev clearly shared other traits with Johnson, beyond a taste for gilded
tat. As the dancer’s portrait painter, Jamie Wyeth, recalled: “He never thought
he had enough of anything.”
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Barbed-wire
cage … the Espalier Square wallpaper, £2,250 for 10 rolls.
Barbed-wire
cage … the Espalier Square wallpaper (£2,250 for 10 rolls) and the Rattan
Leighton table (£3,650). Photograph: Soane Britain
While the
decorating scandal has long been known as “wallpapergate”, it might be
surprising to learn that the infamous “gold wallpaper” is neither gold nor one
of the more expensive items on the list. A snip at £2,250 for 10 rolls, the
Espalier Square wallpaper design is another French knock-off, derived from an
early 19th-century pattern, depicting interwoven green branches in a
neverending grid. “Lulu has always loved the ancient horticultural art of
‘espalier’,” gushes her website, “where fruit-bearing trees are trained across
garden walls.”
We have no
way of knowing how the Johnsons deployed the wallpaper, but we are told that
Lytle imagines the design being used to cover not only the walls of a room but
also the ceiling, to give the “all-encompassing effect” of a fruit tree trained
into a tunnel or pergola. Sadly she seems to have misplaced her scale ruler:
the result looks less like an espaliered tree than a barbed-wire cage, of the
kind in which a particularly desperate prime minister might attempt to shield
himself from the outside world.
Crumpled
copper pancake … the Aten Hurricane Wall Light.
Crumpled
copper pancake … Soan’s Aten Hurricane Wall Light. Photograph: Soane Britain
If the
Johnsons weren’t already driven round the bend by the wall-to-ceiling cage
effect, the light fittings would probably have done the trick. Coming in at
£1,775 each, the Aten Hurricane wall lights take the form of crumpled copper
pancakes – hand-beaten by Cornish coppersmiths, natch – with glass shades
shaped like upside-down wine bottles. Spookily described by Lytle as
“particularly atmospheric in dark areas”, they have an unnerving similarity to
the Eye of Sauron, the vertical candle flame creating eerie shimmering arcs
across the beaten copper backdrop. With his barbed-wire cage guarded by a pair
of Sauron eyes, it’s no wonder that Johnson felt invincible from the
onslaughts.
Beyond the
sense of fortified desperation, the shopping list reflects other sides of the
prime minister’s worldview. In keeping with Boris’s talk of “piccaninnies” and
“watermelon smiles”, Lytle’s aesthetic has been criticised for its colonial
undertones, with patterns featuring exotic animals and Orientalist motifs. She
has defended her designs as the result of “30 years of research” and said in
one recent interview that she was “completely baffled by the idea that having a
woven lion on my wall from Nepal could be anything other than respectful”.
Instead,
she likes to think she is following in the footsteps of William Morris, the
socialist artist and designer who saw craftsmanship as a route to fundamental
social change (he later realised he had spent his life “ministering to the
swinish luxury of the rich”). Like Morris, Lytle sees her work as championing a
revival of lost traditions, peddling a Brexit-friendly message as “the Boudicca
of British craftsmanship”, as one antique dealer described her.
Foremost in
her crafts crusade is rattan, a material with its own allusions to colonial
verandas, and the Johnson bill includes several such items of rattan furniture
– the £3,650 Leighton table and a £3,800 Hurlingham bookcase, which would both
be at home on the terrace of a Raj-era governor’s palace. When Britain’s last
rattan workshop, Angraves in Leicestershire, went into administration in 2011,
Lytle bought the machinery and hired two of the staff. In another exquisite
piece of Johnsonian symbolism, she also acquired the rights to Dryad – the
company that designed rattan seating for the Titanic.
Theresa
May’s No 11 decor might have been dismissed as a “John Lewis nightmare”, but
that sounds infinitely preferable to being stuck inside this folksy,
chintz-laden sinking ship.
Carrie Johnson: why did the media take such an
interest in Boris Johnson’s wife?
PM’s spouse faced scrutiny about her influence in No
10, and regularly clashed with his chief aide Dominic Cummings
Friends describe Carrie Johnson as spirited, witty and
with firm opinions, which make her ideally suited to the gossipy world of
Westminster.
Dan Sabbagh
Sat 9 Jul
2022 07.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/09/carrie-johnson-boris-johnson-wife-media-interest
Carrie
Johnson is the prime ministerial spouse who has had to face more questions over
her political influence than any predecessor in Downing Street since Cherie
Blair. At the same time, the 34-year-old has got married, had two children and
seen her husband admitted to intensive care with Covid in three years that
began with uncertainty about whether she would even move into No 10.
But it is
the fact that she came from the Westminster political milieu – a former special
adviser (spad) to two cabinet ministers – and that there was a rivalry with
Johnson’s best-known adviser, Dominic Cummings, which marked Johnson out for
media attention during her husband’s chaotic tenure.
Contrast
that with Theresa May’s husband. A City fund manager, Philip May did not arrive
with external relationships in the media, and although at times he attended No
10 meetings, according to insiders at the time, he maintained a low and loyal
profile in a style calculated to evoke little public interest.
Friends and
allies describe Carrie Johnson as spirited and witty with firm opinions, which
make her ideally suited to the gossipy world of Westminster. “She is brilliant,
hugely likeable and fun, and we got on very well,” said John Whittingdale, a
veteran Conservative who gave her her first big break when he appointed her as
a spad in 2015 when he was culture secretary.
Her status
in Conservative circles grew. A lively 30th birthday party for the then Carrie
Symonds, held at the home of Lady Simone Finn in Primrose Hill in north London,
was attended by Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Sajid Javid. Those present say
her future husband gave a speech and Gove performed a Hamilton-inspired rap.
She appears
to have begun a relationship with Johnson in 2018. In the same year, he
announced that he and his second wife, the lawyer Marina Wheeler, were
separating, at a time when May’s premiership was faltering. A picture of
Johnson and Symonds laughing as they left a fundraising ball at the Natural
History Museum in February 2018 was the first public clue they were close.
At times,
the connection appeared intense. Police were called following a loud altercation
at Symonds’ south London flat in summer 2019, a time when her partner was on
the brink of entering Downing Street.
The row was
recorded by neighbours. It was said to consist largely of her fulminating after
Johnson spilled red wine on her sofa and his efforts to placate her. But she
brushed it off to friends and described the passing of the recording to the
Guardian as politically motivated.
After her
partner entered Downing Street, Symonds was said to have relatively limited
influence as the “get Brexit done” strategy of Cummings dominated. But that
changed after the prime minister’s election win in December 2019, as the Covid
crisis and a notorious lockdown trip to Durham shattered Cummings’ credibility.
Insiders
said Symonds was rarely a presence in No 10 meetings, preferring to exercise
influence directly – calling, texting or talking to the prime minister in
person. She often focused on issues of personal interest, notably
environmentalism but also LGBTQ+ rights.
At times
she would mischievously enjoy briefing out stories to the press without the
Downing Street press office knowing, particularly on animal welfare. The
argument was that such topics “cut through beyond traditional party politics”,
according to one friend. Campaigns included banning elephant riding holidays.
Symonds,
who became Carrie Johnson after her marriage in May 2021, maintained her own
influential circle. This included social activist Nimco Ali, spads Henry Newman
and Josh Grimstone, and journalists such as Alex Wickham, formerly of Politico
and now at Bloomberg news and a godparent to her and Johnson’s son Wilfred, and
Harry Cole, an ex-boyfriend who is political editor of the Sun.
Those who
know her say she often “critiques the press and policy direction of the moment”
and took a close interest in the appointments of political advisers. A defining
moment in Downing Street was the row that led to the departure of Cummings,
then the prime minister’s chief adviser, and his principal ally Lee Cain, the
director of communications, in November 2020.
The prime
minister had wanted to appoint Cain as chief of staff, but Carrie became
involved in a rearguard action to block it amid briefings that a “macho boys’
club” had come to dominate No 10. Cain then changed his mind about the job and
decided instead to follow Cummings out the door.
That left
behind a legacy of bitterness, and on more than one occasion, Cummings publicly
complained about Carrie Johnson thereafter, calling her a “wrong ’un” and
saying she had gone “completely crackers” over a news story about her dog,
Dilyn, at a critical early point in the pandemic.
It was
often hard for her to respond, given her formal role. Allies say she was
frequently a victim of inaccuracy and sexism in media coverage, and that much
of it amounted to hatchet jobs inspired by briefing from critics. Another
friend, who asked not to be named, said a reliable way to get Carrie to text
back was to highlight something controversial Cummings had just said.
A more
fundamental difficulty was that she was drawn into scandals that contributed to
her husband’s downfall. There were calls to investigate an alleged “victory
party” held in lockdown by Carrie Johnson and friends in their flat when
Cummings left, with Abba’s Winner Takes It All said to be among the tracks
played, though this is denied.
But the
event was not fully investigated in Sue Gray’s “Partygate” inquiry and no fines
were levied by the Metropolitan police. Instead Carrie Johnson was fined £50
for attending a short-lived birthday celebration for the prime minister in June
2020, and she later apologised.
A recent
report that she and her husband had wanted to build a £150,000 treehouse at the
prime minister’s country home, Chequers, cut through with the public, recalling
the earlier row over the luxury renovation of their Downing Street flat by
designer Lulu Lytle.
Unlike her
husband, Carrie Johnson leaves Downing Street with most of her career in front
of her. But like him she will want and need to reinvent herself given the
turbulence and controversies of the previous three years.
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