“It’s time to own up,” says Robert Shrimsley in the Financial Times: I am living the “John Lewis nightmare”. Since it was revealed that Boris and Carrie were spending £58,000 to make Downing Street look less like somewhere Theresa May might live, many have focused on ethics – where did the money come from? But all I can think about is the “mortification” of falling short in the home furnishings department. Our bare magnolia walls are a constant reproach to my lack of style, as is the “humiliating absence of rattan”. I am left yearning for the “migraine-inducing” patterns of the Lulu Lytle wallpaper so loved by the first fiancée, which I, in my ignorance, had mistaken for a Magic Eye puzzle.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter that I can’t afford a refurb. Neither could the PM. But did he give in to the “gloomsters and doomsters”? Did he slink off to Ikea? Hell no, he got someone else to pay for it. Admittedly, my friends have been slow to cough up for my own refurbishment fund – “It’s not as if I can get them a government contract” – but if Boris has shown us anything, it’s that we shouldn’t get bogged down in anything so mundane as economics. The PM is building back better, starting at home. If we follow his lead, one day soon we could all be in Lulu-land.
Read the full article here.