Nicky Haslam

How will Carrie cope with the hideousness of Chequers?

Zut alors! The court of King Boris gets more like Versailles each day. With some talcum powder on that ramshackle hair, the Prime Minister would be the image of Louis le Something after a night on the Tuileries. His government, meanwhile, totters towards the tumbrils. Le Marquis d’Ancock, Comte de Raab and Le Petit-Maître Gove all cower in the corridors of power, fearful of ‘À la Bastille!’ being barked by sitting pretty Mme de Patel, or a strictly formal dressing-down from His Holiness, L’Abbé Rees-Mogg. Behind the screens, Madame du Carrie ponders eco-friendly lightbulbs with Mlle Lulu, or the source of the handwoven rattan for that dog’s basket. The court goldsmith Prince Zac (with a row of advisers) discusses how wee Wilfred’s comfort blanket must be ethically sustainable. All the while ignoring the mocking grin of today’s Talleyrand who keeps cummings round the corner to haunt them.

When reporting on the renovations to the shabby state of No. 10, the BBC, in its striving to always tell the truth, showed photographs of the main ‘state’ rooms, all painted and gilded and swagged, which are obviously not on le menu, being floors below the prime-ministerial apartment. The costs, rumoured to have been met by deeper pockets than King Boris’s, don’t seem to me that extortionate. It is quite a big flat. The Camerons contributed some nifty OKA bits, but what seems odd is Mme du Carrie banging on about poor Mrs May’s ‘John Lewis furniture nightmare’. The comment seems a slap in the face of a deeply loved and long-established firm that is going through the nightmare of staff layoffs because of the bizarre regulations of lockdown. Let’s wait and see if la Carrie ever gets her mitts on Chequers, which reputedly has the most hideous interiors imaginable.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s (or Edinburra’s, as newscasters like to pronounce it) funeral was a masterclass in poignant refinement and sombre elegance.

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