Downing Street…
… built by Sir George Downing with the intention that it should be a street of;
‘Fine townhouses. For persons of good quality to reside in…’
Yes, I know what you’re thinking!
When Winston Churchill lived there, he said, No10 was;
‘Shaky and lightly built, by the profiteering contractor whose name it bears.’
Ouch…
Downing never lived there. Robert Walpole was the first PM, in 1720.
The front door is the most famous in the world. Originally made of black-oak. Now, of blast-proof steel, that takes ten strong-men to lift.
One Sunday, when I was a lad in short trousers, my Mum and Dad took a picture of me, on the steps of Number 10.
Harold Wilson rejected the idea of sealing-off the road. He wrote;
‘…it would appear to be an unacceptable restriction of the freedom of the public… to wander at will in Downing Street…’
The IRA put paid to all that. In 1989, steel fences were erected with a gate… later to become known as ‘pleb-gate’.
There’s still a public right of way along Downing Street and is maintained by Westminister City Council. It was fenced-off using common-law powers ‘to prevent a breach-of-the-peace’.
Some maintain, it’s not ‘legal’.
Whatever… we can’t go there but others can, including members of the Cabinet…
… they pass through the famous door, step onto the corded, red-runner that protects the black and white tiles in the entrance hall.
On the right, a grandfather clock. The Whitehaven. It used to chime the quarters, halves and hours. Churchill though it irritating and had them silenced.
The Cumbrian clockmakers, from the west-side of the fish-market in Whitehaven, in their books and records, tell the history of ‘Ticker’ Benson, the owner and clock-maker.
He supplied time-pieces to the Royal Navy, winning the contract by substituting the normal brass face of timepieces, with painted enamel… it was cheaper.
The Whitehaven, each tick counting down the days the administration has left.
Leave the hallway, walkthrough, to the Cabinet Room. The epicentre of decision making. The doors are soundproof.
The 40ft boat-shaped table was commissioned by Harold Macmillan, in 1959, so he could get a clear view of everyone.
Ministers sit in matching mahogany chairs, only the PM has a chair with arms.
The room doubles as a library, begun by Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour Prime Minister in 1924. Each outgoing PM donates a book to the collection.
The Cabinet meet weekly but yesterday there was a special meeting to discuss ways of easing the cost-of-living crisis.
Our economy is floating on a sea of debt, buffeted by the winds of global change. What exactly can the Cabinet come up with?
They don’t have many options.
Increase the living wage, increase benefits, tax-cuts, paid for by a windfall tax on the utility companies? Cut the cost of child care?
NI has already been increased to fund headway for the NHS and social care but is unlikely to produce tangible results anytime soon.
An emergency mini-budget might be on the cards? Rate relief for business?
Every penny HMG give away, HMT have to find.
What the meeting will produce remains to be seen… the local elections are days away.
The important thing is the optics. Meeting, focussing on the issues.
The cost-of-living is crippling good, honest, working people and a Cabinet meeting, regardless of the politics, focussing on the issue is an important signal that it is on top of the agenda.
Whereas…
… the leaders of the NHS only meet every eight weeks.
NHS and social care are in meltdown, crippling the good honest people working at the front-line…
… leaving people watching each tick of their Whitehaven clock, as they wait for ambulances, hand-overs, admissions, appointments and operations.
The optics are horrible. No one at the centre cares? No one has any ideas? No one is on top of the problem?
Today’s report from Civitas is desperate reading. UK health services have dropped to the bottom, or near the bottom, in almost every index of international comparisons. It’s horrible reading.
The workforce and the public could be forgiven for thinking the Board are in hiding.
I don’t know how the Cabinet will solve the explosion in the cost-of-living.
I don’t know how NHSE/I will solve the implosion of the NHS…
…but I do know the Cabinet is at least, meeting.
News and Comment from Roy Lilley
Contact Roy – please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net
Reproduced at thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.
