Will Downing Street’s briefings become car crash TV?

Bedecked in blue and Union flags, the £2.6m briefing room is ready for action. But, asks Sean O’Grady, is the government quite so prepared for an audience of millions?

The room in No 9 has been kitted out with cameras, rows of chairs for journalists and a stream of Union Jacks (ITV News)

One of the things that is supposed to say something about the democratic nature of Britain is the principal residence it provides for its head of government. By comparison with Buckingham Palace, the Elysee Palace, the Kremlin, or the White House, say, 10 Downing Street presents a modest appearance to the world. No more or less than any other terraced council house, in fact with rather more security of tenure, it’s a leasehold rather than a freehold property, albeit with a famous address and permanent security. When the electorate, acting as landlord, decide your time is up, you are out. The traditional images of the removal van pulling up outside after a general election is one of the more powerful symbols of the peaceful transition of power, even though one or two occupants have tried to squat a little behind their time.

The residence also reminds us that a British prime minister works under a parliamentary system, and is not president or head of state. But is Boris Johnson getting presidential pretensions? First there was the expensive makeover by first fiancee Carrie Symonds, so costly indeed that it had to be funded privately. Some £200,000, roughly the value of the average British home, may be expended on essentially cosmetic improvements. Now there is a plan to construct a “White House-style” bunker under the 17th-century structure, if it can sustain it, at a cost to taxpayers of £9m, though a bunker dating back to the Cold War already exists under Whitehall. But most portentous, because of its implications for the workings of politics, is the new £2.6m Downing Street press briefing room. It’s all decked out in a suspiciously Conservative shade of royal blue, four Union flags naturally appropriated again for presumed party political “messaging”.

Closely modelled on the familiar White House set up, the intention seems to be that the prime minister’s spokesperson, Allegra Stratton, rather than the prime minister himself, will take questions from “lobby” journalists, ie the squad of political writers officially accredited to the Palace of Westminster, with access, privileges and status to match. This will be a considerable novelty. Prime ministers sometimes attend press conferences, most notably during the Covid briefings, and perform in public. Press secretaries are heard but not seen, their words over the years sometimes attributable by name, sometimes to the job title, anonymously, or via various barely veiled code such as “sources close to”. When press secretaries become “the story”, as with Alastair Campbell, Damian McBride and Andy Coulson, they have to quit. Giving a special adviser or official such a high-profile role is entirely new to the British system, and arguably unconstitutional. The question may well be asked as to why the prime minister doesn’t answer the questions himself.

Read more:

• Boris Johnson attacked over ‘shocking’ plan to increase nuclear warheads – live
• What are the new powers to ‘manage’ protests in the police bill?
• Downing Street fails to deny report that PM said UK should ‘ignore’ threat from Covid 
• Dominic Raab tells officials to trade with countries that fail to meet human rights standards in leaked video

Like all the best press secretaries (which paradoxically includes all the “worst” ones) Stratton will need to develop an innate instinct for the workings of the prime ministerial brain. Ideally, she should be able, sometimes, to answer for her boss without having to refer to him, without fear of subsequent correction or clarification. If that was to happen and the press, and now public, could not rely on her for reliable answers (even if they are noncommittal non-answers), then she and her briefings would soon become redundant. Johnson is not always decisive or clear enough to be confident that Stratton will find it an easy task to read his mind. He is full of surprises, after all.

Things may soon be equally hazardous for the lobby hacks themselves. Some prime ministers and their press secretaries develop a respect, even affection for them, or at least some of them. Some journalists are useful solely because of the mighty organs they represent. Others premiers, special advisers and spokesmen (they have been mostly male) have ill-concealed dislike of them, born of a mixture of fear and contempt. Edward Heath, to take one example, found them so irksome he too tried to institute televised press conferences, in the regal surroundings of Lancaster House (which presumably could have been used again at a saving to the Exchequer). According to his biographer, Heath, not the easiest of men himself, “had a low opinion of the Fleet Street lobby correspondents, and did not bother to hide it: there were too many of them, they were not so intelligent or serious, and he felt they were always looking to distort him”.

Dominic Cummings, again not the most easily likeable of figures, held them in especially low regard, and tried to institute an apartheid-style system for trusties versus the rest, admirably beaten back through a mass walkout (albeit that Downing Street has always had its more favoured correspondents).

Now, though, the lobby will find itself with a new audience, unused to its little ways. We’ve already had a preview of how things might develop during the Covid press briefings, though these were not confined to political journalists. Inevitably or not, each lobby reporter tends to ask about the big question of the day, with the television ones looking to have themselves on their news channels, out of professional pride. Such questioning, which rarely prompts a novel reply, sounds repetitive. It’s fair to say some of the cadre allowed themselves to go on a bit, and others, to the public, just sounded peevish and nitpicking, whereas of course they were simply speaking truth to power. A few of the lobby backs may grow into national celebrities, if not treasures, as might Stratton. Or, like many of the other attempts to “open up” and reform the lobby over the past 140 years or so, this one might also fade, its only legacy a large bill for blue drapes and a big telly.