Partygate: Who hasn’t asked their interior designer to join them for a social gathering?

Much has been made of the prime minister’s predilection for pandemic “parties” – or “gatherings”, or “work events”, or whatever one might want to call them.

So toxic has Partygate become for Boris Johnson, that his allies are now spending much of their time telling the media how outrageous it is that the PM’s opponents are spending so much of their time talking about it – when they all ought to be focused on possible war with Russia.

That is rather an implausible idea, given the obvious anger that exists over Boris’s apparent transgressions. It also supposes that anything a British MP might say could have a direct influence over whether Vladimir Putin decides to send troops into Ukraine. Our best bet on that front might be to invite him round to one of the PM’s “work events” and get him sufficiently sloshed that he agrees to send the soldiers home.

Anyway, I note this contention of the prime minister’s friends merely to acknowledge it, and to make clear from the get-go that this column is not about Russia, but about Partygate. So, if you’ve had enough of the shenanigans at No 10, please feel free to move on.

There are of course many things that can be said about the various get-togethers that staff in Downing Street seem to have had while everyone else was feeling miserable and alone. But the one particular point that caught my eye this week was the suggestion that one of the attendees at Johnson’s birthday (non-)party was his interior designer, Lulu Lytle.

Ms Lytle’s expansive reimagining of the decor in Mr and Mrs Johnson’s Downing Street flat has already come under considerable scrutiny – primarily around its cost and the question of who funded it, but also with regard to matters of style. Now everyone wants to know exactly how she ended up in the cabinet room with a cake, a bunch of spads and an “ambushed” prime minister. Ms Lytle says she happened to be there very briefly, prior to discussing a work matter with her client; some commentators have wondered how she was apparently able to wander at her leisure around one of the most secure buildings in the country.

Still, this aspect struck a chord because it reminded me of when we hired a lovely chap called James to do some interior design at our house. And by interior design, I mean painting some walls which we had tried to do ourselves and made a hash of.

It was a slightly unusual set-up, in the sense that James wasn’t local to us, nor had he really done much decorating. But he was embarking on a new career and had been recommended by my wife’s hairdresser – and he was willing to give us a good deal as we were among his first clients.

When we first met him, it occurred to me that he probably should have been working in a bank. He had nice shirts, a posh accent and wavy auburn hair, all of which seemed more suited to lunch at London’s Coq d’Argent restaurant than being spattered with paint in a small house in Berkhamsted – even if the paint was Farrow & Ball. If it helps, in my mind now – with the benefit of 14 years having elapsed since I saw him – he resembled Tim Culley from Big Brother 3.

The job we had him in to do was about as easy as it gets, but he did it proficiently enough and turned up on a weekend to get it finished. On Saturday, at shortly after five o’clock, I decided to open a bottle of sherry (it’s practically de rigueur in the provinces, don’t you know) – and, with James just about finishing up, we asked if he’d like to join us for a drink.

So, there we were, a couple in the home counties, sharing a glass of manzanilla with a posh decorator who’d just finished painting our dining room. More like The Good Life than a Downing Street shindig. I can’t say it felt like a party, but nor was it a work event. If Sue Gray were to investigate, she might find it a perplexing encounter, though since the events took place more than a decade before anyone had heard of Covid, we’d get a clean bill of health.

I’m not sure what became of James. I hope he has prospered, and that he has found other clients who have offered him sherry – and maybe, from time to time, a piece of birthday cake.