... and this is all the President's kit

For six weeks we have seen the front of Tony Blair: yesterday we saw the back, all the intricate workings and support structure.

The Prime Minister left his Islington house at 9am, with Alastair Campbell, his press secretary, carrying his red box.

Mr Blair was dressed for the office, in contrast to Sunday's denim shirt and chinos. While he worked in Downing Street, stamping his authority on his new government with a distinctly presidential style, his wardrobe followed him and in doing so, the more human face of the new occupants of Downing Street came into public view. Only there was no wardrobe, and the clothes had not been packed into the plastic crates, so they were carried into the back of a Ford Transit in full view of the watching press and television cameras.

There they were: all the ties seen on television, on a rack. During the campaign he had brushed aside questions about the Tory colour of his tie with a "you know, first thing out of the drawer", but it did not look as if they came out of a drawer.

It was not a full move, because they are keeping the Islington house. The drapes and table lamps of the sitting room - chintzier than the local stripped-pine norm - stay where they are. Yesterday, they just took the things they would need in Downing Street. A brass bed. An electric guitar. The amplifier. And the children's toys.

Yes, the election has changed everything. On Friday, we saw Kathryn, 9, in a baseball cap on the steps of 10 Downing Street after the whole family arrived to a tumultuous, but in some ways very personal welcome at their new home. And he sent the children in first.

On Sunday, a prime minister went to church in an open-necked shirt with his children in a Galaxy people-carrier. Yesterday, the First Family turned its house inside out - and they use wire coathangers too.

Kathryn and Nicholas, 11, helped with the move, carrying their own possessions to the van.

Meanwhile the removal men were bringing out more suits, more crates, and more suits. Jackets with four cuff buttons. A collapsible metal clothes- rail, carried from the house and erected inside the van. Last in were Cherie's shoes, in a big canvas shoe-holder.

Cherie herself, wearing a blue anorak, jeans and trainers followed the van to Downing Street in a maroon Montego with Euan, Nicholas and Kathryn.

Euan, 13, was wearing personal stereo headphones as the car pulled up at their destination. They went in the front door of No 10, while the van unloaded around the side of No 11, where the Blairs will actually live - above the Chancellor of the Exchequer's office and next door to the Prime Minister's.

The van was too small, and had to go back for a second load after lunch. As it set off, Mr Campbell issued the text of letter to media editors calling on them to allow the Blair children to be "left to live as normal a life as possible" once they had finished moving into their new home.

A letter to editors said Mr and Mrs Blair had wanted to share the celebration in Downing Street on Friday with their children, and accepted that there would be much interest in the family's domestic arrangements, but they "are particularly concerned that they should not be troubled at school, or travelling to school".

In the second vanload, there were two large hat boxes - one from Harrods and the other from John Lewis. More clothes, mainly casual jackets and shirts. Cricket gear belonging to one of the boys. Cherie briefly appeared at the doorway in Islington with a pile of cricket stumps in her arms.

To confirm what Mr Blair has said about his children caring more about football than about politics, one removal man carried a bundled duvet bearing the badges of Manchester United.