More like this
Cabinet fight over ‘grace and favour’ retreats
The Cleggs will have to share Chevening with the Hagues - but it does have 115 rooms
Amazing how quickly newly elected politicians get used to the trappings of power. With the ink barely dry on their Cabinet appointments, the top guns of the new Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition government are already fighting over the various 'grace and favour' country houses available to senior ministers.
Which will be particularly irksome to the rest of those lucky enough to have a place for the weekends - because they have just been told by David Cameron that, as owners of second homes, they "deserve" to be hit by a rise in Capital Gains Tax from 18 per cent to 40 per cent.
Cameron himself has already made uses of Chequers, the Cotswolds pile available to the prime minister since Lloyd George's day, choosing to entertain the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, there on Sunday (above). This was a smart move, say Westminster wags, sending out a clear message that Cameron will be using Chequers for affairs of state after the Blairs brought the house into disrepute by inviting a succession of pop stars and C-grade television celebrities to dinner.
But what of Cameron's deputy, Nick Clegg? Where is he supposed to go at the weekends?
A problem has arisen because Clegg apparently thought he would get the Buckinghamshire house, Dorneywood, famously used by Blair's deputy, John Prescott. It was at the Queen Anne-style mansion that Prescott was photographed in May 2006 playing croquet when he was supposed to be "running the county" during his boss's absence in the States.
But Dorneywood was never earmarked for the deputy PM. It was always the Chancellor's country residence until Gordon Brown took office in 1997 and, without a wife and family at that stage, and notoriously frugal, declined the right to use it.
The new Chancellor, George Osborne, however, has let it be known that he will be making use of Dorneywood.
So Downing Street has come up with a solution. The Cleggs will share Chevening House, the Kent retreat of the Foreign Secretary, with William and Ffion Hague.
This is the Inigo Jones house in Kent where the late Robin Cook tied the knot with his former mistress, Gaynor Regan, after divorcing his first wife, Margaret.
The Cleggs and the Hagues will probably "time share" though it wouldn't matter if everyone descended on the same weekend. The house has 115 rooms. The First Post was unable to ascertain whether it has a decent croquet lawn - but it certainly has its own lake. ·
Comments are now closed on this article
Comments
A good reason for keeping them is that they may be useful to conduct the business of government and help to keep the private lives of important people private.
Why nor sell all these expensive trappings of power? They are not necessary for the efficient running of the country. If the "man in the street" is expected to make big sacrifices to help to clear the enormous debts, it would sugar the pill if the Cabinet joined in.