Being prime minister comes with a certain number of privileges but, surely, the greatest perk of all is the right to appoint people to investigate yourself. Boris Johnson’s move to ask the cabinet secretary to probe Downing Street parties held during lockdown has left me realising that this is a model I could use. Standards have been slipping at home, and I think we need some answers.
I have, therefore, asked the cabinet secretary, once he’s wrapped up the complex investigation into the cheese and wine party, if he can take on the equally essential task of looking into how I agreed to the colour scheme in our kitchen. Like other visitors, I am outraged by the rather dreary neutral tone of the walls and the contrast with the pale green and white tiles that surround the main appliances.
You may ask how I could have missed such major developments in my own household. Did I not notice the swatches of paint on the old wall? Was I never tempted to open the boxes of tiles? Was I not puzzled to see two men painting our walls as I walked in to grab some breakfast? Did I not read the text from my wife saying, “OK, we’ll go for the magnolia”? These are all extremely good questions and I think my wider circle is entitled to some answers. In fact I shall be publishing them in full as soon as the cabinet secretary has completed his report as long as they do indeed minimise my own culpability.
Some of you will, of course, be thinking how ridiculous this seems. The cabinet secretary is after all a busy man (though his diary has suddenly freed up a bit in the last few hours). Not only does he have to run the entire civil service, but he is already overseeing the inquiry into Number 87’s loft extension. He may also be required to rule on the circumstances leading up to the installation of the gazebo at Number 65.
So it may be that I need to import the model while having to find another suitable patsy (apologies: figure of authority) to investigate wrongdoing at our house. And there are a number of standards breaches. It has come to my attention that I can never watch TV in the living room because my wife is wading through seven series of Ray Donovan on a NowTV app that she does not pay for. Her defence that the rental fee is paid for by a blind trust, charged with refurbishing our viewing options, is undermined by her demand that I renew the monthly fee, which I had let lapse after the season finale of Succession. Again, I think the household is entitled to know how I let this happen.
There may also have been, I have to be honest, one or two moments when my own standards have fallen below the levels of integrity that I am entitled to expect of myself. Again, I need someone to look into why these were not really my fault.
In fact, now that I think about it, there seem to be quite a number of things happening in my house of which I’m certain I would not have approved. I would very much like to know why I keep forgetting to pay the electricity bill and why the central heating keeps coming on so early. These are all clear failures of household governance and, frankly, I am entitled to answers as to how I let them happen.
But finding a reliable figure of authority who will not take this independence malarkey too far is not a simple matter. Wholly unreasonable aspersions have, for example, been cast on the independence of my best man, a man of universally accepted integrity and discretion, as shown by the lack of photographic evidence of any of the embarrassing moments of my young and single years.
Another option would be to employ one of the spawn to head up the kitchen colour scheme inquiry. I am not entirely convinced by this. While they can probably be counted on for a degree of neutrality, I worry they might be a little too independent. They may also be tempted to seek to extort extra cash out of us in return for the right outcome. Someone needs to look into how we could have raised kids we would not trust with the management of an independent inquiry into the kitchen refurbishment. We could entrust that to the in-laws, perhaps a panel of one from each side of the family, but that runs the risk of their concluding that it is all the fault of our poor parenting, which, quite obviously, is not the correct answer.
This, perhaps, is the flaw in this model. Finding just the right person is desperately tricky. But I am convinced it is necessary. Things have been going on in my life and someone needs to find out who is responsible.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2021
