It’s always party time at the grace-and-favour boltholes our top ministers call home
Before he became boon companion to the now-disgraced financier, Lex Greensill, David Cameron devoted a chunk of his autobiography to justifying Chequers, first among the government’s collection of country houses. “All I can say is that it makes the job more do-able and frees the PM from the day-to-day fray so he or she can think or plan.”
It’s amazing, we learn, what a fully staffed mansion with a pool and tennis court – in the case of Chevening House, a maze and lake – can do to remind a minister of a calling that might easily, in the confines of Downing Street or a family or constituency home, slip their mind. In fact, there could hardly be a greater tribute to the foresight of Sir Arthur Lee, who gave Chequers to the nation, than Cameron’s confirmation that the place occasionally recalled for him “the higher purpose of politics”.