Most people in the UK could probably draw from memory the fusty ex-meeting room that was requisitioned for government coronavirus press conferences. The walls were panelled in a tan-coloured wood, the carpet was an old-fashioned, floral sort of number. There were brass candlestick brackets on the walls, various sweaty-looking ministers at podiums. Boris Johnson, however, wants us to associate such broadcasts to the masses with a different room in future, and ordered a renovation to part of 9 Downing Street accordingly. And so, on Monday, the nation got its first glimpse of the government’s new media room.
For a room expressly designed to appear on camera, it is remarkably unphotogeneic. Things you might expect to hear said in a room that looks like this include: “Latecomers will not be admitted to the continental breakfast served outside conference room 2 between 8:30 and 9”; or “we have entered negotiations with the alien ambassador over the territory once known as Earth”. In fact, it will be the setting for the government’s new daily press conferences, broadcast live on television in the manner of those aforementioned feelgood hits we all know and love, the global pandemic briefings.
In the new setup, things will be led by the new Downing Street communications director, ex-journalist Allegra Stratton, which is a great shame because daytime TV star and serial on-air weirdo Richard Madeley was once speculatively rumoured to be in the running.
It is difficult, when you hear that projects such as this cost £2.6m not to feel like your grip on “money” as a concept is slackening. Supposedly the cost reflects the fact that 9 Downing Street is a Grade 1 listed building, although the government was under no duress to put the new press room in there. And some of the things they’ve done to this room seem like a strange way to show respect to such a building.
The existing wood panelling now contains inlaid LED lighting, which I suppose is the kind of thing you have to do if you need to justify spending millions renovating a room that looks like the answer to the question, “What if the White House was a Travelodge?”
Other than the wood, the room is decorated in an overpoweringly Tory shade of blue. In the photographs released on Tuesday, a Henry Hoover peeks out from the side of the room in what feels like a sinister attempt at relatability. Oops, we forgot to put old Henry away! We’re just like you, really – always leaving the vacuum cleaner out when we release pictures of the latest stage set for our increasingly authoritarian state. Look at his little smile!
You have to assume that a large proportion of the cost of this project went on paying a consultancy firm to deliberate for several weeks before arriving at the recommendation: more flags. There are no fewer than four flags in the room, which seems ridiculous on first consideration, but actually makes perfect sense. The only thing that could be more patriotic than having a flag in the background is multiple flags. And why stop at two? Four flags demonstrate twice the respect for our United Kingdom than two do. That’s just maths.
Johnson used to come out to address the nation in front of a measly pair of flags, and Labour’s plans to include more flags in its messaging were leaked earlier this year. It seems inevitable, therefore, that we’re going to end up in a union jack arms race and that there will be nothing but a roiling sea of flags on this stage before the year is out, with further great waves of flags pressing in at the doors, and a flag sat in each seat solemnly waving a smaller flag.
Even leaving aside the very “nothing to see here” vibes coming off the fact that a Russian company distantly linked to Moscow’s state-controlled broadcasters installed the tech and communications equipment, there’s more to this room than meets the eye.
These new live daily briefings are intended to make the Tories look more modern and in touch with the people, as well as more American. The new room expresses these desires in a visual language. The US has televised its daily presidential press briefings since 1995, in a room that looks a lot like this one – a blue backdrop, though only one flag it seems – and Johnson’s desire to emulate it partly reflects the Tory desire to distance the UK from Europe and cosy up to America instead.
And like in America, televising daily briefings can be done under the guise of “transparency” when in fact it offers the government a more direct way of steering the news agenda. At the moment, there are twice daily, off-camera, on-record briefings for the press each day at Downing Street, where they can question the prime minister’s official spokesperson, a civil servant. With the new live briefings, the government will be able to speak more directly to the people. It’s a way to cut out the middle men of the media, even if they’re still there sitting in those conference room chairs as handy props in the government’s TV output.
Rather than being open to questioning, this government has a history of not being transparent. There was the incident in February last year when Downing Street banned reporters from certain media outlets from attending a briefing on trade negotiations with the EU. Johnson repeatedly dodged interviews in the run-up to the 2019 election, and its press office changed its name on Twitter to the phoney “factcheckUK” during a leaders’ debate. The Today programme, GMB, Channel 4 News and Newsnight have all been frozen out at different points by government ministers.
This ugly room represents an uglier reality, then: the government PR machine is trying to find a way to make the Tories seem approachable and open, while actually tightening their control of the political narrative.