Boris and Carrie Johnson’s interior designer Lulu Lytle says she ‘hated every moment’ of being ‘caught up in a political storm’ over the couple’s £90,000 Downing Street makeover
- Interior designer Lulu Lytle said she ‘hated’ being caught in a ‘political storm’
- She was brought in to redesign Boris and Carrie Johnson’s Downing Street home
- Cost just under £90,000 and prompted questions over how it was funded
- Lytle hit back at her high-end costs, saying they were justified
Interior designer Lulu Lytle has revealed she ‘hated every minute’ of being caught in the ‘political storm’ over her makeover of Boris and Carrie Johnson’s Downing Street home.
The couple, who share one-year-old son Wilfred and are expecting a second child together, spent £90,000 refitting the grace and favour apartment at No.11, which reportedly looked like a ‘John Lewis nightmare’ after Theresa May’s residency.
They turned to society interiors guru Lytle, 50, for help, thrusting her into the centre of a debate over the eye-watering cost of the makeover, and who paid for it.
‘I hated every minute,’ she told the Financial Times. ‘I found it incredibly disquieting to be caught up in a political storm.’
The Prime Minister, who share one-year-old son Wilfred and are expecting a second child together, spent £90,000 refitting the grace and favour apartment at No.11, which reportedly looked like a ‘John Lewis nightmare’ after Theresa May’s residency
Lytle is the founder of Soane Britain, a company offering clients wall-to-wall luxe with a promise of bringing ‘joie de vivre’ into the home – for a hefty price. A single rattan light can cost £7,200, while a desk can be more than £10,000.
Money was at the centre of the backlash following the news Lytle had been brought in to redesign Downing Street, with critics questioning why the Johnsons needed such an expensive makeover, as well as, more importantly, how it had been funded.
At one point it was thought the works cost as much as £200,000, but official documents later revealed the figure to be less than £90,000, with £30,000 from his publicly funded allowance and an additional £58,000 settled privately.
Lytle slammed the ‘huge misinformation’ circulating about her brand and defended her costs, saying: ‘If you’re paying your staff properly, and there’s healthcare and there’s training, that all comes at a cost.
‘We don’t know how chemicals are being discarded of in manufacturing in certain parts of the world.’
The refurbishments to the flat in No 11 sparked sustained scrutiny of Mr Johnson’s finances, with the works vastly exceeding the £30,000 annual limit afforded to the Prime Minister.
Lytle is the founder of Soane Britain, a company offering clients wall-to-wall luxe with a promise of bringing ‘joie de vivre’ into the home – for a hefty price. A single rattan light can cost £7,200, while a desk can be more than £10,000
Conservative Party accounts published in August revealed its central office provided a ‘bridging loan’ of £52,802 to cover the works after being invoiced by the Cabinet Office in June last year.
The party was ‘reimbursed in full’ in October by Lord Brownlow, a former vice-chairman of the party who has made more than £3million in donations over the years.
Mr Johnson then ‘settled the costs’ incurred by the Conservative peer in March.
Three different reviews and reports were launched into the funding, one each by the Electoral Commission and parliamentary commissioner for standards, while the Prime Minister announced his new independent adviser on ministerial interests Lord Geidt would also investigate.
Lord Geidt found Mr Johnson acted ‘unwisely’ in allowing the refurbishment to go ahead without ‘more rigorous regard for how this would be funded’, but did not breach the ministerial code.
No 10 said: ‘Lord Geidt’s independent report shows the Prime Minister acted in accordance with the ministerial code at all times. The Prime Minister has made a declaration in his List of Ministerial Interests, as advised by Lord Geidt.’
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