PM spends up to £80k redecorating blue Downing Street media room to make it 'politically neutral'

Keir Starmer has had the Downing Street media room redecorated at a cost of up to £80,000, in order to make the blue room "politically neutral."

A No10 spokesman described the renovation as a "one off refresh" of the room in Number 9 Downing Street, used for briefings with reporters and some press conferences.

The blue panels which formed the backdrop to the press conference stage have been replaced with wood panels with inlaid lighting.

Subscribe free to our weekly newsletter for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning.

But in a sign the works are not yet complete, a rough wooden batten remained screwed to the central panel.

The blue panels which surrounded the TV screen on the stage have been replaced by grey ones while the blue carpet lining the stage has been swapped for one in various shades of grey.

Downing Street insisted the money spent on the redecoration is a "fraction of the previous administration's spend on the room."

Boris Johnson came under fire in 2021 after his redesign of the room cost £2.6 million, designed to be more like the White House briefing room, with daily televised briefings.

Downing Street later scrapped the plan to televise media briefings, instead sticking with off camera briefings and using the room for press conferences.

At the time Labour called the plans a "vanity project".

On Tuesday Downing Street confirmed Starmer would be using the room, and insisted media spending has gone down: "This government has made £80m savings across government communications compared to the previous government."

Starmer has been making a number of changes to the decor in Downing Street, including notably removing a portrait of former PM Margaret Thatcher.

The exact figure spent by the current government on refurbishing the Number 9 media room is expected to be published in due course.

The room previously served as the courtroom for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council before it moved to the Supreme Court building in 2009.

Have you heard our new podcast Talking Politics? Tom, Robert and Anushka dig into the biggest issues dominating the political agenda in every episode…