The Downing Street flat is one of the most protected pieces of public property in the land. The Treasury have spent millions on renovations and upkeep over the years. The area around Downing Street has been Crown property since, as the No. 10 website puts it: “when Henry VIII confiscated York House from Cardinal Wolsey in 1530 and extended the complex.” The government’s own website goes on to state that “King George II presented both the house on Downing Street and the house overlooking Horse Guards to Sir Robert Walpole” in 1735. Since then they have remained government property.

The Camerons pay no rent on the flat, and though they met some of the recent restoration costs, the taxpayer picks up most of that tab. Since 1989 you have required security clearance to even get onto the street, let alone into the building or up the stairs. Any notion that this is somehow private property is either a vast delusion of grandeur or a desperate holding measure while the list of unsavoury characters is scanned and checked for landmines…

UPDATE:

Was this a private or public affair?