Following last month’s Mirror Partygate story that No. 10 staff had purchased a dedicated wine fridge to keep booze cool, an FoI was promptly fired off to ask how many fridges are kept on the No. 10 estate and how many of those are owned by staff. Surely these things must be PAT tested…

It was also asked who pays the electricity costs of running these fridges. Downing Street’s FoI team have subsequently responded to acknowledge that refrigerators are provided for general staff use, however in this light they do not hold information on the types of item and what storage capability they have – nor are they obliged to create such information by undertaking a survey of the building.

What the team does confirm is that the fridges are “not individually metered”, meaning while Downing Street staff may have paid for the £142 chiller, we the taxpayers were the ones who forked out to ensure their plonk remained at a tolerably refreshing temperature. Thankfully for No. 10, the temperature seems to have temporarily stopped rising over Partygate…