Rishi Sunak's general election campaign got off to a rocky start when he announced the voting date outside Number 10 as heavy rain fell.
The D:Ream song “Things Can Only Get Better”, used extensively during the 1997 Labor election campaign, was played through a protester's loudspeakers outside the gates of Downing Street as the Prime Minister “became more and more soaked”, declared the London Evening Standard. It was more like, “Things can only get wetter.”
It joins the list of memorable Downing Street moments in recent years.
To subscribe to The week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple angles.
SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE
Subscribe to free weekly newsletters
From our morning news briefing to our weekly Good News newsletter, get the best of the week delivered straight to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to our weekly Good News newsletter, get the best of the week delivered straight to your inbox.
Thérèse's tears
When Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street in November 1990, she “dissolved in floods of tears”, Sky News said.
And almost 30 years later, Theresa May did the same. “I will soon leave the post that it has been the honor of my life to occupy,” she declared after the failure of Brexit. She left without “ill will” but with “an immense and lasting gratitude for having had the opportunity to serve the country I love.”
That's when May's “usually tough demeanor collapsed,” said The Guardian, her voice “crackling with emotion as she spoke these last words.” It was “like watching a woman throw off the patriarchal chains she has been shackled with for over two years” and “finally exhale,” said The independent.
Classic Cameron
In 2016, David Cameron was heard hum a tune as he returned to No 10 after announcing he would resign as Prime Minister and hand the levers of power to May.
There was immediate speculation about his choice of tune, with suggestions ranging from the theme song to the American political saga “The West Wing” to something from Winnie-the-Pooh.
Classic FM analyzed the melody and said it sounded “almost like a fanfare in that confident leap from a fourth from G to C”, but “quickly loses confidence when it mirrors the rise later in the bar”.
These are the breaks
During her time as prime minister, May used a “cedar” podium, but her successor, Boris Johnson, opted for a “darker wood and sturdier design” because “his aides knew he liked to punch it during his speeches,” Mark said. Mason in The spectator.
When he resigned in the summer of 2022, Johnson's Farewell speech was not as friendly as that of his predecessor. He said he had “tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change government when we are achieving so much”, but “as we have seen, in Westminster the herd instinct is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves.” .
“I want you to know how sad I am to give up the best job in the world,” Johnson added. “But those are the breaks.”
Some people didn't understand exactly what the last sentence meant. This “deliberately breaks grammatical rules,” said The independentand was “shorthand for suggesting he was unlucky”.
Lattice tower
“Never has a politician’s desk been more symbolic,” said The Guardian. As Liz Truss stood outside 10 Downing Street to deliver her resignation speech, “all eyes were on the strange wooden structure that stood before her”, which was “apparently made of Jenga blocks, ready to s 'collapse”.
Eyebrows were raised when it later emerged the 'rickety tower' had cost taxpayers almost £4,200, said Metro. A year later, said The mirrorthe government had found no use for the “untidy pile of bricks.”