Boris Johnon’s Wallpapergate: Leaked £200,000 bill reveals flat renovation included £7,000 rug and £3,675 trolley

The total extent of the infamous Wallpapergate scandal seen by some as heralding the beginning of Boris Johnson’s downfall has been laid naked.

The Impartial has obtained a leaked copy of the bill for the renovation of the prime minister’s Downing Road flat which exhibits it price greater than £200,000.

Objects ordered by Mr Johnson and spouse Carrie from upmarket inside designer Lulu Lytle embrace a £3,675 drinks trolley mentioned to be just like the one owned in Paris by ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev and £2,260 value of the “gold” wallpaper that Mr Johnson privately complained his spouse had bought.

Two sofas price greater than £15,000; £3,000 was spent on a “paint impact” for the flat hallway; and the most cost effective merchandise is a £500 kitchen desk fabric.

The estimate for constructing works, which concerned sanding the floorboards, portray and adorning, and putting in new furnishings and fittings got here to £30,000.

The leak from the Cupboard Workplace will reopen the long-running controversy over the Johnsons’ luxurious refurbishment of their flat over at 11 Downing Road.

The £208,104 estimate was despatched to the Cupboard Workplace in early 2020, which has a £30,000 annual funds to renovate the PM’s official Downing St flat, within the early levels of the work.

In truth, the remainder of the price was secretly funded by Lord Brownlow and the Conservative Get together till the scandal was uncovered and Mr Johnson was informed to pay it from his personal funds.

The leaked invoice exhibits that the Johnsons ordered a £3,675 “Nureyev Trolley” mentioned to be “impressed by a French Forties drinks trolley owned by ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev”.

The leaked bill in full:

They spent £15,120 on two sofas (with one other £2,880 for cloth to upholster them); £11,280 on eight eating chairs; £7,000 on a rug; £4,200 on a “double wingback chair”; £3,800 on an vintage mirror for the corridor and £1,000 for a kitchen TV desk.

The leaked invoice despatched by Ms Lytle’s Soane Britain firm seems to counsel the Johnsons ordered a drawing-room lamp for £6,000 with an additional £2,500 for the lamp shade.

Regardless of being generally known as Wallpapergate, in actual fact, the materials price way over the wall hangings.

Of the wallpaper invoice, the one most costly merchandise was £2,260 for 10 rolls of “Espalier Sq. design” used within the entrance corridor.

In response to the Soane Britain web site Ms Lytle “imagines this provides the all-encompassing impact of fruit bushes to type tunnels and pergolas in a Nineteenth-century kitchen backyard”.

Though described as “emerald and stone linen” in color the “Espalier” wallpaper can seem like gold in a sure mild and is claimed to have impressed Mr Johnson’s annoyed comment that his spouse was “spending hundreds on gold wallpaper”.

The invoice for upholstery and curtains got here to £21,280, together with £3,200 for “32m of sorolla crimson scrolling fern” for eating room curtains.

Mr Johnson was then pressured to apologise in January for failing to speak in confidence to his former Whitehall ethics adviser Lord Geidt messages between himself and Lord Brownlow, who contributed greater than £50,000 in the direction of the flat makeover.

In his report into the flat refurbishment in Could 2021, Lord Geidt mentioned Johnson informed him he didn’t know Lord Brownlow paid the cash earlier than media reviews earlier that 12 months.

Nonetheless, a separate inquiry by the Electoral Fee watchdog came upon that Mr Johnson had in actual fact messaged Lord Brownlow over WhatsApp in regards to the revamp in November 2020.

Lord Geidt, who resigned from his publish final month, rebuked the prime minister for failing to reveal the texts, however didn’t change his preliminary verdict that Mr Johnson didn’t break the ministerial code.

In 2021 it emerged that the price of the refurbishment was met by the Cupboard Workplace and recharged to the Conservative Get together. After the scandal was revealed the cash was returned to Tory HQ and Mr Johnson agreed to choose up the invoice, although it’s not clear the place he obtained the required £178,000 as soon as the Cupboard Workplace paid its £30,000 share.

Mr Johnson, Ms Johnson and Ms Lyttle declined to remark.