It’s not a very clear picture because of Getty Images wanting to establish their ownership. Here is a better one taken of the same person in the same place as a grown-up: so grown-up that he is Prime Minister.
If you have politically prococious offspring and want a photo like the top one there are two problems standing in your way.
First, the general public are no longer admitted to Downing Street. Suppose you are able to pull strings to fix a photo-shoot, the second problem is which door to stand outside. Both David Cameron and Theresa May chose to live in No. 11 Downing Street and their Chancellors reside at No 10. It’s not so inconvenient living above the wrong shop as you might imagine. The two buildings have internal access.
Do you remember Help, the second Beatles film? John, George, Paul and Ringo are dropped off in a street of terraced houses and each goes up the path to their own front door. When they go in it transpires that the doors open into one longish communal living room. I don’t suppose Downing Street is as 1960s chic.
The Prime Minister has always, in my time anyway, ended up living at Chequers at weekends. Some started by trying to have family weekends at their own homes but they quickly found that they have too heavy a weekend workload to switch off completely. At Chequers they can mix their official duties with some semblance of family life. Angela Merkel was at a birthday party at Chequers for one of the Cameron children. Another time the Queen came to visit the Camerons. It wasn’t her first visit.
Dorneywood has been used recently by Chancellors of the Exchequer but this arrangement is flexible. When John Prescott was Deputy Prime Minister he lived there. One mid-week afternoon, to relax a little from his heavy workload, he took to the croquet lawn. It was unfortunate that there was one of the long-lens brigade in the shrubbery and the picture gave the wholly unwarranted impression that the deputy PM was skiving.
And then there is Chevening, for the use of the Foreign Secretary but now it is multiple-occupancy: Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox are sharing. Architecturally it is magnificent.
They shouldn’t complain about sharing. Boris can use the palatial No 1 Carlton Gardens as his London residence and at least they all got seats around the Cabinet table. Theresa May’s first game of Musical Chairs as PM left eleven ministers with nowhere to sit, crying Help! Well, they were first in the Sack Race.
The Home Secretary must have an official London residence, I suppose, though I can’t recollect.
There is no specific “grace and favour” residence for the Home Secretary. I think Willie Whitelaw lived in his own mews house near Gloucester Road. Other Home Secretaries may have been given g & f homes on an ad hoc basis.