Boris Johnson’s anti-John Lewis flat refurb has united the nation – by alienating everyone

The shop represents the simple pursuit of working hard for things that are of good quality. It is no surprise that this is not a concept familiar to the Prime Minister

First they let the bodies pile high, and I did not speak out, because I was not a body. Then they (possibly) borrowed £58,000 from Tory donors to pay for a Downing Street flat renovation and I did not speak out, because I was not a Tory donor. Then they came for John Lewis, and, well, you catch my drift: it turns out Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds’ flat refurbishment was all in a bid to scrub clean the “John Lewis furniture nightmare” they’d inherited from Theresa May, poor dears, and now nobody’s sure what class they belong to.

Their plight, as revealed in Tatler, has united the nation, in that it has alienated everyone: the Conservative voters who can afford to shop at the store, and the rest who would like to. Maybe John Lewis should re-establish itself as a political party, rather than a “partnership”? Certainly, its town centre branches have done more to boost regional economies than the combined efforts of most elected officials in the last 15 years.

And I’m sure people would vote for them: patrons already avow their loyalty with an emotional fervour, viewing its inoffensive, generic and expensive soft furnishings as a mark of status and allowing themselves to be whipped into an annual frenzy by the contrived Christmas advert (a “tradition” which by the way only began in 2007).

Read More - Featured Image

Yes, though I’ll never afford a sofa, I do my Christmas shopping there – a trolley dash round the Highcross Leicester branch at about 3pm on 23 December. But that’s about convenience: thoughtful presents, and indeed bespoke interior design, require that elusive holy trinity of time, imagination and money. Despite the competing pressures of leading the country through a pandemic, unemployment crisis, recession, departure from the EU and new fatherhood, it seems Boris Johnson has all three. The appeal of shopping at John Lewis is that you only need one.

Snobbery about John Lewis both dismisses the upwardly mobile and displays a disdain for the very simple pursuit of working hard for things that are good quality and built to last. It is no surprise that this is not a concept familiar to Mr Johnson: how many times has this Prime Minister – who would rather quote maxims in a language that fell out of usage around the sixth century than answer a direct question – made any attempt to feign understanding of the concerns of ordinary British people? Answers on the back of a postcard from Mustique, please.

Most Read By Subscribers