How do Rishi and Keir manage to move house so quickly?

[Worried1987]

Did Rishi move his stuff out of number 10 before election day or did he do it today? I am moving house at the moment and I can’t imagine how they do it so quickly? I read Michelle Obama’s book and in America there is a long time between the election and the new president talking over and that gives them time to plan the move but it still went pretty quick.

After the chaos and mayhem of the last few days, this is a question I can get behind.

Oi, how very dare you try to demote the eminent Larry?!

No he doesn't. He lives in his own house in Kensington where his children go to school. He bought the Yorkshire house when he stood for election up there so he looked like he was interested.

I moved in 2.5 years ago. I still haven’t finished unpacking 😭

I was moved by my company once. They paid for a service to come in and pack my entire house and load it into the moving truck for a cross-country move in a single day. The crew were like locusts.

they did not unpack on the other end, but they did set up all the furniture and put the boxes in the correct rooms. that was done in just a couple of hours.

professional movers are expensive, but they work fast

There is a security issue. There was that time that the IRA launched mortar bombs against Number 10. You wouldn't want that happening if you lived three doors down from the Starmers in North London.

My husband was an officer in the US Navy.
When he was sent to new posts, they’d send a large moving truck and about 6 large men.
They’d pack our entire house up in about 6 hours and drive it to the location of our new house, then unpack it in about 4-5 hours.
I remember having to step over pillows and wine glasses on the floor - the putting away was still our job. I imagine the big important people have servants for the putting away of things.
Of course, this was across the country a few times and so involved more than a few travel days.
The packing and unpacking, however, was really fast.
I hired them myself once - they’re very expensive.

Unpacking is not the same as putting away surely?

Full-service moving companies and lots of staff. They pack everything, move everything, and unpack at the other end. Even with a large house, people are fully set up in a couple of days.

I’ve been thinking about this too, over the past 24 hours. I’m five hours behind and stayed up watching tv until 6am UK time, at which point Rishi was boarding a plane to London. I woke up less than 6 hours later, Rishi had already been to Buckingham Palace and returned and Keir had just arrived. I’m sure Keir is running on adrenaline but he’s 62. It must be exhausting.

If you listen to the Rest is Politics Leading podcast, the interview with Gus O'Donnell who was the Chief Civil Servant when Tony Blair, Gordon Brown & David Cameron were PM explains how it all works.

We were the same! We're all unpacked 10 years later (should hope so, and we're not doing it ever again, god willing!).

Most people (us included) want to redecorate and possibly do some sort of DIY improvements so it makes sense to keep a lot of the boxes still packed while all that's going on.

the Starmer family will have to put up with the Boris/Carrie wallpaper for now, unless the Sunaks already stripped it all off in a hurry in the 21 months Rishi was PM.

the removal people descending like locusts is a very apt description- they worked quickly and efficiently, far quicker than DH and I could have done it.

What found from a big move was that it's not the packing, it's the sorting of the keep or throw away/give away before you pack that takes the time.

Is he likely to keep his house, it's not that far away and use no.10 more like Rishi did so a lot of stuff stays there anyway. his furniture from his house wouldn't be needed would it as they have a furniture budget, I think its meant to be something like JL stuff which I think Teresa May had.

They each have a £30K budget but what happens in reality is that every so often a prime minister gets it redone then it's not changed for years, The Blairs redid No11 but it wasn't then changed until Boris moved in, poor Teresa May got blamed for having it but it would have been very fashionable when the Blairs did it then Boris and Carrie went all grannycore and now there's been so much in the news about the expensive fussy wallpaper I bet nobody else wants to change it for a bit. If Kier is PM for 10 years then I bet there will be news about the redecoration of No10 when whoever follows him redoes it. Imagine having to live with Carrie's taste for longer than she had to!

I imagine 10 Downing Street to be more like a office with a bedroom annex rather than a conventional house. So it's literally just a case of packing some clothes and office bits and bobs rather than a full blown house move. All their belongings and stuff are in their actual homes elsewhere.

I've read David Camerons autobiography and it's definitely a flat. He talks about cooking in the kitchen and also about walking from there with his upungest (Florence?) on her scooter to her nursery.

When foreign leaders come over they sometimes went to dinner with the Camerons in the flat and can't believe that the Prime Ministee lives in such a (relatively) tiny flat.

The first job Kier Starmer did was to write a Letter of Last Resort, in which he made a choice.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/keir-starmer-faces-sobering-task-on-first-day/

BBC iPlayer - What Happens When - What Happens When You Become Prime Minister?

Starmer won't move in straight away. He'll be getting interior designers in first and spending a few ££££ of taxpayers' cash first like they all do!

Apparently when the first Labour PM, Ramsay MacDonald, moved into Number 10 in 1924 it was done under cover of darkness as his furniture was so shabby. He was from a genuinely poor background, son of a farm labourer and a housemaid so rather different in terms of resources from PMs before (or indeed since, on the whole)

Well the 3 houses are all one inside from what I remember reading, and there are about a hundred rooms. Pretty sure the flat at number 11 where the PM now "lives" has at least 4 bedrooms so a bit bigger than an office with a bedroom annex. The residence part of number 10 must be big enough to a family.

Re security @samarrange - I grew up about a mile and a half from Parliament Square in the 1970s/80s. A lot of MPs and senior politicians lived in my street and nearby . Many had police on their doorsteps. Nice chaps. They used to help us look under the car for IRA bombs (we were also very close to Chelsea Barracks which was badly bombed). At one point, I think after the Brighton bomb, there were snipers positioned on a roof for a while.

My family had nothing to do with Parliament, other than me delivering newspapers to half the Cabjnet in the 1980s.

During the mid-1980's security in central London was high, not only due to IRA bombing concerns but also emerging terror groups sponsored by Libya. Cars down Park Lane were regularly sweeped, bins in Hyde Park were emptied more frequently particularly just before an event or passing army parade. Some military personnel carried small arms when out in London during the day or night.

Yeah I lived in pubs and we often got 2-3 weeks notice of a move so my parents had to pack, find a school for me etc
I once ended up at a school for just 4 weeks