As part of a special BBC-Downing Street competition, Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq came to Downing Street for a look around - and also grabbed a quick chat with the PM.
Read the transcript for the film below:
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
Number 10 Downing Street, one of the most famous addresses in the land. Home to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. So what actually goes on behind the door at Number 10? Well, Blue Peter have been invited for a very privileged, rare access, peek behind the scenes.
Hello, Mr Prime Minister.
Prime Minister:
Hi, Konnie, how you doing?
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
Very well, thank you. Lovely of you to invite us. I’ve got the Blue Peter camera crew, can we come in?
Prime Minister:
Yeah, absolutely, come in.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
Excellent, thank you.
Tony Blair is Britain’s 51st Prime Minister. He moved into Downing Street with his family when he took up office nine years ago. I was lucky enough to have a look around and get the lowdown from the Prime Minister himself, on what it’s like to live at Number 10.
We’ve got loads of questions here from Blue Peter viewers. 11-year-old Christopher wants to know
is the inside of Number 10 bigger than it looks from the outside?
Prime Minister:
Yes. I mean, yes, a lot bigger. We call it the tardis. What happens is, you come in and you think you’re just coming into a house and then it’s actually there are several flats and about 250 or 300 people that work here.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
Wow. It’s a bit weird sharing your house with all those people, isn’t it? I guess you’re used to it.
Prime Minister:
Yeah, it’s very strange, people are in and out of your flat the whole time. It’s odd.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
Do you ever think, "I want privacy, go away"?
Prime Minister:
Sometimes, yeah.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
Yeah I bet.
Now, naturally, security is a top priority for Prime Ministers and in days gone by, a night watchman would’ve sat in this chair, outside the house. Now, it may look like a pretty ordinary chair, but let me let you into a few secrets. It’s actually got its own inbuilt heating system. There’s a drawer down here into which you can put hot coals and then it’d warm up your watchman’s bottom so he’s cosy. Not too hot or he’d burn his bum. And if he got too comfy and was tempted to fall asleep, this specially designed hood amplifies any sounds of approaching stranger’s footsteps. Whew!
Nowadays, security at Downing Street is tighter than ever. The front door is manned 24 hours a day,
so the Prime Minister need never worry about forgetting his keys.’
Is it true you live above Number 11 not Number 10?
Prime Minister:
Yeah, I live above Number 11 because the flat above Number 10 is quite small and because we had four kids living at home it was too much to be in the Number 10 flat.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
This is the hub of the house and probably the most important room in the country - the Cabinet Room. The Prime Minister meets his ministers here every Thursday to discuss very important issues.
Momentous decisions which have shaped the future of the world have been made from round this very table. It was from here that Sir Winston Churchill gave his famous address to the nation at the end of the Second World War.
Sir Winston Churchill:
Yesterday morning, General Jodel signed the act of unconditional surrender to the allied expeditionary force.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
The table is shaped like a boat so everyone can see and hear each other clearly and that over there is the Prime Minister’s chair. He sits with his back to the fireplace and the chair is left at an angle, so he can enter a meeting quickly and get straight down to business.
Every year thousands of people, from politicians to pop stars, are invited to attend official functions at Number 10. Who’s the most important person whose ever come to your house? That’s from Rema, who’s aged 14.
Prime Minister:
Well, it would have to be one of the, I mean all the presidents and prime ministers. The best known would be Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton, I suppose and George Bush is obviously… Has George Bush actually been here? Yes. He’s been here, yes. Then you get other people that come in from time to time.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
Blue Peter presenters.
Prime Minister:
Like you.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
And I’m not the first Blue Peter presenter to get a peek inside Number 10. In 1974, John, Peter and Lesley visited. 20 years later it was Stuart Miles’s turn, and more recently, Matt Baker helped spruce up the Downing Street garden.
Matt Baker, Blue Peter presenter:
That’s just about it then. It’s looking superb.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
When VIP’s meet the Prime Minister, they may get invited to a banquet in this, the State Dining Room. Downing Street doesn’t have a resident chef, as such, but on special occasions, celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay get invited to cook.
This is the large dining room, used for big feasts. Can you pass the peas, please?
The architect of the dining room, Sir John Soane, liked his symmetry, so throughout the rooms you can find fake doors placed alongside real ones.
Do you ever do your own cooking? Can you cook even?
Prime Minister:
I can, but if you talk to my kids about it, they are not very complimentary about it. I’m not very good. I think if I had more time, I feel I could be better at it.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
So you can do beans on toast?
Prime Minister:
I can do more than that, thank you.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
What’s your best dish?
Prime Minister:
I can’t get into the best dish. I can cook spaghetti bolognaise or something like that.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
This grand staircase is lined with portraits of every British Prime Minister. There are 50 in total
and they’re hung in the order of when they lived and worked here. The current Prime Minister
only gets put up when he leaves office. And when that happens, each portrait is moved down a place, to make room for the new picture.
You’ve been Prime Minister for almost ten years, what has been the best and worst experience
of your time at Number 10? That’s from 12-year-old Aimee.
Prime Minister:
It’s a difficult question. There are lots of good times and bad times, but I guess the extraordinary thing that happened around the 7th… the 6th and 7th of July
Announcer:
… to the City of London.
Prime Minister:
We won the Olympics one day and then we had the bombs the next day, which was an extraordinary high to a low, so that’s probably the time I remember most vividly. And it was very uplifting one day and very depressing the next.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
Do you watch Blue Peter?
Prime Minister:
I don’t really get the time to watch Blue Peter although I did watch it when I was younger. I think Blue Peter’s fantastic. It’s been going for years and years and it supplies a lot of information, it’s interesting, and the fact it’s still going is amazing. It shows how popular it is.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
Thank you so much.
Prime Minister:
Thank you very much.
Konnie Huq, Blue Peter presenter:
I’ll let you get on with running the country. Number 10 is certainly one of the most intriguing houses I’ve ever visited. I don’t suppose my picture will ever make it onto these walls, but it’ll be a good one for the Blue Peter annual.
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