Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Like the White House's Rose Garden, the black door marked #10 is a highly symbolic
point of power, popular for photo ops to mark big occasions. This is where suffragettes
protested in the early 20th century, where Neville Chamberlain showed off his regrettable
peace treaty with Hitler, and where Winston Churchill made famous the V-for-Victory
sign. It's where President Barack Obama came to discuss global economic issues with the
previous prime minister, and where Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Saman-
tha try to raise their young family like normal people.
It looks modest, but #10's entryway does open up into fairly impressive digs—the
prime minister's offices (downstairs), his residence (upstairs), and two large formal dining
rooms. The PM's staff has offices here. Many on the staff are permanent bureaucrats, stay-
ing on to serve as prime ministers come and go. The cabinet meets at #10 on Tuesday
mornings. This is where foreign dignitaries come for official government dinners, where
the prime minister receives honored school kids and victorious soccer teams, and where he
gives monthly addresses to the nation. Next door, at #11, the chancellor of the exchequer
(finance minister) lives with his family, and #12 houses the PM's press office.
This has been the traditional home of the prime minister since the position was created
in the early 18th century. But even before that, the neighborhood (if not the building itself)
was a center of power, where Edward the Confessor and Henry VIII had palaces. The
facade is, frankly, quite cheap, having been built as part of a middle-class cul-de-sac of
homes by American-born George Downing in the 1680s. When the first PM moved in,
the humble interior was combined with a mansion in back. During a major upgrade in
the 1950s, they discovered that the facade's black bricks were actually yellow—but had
been stained by centuries of Industrial Age soot. To keep with tradition, they now paint
the bricks black.
Prime Minister David Cameron
David Cameron succeeded Gordon Brown as prime minister in May of 2010, and
lives at 10 Downing Street with his wife, Samantha, and their young children. Elec-
ted at age 43, Cameron was the youngest PM in two centuries. He heads the Con-
servative Party (the “Tories”), but has never quite fit the stodgy Conservative im-
age. Rumors still swirl of wild parties and illicit drugs in his student days at Oxford.
He's known as “Dave” to his friends, and he developed a habit of riding his bike to
work. Cameron rose quickly through the political ranks: He worked to re-elect Con-
servative PM John Major (1992), assisted the finance minister at 11 Downing Street
(1992-1994), and was himself elected to Parliament in 2001, becoming head of the
