Boris Johnson Faces Probe Into Financing of Downing Street Apartment Refit

Mr. Johnson said he has personally covered the costs of the apartment’s face-lift. “I paid for it!” said Mr. Johnson during an unusually heated cross examination in parliament Wednesday.

As prime minister, Mr. Johnson has a taxpayer-funded allowance of 30,000 pounds, equivalent to $41,700, each year for maintaining his official residence, but if he receives any loans or private funding for further expenditure it must be disclosed. No such disclosure has been made and his opponents are demanding to know whether someone else initially paid for the refurbishment and was repaid by Mr. Johnson later.

The commission can levy fines of up to £20,000 for wrongdoing and refer evidence to the police.

So far, Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party continues to fly high in the polls, attributed partly to Britain’s fast-paced Covid-19 vaccine rollout. But the probe, just eight days before local elections, is proving a growing distraction for Mr. Johnson, who is trying to contain a series of damaging leaks from his office and a public falling out with his former chief of staff,

Dominic Cummings.

The prime minister’s office has been buffeted by a constant drip of embarrassing headlines and the publication of private texts sent by Mr. Johnson. 

Within the government, officials are pointing to a cadre of disgruntled former aides who were ousted last year, notably Mr. Cummings, a key figure in both the Brexit campaign and Mr. Johnson’s 2019 electoral victory.

Throughout his career, Mr. Johnson has brushed off scandals—ranging from extramarital affairs to illegally suspending Britain’s parliament. Voters so far appear to again be shrugging. An Ipsos Mori poll recently found that the Conservative Party maintains a three-point lead over the main opposition Labour Party.

Last week, Mr. Cummings wrote a long blog post denying he was leaking text messages and adding that Mr. Johnson had planned for donors to secretly cover the cost of the flat renovation. Mr. Cummings said this had been “unethical, foolish, possibly illegal and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations if conducted in the way he intended.”

Mr. Cummings also alleged that Mr. Johnson tried to shut down a probe into the source of a newspaper leak about the imminent nationwide lockdown last October after it pointed to a close colleague of the prime minister’s fiancée, Carrie Symonds. Downing Street denies that Mr. Johnson has ever interfered in a leak inquiry.

Mr. Cummings is due to give evidence to parliament on the government’s handling of the pandemic next month. “Learning from disaster needs extreme transparency,” he tweeted recently.

Labour leader Keir Starmer branded Mr. Johnson “Major Sleaze” in parliament on Wednesday, prompting Mr. Johnson to retort that most voters are focused on the pandemic and find the diversion into Downing Street’s soft furnishings “absolutely bizarre.”

While U.S. presidents reside in the elegant White House executive residence, British prime ministers have to make do with a cramped flat above the charcoal-brick government offices in Downing Street.

Traditionally, prime ministers lived above 10 Downing Street. But since the late 1990s, most have moved into the slightly larger 11 Downing Street apartment next door. Taxpayers are kept apprised of spending on objects ranging from beds to toasters.

Last month, Tatler magazine wrote about the refit, describing how the four-bedroom Downing Street apartment would be transformed from a “John Lewis furniture nightmare,” referring to a staid but popular British department store.

Mr. Johnson says he has now covered the costs. Queen Elizabeth’s former private secretary, Christopher Geidt, has been appointed by Downing Street to review the matter.

Write to Max Colchester at [email protected]