Great for parties, useless for governing: grace-and-favour homes are the spoils of power | Catherine Bennett

The country piles of Dorneywood, Chevening and Chequers that were so fiercely squabbled over by Tory ministers are suddenly up for grabs

At the start of the last Conservative era, David Cameron had something “terribly awkward” to ask his deputy, Nick Clegg. “George has for so long had his eye on Dorneywood… He’s very close to me… Would you mind if he used it instead of you?” Clegg concluded: “George Osborne had been measuring up the curtains for years.”

At this point in a counter-factual, Clegg would refuse to concede the grace-and-favour mansion, a furious Osborne, probably raving about storing bagged-up Clegg in his freezer, would be forced to share Chevening with William Hague and, after some sulking, would quit, never to reappear – as triggeringly as ever – on election night 2024. Britain would thus be spared, among Osborne’s many experiments in tormenting the less fortunate, the bedroom tax he said was only fair: “There are 8 million spare rooms across the sector.” Eight million and eight, if you counted Dorneywood.

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