Aaron Schock, who announced his resignation from the US Congress on Tuesday, is the latest politician to suffer a pratfall on the glossy surface of a lavishly decorated interior. First it was discovered that the congressman’s berth on Capitol Hill had been redecorated in a style said to have been inspired by the costume drama Downton Abbey. Then it turned out that Euro Trash LLC, the company that did the work, had made no charge for its services. When questions were raised about the propriety of the gift Mr Schock ponied up $40,000 of his own cash, but it was not enough to save him. His office — a theatrical splash of blood red walls, pheasant feather arrangements and candelabras — will soon be occupied by someone else.
Just a week earlier the British media was thrown into a tizzy by a catty newspaper article about a “forlorn little kitchen” belonging to Ed Miliband. After watching BBC footage of the Labour leader’s home, columnist Sarah Vine pronounced it “as much fun to live in as a Communist era housing block”. Ms Vine made no mention of the controversy once furnished by her own family’s design foibles. Her husband Michael Gove, Conservative party chief whip, once had to repay ￡7,000 he had claimed on a parliamentary expense account for, among other things, a pair of elephant lamps bought at a chain of boutique interiors stores founded by the prime minister’s mother in-law.
Mr Miliband’s workmanlike kitchen might have won him fans. Here was a man unconcerned with his image, photographed in a room which screams ascetic rather than aesthete. Alas, the Labour leader’s luck is sparser than his north London pad. This, it turned, was merely his second kitchen, “a functional kitchenette by [the] sitting room for quick snacks and tea”, according to a friend. Soon “Two-Kitchens” Miliband was being shamed for his profligacy and his remoteness. How could anyone with two kitchens be in touch with ordinary, hard-working families?