Diary: They're really feeling the pinch on Downing Street

Campaign, Friday, 17 October 2008, 12:00am,

Oh, how they love a laugh in Downing Street. No matter that the banking system is in meltdown and the economy is going down the toilet, there's clearly a prankster afoot at chez Brown.

However, Diary feels the joke has gone too far. So whoever nicked Stephen Carter's luxury executive chair, will they please give it back?

Carter, the one-time JWT boss turned prime ministerial strategist, is understood to have brought the chair with him from the PR company Brunswick when he arrived at No 10 earlier this year.

And he had intended taking it with him to the Lords, where the newly ennobled Carter becomes minister for communications.

Now, he's been forced to circulate an e-mail asking if anybody has seen his prized possession.

Reports suggest that the chair in question cost an eye-watering £2,500. But Diary refuses to believe one wag, who claims it's covered in sacrificial lamb leather.

This article was first published on Campaign