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The UK Government just spent £2.6m on a briefing room, and people can’t get over how awful it looks

White House or Shite House?

A White House-style briefing room, or a Judge Rinder knockoff? You decide! (Credit: ITV News)

We’ve all been there: dropped a load of money on something we were convinced would be amazing, only for it to turn up and look absolutely awful. But don’t worry, because the UK government just put us all to shame with news of a new briefing room.

Their brand spanking new briefing room cost a whopping £2.6 million to complete. That’s right, two million and six hundred thousand pounds. It features seating for journalists, a lot of blue walls, and will apparently be used to broadcast White House-style news briefings (it’s okay, we don’t really know what that means either).

It’s safe to say news of the briefing room hasn’t gone down all that well. Not only are people peeved at the amount of money that’s been spent on the room (but more on that later), there’s also the fact that it’s incredibly ugly. 

Royal blue and wooden panelling? Who on earth thought that was a good idea? Those seats? Awful. The podium? Terrible. And four Union Flags? It’s so confusing that we don’t even have the words, so let’s just defer to our friend Mark:

Even though he’s definitely a Tory, there’s no way Mark would be happy with this mess

Of course, the cost of the room is a big issue too. Over two and a half million pounds is a staggering amount of money – particularly for just one room. In classic British style, the public flocked to Twitter to mock the government.

Henry Mance of the Financial Times shared his shock at the state of the podium, which is awful (did we mention?):

Linda Studd compared the briefing room to a Judge Rinder set (and come to think of it, maybe we should get the whole government in front of Judge Rinder once this whole thing’s over – he’d set them straight):

Writer Scott Bryan was quick to highlight Good Morning Britain’s sly dig at the government, featuring a very cheeky appearance from one Henry T. Hoover: 

And actor David Schneider rightly pointed out the hypocrisy of spaffing money on an ugly briefing room just days after the UK government had denied NHS nurses a decent pay rise:

As you might expect, the government couldn’t do jack to defend itself. Foreign secretary Dominic Raab received a grilling from Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain earlier today, and all he could do was crumble at the simplest question:

Labour MP Jess Phillips didn’t hesitate to put the boot in either. Speaking to ITV News earlier today, she said the briefing room “looked a little bit like a child had designed a diorama.” Ouch. Check out the full clip here:

There’s also the slight issue of the room being built by a Russian company with ties to Russia Today, the country’s state affiliated media. It almost feels wrong to take the piss out of this given that it’s so sinister, but someone has to, right?

It’s definitely worth remembering that this is a serious problem, and shouldn’t be taken lightly by anyone. Having said that, we’d be remiss if we didn’t have a giggle at the government’s expense. We’ll leave you with this: