This ugly setting represents the uglier reality of control freaks who want to seem open and approachable ‘It seems inevitable we’re going to end up in a union jack arms race and there will be nothing but a roiling sea of flags before the year is out.’ Photograph: ITV News/PA ‘It seems inevitable we’re going to end up in a union jack arms race and there will be nothing but a roiling sea of flags before the year is out.’ Photograph: ITV News/PA Wed 17 Mar 2021 11.45 EDT Last modified on Wed 17 Mar 2021 14.06 EDT Most people in the UK could probably draw from memory the fusty ex-meeting room that was requisitioned for government coronavirus press conferences. The walls were panelled in a tan-coloured wood, the carpet was an old-fashioned, floral sort of number. There were brass candlestick brackets on the walls, various sweaty-looking ministers at podiums. Boris Johnson, however, wants us to associate such broadcasts to the masses with a different room in future, and ordered a renovation to part of 9 Downing Street accordingly. And so, on Monday, the nation got its first glimpse of the government’s new media room.