US ambassador Matthew Barzun and Boris Johnson squared up on a rooftop in Vauxhall last night, overlooking the site of the new US Embassy. The stakes: the US diplomats’ unpaid congestion charge tickets and who could get the biggest laughs.
Barzun, addressing the party to mark the beginning of the build, said three groups didn’t like the move from Grosvenor Square. They were “the bronze brigade” — still wedded to statues of Ronald Reagan, Eisenhower and FDR in the square; “the cynics” who say the new special relationship is between the US and China, so why build big in Nine Elms; and the “political anoraks ... who think the only reason we are moving is to get out of the congestion charge”.
Boris hit back, saying there was only one serious blot on the special relationship. “I don’t mean Piers Morgan’s chatshow or the break-up of the relationship between Gwyneth Paltrow and the chap from Coldplay. I mean the obstinate refusal of the American diplomatic corner, much though we love them, to pay the £9 million still owed to me as chairman of Transport for London.”
Barzun tried to assuage the Mayor by bidding for a portrait of him, with proceeds going to a charity, but despite offering £4,000, was outbid by Jitesh Gadhia from investment firm Blackstone. He bought it for £9,500 and generously donated it to the new US Embassy.
As for what the new building should be nicknamed. Boris said: “It looks like a gigantic sugar cube, and if that should be the name I think nothing could be sweeter.”
