Listen closely.
Can you hear it?
There.
That’s the sound of a lock turning.
A heavy door.
Clang.
Now, some of us,
from time to time,
have entertained the fantasy.
Of a Prime Minister locked up.
Key thrown away.
Don’t pretend you haven’t.
Well.
Today is the day to give that fantasy a little airing.
Not because a Prime Minister was locked up on this day.
But because this is the day the first ever Prime Minister pitched up.
And, deliciously,
a decade or so before that…
he was locked up.
In the Tower of London.
Now then.
We’ve got Mother’s Day.
We’ve got Father’s Day.
We’ve got St George’s Day,
St Patrick’s Day.
We’ve got Remembrance Sunday.
We’ve even got Boxing Day.
So why on earth shouldn’t we have…
Prime Minister Day?
Think of the year as one of those Noël calendars.
Not just for December.
For the whole year.
Three hundred and sixty-five little windows.
And behind each one… a London story.
You peel one open each day and –
oh my goodness –
what have we here?
Something curious.
Something telling.
Something rather wonderful about London.
Because London is history.
Or if you prefer,
history is London.
And today?
April 3rd?
Peel back the little paper window and there it is.
Prime Minister Day.
And who’s the chap in the catbird seat,
looking pleased as punch with himself and his doings?
Robert Walpole.
The first ever Prime Minister.
The man who,
on this day in 1721,
got the show on the road.
And what a London story it is.
Because Walpole’s life is one of those great arcs.
From disgrace to dominance.
From the inside of a prison cell to the nerve centre of British power.
And, crucially, to a rather ordinary-looking terraced house in Downing Street.
Number 10.
Nothing to write home about in Walpole’s day.
No black door mythology.
No sense of destiny.
Just a house.
Until he got his hands on it.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Let’s start with the man himself.
Robert Walpole.
Even the name has a bit of music to it.
Robert.
From the old German. Hrod – fame. Berht – bright.
Bright fame.
Shining with glory.
Not a bad fit for a man who would end up running the country.
And as for his surname, Walpole.
That’s rooted in the English landscape.
“Wal” from wealh – the Britons, the outsiders, the original inhabitants as seen by the Anglo-Saxons.
“Pole” – a pool.
A creek.
A bit of water.
So Walpole.
The Britons’ pool.
The foreigner’s creek.
You can almost see it.
Marshy ground.
Reeds.
A settlement by the water’s edge.
Robert Walpole.
Bright fame…
from the Britons’ pool.
And from there to the heart of power.
Because Walpole sat in Parliament for over forty years.
Forty years.
That’s not a career, that’s geological time.
He first entered the Commons in 1701 and,
save for the odd hiccup,
just kept going.
Election after election,
ministry after ministry,
crisis after crisis.
He was, what we’d call,
a consummate operator.
Which brings us neatly to that curious nickname.
“Screen Master General.”
Not an official title.
A jab.
A political dig.
What it meant was this:
Walpole was the man who stood in front of the mess and blocked the view.
A human screen.
A fixer.
A smoother-over of awkward truths.
When things went wrong,
Walpole made them… go away.
Or at least look like they had.
But not always.
Because in 1712,
things went spectacularly wrong.
He was accused of corruption. Found guilty.
Expelled from the House of Commons.
And sent to the Tower.
That clang again.
He didn’t stay there long.
A few months.
Enough to make the point.
Enough to brand him.
And here’s the delicious twist.
He’s the only British Prime Minister ever to have done time in the Tower of London.
From prisoner to prime minister.
You couldn’t make it up.
Now,
fast forward a few years and we hit one of the great financial scandals in British history:
the South Sea Bubble.
A frenzy of speculation.
Shares soaring.
Fortunes made overnight.
And then –
collapse.
Ruin everywhere.
Political fallout.
Public outrage.
Enter Walpole.
Cool head.
Steady hand.
He didn’t cause the crisis,
but he was the man who sorted it out.
Restored confidence.
Stabilised the system.
And that, really, is the moment.
Walpole emerges as the dominant figure in government.
Not officially called Prime Minister yet,
that term was still a bit of a slur, but in practice,
that’s exactly what he was.
The first.
Or at the very least,
the prototype.
And he stays there.
Year after year.
From 1721 to 1742.
Twenty-one years at the top.
No modern Prime Minister comes close.
Which helps explain another nickname.
A marvellous one.
Robinocracy.
Rule by Robin.
Robin being Robert.
His critics coined it,
and they meant it as a complaint. His grip on power was so complete,
so enduring,
that the whole system seemed to revolve around him.
A one-man show.
A Robinocracy.
You don’t get a Pittocracy.
Or a Peelocracy.
Walpole stands alone.
Now here’s another lovely wrinkle.
When Walpole took power,
he did not move into Number 10.
Because Number 10 didn’t quite exist yet.
The houses on Downing Street were a bit of a jumble.
Separate properties.
Not especially grand.
Not especially practical.
Walpole was offered one of them by the king, George I.
He accepted.
But with a condition.
He wanted not just one house,
but a combination of several, knocked together,
expanded,
improved.
Offices,
living quarters,
proper space for conducting the business of government.
In other words,
he turned it into something.
Into the thing.
Into what would become the official residence of the Prime Minister.
So were you to stand outside Number 10 today,
watching that famous black door, you’re looking at Walpole’s creation.
His footprint.
His idea of how power should be housed.
And here’s the kicker.
He didn’t take it as a personal gift.
He insisted it belong to the office, not the man.
That’s a very modern instinct.
And very Walpole.
Now,
one final London twist.
If you go down to Downing Street today,
you can’t do what a Londoner in Walpole’s day could do.
You can’t stroll up and stand opposite the front door of
10 Downing Street.
You won’t get anywhere near it.
Gates went up in 1989.
The street sealed off.
What was once an ordinary little London street is now a controlled zone.
In Walpole’s day,
it was open.
No barriers.
No armed police.
Just another street.
Power hiding in plain sight.
And that, in a way,
is perfect.
Because Walpole’s genius was never about show.
It was about control.
Quiet,
patient,
relentless control.
From a prison cell in the Tower…
to a system of government that still shapes Britain today…
to a legacy so dominant it earned its own name…
Robinocracy.
Now.
Before we slip away,
a quick look ahead.
Because tomorrow we’re heading north.
Right up to the edge of London.
To Enfield.
The northernmost of London’s boroughs.
And the starting point for something rather special.
Fourteen linked walks.
Forty-two miles.
From the woods and fields and streams of the Hertfordshire border all the way down to the Surrey Downs.
It’s only been done once before. Last summer.
Twelve stalwarts completed the full set.
Others dipped in.
One or two here.
Three or four there.
This year it’s back.
In two guises.
A saunter,
stretching across the summer from May to September.
And a full-on camino in the autumn.
Fourteen walks over nine days.
A proper pilgrimage.
And it all begins up there.
Early May.
The first pair of walks.
The curtain rising on the northern edge of London.
That’s tomorrow’s story.
For now, though…
Prime Minister Day.
Window opened.
Story told.
London calling.
London Walks at your service.
This… is London.
This… is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
See you tomorrow.