No bed of roses Garden at No 10 has hosted some thorny moments

Keir Starmer was very obviously aware of the symbolism in choosing to hold his first set-piece speech as prime minister in the Downing Street garden. And, as with much political symbolism, it included a certain amount of deliberate myth-making.

- Peter Walker

To begin on a fairly prosaic point, while even No 10 described the venue as the "rose garden", there isn't really any such thing.

Behind No 10 and No 11 Downing Street there is a big, combined back garden, including a large expanse of lawn at one end of which Starmer stood behind a lectern. There are a handful of rose bushes, but it is very much not a rose garden, the name seemingly used in mimicry of the more famous - and actual - rose garden at the White House.

The London version holds a peculiar dual role as a private garden for the prime minister and chancellor of the time, plus their families, and as a public space for some official receptions - and, infamously, for less official ones.

Always something of a warm weather spillover for the many dozens of staff who work in the buildings, the garden was the scene of a series of Covid lockdownflouting parties under Boris Johnson.