A financial failure, its main client was a timber merchant who paid them in timber to furnish their office.

He even borrowed items from his wife's stockpile of heirlooms to partially furnish his office.

The bill for furnishing the offices, which will accommodate 900 staff, came to 2.33m, or almost 2,600 per employee.

He has said that he trusts his wife utterly in matters of interior decoration, allowing her to furnish his offices, yachts, planes and homes.

In the past decade and a half they have furnished the offices of prime minister, chancellor and - yes - foreign secretary.