Winston Churchill’s urinal shows Britain’s hang-up with heritage

The spat began before the election when Rachel Reeves—who is now Britain’s first female chancellor of the exchequer—said she wanted to smash “glass ceilings and urinals” in her new job. She wanted the urinal, which stands in the chancellor’s private toilet, removed. But after being advised that it would cost £8,000 even to apply to cover it up because the urinal is both old and (as the delicate phrase has it) “associated with Churchill”, she has, according to a source, “pulled the plug” on the plan. The offending urinal, Ms Reeves recently confirmed, “still is in there”. Part-porcelain, part-parable, it is starting to look like a metaphor for Britain’s bunged-up planning system.