Downing Street love

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • A thoroughfare of Westminster in London, England, off Whitehall. No. 10 Downing Street is the official residence of the first lord of the Treasury, who is usually but not necessarily the prime minister of Great Britain. Nearly all prime ministers have lived at No. 10 since the time of Robert Walpole in the early 1700s.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun a street leading off Whitehall in Westminster, London containing the residences of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer
  • proper noun idiomatic, by extension the British government

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a street of Westminster in London
  • noun the British government

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Named for its founder, Sir George Downing.

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Examples

  • The European Union's executive has proposed a new tax on bank transactions as the centrepiece of the EU's first €1trn budget, triggering a row with Downing Street, which dismissed the proposal as "completely unrealistic".

    'Tobin tax' called for by EU in seven-year blueprint 2011

  • Inevitably, there is suspicion that the latest internal recasting of the MoD, though triggered by 10 months' work by Lord Levene and the defence reform unit, has also been shaped at the 11th hour by Downing Street's extreme anger at recent unauthorised public complaints by the service chiefs about the sustainability of the Libya mission.

    Ministry of Defence: Too many chiefs | Editorial 2011

  • In the last weekly Downing Street meeting for parliamentary private secretaries, the cabinet office minister, Oliver Letwin, was lampooned for telling ministerial aides: "If this goes well we'll have nothing to legislate on in two years' time."

    David Davis takes up challenge to prepare next round of Tory policies 2011

  • Inevitably, there is suspicion that the latest internal recasting of the MoD, though triggered by 10 months' work by Lord Levene and the defence reform unit, has also been shaped at the 11th hour by Downing Street's extreme anger at recent unauthorised public complaints by the service chiefs about the sustainability of the Libya mission.

    Ministry of Defence: Too many chiefs | Editorial 2011

  • In a sign of nervousness in Downing Street, which fears that the public backlash is jeopardising Cameron's work in persuading the public that the NHS is safe in Tory hands, Lansley will accept some of the broad principles in the health select committee report.

    Andrew Lansley scrambles to save coalition's NHS reforms 2011

  • A demand for plans to curb youth unemployment has gone out from Downing Street, to be announced at the conference.

    David Davis takes up challenge to prepare next round of Tory policies 2011

  • Elsewhere in Europe, Larry, the Downing Street cat, is let in to his residence and Syrian refugees seek safety in Turkey.

    Photos of the Day 2011

  • This Downing Street source didn't say that Charles Barry's SW1 palace would become the flagship London Pizza Express, gastropubbed and walls painted aubergine, though they might have done.

    The problem with Mayor-mania 2011

  • Yesterday's news that Downing Street may rip one major plank out of that plan will – if it happens – effectively sink the whole thing.

    Prisons: Reaction resurgent | Editorial 2011

  • He is strongly opposed to NHS care being opened up to "any willing provider" – a key element of Lansley's plan, which Downing Street now worries has left ministers vulnerable on the charge that they are privatising the NHS, and also concerned that, in the melee of a radical restructure, the NHS finances will get out of control.

    Experts speak out on what Andrew Lansley should change in his health bill 2011

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