In these pho­tos taken by Mar­tin Argles for the Guard­ian, we see Gor­don Brown and his team pre­par­ing to leave Down­ing Street. These pho­tos interest me for what they show about the spaces and exper­i­ence of work.

Mar­tin Argles/Guardian: Down­ing St polit­ical staff

In the first pho­to­graph, there are three mem­bers of staff huddled round one phone. Argles tells us they are listen­ing in as Brown speaks to Nick Clegg, leader of the Lib Dems. “Nick, Nick, I can’t hold on any longer. Nick, I’ve got to go to the palace”, Argles reports hear­ing (Guard­ian, 13th May 2010: 21). I’m fas­cin­ated by that huddle, it speaks of the hun­ger, urge and delight to be in on the moment that char­ac­ter­ises the polit­ical aides and cor­res­pond­ents I’ve met. They are seduced by an every­day prox­im­ity to power to ima­gine that noth­ing else mat­ters as much, and that hear­ing things second hand is almost worse than not hear­ing them at all. Look at the woman hov­er­ing behind, one ear turned inwards and her own mobile in hand: it mat­ters so much to be there, to be listen­ing in on an event that mat­ters for just this moment.

I like the ordin­ar­i­ness of the rest of the scene: the big metal cup­board with its fire safety cer­ti­fic­ate, the Down­ing Street screensaver on the right of the shot, and at the back, the col­league involved in a very dif­fer­ent sort of phone call.

Mar­tin Argles/Guardian: The war room in Down­ing Street

In the second shot, we see a wider per­spect­ive, a layered mod­ern­ity. Chan­deliers, wood pan­el­ling and a fire­place point to a Vic­torian refur­bish­ment of the ori­ginal Down­ing Street build­ing, although the lights are now elec­tric and the fire­place is sur­roun­ded by desks. Con­front­ing this past is the detritus of the mod­ern office: screens, wires and swivel chairs; cof­fee cups, iphones, and men in ties. The carou­sel of MDF desks are paper-free, though an enorm­ous briefcase in the centre of the shot has a wadge of doc­u­ments shoved in it: this is the last day of work, and this room will soon come to be taken for gran­ted by a dif­fer­ent sort of polit­ical animal.