Terrace des-res in highly sought after central London location, tastefully refurbished, suit one (or two) young families. Offers in region of £20m.
For the first time, the public yesterday found out how much it would cost to own the keys to the most famous front door in Britain. Treasury accountants called in the estate agents to put a value on 10 Downing Street and its neighbour, home of the Blairs and official residence of the chancellor.
Details are to be found in the 900 page modern day Domesday Book, the National Asset Register, almost as unreadable as the original document ordered by William the Conqueror. Instead of oxen and ploughs, today's list of what the state owns reveals how much it would cost to command your own Trident submarine - £800m.
Or move your personal collection of paperbacks into the British Library, a snip at £400m. Or buy up Channel 4 and run your own version of Big Brother: a mere £89m.
The Treasury's rationale for putting a price tag on the nation's assets is a serious one. It wants Whitehall departments to sell off land and assets they no longer need, to fatten up public coffers. Last year this stealth privatisation programme raised £1.3bn in a jumble sale which included £162m worth of roads, several valuable military mansions, Uxbridge county court, which brought in £3.7m, and £102m in BT shares.
Buyers snapped up £234m of Ministry of Defence property, according to the register, including its Duke of York headquarters, which brought £47m into the coffers in one fell swoop, and an RAF depot at Quedgley, Gloucestershire, retailing at £14m.
The Foreign Office has been putting some of its more far-flung outposts up for sale, fetching a total of almost £30m in the last year, although they coyly do not publish the prices of individual embassy properties such as 38 Yehuda Hanassi Street, Tel Aviv, and General Ludwig 4727, Santiago.
Clare Short's Department for International Development is not so reticent, slapping a value of £1,000 on its one pickup truck in Nepal, and pricing the much needed air conditioning system in the Caribbean at £18,000.
There are however some things the bean counters at the Treasury are unable to put a price on. The government, for example, still owns the tree under which Sir Isaac Newton was sitting when a falling apple inspired his thoughts on gravity. According to the Department of Trade and Industry, the tree, kept at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, is priceless.
Andrew Smith, chief secretary to Treasury said the new Domesday book was "unparalleled. It is the most ambitious property inventory compiled in this country, and the first such publication in the world".
According to the register, the Ministry of Defence has the biggest portfolio of assets, ranging from Lynx aircraft valued at £3.6m each to the six pianos owned by the Royal Navy, which would apparently cost £121,000 to replace.
