The thing about making charitable donations that gives David Brownlow the most satisfaction, he says, is “to make a difference to people’s lives”. The sort of difference, we now know, that means the prime minister and his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, can relax in the luxurious surroundings created by a very upmarket interior decorator in their Downing Street flat. Lord Brownlow of Shurlock Row in the royal county of Berkshire, who is ranked the 521st richest person in the UK with an estimated £271m fortune in the Sunday Times rich list, was revealed by the Daily Mail to have paid the Tory party nearly £60,000 towards the cost of the makeover by Lulu Lytle, described by Tatler magazine as “one of smart set’s most loved designers”. The peer confirmed he had made the payment in an email to the Conservative co-chairman Ben Elliot and the head of fundraising, Mike Chattey, sent in October last year. No 10 said Johnson paid for the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat personally. Dominic Cummings, Johnson former chief adviser, has claimed the prime minister sought to have Tory donors “secretly pay for the renovation” and condemned the plan as “unethical, foolish, possibly illegal and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure”. Brownlow has donated almost £3m to the Conservatives and even more to projects and charities supported by the Prince of Wales. He is a generous philanthropist with connections built through business, horse racing and charity work that ranges from sponsoring a local children’s football team to helping finance a grand project led by Prince Charles to renovate Dumfries House, a Palladian country house in Ayrshire. He was invited for a private dinner with Theresa May at Chequers in November 2017 and handed a peerage by the former prime minister in her resignation honours’ list in 2019. He gave cash to May’s own Maidenhead constituency office, donated £100,000 to the Stronger In campaign during the Brexit referendum and served as vice-chairman of the Conservative party between July 2017 and July 2020. Brownlow, 57, was born in Liverpool and read economics at Newcastle Polytechnic, before joining the police in Slough at the Thames Valley police headquarters. After two years in the force, he left to become a recruitment consultant and went on to co-found the recruitment firm Huntswood in Reading in 1996. The company, which now has 4,500 specialists overseeing company transformations, says it specialises in “governance, risk and compliance”. He has said Huntswood is different from its competitors because it operates as a meritocracy. “Imagine a game of snakes and ladders … but without the snakes,” he said in an interview he promotes on his website. In 2013, Brownlow co-founded a private equity firm, Havisham, through which he has invested more than £20m in a range of property, hospitality, travel and fashion businesses, as well as a 1992 Ferrari F40 Michelotto. Providing £58k to cover part of the bill for the lavish interior design requirements of Johnson and Symonds is not the first time that Brownlow has dug deep to help out a prime minister and their life partner. Via Havisham Assets Limited, Brownlow is also one of the biggest investors in Cefinn, the fashion label founded by David Cameron’s wife, Samantha, which sells trouser suits for £700 and dresses that start at about £250. The Times described Brownlow as Cameron’s “white knight” rescuer as Cefinn was losing more than £500,000 a year when Brownlow took a 10% stake in 2018, at the head of an investment totalling £2.6m. “I am joining the company in part because I like the management team,” he said at the time. “I thought they were very energetic and enthusiastic. I like the creative direction of the business. I am joining because it’s a business I like and I want to help it grow.” Asked if his links to the Camerons and the Conservative party had played a part, he said: “No, I am a businessman.” His other business interests range from a chain of upmarket dining pubs in Berkshire and Surrey, to a TV production company in Aberdeen, an electric car subscription service, and Havisham Homes, which builds multimillion pound mansions in and around Berkshire. Brownlow, who refers to himself as “Lord Brownlow CVO DL”, was appointed a deputy to the lord lieutenant of the Royal County of Berkshire in January 2018 (to which the DL refers). He is also a trustee of the Royal Albert Hall trust. In 2013 he set up the David Brownlow Charitable Foundation, which he says is “dedicated to enhancing the lives and wellbeing of individuals and communities where there is an element of disadvantage, through personal development such as education, the provision of new equipment, or the improvement and regeneration of their community”. The charity supports various local projects in Berkshire, and the Prince’s Countryside Fund a charity founded in 2010 by Prince Charles to support rural pursuits. “You need to have happiness and purpose in your life,” Brownlow said when asked about his charity in 2015. “It is important as a successful entrepreneur to make a contribution, to make a difference to people’s lives – that is what gives me the most satisfaction.”