Yet that was exactly where I found myself at 9am, inside Ikea on Purley Way in Croydon, before the doors were opened to the public.
The lights were on, the price tags still dangling from sofas and shelving units, but instead of shoppers there were staff, Number 10 publicists, and the Prime Minister himself.
Keir Starmer, along with Sarah Jones, Labour MP for Croydon West, was in Croydon to promote new parental leave and employment protections being laid before Parliament that day – changes the government says will give millions of working families the “security they deserve”.
In London alone, around two million workers are expected to benefit, with those in the most insecure jobs set to gain the most.
The reforms stem from the recently passed Employment Rights Act and include new day-one rights to parental leave from April, meaning parents will no longer be forced to choose between keeping their job and being there for the first weeks of their child’s life.
An additional 32,000 more dads per year across the country will be able to access Paternity Leave immediately, as a mother would with maternity leave.
I’ll be honest: I was surprised the Prime Minister was doing interviews in Ikea, but it quickly became clear why – it’s a company that already offers strong workplace benefits.
Before our interview, the Prime Minister spoke to staff who would directly benefit from the new rights.
One dad had just returned from paternity leave following the birth of his second daughter, while a woman who had lost her husband spoke about how vital it was to have time away from work while he was ill, and after he passed away.
When our interview began, the setting still felt undeniably surreal.
We were standing in a staged family living room – a child-sized dining table behind us, sofas arranged as if a family might sit down at any moment – discussing national legislation beneath showroom lighting.
“It’s definitely a story to tell,” I thought, glancing around at the staged family home.
Asked what brought him to Croydon, Starmer described the reforms as the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation.
He told London Now: “I was between jobs when my son was born.
“But I genuinely believe the bond between me and him is much stronger because of that time.
“I did the same with my daughter.”
On a lighter note, he revealed that his daughter is specifically a fan of the Swedish vegetarian meatballs sold in Ikea.
Much of our conversation turned to Croydon itself, a borough Starmer says he knows well.
Growing up on the Surrey–Kent border, he told me that for the Starmer family, “a really good day out was coming to Croydon, coming to Whitgift Centre.”
Starmer confirmed that there will be support to help bring Croydon town centre ‘back to life’ with the new Pride in Place fund, which gives local communities control over how regeneration money is spent.
He explained: “I am absolutely clear that almost everyone is proud of the place that they come from, where they work, their community.
“What they want is a government that comes up alongside them and says, ‘we want this to improve’.
“The Pride in Place Fund is money, which is allocated for an area, then instead of the government saying, ‘you’ve got to use this money to do these things’, we say to the area, you decide what you want to spend the money on.”
“People want to see their town centre.
“They want to see the place where they live or work doing well, flourishing, a place that they’re proud of and that they feel safe and secure in.
“And that’s what this money is for.”
In Croydon, that includes £20 million for New Addington and a further £1.5 million earmarked for the town centre.
Crime, particularly youth violence, was another unavoidable topic.
Starmer stressed the importance of safe spaces and opportunities for young people, pointing to the government’s first youth strategy in years.
He said: “I think it’s really important that we put in safe places for young people and activities for young people.
“We’ve just published the first youth strategy for many, many years and that focuses on what can we do in localities to help and support young people.
“Because if you give young people something to do, then there’s a high likelihood that crime and other issues like that go down.”
Sarah Jones added: “As you know, in Croydon, we’ve had a few awful cases of young homicides, and those stats are really improving, homicides across London falling quite dramatically.
“And there is, through the MyEnds funding – that’s Sadiq Khan funds – there are safe spaces for women, work for kind of women and girls, as well as support for young boys who are at risk of getting into knife crime.
“I talk to the police a lot about how do we make sure we’re supporting girls and boys to make sure they’ve got the best opportunities.”
With years of cuts, asset sales and hundreds of millions in exceptional financial support, many residents feel the borough is stuck in a loop.
Starmer acknowledged the scale of the challenge, pointing to increased funding, longer-term settlements and fair funding reforms.
As the interview wrapped up, staff were preparing the store for opening.
Within minutes, shoppers would be walking through the doors, unaware that a conversation about national policy and local pride had just taken place among the sofas.
From Swedish meatballs to serious reform, it was a reminder that politics doesn’t always happen in Westminster.
Sometimes, it happens at 9am in an Ikea showroom on Purley Way – surrounded by flat-pack furniture and the real-life stories of the people these policies are meant to help.
