The Ritz Hotel, London 300 people were evacuated to the nearby May Fair Hotel following a fire alarm in the hotel. No one was hurt in the blaze, which started in the basement casino kitchen's extraction vents. The Ritz casino only suffered "minor damage". Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was convalescing at the Ritz when she died following a stroke on 8 April 2013. There has been criticism because the Ritz has not paid any corporation tax since being taken over by the Barclay twins. The accounts indicate that the profitable hotel uses a series of tax reliefs to reduce its corporation tax
The Ritz Hotel, London is clear in the design of the buildings, particularly the Renaissance influence, delivering "an authentic fabric of traditional French classicism". Mewès had previously designed the Hotel Ritz of Paris for Cesar in 1897-8, after which he met Arthur Davis, and began working together preparing designs for the Grand Petit Palais in the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Both architects worked on the plans for the London Ritz in 1904-5. According to Montgomery-Massingberd and Watkin the exterior is both structurally and visually Franco-American in influence with little trace of English architecture. For them the exterior "represents an evocative confluence of various Parisian