Sir Keir Starmer has provoked outrage from senior Tories and political grandees for removing a portrait of Margaret Thatcher from inside 10 Downing Street.
Just eight weeks after he moved into Number 10, it has been claimed by his biographer that he found the £100,000 painting, commissioned by former Labour premier Gordon Brown, “unsettling”.
But his removal of the portrait has been condemned as “vindictive” and “petty” by Tory MPs and prompted calls for the prime minister to return it to its place inside Downing Street.
Sir Keir‘s apparent snub to Lady Thatcher, prime minister for 11 years from 1979 until 1990, is all the more remarkable because just months before the general election he lavished praise on her in a newspaper article.
In comments furiously attacked by trade union leaders and left-wing Labour MPs at the time, Sir Keir praised her for bringing about “meaningful change” in British politics.
“Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism,” he wrote in The Sunday Telegraph last December.
Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Pic: PA
Sir Keir’s removal of the painting was revealed by Tom Baldwin, a senior adviser to Ed Miliband when he was Labour leader and author of insightful and acclaimed biography of Sir Keir.
The painting was commissioned by Mr Brown after Lady Thatcher visited him at Number 10 when he was prime minister.
It was funded by an anonymous £100,000 donation and unveiled in 2009.
Speaking at a book festival in Glasgow, Mr Baldwin said Sir Keir told him the portrait had been hung in a study in Downing Street unofficially called the “Thatcher Room”.
‘We don’t comment on the interior’
In a conversation first reported by Glasgow’s Herald newspaper, Mr Baldwin said Sir Keir told him the study was “place where we can go and have a quiet talk”.
He told his audience: “We sat there, and I go: ‘It’s a bit unsettling with her staring down at you like that, isn’t it?'”
He said the prime minister issued a one-word response: “Yeah.”
Mr Baldwin said he then asked if Sir Keir would “get rid of” the portrait, prompting a nod from Starmer. He then added: “And he has.”
Asked about the claims by Mr Baldwin about the removal of the portrait, a Downing Street spokesperson told Sky News: “We don’t comment on the interior of the house.”
But the widespread reporting of the painting’s removal has quickly triggered a furious row, with senior opposition politicians angrily denouncing the prime minister.
Leading the onslaught, former Northern Ireland first minister Baroness Arlene Foster, wrote on X: “I think it is ‘unsettling’ that the PM should remove the first female PM from No 10.
“He cannot deny her role in our nation – the most significant PM after Churchill. Not a good start from Labour, looks and feels vindictive and petty.”
‘Petty approach’
Former Tory minister Esther McVey told the Daily Express: “What a pathetic, petty-minded little man Keir Starmer is – removing a picture of the first female prime minister and one of the longest-serving prime ministers.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be reminded of a towering politician he could never live up to.”
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In Scotland, the three candidates for the leadership of the Scottish Conservative Party all attacked Mr Baldwin’s claims.
Russell Findlay said: “Gordon Brown commissioned this portrait after calling the first female prime minister ‘a conviction politician who saw the need for change’.
“I agree with Gordon Brown’s reasonable position to treat his political opponents with decency and respect… Keir Starmer seems to have a much more petty approach.”
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Rival leadership candidate Meghan Gallacher said: “It’s disgraceful that Keir Starmer would remove a picture of Britain’s first female prime minister…
“Regardless of your opinions on Margaret Thatcher, she paved the way for women in politics and tackled sexist stereotypes head-on.
“She’s an inspiration for many, a defining figure in British politics and she deserves to be recognised for her many achievements… Her legacy should be honoured – the portrait should be returned.”
‘Thatcher brutalised miners’
Sir Keir’s praise for Lady Thatcher in his Sunday Telegraph article in December led to furious complaints from critics of the Labour leader on the left of the party.
Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack said: “Her government deliberately inflicted mass unemployment and poverty on communities through a vindictive pit closures programme and the decimation of the manufacturing industry.
“Working people and entire regions of Britain are still living with the dire consequences of Thatcherism to this day.”
And left-wing Labour MP Ian Lavery, a former National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) president and a leading ally of Jeremy Corbyn, said: “My constituents do not in any way share this view. Thatcher brutalised the miners and their families.”