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Sir Keir Starmer has had a portrait of Margaret Thatcher removed from No 10 Downing Street, according to his biographer.
Tom Baldwin said that the prime minister found the £100,000 painting, which was commissioned by Gordon Brown, “unsettling” – sparking outrage among Conservative MPs.
Speaking at an event organised by Glasgow’s Aye Write book festival, Mr Baldwin said that after Sir Keir took office, they met at No 10 for a private conversation.
He said: “We sat there, and I go: ‘It’s a bit unsettling with her staring down as you like that, isn’t it?’”
Sir Keir replied yes and, when asked whether he would “get rid of it”, the prime minister nodded, according to Mr Baldwin.
Mr Baldwin added: “And he has.”
The artwork was commissioned after Mr Brown invited Mrs Thatcher to tea after he suceeded Tony Blair in 2007, and was paid for by an anonymous donor and is the first of a former prime minister to be commissioned by Downing Street.
Painted by Richard Stone, it was unveiled at a private reception in 2009 and hangs in her former study, unofficially known as the Thatcher Room.
Leading the criticism, 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.”
Former Tory minister Esther McVey tweeted: “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.”
Greg Smith, the MP for Mid Buckinghamshire, called the decision was “utter pettiness from Starmer”. Speaking to the Telegraph he said the episode showed that Sir Keir has “no respect for our history and previous prime ministers”.
Last December, Sir Keir praised Thatcher for bringing “meaningful change” in Britain in a piece for the Sunday Telegraph.
The Labour leader said the late former prime minister had “set loose our natural entrepreneurialism” during her time as prime minister.
In response to the claim about the painting, Downing Street told Sky News: “We don’t comment on the interior of the house.”
