Starmer bins portrait of Margaret Thatcher as he redecorates No10
Sir Keir Starmer has been labelled “petty” after removing a portrait of Margaret Thatcher from Downing Street – just months after praising the Iron Lady to win over Tory voters.
The PM’s biographer, Tom Baldwin, said Starmer had found the portrait of his decades-past predecessor “unsettling”, ordering it to be taken down in his new home.
The Thatcher painting had been commissioned by Gordon Brown 17 years ago when she visited him at No10 – and had been funded by an anonymous £100,000 donation.
The portrait had been hung in an old study in Downing Street – unofficially called the “Thatcher Room” – but Baldwin claimed Starmer wasn’t keen.
The biographer, speaking at an event organised by Glasgow’s Aye Write book festival, said Starmer had called the study a “place where we can go and have a quiet talk.”
He told attendees: “We sat there, and I go: ‘It’s a bit unsettling with her staring down as you like that, isn’t it?'”
Baldwin said the PM issued a one-word response: “Yeah.”
In reply, he then asked if Starmer would “get rid of” the six-figure portrait – prompting a nod from Starmer – adding: “And he has.”
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But the three candidates in Scotland’s Conservative leadership election slammed 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.
While Meghan Gallacher added: “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.”
Murdo Fraser said: “It is disappointing to see a portrait of our first female Prime Minister being removed from display by the new Labour Prime Minister.
“It seems like a churlish move, but perhaps Sir Keir Starmer was intimidated by the gaze of a world-renowned leader whose achievements he will never come close to matching.”
But one MP, who chose not to be named, told the Daily Mail: “Maggie Thatcher is the devil incarnate to many of our supporters who remember how she destroyed the unions and put our people on the dole. Gordon Brown may have forgotten that… Some of us haven’t.”
The controversial portrait take-down comes just months after Starmer praised Thatcher in a Sunday Telegraph column in a move to woo Tory voters.
Last December, the then-Leader of the Opposition had hailed the late Prime Minister as a driver of change, and praised her for “set[ting] loose our natural entrepreneurialism.”