Sir Keir Starmer today bowed to public pressure by re-hanging a portrait of Margaret Thatcher which he removed from her former study in Downing Street.
No 10 announced that the £100,000 painting – dispatched from the Thatcher Room because the Labour Prime Minister found it ‘unsettling’ – has been placed on display in a ‘first floor meeting room’.
But Sir Keir still faced a chorus of demands to return it to the room which bears her name, with former Conservative Cabinet Minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg leading the chivalric charge.
Sir Jacob, whose father William attended the portrait’s unveiling by Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009, said: ‘The portrait should be returned to its rightful place in the study where she worked. It was a spiteful, petty decision by Sir Keir which he should have the grace to reverse as quickly as possible.’
The work by Richard Stone, one of Britain’s leading portrait artists, depicts the Iron Lady in the immediate aftermath of the Falklands War in 1982.
Sir Keir Starmer bowed to pressure by re-hanging a portrait of Margaret Thatcher which he had removed from her former study in Downing Street
The £100,000 painting has now been placed on display in a ‘first floor meeting room’, No 10 announced
It was prominently displayed in a study which is no longer the Prime Minister’s official office, but has been used by Sir Keir for meetings in his first weeks in charge.
Sir Jacob added: ‘It was a previous Labour prime minister who bestowed this honour in recognition of her extraordinary achievements and service to this country.
‘But whereas Mr Brown’s gesture was statesman-like and honourable, Sir Keir’s actions make him appear mean-spirited and small-minded.’
No10 has not revealed which painting will be hung in its place, although Sir Jacob warned: ‘I hate to think what he will replace Lady Thatcher’s likeness with. A portrait of his EU heroine Ursula von der Leyen or perhaps one of his favourite trade union barons smiling down as Labour hands out yet another vast, unjustified pay increase to his members?’
Former Tory MP Sir Conor Burns, who was a close confidant of Lady Thatcher, said: ‘Margaret was hugely honoured that it was a Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown, who commissioned this portrait in recognition of her historic impact on this country.
Former Conservative Cabinet Minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg called for the picture to be returned to its ‘rightful place’ in the former prime minister’s study
‘By this generous gesture, she became one of a handful of consequential prime ministers to have an official portrait in Downing Street. But she was also deeply touched that it was decided that her likeness would hang in the very study where she worked so diligently over 11 and a half years to transform Britain.
‘In other words, it is not just the portrait but its location that matters so much here.’
Sir Conor added: ‘Therefore, I hope the current Labour Prime Minister will take a moment to reflect and then to instruct that the portrait be returned to where it properly should be – the Thatcher Study.’
Former prime minister Boris Johnson said that Sir Keir’s ‘petty’ removal of the painting shows he misled the public when he praised Mrs Thatcher during his election campaign.
Writing in is Daily Mail column yesterday, Mr Johnson said: ‘We are entitled to ask: which is the real Starmer? Is he a Thatcher fan, or a visceral Leftie? The answer, my friends, is now clear: not just from his petty decision to remove her picture, but in everything he is doing in Government.’
