Starmer sparks row after eradicating Shakespeare portrait from No 10
Sir Keir Starmer has sparked a row after removing a portrait of William Shakespeare from the wall inside 10 Downing Street.
The premier has been accused of consigning the Bard ‘to the dustbin’ after the 18th century painting by Louis Francois Roubiliac was reportedly placed in storage.
Sir Keir has already removed portraits of Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh, and William Ewart Gladstone since entering No 10.
While in August he sparked a furious backlash when he took down a £100,000 portrait of Margaret Thatcher from her former study as he found it ‘unsettling’.
Sir Keir had to bow to public pressure to rehang the portrait with Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg blasting the original decision as ‘spiteful’ and ‘petty’.
Sir Keir Starmer has sparked a row after removing a portrait of William Shakespeare from the wall inside 10 Downing Street
The premier has been accused of consigning the Bard ‘to the dustbin’ after the 18th century painting by Louis Francois Roubiliac was reportedly placed in storage
The Shakespeare portrait is part of the Government Art Collection which incoming prime ministers can use to decorate No 10.
Downing Street says it does not comment on the arrangement of interiors, nor what will replace the picture, reported the Telegraph.
Sir Oliver Dowden, a former Tory culture secretary, accused the PM of ‘succumbing to the usual Left-wing cringing embarrassment about our past’.
‘Not content with removing Thatcher, Gladstone, Raleigh and Elizabeth I, he’s now consigning Shakespeare to the dustbin,’ he told the Telegraph.
‘Downing Street receives thousands of distinguished visitors every year. He should be using it to proclaim the greatest writer in the English language, not engaging in this philistinism.’
Robert Jenrick, the Tory leadership candidate, said: ‘We should celebrate and extol great figures in English history and stop being embarrassed by our identity. No other country would behave like this.’
The Thatcher portrait, by Richard Stone, one of Britain’s leading portrait artists, depicts the Iron Lady in the immediate aftermath of the Falklands War in 1982.
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 Keir has already sparked a furious backlash for taking down a £100,000 portrait of Margaret Thatcher from her former study as he found it ‘unsettling’
Chancellor Rachel Reeves last month ordered the removal of all pictures of men from the lavish state room at 11 Downing Street.
The Chancellor announced that every painting in the room would be replaced by artworks of or by women in order to celebrate ‘amazing women who have gone before us’.
Ms Reeves told an all-female reception at No 11: ‘This is King James behind me, but next week the artwork in this room is going to change.
‘Every picture in this room is either going to be of a woman or by a woman – and we’re also going to have a statue in this room of (suffragist) Millicent Fawcett, who did so much for the rights of women.’
