Starmer pulls Thatcher’s Downing Street portrait down discovering it ‘unsettling’

Keir Starmer is said to have had Margaret Thatcher’s Downing Street portrait pulled down – after finding it “unsettling”.

Just weeks after moving into Number 10, Sir Keir has reportedly made a major change within the building which has been the centre of the UK Government for almost 300 years. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a left-leaning lawyer who graduated in 1985, the Labour leader is said to have kicked divisive former Tory PM Maggie’s portrait out of the building.

The UK’s new leader is said to have found the portrait of Thatcher, who served a tumultuous stint as Conservative PM from 1979 to 1990, to be “unsettling” with the Iron Lady looking down on him. After demolishing a similarly long-lasting and disastrous Tory government last month, Starmer appears to be making good on his promise to “reset” and “change” politics after decades of failure.

Running as Friday’s front page for the Daily Mail and Telegraph, the move to take down the portrait of Britain’s first female Prime Minister has infuriated some Tories, with former MP Jacob Rees-Mogg calling the move “unbecoming of a Prime Minister who has a role representing the nation, not just his political faction.” But many within Labour have spent decades opposing Thatcher’s ultra-libertarian, union-bashing, and divisive style of politics

According to the Prime Minister’s biographer, Tom Baldwin, the decision to take the large portrait out of a room in Downing Street, unofficially dubbed the ‘Thatcher Room’, was made while Starmer was examining the paintings of former leaders. Baldwin asked: “It’s a bit unsettling with her staring down as you like that, isn’t it?”

The Labour leader, who drew fire from his own party for expressing admiration for the long-serving female PM during the election campaign, is reported to have agreed. Then when Baldwin pressed him on whether he would get rid of the portrait, he agreed again. Baldwin added: “And he has.”

Surprisingly, the “unsettling” portrait of Thatcher was originally hung before David Cameron swept to power, with then Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown commissioning and unveiling the painting in Downing Street in 2009, at an event with Mrs Thatcher. Keir Starmer has previously praised the former PM for “setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism,” but on the campaign trail slammed decades fo Conservative policy that has “decimated” the country’s former industrial heartlands.

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But with the Conservative Party in tatters after an all-time historic loss of 251 seats in July, causing the leadership in England and Scotland to collapse, upstart contenders have been quick to slam the move by the Labour PM. Meghan Gallacher, who wants to be leader of the Scottish Tories, 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.”