Thatcher portrait Starmer found ‘unsettling’ gets new home

Painting of former PM was removed from No 10’s Thatcher Room but has now been hung in meeting room

The portrait of Margaret Thatcher that was removed from her former study in No 10 has been hung in a meeting room after a public backlash.
The painting was taken down from its place in the Thatcher Room weeks after the Prime Minister took office, provoking anger from Conservatives.
The decision to remove it was revealed by Tom Baldwin, Sir Keir’s biographer, who claimed Sir Keir found it “unsettling” and opted to “get rid of it”. He later said: “I believe it’s hanging somewhere else in the building now, or that’s what’s planned.”
It has now been confirmed that the painting has been moved to a first floor meeting room regularly used by visitors and guests at No 10.
Baroness Smith of Malvern, a Labour education minister, defended Sir Keir, saying: “He can’t win, can he, because a few months ago he was being criticised for talking about what he admired about Margaret Thatcher, and now he is being criticised for moving her portrait.
“I think the important thing for Keir Starmer is probably to learn what he can from previous prime ministers, but to crack on with what he is doing in, very successfully, leading the country.”
The resurrection of the portrait has not, however, stopped criticism from Tories including Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, whose father attended the painting’s unveiling by Gordon Brown in 2009.
“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,” he said.
The work by Richard Stone, one of Britain’s leading portrait artists, depicts Lady Thatcher in the immediate aftermath of the Falklands War in 1982.
Sir Keir has previously praised her for effecting “meaningful change” in Britain and “setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism”. Those comments prompted a backlash from Left-wing MPs, who accused him of a “Mandelsonian” ploy to woo Tory voters.