Keir Starmer admits reason Margaret Thatcher portrait was moved from No10 office (original) (raw)

Keir Starmer sparked fury from right-wingers by pulling down divisive former Tory PM Margaret Thatcher's portrait which had been hanging in his Downing Street office

Former PM David Cameron with Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny in 2011 under a portrait of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street

Keir Starmer has revealed the true reason he moved a portrait of Margaret Thatcher from his study.

The Prime Minister sparked fury from right-wingers by pulling down the divisive former Tory PM's likeness from his No10 office. The portrait by Richard Stone depicts Lady Thatcher just after the Falklands War in 1982 and had been hanging in her former study, which is unofficially known as the Thatcher Room.

But it is believed to have been moved to another room in Downing Street since Mr Starmer took power. The Prime Minister told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg he ditched the portrait as doesn't like "pictures of people staring down at me".

He said: "I use the study for quietly reading most afternoons where I have got to have... where there is a difficult paper that I need to. This is not actually about Margaret Thatcher at all. I don't like images and pictures of people staring down at me.

Keir Starmer was asked about his decision to remove the portrait of Margaret Thatcher from his No10 study

"I've found it all my life. When I was a lawyer I used to have pictures of judges. I don't like it. I like landscapes.

"This is my study, it is my private place where I got to work. I didn't want a picture of anyone."

The portrait was commissioned in 2007 by ex Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who came under fire at the time from left-wing MPs for commemorating Lady Thatcher following her policies of mass privatisation and brutal crackdown on trade unions in the 1980s.

Mr Starmer has previously been criticised in some parts of the Labour movement for praising the controversial former Tory leader in a pitch to win over Conservative voters. Last December, he sparked a major backlash for praising Lady Thatcher for bringing in "meaningful change" in an article for the Sunday Telegraph.

He also pointed to past Labour PMs Sir Tony Blair and Clement Attlee for understanding politicians "must act in service of the British people, rather than dictating to them".