Well, well, well. It seems Sir Keir Starmer wasn’t exaggerating about his ‘change’ agenda. It now transpires that the new Prime Minister has taken it upon himself to redecorate parts of No. 10 – and has reportedly gone so far as to remove a portrait of Margaret Thatcher from Downing Street. Talk about a Labour takeover…
The rather curious report comes after Sir Keir’s biographer Tom Baldwin was interviewed in Scotland, at Glasgow’s Aye Write summer book festival. The Gordon Brown-commissioned picture, funded by an anonymous donation that covered its £100,000 price tag, is the first painting of an ex-PM ever to be requested by No. 10 – yet despite its links to the last Labour prime minister, it seems Starmer wasn’t overly impressed. As set out by the Herald, Baldwin described how he was recently taken to the former Downing Street study – or the ‘Thatcher room’ – before admitting the PM agreed with him that the Iron Lady’s portrait was ‘a bit unsettling’. The biographer said he quizzed Starmer whether he would ‘get rid of it’, with the Prime Minister reportedly confirming he indeed planned to do so. ‘And he has,’ Baldwin confessed.
The revelation has prompted cries of outrage from the opposition, with Scottish Tory leadership candidate Russell Findlay branding the PM as taking a ‘petty approach’ to his political opponents. Of course, Sir Keir seems to have long been confused by his own feelings about Mrs T. While No. 10 declined to comment on the matter, readers might want to cast their minds back to December. Starmer Chameleon took to the fine pages of the Sunday Telegraph to praise the former PM, writing that ‘Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism’. But after facing backlash from Labour lefty lot Starmer U-turned less than a week later, telling a Scottish Labour gala dinner that: ‘She did terrible things, particularly here in Scotland which everybody in this room, myself included, profoundly disagrees with.’ The lady wasn’t for turning – but it seems Starmer can’t stop…
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