Private emails have revealed how Keir Starmer demanded Margaret Thatcher‘s portrait was replaced with ‘anything’ in the Downing Street study.
The PM previously said the image of the Tory doyenne was taken down because he does not like ‘pictures of people staring down at me’.
But correspondence with the Government Art Collection, obtained by MailOnline under freedom of information rules, suggest he less worried about what went in place of the painting than it being moved ‘as soon as possible’.
Meanwhile, separate exchanges with Rachel Reeves‘ team have revealed her determination that all the art in the Treasury would be either of women or created by women.
Incoming ministers are entitled to use any of the 15,000 art works that make up the Government Art Collection to decorate their offices in any way they see fit.
Priority on choices is given based on seniority, with the displays regarded as a way to project British soft power during official visits.
The painting of Baroness Thatcher, by Richard Stone, was originally installed by Gordon Brown despite complaints from left-wingers.
Private emails have revealed how Keir Starmer demanded Margaret Thatcher’s portrait was replaced with ‘anything’ in the Downing Street study
The portrait of Margaret Thatcher in the No10 study, seen during a meeting between David Cameron and Enda Kenny
GAC officials offered to come to see the PM and ‘present some options and talk through the artwork’
Depicting Lady Thatcher just after the Falklands War in 1982, the reputed £100,000 cost was covered by an anonymous donor. The work was placed in her former No10 study, unofficially tagged the Thatcher Room.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport initially rejected the FOI request as ‘vexatious’ before relenting and supplying emails covering two months after the general election. However, personal details of junior staff and material ‘out of scope’ has been redacted.
A message from the facilities manager at No10 to the GAC on August 5 – as the country was being wracked by summer riots – said: ‘I’ve been asked to have the Thatcher painting in the Study swapped out for anything else! Any suggestions as to what we could replace it with and how soon?!?!’
The official followed up the message the next morning, saying they had received an out of office response and is there ‘someone else that can help’.
‘It is a PM request and he is keen to get something else in to replace that painting sooner rather than later,’ they added.
A GAC staffer replied asking for a ‘steer on the PM’s art preference’.
After one of their colleagues weighed in to point out that the Thatcher portrait was not a GAC piece, the No10 aide wrote back: ‘Exactly. Not sure where we will place the Thatcher painting. I just know we need to replace it with another piece and preferably a GAC piece as soon as possible.’
Last September, Sir Keir told the BBC his decision to take down the picture was ‘not actually about Margaret Thatcher at all’.
‘I use the study for quietly reading most afternoons… where there is a difficult paper,’ he said.
‘This is not actually about Margaret Thatcher at all. I don’t like images and pictures of people staring down at me.
‘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 Thatcher portrait has reportedly since been hung in a first-floor meeting room.
Downing Street sources denied that Sir Keir’s words clashed with the content of the emails.
Tory MP Stuart Andrew, the shadow culture secretary, told MailOnline: ‘Instead of focusing on the real issues that affect the lives of the British people, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves wasted precious time in office on petty, divisive actions like tearing down portraits of Conservative women who made Britain better.
‘Starmer’s leadership is unravelling before our eyes, and if he doesn’t get a grip soon, the damage to Britain will be irreversible.
‘This Government needs to stop playing politics with history and start delivering real results for British people.’
Fellow Tory MP Mark Francois, a shadow defence minister, said: ‘Given all his travails over winter fuel payments and then benefit cuts, you might think having a portrait of a strong and decisive PM, like Mrs Thatcher, in his office would be a good omen – but apparently not.
‘Unlike her, it seems Sir Keir was for turning, over his choice of art – along with just about everything else.’
At the end of July GAC officials proposed a rehang of 11 Downing Street that included ‘an emphasis’ on ‘notable women artists and sitters’.
But it did propose hanging some works by and of men, including King James II.
An aide to Ms Reeves replied: ‘On No11 as a whole, and feeding into the proposed rehang of the State Room, Rachel would like the paintings all to be of women or by women.
‘That would reinforce Rachel’s message to the Treasury as the first female Chancellor, it would be significant (has it been done before in Downing Street or an equivalent Government building?) and it could amplify GAC’s work celebrating the Representation of the People Act Centenary.
‘This would be difference to the proposed rehang, although clearly some elements could still work.
‘On portraits, it would point to having female portraits.’
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No10 officials made clear that the PM wanted the Thatcher painting out of his study ‘as soon as possible’
The message added: ‘On the Chancellor’s study, there is quite a lot of interest in Rachel’s choice of the person to put behind the desk.
‘Please treat in confidence and not yet final, but Rachel would like a picture of Ellen Wilkinson here…. Elsewhere in the room, she would also like a picture of Emeline Pankhurst if possible.’
‘More generally, Rachel welcomed Eliza’s suggestion that it would be possible to lift the feel of the room and (would) welcome suggestions on abstracts, landscape or still life paintings by women.
‘In line with the theme above, this would mean moving the picture of Gladstone and the busts of Gladstone and Disraeli.’
Rachel Reeves was very specific about wanting all paintings to be by or of women. She also requested an image be placed behind her desk of of Ellen Wilkinson, a former Communist education minister from the 1940s
Ms Reeves put Wilkinson in the place previously occupied by Tory ex-chancellor Nigel Lawson (photo shows Jeremy Hunt in No11 last year)
The GAC staff originally proposed a portrait of King James II for the West Fireplace in No11
Jewish Conservative peer Disraeli served as Chancellor several times and headed British imperial policy as Prime Minister twice.
There have long been attacks on Liberal PM Gladstone over his family’s involvement in slavery – with calls for statues to be removed and civic buildings renamed.
The emails also laid out what Ms Reeves wanted in her No10 flat, requesting pictures that would link to her Leeds constituency.
However, the Chancellor seemed less keen on an unspecified work by Anthony Gormley and Double Deathshead by the Chapman brothers.
In September last year, 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.’
