Reports that Keir Starmer has moved a portrait of Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street put me in two minds. On the one hand it could be nothing; on the other it could be the inciting incident for a major disaster drama. You know the sort of thing from TV – cold open on flashing scenes of unimaginable chaos, political besiegement and high-octane anguish, by which the viewer is provoked to think, “Stone me, how on earth did we get here?” Cue a black screen and the words: “SIX MONTHS EARLIER”. And then an immediate cut to a cheery aide going, “Morning, PM! Just had a classic silly season call about some Thatcher portrait story. Anything in it?”
In case you are not familiar with said portrait story, which after all only broke on Thursday evening while you may have been enjoying your God-given freedom to an August evening in a pub garden (more on that later), it runs as follows: a portrait of Margaret Thatcher was commissioned by Gordon Brown and unveiled in the presence of its subject in 2009, and since then has apparently hung above the mantelpiece in a Downing Street room unofficially known as the Thatcher Room. Then this week, Tom Baldwin, Starmer’s biographer, told a Glasgow book festival that he’d had a meeting with Starmer in the room shortly after he’d taken office, and remarked that it was “a bit unsettling” having “her” looking down. He says Starmer agreed, whereupon Baldwin asked him if he was going to get rid of it. The PM apparently nodded. “And,” concluded this Baldwin anecdote, “he has.”
