Former Tory culture secretary claims PM is ‘succumbing to Left-wing cringing embarrassment about our past’’
Sir Keir Starmer has removed a portrait of William Shakespeare from No 10 – the latest painting of a great national figure to be taken down under the Prime Minister, The Telegraph understands.
The 18th-century portrait of the Bard has been taken down and placed in storage in a move that has prompted concerns about “philistinism”.
The Telegraph has revealed that portraits depicting Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh, William Ewart Gladstone and Margaret Thatcher have been taken down since the Labour Government took power, sparking a Conservative backlash.
Sir Oliver Dowden, a former Tory culture secretary, said: “The Prime Minister spent the election loudly proclaiming his patriotism, but now the election is over he’s succumbing to the usual Left-wing cringing embarrassment about our past.
“Not content with removing Thatcher, Gladstone, Raleigh and Elizabeth I, he’s now consigning Shakespeare to the dustbin.
“Downing Street receives thousands of distinguished visitors every year. He should be using it to proclaim the greatest writer in the English language, not engaging in this philistinism.”
Robert Jenrick, the Tory leadership candidate, said: “We should celebrate and extol great figures in English history and stop being embarrassed by our identity. No other country would behave like this.”
The Shakespeare painting that has been removed is by Louis Francois Roubiliac, and is a copy of John Taylor’s 17th-century Chandos portrait.
The portrait of the writer, who lived from 1564 to 1616, is part of the Government Art Collection, typically used to project British soft power. Incoming prime ministers are entitled to use the collection to decorate Downing Street on arrival.
Downing Street said it did not comment on the arrangement of interiors, but changes are expected when an incoming prime minister, or the holders of the seniority of state, enter their new offices.
Many of Shakespeare’s plays were written during the reign of Elizabeth I, who patronised the early slave trade through pirates such Sir John Hawkins. Her portrait also no longer hangs in Downing Street.
Raleigh, whose painting has been removed, played a key role in England’s early colonisation of North America.’
The Virgin Mary and Elizabeth
Gladstone, the four-time Liberal prime minister, became the focus of activist action because his father and fellow politician, Sir John Gladstone, owned thousands of slaves.
As a young MP, Gladstone supported compensation for slave owners as a condition of abolition. He never owned slaves or plantations himself, and condemned slavery as “by far the foulest crime that taints the history of mankind”.
In September, Rachel Reeves demanded that pictures of men by male artists were removed from the state room at No 11. The Chancellor reportedly imposed a new female-only rule that all artworks on display in the room must be “of a woman or by a woman”.
