Sir Keir Starmer has taken down photos of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh in Downing Street,it has been revealed.
The Prime Minister was criticised by some shortly after successful the final election when it was found that he had changed an image of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from his Downing Street workplace.
The portrait of the Tudor monarch and certainly one of her best-known explorers had been on present in a room used for prime ministerial conferences with world leaders.
Downing Street has insisted that the plans for the change of art work had been set in movement by the earlier authorities.
A spokesperson stated: “The change of artwork is long planned, since before the election, and is timed to mark 125 years of the Government Art Collection.”
The new art work was on present final week because the Prime Minister met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The portraits have since been changed with scenes from Crivelli’s Garden, a mural by Dame Paula Rego, the late Portuguese-born artist, whose work focuses on “strong and courageous women”.
The historic notion of Raleigh and Elizabeth I has been re-examined in recent times, with questions and criticism arising over their function within the institution of the transatlantic slave commerce.
Elizabeth I used to be an investor in slavery enterprises and gave permission for adventurers to fly her flag aboard their ships.
Raleigh was one of many earliest explorers and colonisers following the “discovery” of the Americas.
His early makes an attempt to ascertain settlements led to failure after relations with native-Americans turned bitter.
Raleigh was finally executed by Queen Elizabeth’s cousin King James I on the Tower of London in 1618 after ransacking a Spanish outpost in contradiction of a treaty.
‘Crivelli’s Garden’, the brand new portray adorning Downing Street’s assembly room took its inspiration from an altarpiece by the Fifteenth-century Italian artist Carlo Crivelli in response to the National Gallery.
It stated: “‘La Madonna della Rondine (The Madonna of the Swallow)’ tells the story of women from biblical history and folklore based on paintings in the collection and stories from the Golden Legend.
“Figures including the Virgin Mary, Saint Catherine, Mary Magdalene and Delilah find themselves in the maze of Crivelli’s re-imagined garden surrounded by Portuguese blue and white tiled walls.”
Robert Jenrick, who this week made it to the ultimate spherical of the Conservative management election stated: “Elizabeth I was one of our most iconic female leaders. She’s a hero I love to talk to my daughters about.
“Stripping her portrait from Downing Street – alongside Walter Raleigh’s – seems to betray a strange dislike of our history by this Labour Government.
Following his removal of Thatcher’s portrait, Starmer defended the decision insisting that he does not like working beneath portraits that appear to be staring down at him.
He told the BBC: “I use the study for quietly reading most afternoons… This is not actually about Margaret Thatcher at all.
“I don’t like images and pictures of people staring down on me. I’ve found it all my life.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1961511/keir-starmer-removes-tudor-monarch-portrait-no-10