Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been branded “weak and insecure” after he took down a portrait of Margaret Thatcher in Number 10 Downing Street.

The Labour leader’s biographer, Tom Baldwin, has said that the Prime Minister removed the portrait because he found it “unsettling.”

Art critic Estelle Lovatt has hit out at Mr Starmer, telling BBC Radio 2: “This story is really quite bizarre, and on the one hand it shows that Starmer is weak and insecure in himself.

Starmer took down the portrait of Thatcher (Image: Getty/Downing Street)

“The painting hangs above a fireplace, so it is up high. Traditionally in the world of art…if there was something perhaps a little indiscreet like a naked body in a painting, it would be hung up high so that the men wouldn’t be able to glance at it.”

This comes after a number of Conservatives also criticised Mr Starmer.

Thatcher posing next to the portrait back in 2009 (Image: EPA)

The Conservative Party wrote on X on Thursday: “Tell me you’ve got a problem with women without telling me you’ve got a problem with women.”

Baroness Foster, the former first minister of Northern Ireland, also posted on X: “I think it is ‘unsettling’ that the PM should remove the first female PM from No 10. He cannot deny her role in our nation as the most significant PM after Churchill. Not a good start from Labour, looks and feels vindictive and petty.”

Former Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the Prime Minister’s decision was “petty-minded.”

Former Home Secretary Priti Patel added: “On Keir Starmer, where shall we start? 56 days in office and he seems to be spending more time removing portraits of great, strong, Conservative female leaders rather than getting on and doing the strong job of governance.

“I think it tells us everything really about his priorities. His priorities are not on serving the country.

“His priorities are literally just about tinkering at the margins, hiding behind great portraits of great Conservative female prime minister. That is why we need to get him out of office.”

Mr Starmer has removed the portrait despite heaping praise on Ms Thatcher back in December.

In a column for the Telegraph, the Prime Minister praised her for “setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism”.