How Keir Starmer is bringing winds of change to Number 10 – Toby Neal
As he settles in to his new Downing Street surroundings, Sir Keir Starmer has some pressing decisions to make.
He feels he has been given the reins of office with a mandate to change the landscape, and he has made a good start on that.
Down has come that portrait of Margaret Thatcher. Because, indeed, Sir Keir prefers landscapes.
But the winds of change have only just started to blow.
Sir Keir, a toolmaker's son – his spin doctors advise him to phrase it like that, never to say that his dad made tools, although Keir still doesn't fully understand why – has always felt at a disadvantage, being one of the working classes and that.
He has had to strive to be the best-dressed Prime Minister since posh rich kid Rishi Sunak, and that has proven to be a tall order as Rishi's wife had all the advantages of being a non-dom millionaire until Keir fixed that little game. And it was only fair that Victoria should have had a little financial help in the designer dress stakes as she needs to look her best for her rare appearances.
Downing Street is not just a working place, it is a new home, and it is the right of any homeowner to make it homely, an environment in accord with their own tastes.
So here is the problem. It's the curtains and wallpaper. They will surely offend and upset Sir Keir. They are emblematic of a government “mired in sleaze, cronyism and scandal,” in the bad old days of "Major Sleaze," something up with which he cannot put.
