Ahead of Labour’s first budget in 14 years, Chancellor Rachel Reeves made a major change that has raised some eyebrows.
In photos released of Reeves the night before the Autumn Budget, many noticed a change to the décor in 11 Downing Street.
On the wall where a photo of former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, had been hanging, a newly framed photo of one of the founding members of the Communist Party of Great Britain has been installed.
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The snap of Ellen Wilkinson hanging behind Reeves has sparked messages of outcry and support for the Chancellor.
Compared to a photo of Jeremy Hunt taken a year ago at the exact same location, the difference is noticeable.
Former Chancellor Lawson had worked under Margaret Thatcher between 1983 to 1989.
Who is Ellen Wilkinson?
Nicknamed the ‘Fiery Particle’ due to her bright red hair, Wilkinson was a women’s suffrage organiser in the early 1900s before becoming a Labour MP.
She was later called ‘Red Ellen’ after co-founding the British Communist Party in 1920, but also notably fought to provide free meals to poor children and grants to military veterans.
Wilkinson briefly lost her seat in parliament in the 1930s, before being re-elected and serving in Churchill’s wartime cabinet.
After World War Two, she served briefly as Minister of Education under newly-minted Prime Minister Clement Attlee.
She sadly died after overdosing accidentally on medication to treat her bronchial disease.
Before Labour won the election in July, Reeves named three different women she would look up to if she became the first female chancellor – and Wilkinson was one of them.
Reeves also cited Barbara Castle, secretary of state for employment and productivity in Harold Wilson’s Labour government, as an inspiration.
She also admires Harriet Harman, Britain’s longest-serving MP before she stood down from her position earlier this year.
Why has Reeves replaced the photograph?
After being named as Chancellor, Reeves said she would replace paintings in Number 11 Downing Street with art created by women.
In September, she told a reception of female business leaders: ‘Every picture in this room is either going to be of a woman or by a woman – and we’re also going to have a statue in this room of Millicent Fawcett, who did so much for the rights of women.’
Reeves is not alone in her desire for change – in August, Keir Starmer received backlash after he removed an ‘unsettling’ portrait of Margaret Thatcher from Downing Street.
The portrait was commissioned by former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown while he was in office in 2009 and depicts the late Iron Lady just after the Falklands War in 1982.
Claims Sir Keir has had it removed were made by his biographer Tom Baldwin, who was also an advisor to David Miliband when he was Labour leader
The painting hung in a study unofficially called the ‘Thatcher Room’, which the Labour leader doesn’t use as his own study.
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