The removal of portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh from 10 Downing Street, where Prime Minister Starmer now lives, is an outrageous cashiering of two of England’s glories that bodes poorly for the Sceptered Isle’s present. A Starmer spokesman protests that “the change of artwork is long planned, since before the election.” Maybe, though we imagine the man who holds the office of Churchill could have weighed in on the decor.

Banishment of Elizabeth and Raleigh from a room devoted to meetings with foreign leaders points to Labour’s leftward list under Sir Keir. He could learn much from these two savants of statecraft to whom is owed much of England’s glory. Sir Keir has already engineered the removal of portraits of Thatcher and Gladstone from Downing Street. Elizabeth and Raleigh are replaced by scenes meant to highlight “strong and courageous women.”

One could hardly think of a stronger or more courageous woman than the daughter of King Henry VIII. Consider her Tilbury address, directed to her troops in 1588. “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman,” Her Majesty declared, “but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.”

Call it Brexit avant la lettre.

“I myself will take up arms,” the Queen vowed. “I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.” Contrast that spirit with the pusillanimity that has characterized Labour’s return. The country that handed up Lord Balfour’s declaration now suspends sales of matériel to Israel and can’t find the Elizabethan spine to defend Prime Minister Netanyahu from the International Criminal Court.

Raleigh was no slouch, either. He was knighted by Elizabeth, who granted him a royal patent to explore Virginia, named after the virgin queen. He was a poet, a scourge of the Irish, and a seeker of El Dorado. The Queen’s favor was withdrawn when he wed one of her ladies-in-waiting, earning a trip to the Tower. He recovered, but his luck ran out when the monarch died after 45 years on the throne. Her cousin, James I, had him executed. 

A contender for Tory leadership, Robert Jenrick, has no patience for the redecoration. “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,” he says. Elizabeth’s likeness, known as the Ditchley Portrait, was painted in 1592 by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger.

The scenes from the mural “Crivelli’s Garden” that replaced Elizabeth and Raleigh are by a Portuguese artist, Paula Rego. It is no disrespect to Rego to blanch at the substitution. Elizabeth’s words at Tilbury in 1588 inspired the troops as the Spanish armada neared. If not for her victory over the invading fleet, Español would be London’s language. Under the Iberian Union, which held at the time, King Philip II of Spain — Elizabeth’s foe — also ruled Portugal.

When Sir Keir put away Thatcher from his study, the new premier opined that he didn’t like “pictures of people staring down at me” and that he didn’t want in his quarters “a picture of anyone.” He allowed that he “might tolerate” a picture of footballer Thierry Henry. So far, Sir Keir’s only goals have been his own. Elizabeth, Raleigh, Thatcher — they’d all have a thing or three to teach about the importance of things larger than oneself.