Portraits of Lord Nelson have been taken down on the Parliamentary estate after a Black Lives Matter-inspired diversity review, it has emerged.
A pair of paintings of the Trafalgar hero have been taken down since the review – which started in 2020, when the Parliamentary Art Collection was subjected to an audit for “links to slavery and racism” in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests.
One of the two axed depicts Nelson dying for his country at the Battle of Trafalgar – while a portrait of Sir Francis Drake, another naval commander was also removed.
At the same time, portraits of Labour’s top brass including Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and ex-Culture Secretary Baroness Hodge have been installed as part of a push to boost gender and ethnic diversity.
A pair of paintings of the Trafalgar hero have been taken down since the review – which started in 2020 in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests
PA
Cooper has spoken out on rejigging the collection as part of a Labour mission to “modernise” Westminster.
In 2024, she said: “Westminster is a changing place, with more women MPs, people from ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.
“It would be great to see this change increasingly represented in the artwork around the estate, providing encouragement and inspiration for future generations of politicians.”
It comes just a day after The Telegraph reported that images of Sir Winston Churchill, the Duke of Wellington and more British icons had been axed in Westminster – but a parliamentary spokesman stressed that the thousands of artworks in Parliament are moved around on a regular basis.
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Cooper has personally spoken out on ‘modernising’ Westminster’s art as part of a Labour mission
PA
“There are more than 26,000 items within Parliament’s Collections, and there are regular movements, for example due to maintenance works in an area, changes to the occupancy of offices or spaces and conservation needs,” the spokesman said.
However, drawings, photographs and prints of historical British political leaders and monarchs have been axed across Westminster since the General Election last summer.
As many as five images of Churchill have been removed from parts of the parliamentary estate occupied primarily by MPs’ offices, according to The Telegraph’s report.
As many as five images of Churchill have been removed from parts of the parliamentary estate occupied primarily by MPs’ offices
GETTY
And late last year, Rachel Reeves replaced a portrait of Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor, with a picture of one of the Communist Party of Great Britain’s founders.
Reeves was pictured at her desk under the watchful eye of CPGB co-founder Ellen Wilkinson, nicknamed “Red Ellen”.
Wilkinson had helped found the fringe party after taking inspiration from Vladimir Lenin’s bloody 1917 Russian Revolution, before later becoming a Labour MP.
Earlier in 2024, Sir Keir Starmer removed a Gordon Brown-commissioned portrait of Margaret Thatcher from Downing Street after finding the image “unsettling”, according to his biographer.