Rishi Sunak has finally released a photo showing Boris Johnson and Liz Truss’s new portraits on the famous Downing Street staircase.
The tradition, dating back many decades, sees former No. 10 occupants have their portrait installed at the top of the staircase, with their predecessors all shifted down by one.
In December, news emerged that Rishi Sunak was finally getting around to installing Boris Johnson and Liz Truss’s portraits, 13 months and 12 months respectively since their resignations.
The Express has now spotted proof of their erection for the first time, hidden behind a group of school children posing with Mr Sunak’s wife, Akshata.
Quietly published on the Government’s Flickr account, Mr Johnson’s black and white photo is clearly visible, while Ms Truss gets relegated to the armpit of a Commando Chef.
The schoolchildren were in Downing Street with the chef, Mike Beaton, to promote cooking and healthy eating.
The first sighing of the important historic artefacts stands in stark contrast to the respect paid by Boris Johnson to his predecessor, Theresa May.
When Mrs May’s portrait was installed at the top of the staircase in 2020, Mr Johnson’s Downing Street released a series of four bespoke photographs, both of its installation and its final product, despite personal differences between the two.
When one journalist revealed the portraits were being installed in December, social media lit up with jokes, including one X/Twitter user who quipped: “They’ll have to add a new floor to fit in all the ones from just this election cycle alone.”
Another added: “When does the lettuce get its portrait done?”
A third joked: “Liz Truss’s Polaroid took longer to develop than her tenure as PM.”
Art historian Simon Schama once said in a documentary on Downing Street: “Where you might have in other great houses of state, even in the White House, huge portraits, larger than life-size, here [in the UK] we have modest engravings and photographs of the ghosts of Downing Street.”
