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Brown: I want Lady Thatcher portrait to hang in No 10
Last updated at 23:22pm on 15.09.07The row surrounding Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street meeting with Gordon Brown has intensified after it was revealed she has accepted his offer to commission a painting of her and for it to go on permanent display in No10.
The latest evidence of the extraordinary harmony between the two is likely to cause further controversy on both the Labour and Tory benches.
A bitter rift is said to exist between Lady Thatcher and David Cameron.
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WELCOME: Lady T and Mr Brown outside No 10 last week
Conservative sources claimed she had no qualms about having tea with Mr Brown partly because the Tory leader has repeatedly shunned her in the past.
The Mail on Sunday has learned that Lady Thatcher's most senior adviser, Mark Worthington, who was present at her meeting with Mr Brown, spoke out at a recent dinner attended by the former Prime Minister and senior Tories.
Mr Worthington said: "Gordon Brown wrote a charming letter inviting her for tea soon after he became PM, but David Cameron has not once asked to see her since he became Party leader."
The sources said that Mr Cameron had "added insult to injury" by asking Lady Thatcher to invite him to tea, so that he would not be seen to be taking the initiative.
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The PM is cementing his friendship with Thatcher after their tea meeting last week
"His office had the temerity to ask if she would like to ask for a meeting with him – so it would look as though it was all her doing," said a senior Conservative.
"Michael Howard often asked to see Lady Thatcher. She has only met Cameron when they happened to bump into each other at events."
Lady Thatcher was said to be "delighted and honoured" to accept Mr Brown's offer of an official portrait.
The invitation, made during their afternoon tea on Thursday, will cement her place in the pantheon of great Prime Ministers.
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Thatcher with Brown and wife Sarah
Although photographs of all modern Prime Ministers line the main staircase in No10, only two 20th Century premiers have paintings on display: David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, who respectively led Britain in the two World Wars.
Lord Bell, Lady Thatcher's close friend and former adviser, said: "It is a very nice gesture by the Prime Minister and a wholly appropriate one.
"It is totally proper and no different from the recent unveiling of a bronze bust of her in the Commons.
"They have considerable respect for each other and a perfectly good personal relationship."
One of Lady Thatcher's favourite artists, Richard Stone, who has painted the Queen, the Queen Mother and Nancy Reagan, as well as Labour Prime Ministers Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, is expected to be commissioned to work on Lady Thatcher's portrait.
Mr Stone, 56, who is working on his fourth painting of Lady Thatcher, is one of Britain's leading portrait artists.
The son of a postman, he suffered severe illness as a child and was turned away by art schools.
But by the age of 22, he had become the youngest Royal portrait artist for more than 200 years.
Mr Stone recently completed a giant portrait of 22-stone gorilla Koko, which has gained celebrity status in America since being trained by scientists to "talk".
Ironically, while Mr Brown is eager to have a painting of Mrs Thatcher in No10, Mr Blair is still to take his place at the top of the photographic line-up of PMs in the staircase.
Cherie Blair is said to be agonising over which photograph of her husband to select for posterity.
