Downing Street has declined to criticise Joe Biden for removing a bust of Sir Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, despite Boris Johnson’s previous attack on Barack Obama for the same move.
The prime minister said in much-criticised comments in 2016 that Obama removing the sculpture “was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire”.
But Johnson’s official spokesman on Thursday said a similar alteration by Biden was “up to the president” after the Democrat took over the White House from Donald Trump.
The spokesman said: “The Oval Office is the president’s private office and it’s up to the president to decorate it as he wishes.
“We’re in no doubt of the importance that president Biden places on the UK and US relationship and the Prime Minister looks forward to having a close relationship with him.”
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