What to know about ‘Red Ellen’, the radical MP whose portrait is now hanging at 11 Downing Street

By Matt Perry, Professor in Labour History, Newcastle University

Before announcing changes to Britain’s tax system in her first budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves redecorated her own digs. The headline change was swapping a portrait of Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s chancellor, with one of Ellen Wilkinson – a trailblazing politician known as “Red Ellen”.

Wilkinson was one of British politics’ most intriguing and complex politicians, and most remarkable campaigners against injustice.

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