Handbagged! Thatcher statue is vetoed
IT was an icon of its era: a weapon Britain’s first woman Prime Minister wielded against opponents and unfortunate ministers alike.
Margaret Thatcher’s handbag was such a symbol of her single-minded determination that the verb ‘to handbag’ even entered the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.
Now a new statue of Lady Thatcher – commissioned at huge cost to stand outside Parliament – has been mothballed… because the sculptor has failed to include the late premier’s legendary accessory.
Margaret Thatcher’s daughter Carol has blocked plans to site the sculpture of her mother alongside statues of such famous figures as Churchill and Lloyd George because the Iron Lady isn’t carrying a handbag.
The 10ft bronze was completed last year but has been left collecting dust in a secret storage facility. The statue was proposed shortly after Baroness Thatcher’s death in 2013, when London Mayor Boris Johnson suggested a public subscription to place a statue in London’s Parliament Square.
An appeal raised £300,000 to fund the work and its future maintenance but the project hit problems. Once she was aware of the design, Carol Thatcher fired off a scathing letter detailing what she perceived to be the statue’s faults – namely, its lack of a handbag. And Mr Johnson insists he won’t approve a planning application for the statue without the Thatcher family’s full approval.
Embarrassed organisers are refusing to reveal the name of the sculptor responsible for the blunder. But Ivan Saxton, co-founder of the Public Memorials Appeal Trust, which raised the funds for the statue, said he would fight tooth and nail to get the statue erected, adding: ‘The statue will go up – there’s no doubt about that.’