We must have a monument to Maggie!
From a leading left of centre feminist MP, an unlikely clarion call... ... and even Sturgeon deserves her own statue
PARLIAMENT, in common with our town halls, city centres and public spaces, is packed with memorials to men. Eleven monuments of men loom large around Parliament Square – there’s not a single woman. Thanks to public campaigns such as Plinths For Women, a statue of suffragist Millicent Fawcett will rightly be unveiled there in April.
So it was disappointing to see Westminster Council last month turn down an application for a statue of Margaret Thatcher in Parliament Square.
Apparently, one of the reasons given for refusal was the state robes Thatcher would have been wearing. Even in death, it seems there are no limits to how society judges women by how they look and what they wear.
Some might be surprised by my support for a Thatcher statue, as a Liberal Democrat MP from Scotland. I grew up in the west of Scotland during the 1980s. Local steelmaking and coalmining industries were hit hard by Thatcher’s policies. Her disastrous decision to use Scotland as a guinea pig for the implementation of the Poll Tax is lodged firmly in my memory.
But on some issues she was right. Thatcher showed impressive skills negotiating the UK rebate with our European neighbours.
Her bold decisions to take us into the Single Market, and recognise the threat of global warming, showed she had long-term vision about our country’s future.
She was our first female Prime Minister and the longest-serving Premier of the 20th Century. Thatcher gave her name to a distinct ideology which changed the course of the country, even if I now spend much time trying to find policy solutions to change the unethical corporate behaviour that Thatcherism unleashed.
But if we want gender equality, we have to fight for space for women we vigorously disagree with, as well as those we support.
As a passionate advocate of Scotland’s place within the United Kingdom, I strongly oppose the attempts of Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP to tear our country apart.
Yet like Mrs Thatcher, there is no denying Ms Sturgeon’s significance as a political figure. As the first woman to lead Scotland as First Minister, in due course she should also be recognised with a statue.
And while I am no fan of Mrs Thatcher, I thank her for one thing. Growing up, it never crossed my mind to doubt that a woman could be Prime Minister.
That achievement alone – for my generation – is more than signifi- cant enough to warrant a prominent statue in our public realm. There’s no doubt some of the vitriol directed at her also carries a whiff of misogyny. The sexist, gendered insults; the way some people reacted to her death in 2013, with gleeful, tasteless celebration, is unlike anything I recall upon the death of any male politician. Even the whole statue debate is pretty sexist – since when did we only erect statues of men with whom everyone agreed? Some argue Mrs Thatcher did not do much to advance the cause of women. Looking at her Government appointments and pursuit of policies which hurt the poor – disproportionately women – this is fair criticism. But consider the path the young Margaret trod – the snobbery she must have faced as a grocer’s daughter, the ingrained sexism she had to battle in 1950s Tory associations even to become a candidate, let alone an MP. Becoming a party leader as a woman in the 1970s was a remarkable achievement – and even more so to do it in the Conservative Party. Mrs Thatcher created space for other women to follow. If it wasn’t for her, we might still be waiting for our first woman Prime Minister. So to councils and public institutions I say this: celebrate the centenary of women’s suffrage by making women visible, including those whose achievements are controversial. Just as we need to see more women in public life, we need to see more in public spaces.