Iron Lady’s egg on face

Grantham – A new statue of Britain’s late former prime minister Margaret Thatcher was fenced off yesterday following an egg-throwing protest shortly after it was installed in her hometown.

The Conservative prime minister, known as the Iron Lady, led the country from 1979 to 1990 and was the first British female premier.

Due to her policies of privatisation, breaking the power of trade unions and selling off public housing, she continues to deeply divide opinion, nearly a decade after her death in 2013.

The statue was funded through donations raised by a British historical charity and cost £300 000 (about R5.9 million).

It was originally destined for London but the authorities there rejected a proposed site in a square opposite parliament, over concerns about “potential vandalism and civil disorder”.

The small town where Thatcher grew up, Grantham in Lincolnshire in central England, agreed to take the statue instead. –