Iron Lady turns bronze ... Thatcher statue to take up her plinth in Parliament Square
SHE was the Iron Lady, but Margaret Thatcher has been immortalised in bronze in a new statue – and she won’t be carrying her handbag.
Instead, she will wear her Order of the Garter regalia, a first glimpse of the statue reveals.
Last year it was reported that Baroness Thatcher’s daughter Carol had objected strongly to the £300,000 statue because her mother is not carrying her trademark handbag.
Now a planning application for the 10ft statue, which would be placed on a stone plinth at the back of Parliament Square, has been lodged with Westminster City Council.
According to a planning document, the statue shows Baroness Thatcher ‘in her most dignified attire’. It says: ‘She has a resolute posture looking towards the Parliament with a stern gaze slight rightward akin to her political leanings.’
The statue of Britain’s longest serving post-war premier, who died in 2013, was commissioned by the Public Memorials Appeal and has been made by London-based sculptor Douglas Jennings.
Tom Crum, of architects Fine Architecture, which has submitted the plans, defended the work, saying that the Parliament Square statue of Churchill ‘does not have his cigar and only one of the existing statues of Lady Thatcher has a handbag’.