Maggie statue blocked amid fears vandals will target it

PLANS for a statue of Margaret Thatcher outside the Commons have been blocked amid fears it could be vandalised.

Campaigners had hoped to install a ten-foot bronze of Britain’s first woman prime minister in Parliament Square.

But a formal objection has been lodged by the Royal Parks quango, which owns the land on which it would have stood.

Officials said they would not back the proposal because the £300,000 statue has not received the support of Baroness Thatcher’s family.

It also emerged last night that a residents’ association has objected on the grounds that the former Tory leader was ‘controversial enough to risk vandalism’.

The Iron Lady is still a hate figure for the hard-Left some 27 years after she left Downing Street.

Activists even threatened to disrupt her funeral after her death in 2013.

In 2002, a £150,000 marble statue of Lady Thatcher was decapitated at an art gallery in central London.

Last night, Tory MPs said it was ‘appalling’ Britain could not commemorate its first female prime minister.

Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘Blocking it for fear of vandals is the lily-livered approach that Lady Thatcher most disdained.’

However, Baroness Thatcher’s daughter Carol has expressed unhappiness with the proposed design, pictured, complaining it did not include her handbag.

The statue is the brainchild of the Public Memorials Appeal charity, which submitted an application to Westminster City Council.

It depicts Britain’s first female PM in ‘a resolute posture looking towards Parliament’, their submission claims.

But council papers reveal an objection has been lodged by Royal Parks, which owns the land proposed for the figure.

There are also fears within Whitehall that Left-wing mobs will repeatedly target the statue and try to damage it.

Local residents’ association the Thorney Island Society also objected to the plans on the grounds of vandalism.