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For a small town in Lincolnshire, which Margaret Thatcher once called home, it has been as divisive an issue as Brexit: Should Grantham erect a statue in commemoration of the UK’s first female prime minister?
It’s a simple enough question, but the process of erecting a statue of the Iron Lady, created by sculptor Douglas Jennings, has been a long, painstaking, and arduous process. The statue was rejected by the Westminster council in central London in 2018 because councilors feared it would be a magnet for vandalism and protests.
It was then offered to his hometown of Grantham and, after vigorous debate by the planning committee, it was approved in 2018. Some hoped that would be the end, but the statue remained in storage.
The council’s controversial decision to fund a £ 100,000 unveiling ceremony on Tuesday reignited debate over whether the statue should be erected. The vote, amid a global pandemic that has caused the deepest recession in a generation, has come under fire.
Lee Steptoe, president of Grantham Labor, said: “We find that in the midst of a pandemic, when the public coffers both nationally and locally are emptying very quickly, their sense of priorities is absolutely perverse.”
He added: “She was arguably the most divisive prime minister this country has ever had and this is an incredibly divisive decision by local conservatives.”
For Amanda Schonhut, director of fundraising for the Grantham Museum, which is run by the Grantham Community Heritage Association (GCHA), she had been pushing for the statue to be placed on a green midway between two existing statues, one of the 19th century MP Frederick James Tollemache and another from Sir Isaac Newton, this is an important step forward.
“It has been a long and hard road. There have been some bumps and bumps along the way, ”Schonhut said. “It’s good to see things finally materialize.”
She wanted to emphasize that the cost of the inauguration would come from private donations, but accepts that the problem will continue to divide the city. “It was a bit like a mini Brexit,” he said. She hopes it will attract visitors to the museum and the local area.
Labor has called for the statue to be displayed inside the museum.
Adam Burgess, who lives in Stamford, said he was embarrassed by the announcement that the council would fund the opening. “In the area that we live in, we are seeing a lot of homeless people, we are seeing the emergence of food banks everywhere.”
Burgess added that given Thatcher’s controversial legacy, it was a “poorly judged decision” to go ahead with the statue. “There have to be better ways to spend that money. Erecting a statue of someone who was so divisive and caused a lot of pain to the working class seemed like a pretty bad decision, to be honest. “
Ralph Harrison, a retired civil servant living in Grantham, disagreed and was glad that the statue is placed and will soon be unveiled. “It is a relatively small city that has produced someone who is known on the world stage and will be in the history books.
“I appreciate that there are many different opinions about Margaret Thatcher, she is a very controversial figure, but it is a matter of achievement. She accomplished something by becoming the first female prime minister. “
Independent Councilwoman Ashley Baxter said there have been two notable changes since the council gave permission for the statue to be erected. “The first significant change is that we are now told that there is a risk that we will have to pay the cost of the presentation event. And the second thing is all the controversy about the statue leading to Black Lives Matter and the Edward Coulson statue incident in Bristol and statues around the world. People are much more questioning the merit of having statues of divisive figures. “
He added: “I think we really need to think carefully before we go ahead with this, in terms of surveillance, in terms of security, in terms of the reputation of the city, there are questions to be asked.”
