As committed Conservatives, we are concerned that the proposed statue to Lady Thatcher in her native Grantham will stir up old political debates that will overspill into rioting and violent disorder on the streets of Grantham.

The Council have announced that one of their primary reasons for the statue is to draw tourism to the area. We believe the tourism the Council speaks of will be one of violent demonstrations that will cause untold damage to the town and extensive cost to the Council in policing such demonstrations as well as boarding up and protecting the statue itself. The positive legacy the Iron Lady still enjoys today may even be threatened as old wounds from the 1980s are reopened.

Already in 2019, when the council announced the receipt of the statue as a gift from the Public Memorial Fund, 14,000 people signed up to a Facebook page registering their interest in an egg-throwing contest at the statue’s unveiling. Since then, local artist Mark Robla made a plaster bust of her head, placed it on a spike made of office chairs and displayed it on the plinth made for the Jennings sculpture. These actions almost certainly represent the first skirmishes in an all-out war against this statue, and the Thatcherite legacy, that will ensue once it is unveiled. We may even witness scenes such as those in Bristol last year, as Grantham becomes the epicentre of anti-establishment agitation and disorder.

We passionately believe the project should be abandoned and an alternative should be found with full and open consultation with the local residents of Grantham.