Should Thatcher fall?

It didn’t take long for the first egg to hit. Just a few hours after Margaret Thatcher’s statue was delicately placed on its ten-foot plinth in her hometown of Grantham, it was subject to the first of what is likely to be many attacks. This egging – carried out by a middle-aged protester – was hardly a surprise. The statue was once set to be placed outside Parliament, but this plan was kiboshed by Westminster Council amidst fears it could attract ‘civil disobedience and vandalism’.

Presumably it was hoped that by being plonked in the unassuming, out-of the way Lincolnshire town the statue would avoid such lèse-majesté. The leader of the local Tory South Kesteven District Council appears to have thought as much. Kelham Cooke said Thatcher’s statue ‘will be a talking point for generations to come’ and provoke the kind of debate about her legacy that does not involve eggs. His was always a vain hope.