Former UK PM Margaret Thatcher statue targeted in UK for third time; smeared 'Tories out'

A popular statue of Margaret Thatcher located in the hometown of the former UK PM was vandalised for the third time this year on Saturday, BBC reported.

The bronze sculpture, which costs a whopping £300,000, is situated in St Peter's Hill in Grantham, Lincolnshire. Despite the structure being constantly under CCTV surveillance, it became the target of vandalists, who smeared "Tories out" on it. The phrase was spray-painted yellow in capital letters. The Lincolnshire Police labelled the act as criminal damage, Metro reported.

“Incident 117 of 22 October is a report of criminal damage to the Margaret Thatcher statue on St Peter’s Hill, Grantham. This was reported just after 8 am,” a police spokesperson said. Several locals reacted to the vandalism after pictures of the graffiti surfaced on social media. The incident comes as the United Kingdom undergoes a period of instability and political uncertainty after the resignation of Liz Truss from the post of Prime Minister.

However, this isn’t the first time that the statue has been subject to defacement. Earlier in May, the sculpture was egged by Jeremy Webster, a 59-year-old arts chief of the University of Leicester. Webster was fined £90 for the act after Lincolnshire Police said it had issued a fixed penalty notice under Section 5 of the Public Order Act. The University of Leicester, where Webster works, said that it "does not condone defacement".

Who is Margaret Thatcher?

The statue, which stands atop a 10 feet high pedestal, pays homage to Margaret Thatcher, who served as the Prime Minister of the UK from 1979 to 1990 and led the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. Hatcher made history by becoming the UK’s first female premier and the British PM with the longest tenure in the 20th century. 

She was born on October 13, 1925, in Grantham, to Alfred Roberts and Beatrice Ethel Stephenson. She began her political career in the 1950 and 1951 general elections by contesting as the Conservative candidate for the Labour seat of the English town of Dartford. She gradually climbed up the rungs of the political ladder to become the leader of the Conservative Party and the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Thatcher passed away on April 8, 2013, at the age of 87.