£100,000 To Unveil A Thatcher Statue - Yet Local Food Bank Supplies 39 Tonnes Of Food In One Year

Are you hanging up your stockings on the wall? It’s not too early for that, don’t talk nonsense. 

But we are approaching and end of the year 2020, so if you feel better for putting up your lights a bit early as some sort of token gesture of defiance against Covid-19, the government, that loser that spends their days trolling you on Twitter, or even Sir Keith Stalin, so do I. 

2020 has been an odd year. Obviously it has been a year of devastating, tragic loss. But you know what else it has been a year of? I’ll give you some clues... 

‘Patriots’.... Churchill ... you must be getting close? 

How about Bristol ... Nazi salutes ... Burberry baseball caps ... 

Correct. Statues. 2020 has involved statues way too much for my liking. 

Now most statues do serve a purpose, for every pigeon needs to have a poo, and I can understand putting up (I could’ve said erecting) a bronze sculpture to a heroic sporting figure, say Marcus Rashford, or a big lump of concrete dedicated to an ordinary human that has achieved extraordinary things. 

But political figures? Mostly not. Mandela, Attlee, Swindon, absolutely. Slave traders? Fuck no. 

 Aren’t we supposed to be civilised nowadays? 

It had all quietened down on the statue front recently, but then this came along. I had to check it wasn’t from one of those funny satirical website. I was reading through it, waiting for the jokes. But it was actually real.

£100,000 to unveil a statue of Margaret Thatcher.

Not the hideous statue itself - someone paid £300,000 for that - but £100,000 of public money, just to unveil the new local eyesore. 

The Council involved is South Kesteven District Council which is made up of 39 Conservatives, 10 Independent individuals, and just 3 Labour and Co-operative Councillors, so it’s no great shock that they would choose to spend this amount of money on a few vol-au-vants to celebrate the arrival of the bronze milk snatcher on a plinth.

The local Food bank, in Grantham, had to hand out an eye-watering 39 TONNES of emergency food supplies to hungry families in 2018. That’s thirty nine tonnes. 

There are currently three electoral wards in Grantham that exceed the national average for child poverty. St John's has an estimated 18% of children living in poverty, Harrowby is twice the national average at 22% and Earlesfield has 30%

The same local Food bank has just put out a desperate appeal for donations of items, including, tinned potatoes, toothbrushes and tinned fruit, to help them cope with the extra demand that has arrived with Covid-19 and the inevitable economical fallout. 

That £100,000 would be enough to buy every single resident of Grantham their very own toothbrush, twice over, with enough change to purchase thousands and thousands of tins of essential foods. They could even afford to throw in a few mince pies as a seasonal gesture of goodwill, but they are Tories, and they only extend goodwill to all mankind if they just so happen to donate to the Conservative Party coffers, worked for Dominic Cummings, or lived next door to Matt Hancock.

But no, this bunch of Thatcher-loving statueshaggers thought spending £100,000 of public money unveiling a statue of a callous industry-destroying ghoul at ‘best’, and an alleged protector of child abusers at worst, was a better use of funds. 

I can barely contain my absolute disgust for this council, and the leader of the council, a chap named Cllr Kelham Cooke. 

Top tip here. Whenever you come across a Tory you’ve never heard of, pop their name into a search engine, and see what comes up. More often than not you’ll find something controversial that never manages to make it past the local newspaper, but it’s useful if you want to write a blog, or do your bit for the Tory-shaming cause.

Cllr Cooke did his bit for consistent public messaging from those in power when he wrote this in the Rutland and Stanford Mercury on June 5th - 

“Social distancing is vitally important for everyone because it isn’t just about protecting ourselves from the virus, it is about protecting our friends, our families, and those who are supporting our communities... if we think about it, we will all know someone who is particularly vulnerable to Covid-19; it is our responsibility to protect them.” 

You know what’s coming, don’t you? 

The following month, Cllr Cooke, who also works for the local Conservative MP, found himself having to apologise after failing to follow his own safety advice, after a picture emerged on social media of the Cllr with his arms around his pals, ignoring social distancing guidelines. 

That’s him, second on the right, no pun intended.

So the hypocrite leads a council that thinks spending £100,000 on pulling the cloak off Pinochet’s pal, who finds herself placed upon a 10ft concrete plinth, to deter those pesky vandals, is somehow reasonable use of public money. 

The council could save everyone a fortune, and quite a few tip runs, by dumping the hideous thing in the North Sea. While most unsightly things of this nature tend to float, the weight of the statue should ensure it lives a long and happy life, keeping the fish company. 

Some of the replies to my tweet announcing the £100,000 extravagance were entirely predictable, but are still worth looking at. 

Are they thinking what you’re thinking? 

Seeing as this is a bit of a localised blog, it’s only right I leave the almost-last words to a local, his name is Ben, he’s such a lovely, kind hearted guy. I’ve known Ben a while, and he hadn’t heard about the £100,000 unveiling, so I sent the news report to him for a read, and this is what he said: 

“I cannot believe that this is what the council have chosen to spend their money on. Risky, considering I give it about three weeks before the people in this area tear the thing down and sell it for scrap, partially because no one around here likes the old crone, and partially because of the situation so many of us are in. 

Right now, I can’t afford to feed my children due to the Covid epidemic, I lost my job in catering, and it’s the same with a lot of people on my estate. The local food banks are pushed to breaking point, they are struggling to keep up with the demand placed on the area and they’re desperate for help. But this is how the fucking council is choosing to spend funds. It’s beyond belief and a lot of people are angry about this. 

Our children are hungry, our homes are cold, and we can’t afford the basic necessities to live, but they’re choosing to spend £100k on a statue of a woman that is the literal embodiment of why we are in this position.

Like I said, I give it three weeks. Tops.” 

I would imagine quite a few Grantham residents get exactly where Ben is coming from. 

Spending £100,000 on unveiling a statue of anything or anyone, let alone the most divisive figure in recent British history, while you’re local Food bank is churning out THIRTY NINE TONNES of food to desperate families, in just one year, is morally repugnant, utterly unjustifiable, and oh so very Tory. 

I give it two weeks, tops. 

Enjoy your Sunday my friends, thank you for taking the time to listen to my outrage. 

Rachael 

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