The government will make it a crime to climb on Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square, it will be announced today. Offenders could face up to three months in prison and a £1,000 fine for desecrating the monument to Britain’s wartime leader.The Churchill statue is not officially classified as one of the UK’s war memorials, but Home Secretary Yvette Cooper plans to add it to the list of statues and monuments which it will soon become a criminal offence to climb.These will include the Cenotaph in Whitehall, the Royal Artillery Memorial in Hyde Park, and many other famous structures across Britain commemorating the service of the armed forces in the First and Second World Wars.The new law is contained in the flagship Crime and Policing Bill currently progressing through Parliament. Announcing Churchill’s addition to the list of protected memorials, Cooper said: “As the country comes together to celebrate VE Day, it is only right that we ensure Winston Churchill’s statue is treated with the respect it deserves, along with the other sacred war memorials around our country.”Churchill was said to have personally picked the spot where he wanted his statue to stand when approving plans for the redevelopment of Parliament Square in the 1950s.The bronze, 12-foot statue of the former prime minister was unveiled in Westminster Square in November 1973 by his widow Clementine, eight years after her husband’s death. Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother were in attendance …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnThe government will make it a crime to climb on Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square, it will be announced today. Offenders could face up to three months in prison and a £1,000 fine for desecrating the monument to Britain’s wartime leader.The Churchill statue is not officially classified as one of the UK’s war memorials, but Home Secretary Yvette Cooper plans to add it to the list of statues and monuments which it will soon become a criminal offence to climb.These will include the Cenotaph in Whitehall, the Royal Artillery Memorial in Hyde Park, and many other famous structures across Britain commemorating the service of the armed forces in the First and Second World Wars.The new law is contained in the flagship Crime and Policing Bill currently progressing through Parliament. Announcing Churchill’s addition to the list of protected memorials, Cooper said: “As the country comes together to celebrate VE Day, it is only right that we ensure Winston Churchill’s statue is treated with the respect it deserves, along with the other sacred war memorials around our country.”Churchill was said to have personally picked the spot where he wanted his statue to stand when approving plans for the redevelopment of Parliament Square in the 1950s.The bronze, 12-foot statue of the former prime minister was unveiled in Westminster Square in November 1973 by his widow Clementine, eight years after her husband’s death. Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother were in attendance …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
