Sylvia Pankhurst [Wikimedia Commons]

• AN excellent suggestion from Andrew Wilson that the grounds of the former Holloway Prison for Women would be a more suitable location for a memorial to Sylvia Pankhurst than historic Clerkenwell Green with which the suffragette had no known connection, (The former prison site would be appropriate, February 17).

It’s interesting to note, therefore, that in response to a query about the site, a spokeswoman for Islington’s CEO writes: “I have spoken with Peabody about the potential siting of the statue next to the planned Women’s Building on the Holloway Prison site. However, I understand that the promoters of the statue prefer to locate the statue at Clerkenwell Green.

“A planning application for the erection of the statue is required. This would go through the normal statutory process of consultation with local people and other interested parties before a decision is made”.

Who might those “other interested parties” be?

Conceived without local consultation and rejected by residents and businesses at a public meeting in 2017 – officially recorded by the council in its 2018 report – the proposed bronze edifice seems, sadly, to have become little more than a vanity project for a group of Labour Party members and their sympathisers.

Their first attempt to erect the statue in Westminster having failed, they’re relentless in trying to impose their will on Clerkenwell, the Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee shamelessly announcing almost exactly one year ago that “the statue is cast and waiting to be patinated” – March 23 2022: https://sylviapankhurst.gn.apc.org/

Alas for the committee, this statement appears to have been nothing more than a stunt, as a further £50,000 to “cover the costs of casting the statue in bronze and preparing the plinth” is now being sought – February 2023: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/sylviastatue.

This is on top of the £13k of public monies,£10k from the City of London Corporation, £3k from Islington Council under then-leader Richard Watts – https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/why-spend-3k-on-silly-idea-of-sylvia-pankhurst-statue-on-clerkenwell-green – December 8 2017.

The “crowdfunding” scheme seeking the extra £50k was set up five years ago. It has currently reached 7 per cent of its target…

The Marx Memorial Library, where a maquette of the statue can be seen, is backing its inappropriate siting on the green.

What would Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) have made of this?

Ms Pankhurst’s lived Islington experience was as a prison inmate, a price she knowingly paid for her courageous fight for female suffrage.

While women now have the vote, thanks to her and her fellow campaigners, the system under which we express our political preference has long been degraded under the United Kingdom’s outdated, anti-democratic first-past-the-post, FPTP, electoral regime.

Uppermost in Sylvia Pankhurst’s struggle today would surely be reform of the FPTP system, which disadvantages the entire electorate, men as well as women.

Delegates to last year’s Labour Party conference, including Islington South MP Emily Thornberry’s own constituency party, overwhelmingly backed a motion calling for proportional representation, PR, to replace the FPTP nonsense.

Ms Thornberry opposes PR but backs the unwanted statue on Clerkenwell Green… A general election is, of course, coming.

Mr Wilson’s letter is timely.

The council began construction works for the Clerkenwell Friendly Streets project on February 6, with a red dot on the official literature, the CEO’s spox explaining: “The current plans for the public realm at Clerkenwell Green indicate the proposed location of the statue should planning permission be granted”.

The cart can be heard rumbling across the still-extant cobblestones of the green as, the spox continues: “I would stress that no planning application has been submitted. However, we are talking to the promoters of the statue about their plans to submit an application”.

Once again, who might those interested parties be?

Representative democracy, eh! A curious business…

MEG HOWARTH, N7