A maquette of how the new statue of Sylvia Pankhurst would look

• EMILY Thornberry MP is at it again, backing a statue of Sylvia Pankhurst on Clerkenwell Green almost five years to the day after she publicly expressed her support in the national press for this top-down project, (What would Sylvia have wanted? January 27).

Sylvia Pankhurst’s London links were with Bow, in Tower Hamlets – where she did most of her campaigning – and Woodford Green, where she lived for more than 30 years (and where Clement Attlee had a home from 1945 to 1951).

A statue in either of these areas, or in Tavistock Square Peace Garden to reflect this courageous woman’s opposition to World War I, would be more appropriate than one in Ms Thornberry’s constituency.

One speech in a local pub, or a meeting in Farringdon Road, however important at the time, are hardly grounds for imposing this unwanted item on Clerkenwell.

Conceived without local consultation, and rejected by local residents and businesses from the off, what would Sylvia have made of such undemocratic shenanigans?

Instead of the ideological tail wagging the historic dog, we could do worse than heed the Islington South and Finsbury MP’s own words: “The debt we owe them [Sylvia Pankhurst and Emily Davison] can be repaid only by fighting as ferociously and relentlessly as they did against the injustices and ignorance that women in Britain still face today”, (We owe it to the suffragettes to keep campaigning for women, February 2018).

So what might those be? Uppermost in the suffragettes’ struggle today would surely be reform of our outdated, undemocratic “first-past-the-post electoral system”, which disadvantages both men and women.

Delegates to last year’s Labour Party conference overwhelmingly backed a motion calling on the party to back proportional representation. Ms Thornberry’s own constituency party was among them.

Alas, the vote is not binding on the leadership, and while Sir Keir Starmer has previously expressed some interest in voting reform, his leadership team has made it clear they will ignore the motion.

So where does Ms Thornberry stand? Long an opponent of proportional representation, on the spurious grounds that it would break “the constituency link” between elected member and voters, has she changed her mind? Does she now support a fairer voting system?

Strengthening democracy – always a work in progress – by bringing into the 21st century, would surely be a better memorial to Sylvia Pankhurst than a bronze edifice.

MEG HOWARTH
Ellington Street, N7