IT might seem odd that Jo Swinson, a politician elected to represent the people of East Dunbartonshire is troubled by the absence of a statue of a woman from Lincolnshire from an exclusive scrap of land in London. In an article in the Mail on Sunday the Liberal Democrat MP expressed her support for a statue of Baroness Thatcher to be erected in Parliament Square.

This is not the first time Swinson has represented the people of East Dunbartonshire. She had previously been unseated by the SNP’s John Nicolson before winning it back last year. During that campaign she often accused Nicolson of not doing enough for his constituents. And so I look forward to hearing her on the stump next time around when the inevitable question arises about her sudden keen interest in stone idolatry.

Swinson is also deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, having attained such a lofty position only after her prolonged and very sincere protestations that she didn’t want the job. In the end though, her duty to her party and to the ideal of democracy came first and so she humbly allowed herself to be chosen.

The unpredictable nature of the job of leader of the Liberal Democrats means of course that the deputy is never more than a private indiscretion away from the top job. Only a cynic would conclude that Swinson’s desire to see a statue of Baroness Thatcher at Westminster is perhaps concomitant with her political ambitions. After all, there remain a significant number of Liberal Democrats in the English shires whose main doctrinal difference from local Tories is in the chosen design of their cupcakes at local party fundraisers.

Swinson insists that she has lately become a devotee of a stone effigy of the Iron Lady owing to the absence of any female representations among the 12 statues that currently adorn Parliament Square. I’m sure she is sincere in this undertaking. Ms Swinson, representing a constituency that lies within the old Greater Glasgow boundary will also know that there are only four statues of women among the many sculptures that adorn this city’s public spaces.

To mark International Women’s Day tomorrow a fifth one will take its place. This will be of Mary Barbour, the remarkable woman who led the Rent Strike against exploitative Glasgow landlords in 1915. I hope there will now be many more. Indeed, lest Swinson be accused of a peculiar form of nimbyism in her support for a Thatcher statue in London I now call on her to back my fledgling campaign to erect a statue of the wretched old Baroness somewhere in Scotland.

Here are a few exploratory ideas she might want to consider for a Thatcher monument in Scotland. These would acknowledge aspects of her intense relationship with the people of this country during her time in office and beyond.

1 For this one I’ve chosen a location in Polkemmet, West Lothian. Here was where thousands of Strathclyde’s finest in 1984-85 heroically took on unarmed striking miners on horseback with nothing but batons to protect them from the ire of these ungrateful workers. The national miner’s strike was waged by Thatcher deploying the full fighting apparatus of the British state to liberate Britain from the grip of the trade unions. Only then could her vision of a Britain populated by corporate millionaires untroubled by piffling workplace rights come true. I’d go for an equine statue on a hillside of Thatcher astride a horse, with a sword in hand fighting off greasy miners. It would stand for the destruction of all mining communities in the UK and the triumph of the financial sector. Hurrah.

2 Alternatively, we could have a statue of Thatcher outside Lothian and Borders Police headquarters. She would be clad in one of those creepy combat-style fleeces that the modern cop likes to wear. This would be constructed entirely of mud and she would be holding a massive baton in both hands and wielding in the way that a pre-historic man might wield a club. This would represent the Scottish police’s favoured methods of dealing with insubordination at large public demonstrations and in dealing with troublesome suspects in custody. There would be a large square and compass on her back to signify the sacred bonds of secrecy.

3 This one would have a wee touch of your avant-garde malarkey going on. It would be a mini oil rig in the middle of Aberdeen harbour and feature Thatcher in a pin-striped suit, drenched in the black stuff standing astride the platform. It would salute her prophetic vision in realising how much the tax receipts of North Sea oil and gas could pay for her economic miracle in paying down Britain’s debt and meeting the cost of the £7bn funding to pay off all the miners who lost their jobs in a profitable industry.

A metal scroll would be hung around her neck inscribed with the words of the 1974 McCrone Report into the Scottish economy. “The country would tend to be in chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree and its currency would become the hardest in Europe with the exception perhaps of the Norwegian kroner.” This report, of course, was suppressed by her government and others for fear of sparking a clamour for self-determination.

4 I’d have this one situated at the front of one of the three headquarters of the Royal Regiment of Scotland in Edinburgh, Glasgow or Perth. It would have Thatcher wearing battle fatigues to signify her sacrifice of Scottish soldiers in a war of adventure in the Falklands in 1981 which turned her electoral fortunes around at a time when she was on the ropes. Perhaps too there would be an unkempt, homeless figure lying at her feet to signify the way in which the British Army looks after those who have fought for queen and country.

5 My fifth and final suggestion would be an upbeat little number that would pay homage to Newcastle’s Angel of the North. In this one Thatcher would be portrayed, arms outstretched towering over the verdant countryside of the Scottish Borders. It might become the first thing a visitor might see on crossing the border from England.

She would be holding a massive scarf between both hands on which the following legend would be inscribed her famous belief: “Scotland will become independent when it sends a majority of SNP MPs to Westminster.”