Churchill "Mental" Art Goes

A controversial statue portraying Winston Churchill in a strait-jacket has been removed following complaints that the sculpture was in bad taste. The mental health campaign group, Rethink, erected the statue in Norwich on Friday as part of a campaign to change attitudes towards psychiatric illness. Officials said they chose to portray Churchill in such a fashion because he had suffered depression but had still made an enormous contribution to public life. They said the strait-jacket symbolised the stigma which restricted many mentally ill people. But Churchill's family and veterans of the Second World War criticised the campaign, saying that the war-time prime minister should not be depicted in such a fashion. A spokesman for Rethink said it was being removed at the request of the owners of the building. "The owners of the building have asked us to remove it - they haven't given us any reasons," he said. "We can only suppose that it is as a result of complaints following the publicity." For the full story - click the title Irish Art