Heath beats Thatcher to statue spot

Tory grandee Sir Edward Heath was today set to get one over on his nemesis Baroness Thatcher - by becoming the first living ex-prime minister honoured with a statue in Parliament.

An all-party committee of MPs was expected to give the go-ahead for a bust of Sir Edward alongside such greats as Winston Churchill and William Gladstone.

A long-standing rule, which said that politicians had to be dead for a decade before their statues could enter the Palace of Westminster, was scrapped this year to permit a marble statue of Lady Thatcher to go on display. But before being put in place, it was beheaded while on show in the City's Guildhall gallery.

The two ex-premiers have been bitter enemies since 1975, when the "the Grocer" was deposed as Tory leader by "the Iron Lady".