Silvio Berlusconi the end of April 2009, Berlusconi's wife Veronica Lario, who would divorce him several years later, wrote an open letter expressing her anger at Berlusconi's choice of young, attractive female candidates—some with little or no political experience—to represent the party in the 2009 European Parliament elections. Berlusconi demanded a public apology, claiming that for the third time his wife had "done this to me in the middle of an election campaign", and stated that there was little prospect of his marriage continuing. On 3 May, Lario announced she was filing for divorce. She claimed that Berlusconi had not attended his
Statue of Winston Churchill, Parliament Square the 1950s, David Eccles, then Minister of Works, showed Churchill plans for the redevelopment of Parliament Square. Churchill drew a circle in the north-east corner and declared: "That is where my statue will go." The statue that was eventually installed was first suggested by John Tilney, Member of Parliament for Liverpool Wavertree, in a parliamentary question in 1968. Initial estimates by the sponsors of the Winston Churchill Statue Appeal put the cost of the statue at £30,000. The sponsors of the appeal included Edward Heath, Lord Mountbatten, Lord Portal, and Baroness Elliot. The sum of £32,000 was raised by 4,500