Margaret Thatcher in 2007. Photograph by Steve Punter
Lady Thatcher will be honoured with a ceremonial funeral, not a state funeral, on 17th April in accordance with her wishes, with the stately spectacle expected to rival that last seen for Winston Churchill in 1965.
Downing Street has announced that Lady Thatcher’s funeral will include a gun carriage, military procession, and service at St Paul’s Cathedral, in a similar style to the previous funerals of the Queen Mother and Princess Diana, with the bill borne by the taxpayer and the Thatcher estate. Downing Street has declined to reveal the cost of the spectacle to be paid by the British taxpayer, but they have said that the expenditure would be published after the event. Much of the public bill will likely be for the military procession and security and policing operation.
Thatcher said that she did not want a fly-past as she thought it was a “waste of money” according to Lord Bell, but with the event rumoured to be costing £8 million, many are unhappy about the burden on the public purse in a time of austerity. There was a petition calling for private companies to foot the bill in a “privatised funeral” in keeping with her policies of privatisation, and calls for such an idea have been getting louder since the announcement of her death.
A ceremonial funeral is one level below a full state funeral, and requires Royal consent, which has been given. The funerals of recent Prime Ministers have tended to be more low key affairs, although four have received full state funerals in modern times: the Duke of Wellington (1852), Viscount Palmerston (1865), William Gladstones (1898), and Winston Churchill (1965).
