See t'other thread.

Martin, I read somewhere that £3.6m is an estimation (Remember the estimate for the Olympics?) and that the true figure will be published in due course.
Anyway, it doesn't matter what the final figure is, it's us who will pay for it whether it's 3 or 30 million.

I thought the £10m was an estimation, and that £3.6m was the proper cost, less of course, the contribution that the family are making.

Oh no, no, no, no, no. I don't think so. Time will tell.

The official government figure is that the funeral cost at least £3.6 million so read into that the actual cost is some way north of that figure. The costs the government put out do not include the full policing costs because they say many of the police would have been on duty anyway so there was no additional cost for them. However, to calculate the costs fully, they should really have included those police costs too.

I think the cost of Diana, Princess of Wales's funeral was over £7 million which included all costs and the final figure wasn't adjusted to make the it more accaptable. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother's funeral cost a similar amount, so I find the figure of £3.6 million for Thatcher's funeral not to be credible.

We were also told that the Thatcher family were paying for the funeral (Steve Allen for example said this numerous times), other sources said they were paying half. However, we now find out that they only paid for the flowers and embalming costs which was what? A few tens of thousands, I would guess.

NB. The cost of Thatcher's funeral was discussed on LBC many times and there is nothing in this post that breaches the terms and conditions of this forum. If this post is deleted, it will have been done for political reasons.

I am sure if it were £4m then they would say so, because it was estimated at £10m, so anything south of that would be a 'saving' as to what was expected.

If they charged the policing costs, then this money should come out of the police budget because as you say they would be paid to be on duty anyway. The fact they are there, does it matter if they are doing x instead of y?


I have no idea what the flowers and the funeral expenses are. That part they would have paid for anyway. The rest of it was organised by the government in conjunction with the opposition parties.


I see no reason why this posts should be deleted. The mods posted their comments recently and said they were "happy" about the way this thread was going.

Unless you believe in conspiracy theories?

When the £10 million figure was put to Cameron he didn't deny it and if the actual figure was really that much less than the original estimate why didn't Cameron say so. How is it that Thatcher's funeral costs were so much less than Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother and Diana, Princess of Wales when they were all of a similar level?

I don't believe in conspiracy theories, I just note how many of my posts have been deleted recently when there has been no obvious reason how they breached the rules laid out by the DigitalSpy police in his/her recent post (I don't think they did). I will continue to add that sentence to the end of my posts to make it clear that I've not broken the rules of the forum and do not expect to see my posts deleted.

I don't know when/where the figure was put to Cameron, but did he ignore the question, or did he say he just didn't know what the cost would be?

The question about how it compares to the Royals I cannot answer; maybe your MP could help, or dare I suggest, 'Mystery Hour' ?

I knew the Queen Mother laid in state, I don't remember about the Princess of Wales. I don't know if there is a cost involved in that, but I am sure it wouldn't be c.£6m.

The figure of £10 million was put to Cameron and he not only chose not to deny it but went further and defended to costs. The Times has been quoted often on this subject so I will stick with their report on 11th April 2013:

"David Cameron today defended the estimated £10 million cost to taxpayers of Baroness Thatcher’s funeral and rejected criticism of his decision to recall Parliament in tribute".

I don't need to contact my MP or the Mystery Hour as I can use common sense and logic: two ceremonial funerals (Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother and Diana, Princess of Wales) cost over £7 million but few complain as both were widely loved. The funeral of Thatcher estimated at £10 sounds reasonable, taking into account inflation, but following a public outcry we are told the cost is "only" £3.6 million. Personally, I don't see a mystery, I see government using creative accounting to try to make the exhorbitant costs seem more acceptable.


NB. The cost of Thatcher's funeral was discussed on LBC many times and there is nothing in this post that breaches the terms and conditions of this forum. If this post is deleted, it will have been done for political reasons.

I can only read part of the article, but if she has got £75m returned to the Treasury from the EU, I think £10m is a relative 'drop in the ocean'.

It occurred to me, instead of asking your MP or Mystery Hour, you could put in a FoI request for a breakdown of the funeral expenses. The reply would be interested from both our points of view.

Still your posts are not being deleted. Of course if they were, and people had not read your message, they would be none the wiser!

Alternatively, since it is evidently of such interest to your good self, you could put in the FoI request.

Your argument that tax payers should pay for an overly lavish funeral for Thatcher because she negotiated an EU rebate is a bogus one. While she was negotiating the rebate, Her Majesty's Opposition's policy was to withdraw from the EEC/EU so it could be argued that every penny we have given to the EU since then was because she ignored calls in the 1980s to leave. Therefore, the logical extrapolation of your argument is that her estate owes us the billions she negotiated that we should continue to pay the EU, minus the millions in the rebate, which is of course ludricrous.

NB. The cost of Thatcher's funeral was discussed on LBC many times so my comments are relevant to this thread. Additionally, there is nothing in this post that breaches the terms and conditions of this forum. If this post is deleted, it will have been done for political reasons.

Benefit fraud and "workshy" claims are even more of a "drop in the ocean" compared to corporate tax evasion. So can we now argue that the benefit system doesn't matter either?

Oh no! Those awful poor people taking our hard-earned money for playing the Xbox!!!!! It's the principle!

You have to laugh, or else you'll cry.

Don't worry. That ain't going to happen. Bliar was the definive Americophile who saw the opportunity to make a grand name for himself on the world stage....or in the States, at least. Not so much a priority for Cameron.

I think this time 'lessons may have actually been learned'.

Well I sincerely hope so. But one W. Hague seems awfully keen on helping the Syrian rebels which makes me doubt if he has learnt anything at all. Every time I look at him I am reminded of how stupid he looked in that baseball hat!!

For those who want a rest from Margaret Thatcher's funeral here's a little something which owing to the fact that it is actually sunny outside, I have not yet read.
But I will........

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/nick...2BNotification

Right wing media (including LBC butespecially people like Nick Ferrari), which comprises the bulk of old media in this country, go out of their way to diminish and ridicule Ed Miliband for the best part of 3 years, yet now ask 'why don't the public think better of Ed Miliband?'

You couldn't make it up.

Also, the other side of 'always worked in politics and has no experience' argument is that 'captains of industry as politicians' speak more for Big Business than they do the country/public. We've already got Big Business dictating too much of government policies &c.

Caller: 'only the dumbest of Labour supporters would vote for Labour again after the mess they left of the country. They've had no new ideas for 50 years'.

Mr Pot? Mr Kettle on line #1. The Caller was so dumb they must have missed New Labour and the PFI, light touch regulation, the getting into bed with the U.S. military complex &c, which is very different from Labour 50 years ago.

Maybe he's one of the dumbest of Tory voters who seems to think that, if New Labour did bankrupt the country, they did it with socialist policies.

Another caller now challenging Ferrari to a charity boxing match. Ferrari declines and notches down the aggressiveness with the caller.

Those supporting captains of industry tend to be the same people who criticise the (apparent) influence of unions. Erm....

Yes, but we've got to keep the workers competitive in the global race against workers in places like HongKong:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...t-hutches.html

and cut all the silly red tape and workers' rights so we can get on with the important stuff like business, like they do in Dhaka.

I see the fella's in the lower cages get more space and can nearly stand up. Surely this is a case for a bed-cage tax, as they are using up unnecessary oxygen.

Oh the irony of this appearing in the Daily Mail...

All that unnecessary wasteful wire for the cage. Unless there's a radical overhaul of housing in this country, I genuinely think we'll have a only slightly more humane version of this in my lifetime.


It's not really ironic, it just a case of 'all them foreigners are barbarians aren't they?'

Maybe this has something to do with it. He seemed unable to answer a direct question.

But Martin - are you saying that this is any different from any other politician out there?

LOL The non-answer reminds me of many years ago when Michael Howard was asked a question several times and each time he avoided answering it. (I can't remember the question!).

There seem to be a massive pair of blinkers over the eyes of many LBC presenters and callers when it comes to what's about to happen out there in the real world. Remember, folks, the cuts haven't really happened yet. The changes to benefits have only just begun, and they are being phases in even more slowly than anticipated, owing to the lack to systems to deal with it.

I think you're quite right, PoM - we will end up with lots of people being moved out of London to areas where they are even less likely to get a job. But... what is the politics behind this? Moving likely Labour voters out of the SE and into already Labour areas... could there possibly be some electoral advantage for the Tories here?