Emotions run high as iron lady laid to rest

Many came to pay their last respects — others to make sure Margaret Thatcher was finally dead and gone.

The grand shadows of St Paul’s Cathedral cloaked a mass of bristling emotions which at times spilled over into angry arguments and heated threats among the gathered crowds — just as Thatcher would have liked it.

After all, it was no coincidence her flag-draped coffin arrived at St Paul’s borne on a gun carriage.

A woman of a certain age sporting a pierced eyebrow and an “I Still Hate Thatcher” T-shirt, who would only give her name as Bunny, had perhaps not chosen the most diplomatic spot to peddle her “Rejoice: Ding-Dong Thatcher’s Gone Party Pack” amid a throng of Tory supporters near the great west door of the cathedral.

“Show some respect, it’s a funeral,” demanded an angry onlooker, while a man in a union jack bow-tie hissed: “You’re a disgrace — she was an old woman.”

“She was evil — and I’m glad she’s dead,” responded Bunny, somewhat bluntly.

This so enraged the man in the union jack bow tie he looked ready to torpedo her as if she was the Belgrano, and Bunny and her friends decided to make a tactical retreat and find a spot in the crowd more sympathetic to their leanings.

But with the throng 10 people deep in parts it was difficult to push through, especially with so many camera crews leaping on anyone that could pass.

A Japanese reporter was asking a protester why he hated Thatcher so much, when a chap in a sharp city suit intervened and barked at the demonstrator: “You’re not even English, you irritating little man. I’m going to turn my back on you, see how you like it. Let them show that in Japan — if they dare.”

Inside the cathedral the bishop of London reminded the gathered congregation of 2,300 people that Thatcher had once helped invent Mr Whippy ice cream as he did all he possibly could to stress the human side of a woman wrapped up in so many levels of myth, adoration and hatred.

Outside, a young woman who did not look old enough to remember the Spice Girls’ first single, let alone Thatcher’s last term in office, was delighted at the “I Love Maggie” T-shirt she had just bought for a fiver: “Maggie was wonderful. Girl power!” she exclaimed.

The cry was followed by the sound of a shrill, posh woman’s voice booming out of a megaphone insisting the Falkland Islands were British.

Bunny, who had now shifted her pitch near by, looked momentarily startled, maybe fearing she had rejoiced too soon and her nemesis had indeed risen again — but, happily, it turned out to be just another true blue Tory carrying on the gospel of the lady the faithful still refer to as: “The Blessed Margaret”.

While the professional left was hard to ignore, especially the ones wearing red T-shirts emblazoned with the stark message: “Good Riddance Thatcher — Burn In Hell”, the bulk of the crowd greeted the coffin-laden gun carriage with warmth and respect.

Social media campaigns, such as the one encouraging people to throw milk at the coffin in remembrance of the former Conservative leader’s first great controversy when she was branded: “Thatcher the milk snatcher”, for getting rid of free school milk, came to nothing.

However, some 300 protesters did turn their backs on the coffin as it passed along Ludgate Circus, and up towards the cathedral where snipers discreetly lined roof tops and police officers brandishing machine guns patrolled the streets below rather less discreetly.

While a smattering of jeers and boos were heard as the procession passed by, mostly the cortege was thrust forward on a ripple of appreciative applause from the packed pavements.

Those who still cared came to express their love or loathing for the woman who bestrode British public life for 11 long years as prime minister, but the vast majority of Londoners greeted the estimated €13m cost and security clampdown inconvenience with a general air of resigned irritation.

Thatcher’s corpse had lain overnight in the Palace of Westminster as just a few hundred metres away — in the Commons chamber she once dominated — the legacy of the person whose death certificate recorded her occupation as “Stateswoman (Retired)” was thrashed out again with left-wing MPs branding her “wicked and divisive”.

Perhaps the best description of the ambiguous attitude many Britons now feel towards a fallen leader was summed up in the most memorable graffiti to appear since her death: “Rust In Peace, Iron Lady”.

Irish ‘all liars’

*Peter Mandelson said the only thing Margaret Thatcher ever told him was that the Irish were “all liars” and not to be trusted.

The Labour former cabinet minister revealed the 1999 exchange as he explained why he did not want to attend the former premier’s funeral service.

“I didn’t feel I knew her well enough” to apply for the tickets offered to peers, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today.

“Although I helped to organise the Labour Party’s opposition to her policies throughout the 1980s, I only ever met her once.

“It was the day I was appointed Northern Ireland secretary and our paths crossed.

“She came up to me and she said, ‘I’ve got one thing to say to you, my boy ... you can’t trust the Irish, they are all liars’, she said, ‘liars, and that’s what you have to remember, so just don’t forget it’.

“With that she waltzed off and that was my only personal exposure to her.”