A State Funeral Is a Mistake

[witherwings]

The decision to acknowledge Lady Thatcher, but not Clement Attlee, makes the Queen appear partisan and is out of kilter with the impartiality of the modern monarchy
By Peter Oborne

Comments

[underlankers]

This is very informative and kind of disturbing. So out of all the PMs this Queen has *not* visited, she chose *this* one? O.o

......

Yeah, I think that speaks for itself.

[redstar826]

And the cost of the event will be borne in large part by the taxpayer

Thatcher was all about austerity and privatization. Let her business friends pay for this shit.

[kitchen_poet]

THIS!

[alicephilippa]

I have no fond memories of that woman, and the state should not, in a large part, be paying for her funeral.

The biggest mistake though is in the attendance of the Queen.

[redstar826]

and this is where as an American I admit that I don't understand all of this Queen stuff

[magus_69]

Let us compare this:

Many decent people will feel there is little question that Lady Thatcher was a great prime minister, and therefore that nothing could be more natural and fitting than next week’s splendid send-off.

With this:

But what about the many people who suffered terribly during the Thatcher years? Welsh miners or workers from the shattered manufacturing centres of northern England are every bit as British.

I think I have whiplash. That, or someone thinks that Welsh miners and workers from northern England aren't decent people, but that would be just be silly. Right?

[magus_69]

I'm not so sure. I think that the author would have made a comment about the celebrations if that is what he meant. Instead, he explicitly mentioned the opinion that she was a great PM, and strongly implied that few "decent" people disagree.

[witherwings]

TBH that part really grated on me - I don't think the funeral should be what is effectively a state funeral in all but name, and I'd like to think I'm a "decent" person. However, I felt the importance of what was being said was sufficient that it should be shared. That even right wing commentators in the Telegraph feel that this funeral is the wrong decision says quite a lot about the mood of the country with regard to the funeral in general.

[lozbabie]

They're comparing the 2013 funeral to a 1967 funeral?

[witherwings]

I think primarily they're comparing the only other British PM to have anything close to this funeral with the current funeral. I think the key here is that, however we feel about Churchill and his politics now (or even then), a case could be made that he was the figurehead of the country through WWII and I'm not sure he's viewed anywhere close to as divisively as Thatcher, hence the state funeral. Given Thatcher was no where near as important, and viewed in much more "love or loathe" terms than Churchill, the decision to give her what amounts to a state funeral is not really defensible.

[johnjie]

I just want to know why this of all things is taxpayer funded when Mrs Thatcher was practically a byword for privatisation.

Also, they're right, it does make the Queen seem partisan, but who is surprised she leans this way? For what it's worth, Churchill was a Conservative too.

[kagehikario]

Isn't it normal for former PMs to receive a public funeral? If so, I'd be happier to see that practice stuck to, a "Hah! You didn't break THIS collective social convention of shared cost!"

[johnjie]

It's not exactly 'normal' - many haven't (Clement Attlee, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, James Callaghan) and of the ones who have had a public funeral (Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath) only Churchill's was attended by the Queen. It's also different because only Churchill's was a state funeral, whereas Thatcher's technically isn't (it's a ceremonial funeral).

[witherwings]

No, as johnjie mentioned, it's relatively rare. Possibly because the Queen is seen as the head of state, while the PM is "only" head of the government - so state funerals are not really a matter of course where they're concerned.