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- Jan 13, 2010
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Rarely can a death have provoked such debate, such division, so much reflection. Today, though, is the moment when the British political establishment - the prime minister and other party leaders as well as all former tenants of Number 10 - comes together.
The UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said that Baroness Thatcher's funeral will be a "fitting tribute to a great prime minister respected around the world". He urged those who took a different view of her legacy to "show respect".
The funeral of Baroness Thatcher, the first female UK prime minister, will be along the same lines as those of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the Queen Mother. She has been awarded a ceremonial funeral with military honours. It will take place at 11:00 BST (10:00 GMT) on Wednesday, 17 April, at St Paul's Cathedral in London.
It will be the first time the Queen has attended the funeral of a British prime minister since that of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965. Messrs Cameron, Clegg and Miliband, Major, Blair and Brown will unite to pay their respects to and mark the passing of the woman who they all agree was the giant of her - of their - age.
So too the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Big Ben will be silenced. Prime Minister's Questions has been cancelled.
Neither Nelson Mandela nor anyone from his family came to the funeral service. A spokesman for the British high commission in Pretoria said: "We extended an invite to the Mandela family but we were told nobody would be attending."
But the former South African president FW de Klerk attended the service. South Africa sent only its deputy high commissioner in London; President Jacob Zuma was in Algeria.
The Obama administration opted for a low-key presence, dispatching two other former US secretaries of state from the 1980s, George Shultz and James Baker, to lead an official delegation.
Strikingly, there were no representatives from either the Clinton or the Bush families, with Hillary Clinton, Obama's former secretary of state, absent. The former US vice-president Dick Cheney – was there in a private capacity.
The Polish solidarity leader, Lech Walesa, the former Australian prime minister John Howard attended the funeral in a private capacity.
The last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, Thatcher's cold war contemporary, was unable to travel to London. Russia's ambassador to the UK, Alexander Yakovenko, tweeted that he was going to the service representing Vladimir Putin's Kremlin.
Relatively few European leaders turned up in person. The Germany chancellor, Angela Merkel, dispatched her foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, who chatted at the service with his British counterpart, William Hague.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and Donald Tusk of Poland led a comparatively short list of serving international leaders attending Lady Thatcher's funeral.
Other foreign guests included the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, and former prime minister Brian Mulroney. The recently retired ex-Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, was there, together with the Czech prime minister, Petr Necas. Greece sent its foreign minister, Dimitris Avramopoulos.
Margaret Thatcher, then 35, pictured here with Carol and Mark, aged 6
Carol Thatcher, Marco Grass, Sarah Thatcher, Mark Thatcher, Michael Thatcher and Amanda Thatcher watch the coffin depart from St Paul's. Photograph: Tim Rooke/Rex Features.
Poleni sana wafiwa. Pamoja na controversials zooote, at the end of the day, she was still your mother.
