Guide To Lady Thatcher's Funeral Arrangements

Tight Security For Thatcher Funeral

Updated: 8:50am UK, Wednesday 17 April 2013

By Jason Farrell, Sky News Correspondent

Britain will today remember the life of one of its most famous prime ministers as Baroness Thatcher's funeral takes place amid tight security.

Four thousand police officers will line the route of the funeral procession, with the alert heightened in the wake of the Boston bombings on Monday.

In the last 24 hours, hundreds of officers have been patrolling the streets with sniffer dogs trained to detect explosives.

Lady Thatcher, who died on April 8 after suffering a stroke, is having a ceremonial funeral - but the Queen's presence effectively raises it to a state event.

The former politician's family, friends, one-time colleagues and Cabinet foes, as well as dignitaries and figures from around the world will be at the ceremony.

Her coffin spent the night at the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in Westminster and will be moved at 10am to another church on The Strand, then transferred to a gun carriage.

The procession will then go to St Paul's Cathedral for a service at 11am, lasting an hour. There will be a private cremation later.

The security operation for the funeral and procession will be a mix of plain clothes and high visibility policing, according to former Scotland Yard Specialist Commander Roy Ramm.

He told Sky News: "There will be a lot of activity checking bins and receptacles. There will be spotters on rooftops.

"Uniformed officers on the ground will also be briefed on what to look for: the person who wants to disrupt, shout obscenities, maybe throw something.

"But they'll also be looking for people who perhaps are exhibiting signs that they want to do something much more serious. That will be intelligence driven as well."

One protest group has been granted permission to turn their backs on the coffin as it passes, but officers will also be sensitive to the distress that protests could cause to mourners.

Mr Ramm added: "The police have a duty to facilitate legitimate protest, but where that protest starts to ferment disorder they also have a duty to keep the peace."

Protesters say that because the funeral is a public event, paid for by taxpayers, it is a legitimate platform.

Lawyer Simon Natas, who represents arrested protesters, says the guidance from police has not been clear.

"It's deeply confusing for people who want to protest to be told they may be arrested for being insulting. Political opinion and legitimate peaceful protest cannot be criminalised just because it may upset people. It is protected free speech."

Most of the crowds gathered outside St Paul's, some of whom had been in place since Tuesday, seemed supportive of the late Tory leader.

However, a small group of protesters demonstrated against what they called the "glorifying" of the funeral and cuts to the welfare state.

David Winslow, 22, a student from Durham, held a placard saying "Rest of us in Poverty" and wore a T-shirt with the slogans "power to the people" and "society does exist".

"We plan to turn our backs," he said. "We want to maintain a dignified protest, it's counter-productive to cat call and sing Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead.

"The message is that spending £10m on such a divisive figure in times of austerity, especially when austerity is being imposed on the poor, is wrong, especially when harm is being caused to the disabled and the NHS."

He added: "The Government wants to glorify this. It is a massive propaganda campaign to idolise Margaret Thatcher."

At a Facebook-organised protest in Ludgate Hill, retired social worker Patricia Welsh, 69, expressed her anger at the taxpayer having to foot the funeral bill.

"I am absolutely furious that Prime Minister David Cameron has decided to spend £10m on a funeral when normal people are having to face cutbacks, libraries are closing and the NHS is being cut - for the funeral of a Conservative woman.

"Like anyone else she deserves a decent funeral, but not at the expense of the taxpayer."

The pensioner said 2013 reminds her of living in the 1980s. "If you're on benefits you're made to feel like a scrounger and evil," she claimed.

In stark contrast, Margaret Kittle, 79, flew in from Canada to pay her respects.

She said: "My family came to Churchill's and I wanted to come to Maggie's because they are the two greats of history. We will never see the likes of Mrs Thatcher again."

John Loughrey, from Wandsworth, added: "She saved Britain. She gave my father the opportunity to buy his council house. We had all sorts of problems and Mrs Thatcher put it all back together again. We needed the Iron Lady."

Downing Street insisted that David Cameron was not disappointed with Washington's decision not to send currently serving senior politicians to the funeral.

Barack Obama's official presidential delegation will be led by George Shultz and James Baker, who both served as secretaries of state during the Thatcher era.

Former US vice-president Dick Cheney and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger are also due to attend.

Meanwhile, French media reported that President Francois Hollande will be represented by Elisabeth Guigou, a close adviser to Francois Mitterrand while Lady Thatcher was in office, rather than a serving member of his administration.

Argentina's ambassador to London Alicia Castro has declined an invitation to attend the funeral, in what was seen as a mark of continuing sensitivity over the Falkland Islands.

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