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With the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, the 2,300 invited to attend Lady Thatcher’s funeral in St Paul’s cathedral included the three surviving former prime ministers, members of her cabinets, the leader of the opposition, F.W. de Klerk, June Whitfield, Joan Collins, Dame Shirley Bassey and Sir Terry Wogan. Mikhail Gorbachev did not attend, because of ill health, Lord Kinnock because of a previous funeral engagement, the Argentine ambassador for an unstated reason and Sally Bercow, the Speaker’s wife, because she didn’t want to. Much time had been spent discussing whether the BBC should play on its singles hit chart programme ‘Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead’, which had been downloaded by those who held the memory of Lady Thatcher in disdain. The chimes of Big Ben were silenced for the funeral.
Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, criticised the state of the party in the New Statesman.
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