What the Queen’s funeral tells us about Britain

State funerals say a lot about the country in which they take place – and one of the things in which Britain still indisputably leads the world are the magnificent final farewells that we arrange for our leaders.

How very different are some of the send offs seen in less fortunate lands. When Stalin died in 1953, hundreds, possibly thousands, were added to the toll of his victims when they were fatally crushed queuing in Moscow to view the dead Soviet dictator. In 1989, after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in revolutionary Iran, the chaotic funeral culminated in the dead Supreme Leader’s body actually falling out of its coffin, while Revolutionary Guards fired into the crowd of more than a million mourners, killing at least eight. In Britain, in stark contrast, the funerary rituals are so meticulously planned and rehearsed that it seems shocking and makes headlines if a lone anti-monarchist shouts a disobliging comment or holds up a blank placard.

The prolonged obsequies for her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth – while unique in their scale and duration as befitting our longest reigning and most beloved monarch – are typical of the phenomenon.