Margaret Thatcher's funeral cost an estimated £3.6m – No 10
Source: The Guardian
Lady Thatcher's ceremonial funeral with full military honours cost the taxpayer an estimated £3.6m, Downing Street has said.
About £500,000 was spent on the service at St Paul's Cathedral, a reception for guests at Mansion House, and the printing and circulation of invitations to the congregation of 2,300 guests.
The provisional figure includes £2m "opportunity costs" for police who would have been on other duties on the day. A further estimated £1.1m was spent on providing additional security and policing for the ceremony and funeral procession from the Palace of Westminster to St Clement Danes, the RAF chapel in the Strand, where Thatcher's coffin was transferred from a hearse to a gun carriage and then given a military escort to the cathedral.
The scale of the funeral for Britain's first and only female prime minister was for a politician second only to Sir Winston Churchill's state funeral in 1965. It was attended by the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, leading politicians and guests drawn from about 170 countries.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/25/margaret-thatcher-funeral-cost
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