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Royalty, dignitaries and admirers from all walks of life paid their final respects to Margaret Thatcher today in the grandest funeral for a British leader in half a century – although a few boos from the London crowd were a reminder of her divisive rule.<\/p>\n
The right-wing former prime minister whom the Soviet Union christened the Iron Lady was bid farewell with military honours, patriotic hymns, cheers and tears. <\/p>\n
Her coffin was borne on a horse-drawn gun carriage then soldiers and sailors carried her casket into St. Paul’s Cathedral for a service attended by Queen Elizabeth and 11 serving prime ministers from around the world.<\/p>\n
Outside, thousands of supporters lined the route, some throwing blue roses in her path.<\/p>\n
Opponents chanted “Ding dong the witch is dead” and turned their backs on her coffin as it passed by – an indication of the divisions which Britain’s longest serving prime minister of the 20th Century still provokes due to the tumultuous change she brought. <\/p>\n
Thatcher sought to arrest Britain’s post-war decline with free-market economic policies which enraged her left-wing opponents by smashing the unions and privatising Britain’s national assets. Her supporters view her as a champion of freedom while her opponents accuse her of destroying communities and ushering in an era of greed.<\/p>\n
“The storm of conflicting opinions centres on the Mrs Thatcher<\/a> who became a symbolic figure, even an ism, but today the remains of the real Margaret Hilda Roberts are here at her funeral service,” the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, told mourners gathered inside St Paul’s.<\/p>\n