Thatcher Funeral To Cost £10M

The funeral for Margaret Thatcher will cost an estimated £10M, a figure which will surely provide fodder for the critics of the Iron Lady's famed austerity principles.  More on the planning:

The ceremony will be held at St Paul's Cathedral in London next Wednesday. The Queen and Prince Philip have already confirmed they will go. The guest list for the funeral was drawn up by Lady Thatcher's family with the assistance of the government and the Conservative Party, with more than 2,000 invitations being dispatched on Friday. It will be the first funeral of a British politician the Queen has attended since that of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965.

Broadcaster Andrew Neil and actor Michael Crawford will be present, as will Tory donor Lord Harris and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Those who have already confirmed they will not be attending include former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan's widow Nancy. Neither George Bush Senior, Mr Reagan's vice-president who succeeded him in the White House, nor his son George W Bush, US president between 2001 and 2009, will be attending.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been invited to attend, but it's not yet clear how the Obama administration might be represented.  Newt Gingrich says he is going.