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The expense! Mrs T wouldn't have approved

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She would definitely not have approved. She didn’t mind fuss but was firmly against the sort of extravagance we shall see today.

Yes, of course, it would have to be St Paul’s. St Margaret’s Westminster would burst with the numbers one might reasonably expect. Besides, she had established such a major international reputation —somewhat to her surprise — that many would come from abroad.

But the expense! It’s just as well she could never know. It is easy to imagine her snapping ‘£10m plus’ — ‘plus, my dear’ — as she would say in her suspicion of Whitehall’s various spending programmes.

Expense: Soldiers rehearsing the funeral of Baroness Thatcher yesterday, carrying a coffin outside St Paul's

After all, her great strength lay in her solidly middle-class background. One should always shop around. There were always bargains to be had if you looked carefully. Unnecessary expense was a moral and not just a financial failing, even more so when you were handling taxpayers’ money.

Flood Street, her Chelsea address where I used to see her, was in no way luxurious. There was always the Peter Jones store close at hand with its reassuring motto ‘never knowingly undersold’. It was her job to see that the London house was comfortable but avoiding extravagance. She did it very well.

Downing Street, of course, had its own grand style. But when she moved in, she could be seen inspecting its fittings with that look of a born economiser. She was still the middle-class housewife  at heart.

  More... Draped in a Union flag, awaiting her final journey: Baroness Thatcher's coffin rests in chapel beneath Parliament as Mark and Carol attend private family service Thatcher family prepares to say goodbye: Late PM's grandchildren fly in from the US after daybreak funeral rehearsal goes off to a T White House snub to Thatcher: Obama won't send envoy - and leaves it to her old allies from the Reagan era

Mind you, I think she would have got some satisfaction from the BBC’s ridiculous judgment about that odious song. It was a typical moment of corporate indecision. And she despised indecision, especially in government. It was so obviously one of the reasons why the country had, as her husband Denis often put it, gone to the dogs.

The suspicion must linger that David Cameron thinks such a grand event will win over some part of the Thatcherite section of the party which thinks he is not entitled to be called her heir. It is ironic that he is employing the sort of extravagance she would have disapproved of.

Euroland and a boom in broken promises

Downing Street is used to the uphill business of dressing up heads-of-government meetings as a success when they aren’t. Workmanlike, useful, broad-ranging and the like are terms which come readily to the No 10 spokesman.

But all the agencies report that Downing Street was ‘tight-lipped’ following David Cameron’s talks at the weekend with Germany’s Angela Merkel. There were just the generalities on the importance of EU reforms, the need for everybody to curb tax evasion and look both ways before crossing the street.

In other words, it was a wasted weekend. Merkel is not planning to help Cameron win his next election. She has her own this year to worry about — though with a new force  in play.

It seems that Cameron's talks with Angela Merkel this weekend included the generalities on the importance of EU reforms, the need for everybody to curb tax evasion and look both ways before crossing the street

The AfD, a new political party in Germany, is dedicated to exiting the euro. It has a pathetic-looking 3 per cent support, say the polls. But it should not be downhearted. There was a time when UKIP looked a hopeless bet: now it gives Cameron nightmares.

The list of eurozone countries in trouble grows as if on steroids. Cyprus is having to increase its contribution to the rescue package. We also have yet to see the Cyprus government fulfill its promise to lift the ban on capital controls, lest anyone with serious savings flees with their money — though to where is now a daunting question.

      More from Andrew Alexander...   Foreign wars and a chilling legacy of hate 28/05/13   Afghan exit - or is it a very long goodbye? 14/05/13   Why the Eton crew could sink Cameron 07/05/13   Vive la change between us and the French 30/04/13   Are kissing cousins best for Britain? 23/04/13   Of course she split Britain - she HAD to 09/04/13   If this is the last euro crisis, I'm a Dutchman... 26/03/13   Don't break the bonds of Britishness 05/03/13   VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

Neighbouring Greece still depends on the European Central Bank for survival. Italy is still without a government and with a professional comic commanding some important parts of the political heights.

Spain trembles about its banks as well as its record-breaking unemployment level. Portugal is abruptly confronted with a Lisbon court ruling that a serious chunk of its taxes is unconstitutional. 

Even Luxembourg, being hugely dependant on banks — in other words, on tax avoidance — has started to become a worry.

Malta is warned by Brussels that it must do better, Slovenia that it must do much, much better. Germany meets the bills but the sharp decline in business confidence registered this week is a warning that even Berlin’s pocket may have its limits.

Supporters of the euro are always ready to point out the small economic size of countries like Cyprus, Malta and Slovenia. But that is not the point.

The fear must be that someone opts to depart from the euro, shows that it can be done — and immediately inspires imitators. 

Nor is that the only problem.

The drill in the case of a country in trouble is for the Troika — the IMF, Brussels and the European Central Bank — to call for reforms. The imperilled government agrees and the crisis is said to be resolved.

But plans, like pie-crusts, are made to be broken. It is not the economic record of the country in trouble which is being approved but its promises to do better.

Sell off state businesses? Oh yes, we can do that — sorry we seem to have been so slow. And thus it continues until the next bail-out and the next set of promises. And, of course, the next crisis.


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