“Trade union scum.” As Baroness Thatcher’s coffin entered St Paul’s Cathedral old wars were being fought out on Ludgate Circus, where City workers mingled with anti-Thatcher protesters.

One man in his early forties, dressed in a navy suit and light blue shirt, hurled the slur at an older man attempting to sell Socialist Worker newspapers to passers-by who had congregated this morning to see the hearse taking the coffin to the cathedral.