Michael Walton   A sad story here, and a sorry end we are likely to see more of. It was a Conservative government that introduced the Social Fund Funeral Payment at a level that ensured that the underprivileged and disadvantaged were not humiliated and marginalised when they had insufficient to pay

  From time to time we consider the purpose of a funeral as an event which enables mourners to express complex, disorderly emotion. Funerals in  countries untouched by, or resistant to, chilly Nordic Protestant norms of self-restraint are notable for an exuberance which chilly Nords tend to regard as unbefitting,