Number 10 (1983) s01e05 Episode Script

Votes for women! Votes for women! Votes for women! Lackeys of the tyrant! Oppressors! Equality for the superior sex! Oh, give it a rest, love! Ladies like you ought to know better.
Let the Prime Minister have a bit of peace and quiet.
Old gentleman'll go any minute now.
He's breathing his last.
You should let an old gent goout in peace.
Justice for our sex from His Majesty! Equal rights for women! - Oh, shut up, will you, for goodness' sake! - End the tyranny of men! Sir Henry, I beg you.
If I'd known that you would leave your bed, I'd not have come.
There are certain observances which take precedence even over heart disease, Your Majesty.
Rubbish.
You sound like Asquith, all head and no heart.
With respect, sire, not true.
Oh, deeply reserved, embarrassed by emotion, yes.
But he's got a heart, a great liberal heart.
I know Henry Asquith as well as you do.
I was only having my grumble at his damn brains.
- But, sire - Please don't agitate yourself.
Firstly you're going to live.
But if the worst were to happen, there's noother man I'd rather see in your place than Henry Asquith.
I'm overjoyed to hear it, sire.
I've invited him to join us this morning.
Then, please, I entreat you, do retire to your bed.
The last thing to impress Henry Asquith would be the sight of a man who'd decided to die in bed.
Equal rights for women! Votes for women! That's Asquith, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Enfranchisement for women! Equal rights for women! Votes for women! - Why shouldn't I be like a man? - That's a very limited ambition.
Why not try being like a woman? Traitor! - Here, that'll be enough of that.
- Votes for women! On these occasions, my dear, I generally find that silence is golden.
- And speech be divine.
- Wait and see.
- Votes for women! - Now then! What a dreadful thing, madam! I saw it through the window.
Equal rights for women! Give us the right to vote! These are for the Prime Minister.
Put the flowers in water straightaway but crush the bottoms of the stems first.
Put a little willow bark in the water.
This is calf's foot jelly.
It might be nauseating but it's a remedy - he's to eat it immediately.
And this is a haggis, uncanny for building stamina.
Half the contestants in the Highland Games eat little else.
If you take me to the kitchen I'll show Cook how to prepare it.
I'm afraid Cook is out at the moment, Mrs Asquith.
Oh, never mind.
I'll send her a little note.
Oh, do you know, every time I come here, I see a new crack.
Two hundred years, and they still haven't got the foundations right.
The Tory Party suffers from the same defect.
- How are your feet? - Well enough, thank you, madam.
Are you still wearing those patent arch supports I sent you? Oh, yes, madam.
- The bedrock of Empire.
Never forget that.
- No, madam.
- Always keep your head covered in the cold.
- Yes, madam.
Do you know it's a scientific fact that we lose half of our heat through the top of our heads? - Goodbye, Lindsay.
- Goodbye, madam.
- Bit of a fusspot, ain't she, Mr Lindsay? - Don't you get her wrong, my lad.
In her day she was the hardest rider to hounds in the country, and that's including the men.
She's broken her nose, her ribs, her kneecap, both collarbones, fractured her skull, dislocated her jaw and had five concussions.
Blimey.
Your Majesty.
C-B.
- How's that lively wife of yours? - Still getting herself into trouble, sir.
I've never met a woman who made me laugh more.
None of us ever thought it would work between you two.
- Give her my fondest regards.
- I will indeed, sir.
This fellow has got it into his head that he's going to die.
I've made it a royal command that he shall not, so there's an end to it.
However, should I have the temerity to disobey We both want you to know that I should send for you at once.
Could you form a government? Your Majesty, I am deeply conscious of the honour.
Of course That's settled, then.
I like to get at least one thing done every day.
No, don't get up.
Glad to see you looking so well, Sir Henry.
Have you back on the golf course in no time.
Asquith.
No, I'll slip out the back.
He's worth a dozen doctors.
But I'm a goner, Henry.
You know that.
Yes, I know.
No, you have been my rock.
You know that? Oh, rubbish.
Oh, no, I don't just mean what you've done at the Exchequer.
Henry, you're the greatest gentleman I've ever met.
You're different from the others.
I'm glad to have known you.
I'd change your medicine if I were you, Henry.
Softening your brain.
You're going to have to fight the battle that I could not win.
It'll be the most momentous parliamentary battle of the century.
On its outcome will depend whether this country is going to be ruled by the House of Commons or the House of Lords.
They've worn me out.
You're the only man who can do it.
Thrash the Lords, Henry.
Thrash - How much longer, Mr Harris? - Got all day now.
- Make sure they lay the carpets first.
- Certainly, ma'am.
That is Hepplewhite, you know, not firewood.
Try to leave us a stick of furniture that doesn't look as though Mr Churchill's been using it for sabre practice.
We've moved the best in the world, Mrs Asquith.
To what, tears? Well, it's a very difficult house to move into.
But very easy to be moved out of.
Look, I'll make a bargain with you.
Get us in without a scratch, and I'll make sure you don't have to get us out for a very long time.
Oh, I wouldn't want to get you out.
Best stroke the old Liberals ever done, putting your old man in here.
That's very perceptive of you.
You must have a drink on that.
Well, that's very kind of you, ma'am.
Go to the kitchen.
Cook will make you a nice cup of tea.
I intend to strike at the first opportunity, otherwise the Lords will whittle us down like a stick.
- You've not yet settled your furniture man.
- My dear Grey, the PM's right.
The Lords destroyed Campbell-Bannerman's Irish Bill, his Voting Bill, his Education Bill.
They'll undoubtedly throw out the Licensing Bill.
They want to keep the whole country drunk.
We controI the House of Commons by the will of the people.
The Tories controI the House of Lords by privilege.
We pass bills.
They throw them out.
We can't get 'em.
No Cabinet could.
Well, Campbell-Bannerman handed the fight over to you, Henry.
So, you propose to use next year's Budget as a bludgeon? We need money for three things.
To stay ahead in the armaments race with Germany.
Now, you must agree to that.
To maintain the old-age pension.
To bring in the health and unemployment insurance.
We must find that money somewhere.
So you propose to find it by squeezing it out of those that have it? A small increase in tax on anyone with over £5,ooo a year, a trifling tax on land, especially as it increases in value just by sitting there, nothing revolutionary.
But that scoops practically everyone in the House of Lords into the net.
- They'll never stand for it.
- The Lords cannot reject a finance bill.
Not "cannot", my dear Haldane.
"Have not", not for 25o years or so.
Henry, did you know that this house has exactly one bathroom and one bookshelf? - Hello, Edward.
Richard.
- Margot.
Has no Prime Minister ever washed or read a book? - That's a slight exaggeration, my dear - These are from Hansard.
Furthermore, the house seems to comprise three grotesque staircases, and a tumble of odd little rooms like empty potting sheds.
I shall have to entertain in the garden.
Knowing you, you'll entertain in the Horse Guards Parade if you wish it.
Now, if you don't mind, policy Henry, try fitting 14 servants, two children, three adolescents the size of horses, into this bizarre hillbilly of a shack and then talk to me of policy! Oh, and incidentally, Lord Lansdowne at this very moment has a parrot cage of peers plotting to make your life a misery.
Just thought you might like to know.
People tell me I manage the House of Commons well.
After Margot, it's a relaxation.
What if the Lords reject next year's Budget? You want to provoke the peers, don't you? Hm.
Mm.
Why does Vizey look like a discarded beach towel? She's only just got up.
She was at a ball until dawn.
When I rose this morning, I saw some of the young men she'd been dancing with yawning like bulls as they hung their bowlers in the Foreign Office across the way.
It's a good thing they don't have to work for a living.
Where's your little friend Megan Lloyd George this morning? She's at home next door.
When I grow up, I'm going to marry Megan.
You'll do no such thing.
I'm having no wild Albanian blood in this family.
- But, Mama, she's Welsh.
- It's the same thing.
Besides, her father can't see a belt without hitting below it.
- Margot.
- And another thing.
Stop throwing bread rolls at the suffragettes who've chained themselves toour railings.
- They're very stale bread rolls.
- That is not the point.
They have enough to put up with, being harangued by that tiresome Mrs Pancake.
Yes, Mama.
Pass the toast, please.
L - I swear, if I'd written these speeches for them myself, I couldn't have done better.
- What? - It's the Lords debate on the Budget.
Here's a resplendent Marquess declaring that if our Budget is passed, he'll be compelled to reduce his donation to the London Hospital from five guineas a year to three.
And here's a description of his new yacht rumoured to cost him £1,ooo a month.
Newspapers do so love round figures.
I happen to know it's 1,15o.
And, incidentally, we've been invited on it this August.
- Are you game? - I'd be agreeable, if we can get away.
Aren't you afraid that the people might say the Lords have got you in their pocket? When they find out what I'm going to do to them, they'll see I'm at their throats.
Not that I mind, Asquith, but why in the open air? A builder of my acquaintance once told me the better the brick, the more resounding its acoustic properties.
Your Majesty's residences are built of very good brick indeed.
Walls have ears, eh? You have the makings of a conspirator! It's too damn chilly for me out here.
I'm not going to do it, you know.
But if the aristocracy take the unprecedented step of cutting off the money supply Oh, come now.
That's pitching it a bit steep.
and setting its face against a Budget designed to help the old and the poor and the sick, as head of the aristocracy, it's going to reflect on you.
Therefore, I must create hundreds of new Liberal peers to swamp the Tory majority in the Lords and push the Budget through? I can't do it.
It's too drastic.
It makes a mockery of the system.
Your Majesty, the system is already absurd.
With the Lords against us we can't administer the country.
Perhaps somebody else can.
- Do I detect a threat of resignation? - The Cabinet would follow me.
Look here, aren't we in danger of taking our fences before we come to them? We don't know yet if the Lords will reject the Budget.
- I assure you, sir, they will.
- But we don't know that.
If they do, then you must go to the country.
Hold a general election, making the Budget the prime issue.
Then if you win, the Lords won't dare defy the will of the people.
Will you give me a guarantee, sir, that if I win the election, you will create sufficient peers to enable me to get the rest of my legislation through? We'll deal with that when we come to it.
I'm sorry to press, but will you, sir? We'll see, Mr Prime Minister.
We'll see.
Mm! Oh, Puffin, you are a clumsy little boy.
Clumsy yourself! If you walk round with your eyes shut, one of these days, you'll walk into a great oozy swamp, and it'll suck you under in great squelches, just like this! - How do you do that? - Oh, it's easy.
You just do this, see.
Like this? No.
You've got to make more saliva.
Look.
Oh, that's a great deal better.
- What's that? - It's a singing top.
Haven't you ever seen a singing top before? It's very novel.
May I have a go? Well, it's very delicate.
I don't see what's so delicate about it.
It's just a bit of old tin banged together.
- Anyway, I've got a secret.
- What? - Wouldn't be a secret if I told you.
- I don't want to know anyway.
Very well! L - I'll give you a go if you tell me.
All right.
Follow me.
But bring the top.
Here it is.
But it's just a lifter and lowerer.
I've been in one of them.
It's not a lifter and lowerer, it's just called a lift, and I bet you don't know how to work it.
- Well, do you? - No.
Well, I do, and I'll show you if you give me a go with your top.
I wonder why they needed to invent stairs when they have these.
- One spade.
- One diamond.
- Two spades.
- No bid.
Honestly, Margot, I'm sure it was unwise of Henry to fight this election over the power of the Lords.
Two no-trumps.
- Are you sure you meant that, Annabelle? - Mm.
Margot dear, I think it's rather improper to discuss one's partner's bid with her.
I was not discussing her bidding, I was disputing her politics.
Three diamonds.
The Lords, Annabelle darling, including your enchanting husband, are like a hawthorn hedge on a hunt.
They are picturesque, but they do tend to impede progress.
Three spades.
But people rather like the aristocracy.
They like mutton, but they don't expect to be ruled by sheep.
I would hardly call the House of Lords sheep, Margot dear.
No bid.
I trust you wouldn't call them shepherds.
The Lords are my shepherds, I shall not want.
Try telling that to the people.
My Billy says the voters will speak with their feet.
I often think the Lords use another portion of their anatomy.
Margot! The back of their heads.
What did you think I meant? It's your turn to bid, Annabelle.
- Four spades.
- No bid.
Have you heard how the election count is going, Margaret? Henry seems very confident of a handsome majority and then we'll trim their Lordships' claws for them.
Six spades.
- No bid.
- No bid.
- Have you found a new maid yet, Annabelle? - Angela McClain's found me a Scots girl Look, are we playing bridge or are we gossiping? - Yes.
- Yes, what? Francis dear, you always put everything so clearly.
Thank you, partner.
Hetty, you're looking very peaky.
You must talk to Freddy.
You positively mustn't have any more babies.
I know.
Tell me, how do you manage? Do you take measures? Oh, I don't have to.
Henry always withdraws in time.
Such a noble man.
- Ladies.
- Ah, Henry, I was just telling the ladies how you were going to sweep the country.
What's the latest on the count? I think we can promise you a famous victory.
Well, I, er I won't disturb you.
With your permission, Margot dear, ladies, I shall withdraw.
Well, that was a healthy enough majority.
With the Irish Unionists and Labour behind us.
A hundred and twenty-four.
All you have to do is pass the Budget back to the Commons again, and the Lords, every blade of grass on their broad acres bleeding, will have to pass it because the whole country has said that they must.
This was just the opening skirmish.
Now the real battle starts.
We've got to cut down their power, once and for all.
Oh, Henry, must you get into the fight now? Can't you wait just a little? I will not have those bloody landlords to the nation sitting on their upholstered backsides telling me and the House of Commons what we can and cannot do.
We must get on with giving the people of this country a life.
Well, I agree with you.
You know that.
It's just that I was brought up amongst them.
Do you know, sometimes I feel like a creature split in two? I mean, we go to their dinner parties.
We visit their houses.
They add colour, gaiety and effervescence.
Personally, they're delightful.
Politically, they're an abomination.
I've never had the least difficulty in reconciling the two.
And politically they're about to get a fist right between wind and water.
Your Lansdowne's not going to like this one little bit.
I wonder if that's wise to call us in before the meeting.
Your guess is as good as mine, my dear Hardinge.
- Edward.
Richard.
- Prime Minister.
I've asked you to come early because you're staunch friends and I want you to know what's in my mind before this morning's Cabinet.
It's probably the most momentous constitutional change any government will embark on this century.
The Lords have passed the Budget, well and good.
But they're still throwing out every other bill we send up to them.
Puffin.
Puffin! Get that confounded thing out of here! D'you hear? Yes, Father.
Sorry.
Do it in the garden.
I don't like it when your father shouts.
Oh, his bark is worse than his bite, except in Parliament, of course.
They call him the sledgehammer in Parliament.
Goodness.
I think we ought to play with the lifter and downer again.
- The lift! - All the same, I think we'd better.
I expect you're right.
I think it was Balfour who boasted, whether in government or opposition, it's the Tory Party who will always govern this empire.
Because they have a permanent majority in the House of Lords.
It is my intention to change all that.
You mean you will abolish the Lords? Put an elected chamber in its place? No, I don't think I could get that through, nor do I think I want to.
No, I think I can draw their claws without all that.
A parliament bill.
And the terms of this parliament bill? Very briefly, to disable the Lords from rejecting or interfering with any measure to do with taxation or money.
And indeed to limit their vetoon any bill to do with money or not to two years.
So that after two years a bill will become law whether they like it or not? Precisely.
So long as the Commons themselves have passed it in three successive sessions.
There's just one snag, of course.
Any bill that does all this is itself vulnerable to the Lords' veto.
They will never pass it.
That is why I have an appointment with His Majesty this afternoon.
My answer must be the same as it was on the Budget.
- Hold an election.
- Another election within 12 months.
I cannot hold a general election every time they decide to throw out a bill.
We're dealing with the Constitution, not playing dominoes, Mr Asquith.
Hold another election, making the Parliament Bill the issue.
Your Majesty, if I win the election, and the Lords nevertheless refuse to pass the Parliament Bill, will you then give me my tidal wave? One thing at a time, Mr Asquith.
Let's see how the election goes.
Your Majesty, all I'm asking is a hypothetical question.
Hmph! And I do not believe, Mr Asquith, in hypothetical answers.
I'm sorry my husband isn't here to conduct the interview, Mr Bonham-Carter.
But just at the moment, he's brow-beating the King.
However, as you are to be secretary to both of us What a well-judged cravat that is, by the way! Oh, thank you.
- Do you read Proust, Mr Bonham-Carter? - No, I'm afraid Never mind.
I was only going to ask if you'd like a madeleine with your tea.
Very much.
Thank you.
Well, I have heard all about you.
Is there anything you want to know about me? Well, I-I think I know most that there is to know, most that I'm entitled to, that is.
I know you're one of the finest riders to hounds in the country, that you have a gift for sketching and music.
Oh, yes, and that the dancer Kate Vaughan, seeing you dance, couldn't believe that you hadn't been trained for the ballet.
All true, especially the bits about riding and dancing.
I believe I could have been one of the first bareback-riding circus ballerinas in the world.
Watch.
Oh, damnation! How is one supposed to behave naturally in this day and age? Excuse me one trifle.
# Dee dah-dah dum # Dah-dah-dah, dum-pom pom-pom-pom pom-pom-pom # Dee dah-dah dum # Dee dah-dah dum, dee dah pom-pom-pom Excuse me, madam, the children are - # Dee dah dah, dee dah - Oh! # Dee dah dah, dee dah dah, dee dah dah, dah-dah dee dah "I summon up remembrance of things past " I sigh the lack of " Miss Violet! Miss Violet! Your stepmother dancing in her combinations is! In front of the new secretary! Combinations seem like a very sensible garment to dance in.
"I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought " # Dah dah dee, dah dah dum # Pom pom pom # - Bravo.
- There.
Now I suppose I must climb back into those hideous constrictions called clothes.
- Margot.
- Oh, hello, darling.
I was just dancing for Mr Bonham-Carter.
He's going to be our new secretary.
- How do you do? - How do you do, sir? I was just leaving.
- Is he all right? - Perfectly splendid.
- Oh.
- Sir.
- Well, I'll see you first thing on Monday.
- Yes, sir.
Thank you, sir.
Well, how did you get on? Was the King sympathetic? Is he going to give you your new peers? - He wants me to win another election.
- Oh.
And he still won't give me a guarantee, even if the Lords still resist.
Well, they're going to resist, you know.
Lottie told me this morning.
There are pistoI parties going on all over London, with puce-faced dukes and marquesses roaring at each other about military coups.
Oh, how can you be expected to govern a country if you have to have an election every time you want to pass a bill? - What are you to do? - Oh, let things cooI off.
Get the devil out of it.
I think it's time I went and inspected the defences at Gibraltar.
- Oh, dear.
- What is it, Margot? I don't suppose it's anything, Vizey.
The King has a touch of bronchitis, that's all.
Well, you know what he's like.
All those cigars.
He probably sounds much worse than he is.
Where has Father gone, Mama? It's very inconvenient not to have him here.
I've a sealed move waiting for him in our chess game.
Your father is very tired, Puffin dear, fighting that seminary for the simple-minded, the House of Lords.
Why are they simple-minded? Oh, they marry their sisters or something of the sort.
- Lord Rob is having a brain operation.
- Why, are they going to put one in? But where has our father gone, Mama? Oh, Puffin darling.
When princes and politicians need a rest, they go and inspect something.
Preferably in a warm climate.
Your father has gone on the Admiralty yacht to inspect the defences at Gibraltar.
I presume we expect a ferocious attack from a band of drink-crazed Spanish gypsy violinists.
I thought that was the Hungarians.
They're all related, dear.
You can't trust any of them.
- I'd like to have gone with him.
- Oh, darling.
- You might like to see this, ma'am.
- Yes, Lindsay? It's a copy of a bulletin they just posted outside the gates at Buckingham Palace.
No progress.
The King's condition cause for great anxiety.
Well, but this is so sudden.
He's been lying low about it, ma'am, His Majesty, that is, for these past four days.
I have it from his valet.
If you please, ma'am, Lord Hardinge is waiting to see you.
Yes, yes, let him in immediately.
Charles.
I didn't know.
I've just come from the Palace.
I left his private secretary Knollys in tears.
- But it can't be as bad as that.
- Knollys is a man not given to exaggeration.
Henry isn't here, you know.
What must I do? - You should send him a telegram immediately.
- But he's on the Admiralty yacht.
There are provisions for that.
King seriously ill.
Suggest you return immediately.
All London in state of well-founded alarm.
Margot.
- Do you think that will do? - I don't think it overstates the case.
- How do I - I'll see to it.
It will go by Admiralty cipher.
All so sudden.
Not really.
His doctors have been warning him about his lungs for years.
Surely he'll be all right.
Oh, please, God, let him be all right.
Come.
We thought you'd like to know, ma'am, there's been another bulletin.
Yes? His Majesty His Majesty passed away at 11:45.
Can I get you anything, ma'am? Thank you, Mrs Lindsay.
You go to bed now.
He died He died.
I'm sorry I couldn't be here.
You coped marvellously.
He died, Henry.
Your wire reached me hours before the official one.
We were on our way from Càdiz to Gibraltar.
And then about three in the morning we had a wireless announcing the King's death.
I went on deck in the twilight just before dawn.
The first thing I saw was Halley's Comet blazing in the sky.
Oh, I wish we'd been together.
What did you think? I thought, "Oh, God, I've got to explain it all over again to a new king.
" What is it? That marvellous, life-giving huge, unhappy man, and all you can think about is politics.
Some of us may have the luxury to indulge in immortal longings, but I happen to be in the middle of the biggest constitutional crisis since Charles I, and an untested young king is likely to be of less help in a political brawl than an old one.
Now I know why they call you all head and no heart, Asquith.
You have no emotion in you.
Margot, I know I've always disappointed you in some way.
I think I know what it is.
I would have hoped by now you'd have understood.
I could and will make a fine speech in the House of Commons about the death of a king.
All I can say to you is well, save some tears for those who don't know how to weep.
I'm not asking you to weep.
We Asquiths are all the same.
You've seen the boys when they're home from schooI.
When was the last time you saw them touch or shake hands or say one friendly thing? Yet they'd die for each other.
Little Puffin isn't like that, or Elizabeth.
They have you in them, my dear.
I've sired ten children, five of them by you.
Those five all would have had your vivid heart.
As for me, I I don't understand myself.
Who does? A speaking statue in the Commons, a buffoon sometimes at home.
All I can tell you is this.
To me, from the first hour I knew you until now, you have been the best that I have known.
I have loved and loved you truly and loyally and with all my nature.
May God make us ever more to each other and help us both to do and to bear.
Well, that's not quite how most of your literary friends would have put it, but it's the best a poor old politician can do.
Henry.
To most people you're a glittering enigma.
To me Well, the second wife always feels herself in competition.
You talked of siring ten children, and five of those were by me, and I lost three of them.
And when I lost the last one, just before you became Prime Minister, I felt so ill, here, that I went to St Paul's and prayed that I might die, rather than hamper your work.
You're the only really serious man I've ever known.
I was terrified of letting you down.
You, terrified? Oh, my dear.
It was a way of loving you.
Well.
How are you going to start again now? Go to the new King.
Tell him I intend to hold a constitutional conference with the Opposition, seek some solution other than an election.
God knows I can't see one.
No, Vizey, not at all.
I think it's monstrous that women shouldn't have the vote.
Take you, for instance.
I'd say you had as good a mind as any man I know.
But you realise I could choose to regard that as an extremely patronising remark.
Oh, come now, Vizey, you know I didn't mean it that way.
I say, what's all this commotion? He's a sensible little boy.
He's probably in the garden somewhere.
Yes, in garden with Megan Lloyd George.
Miss Violet, have you seen the little Master Puffin? The last time was with Megan just before lunch.
Is he missing? Sir, we cannot discover him in any of the usual places.
Poor Margot.
Yes, Hannah, thank you.
Inspector Briley, how long has he been missing for? It's difficult to say.
Is anyone remotely surprised? This house is about as exclusive as Epsom Downs on Derby Day! If the cavalry were to ride through, noone would notice the droppings.
- Margot, you're over-dramatising it.
- What is it, Margot? What's happened? Little Puffin has been kidnapped, that's what, and Megan Lloyd George.
Anyone could have taken them.
The Suffragettes, the anarchists, the Bulgarians! - They've just wandered off.
- And been kidnapped! What's the strength of it? As far as I can make out, the children were last seen three hours ago at about 2pm.
When they didn't turn up for tea, a search was made but they couldn't be found.
- Has anyone suspicious been seen? - Nothing has been reported, sir.
We've got men all over the area now.
Oh, Henry.
Everyone thinks I'm so hard and smug.
If anything were to happen to Puffin - Margot, go into the study with Richard.
- Please, Margot, don't worry about it.
- Bongie.
- Sir? - Do you notice something different? - Sir? Something missing? Something in the background? Of course! The lift.
Come with me, Inspector.
- Puffin! - Let's try the other side.
Mr Lindsay! Mr Lindsay! You'll have to lever the gear out.
OK! - Well, Inspector? - You were right, sir.
The lift was jammed.
The engineers are seeing to it.
I don't hear them cry out.
I'm sure they're probably asleep.
It's very comfortable for them.
Oh! Oh, yes.
They are.
Good, good, good.
You wicked, wicked boy! - Don't you ever do that again! - I didn't do it on purpose! Don't you dare answer back! This is not a debate! Oh, little Miss Megan! Votes for women! Votes for women, Mr Asquith! Mr Asquith! Mr Asquith! Votes for women! Votes for women! Votes for women, Mr Asquith! Votes for women, Mr Asquith! Votes for women, votes for women! Votes for women! Mr Asquith! Votes for women, votes for women! Thank you, Lindsay.
Not a word until you've had a reviver.
Hm.
Poor man.
You look as though you've been trampled on by a herd of viscounts.
It's no use, Margot.
It's like arguing with Stone Age men.
Their castles are like caves and they're defending them with flint axes.
- Henry, I told you, what you've got to do - No, Margot, don't.
- I was only going to say - Margot, please don't.
I am surrounded by experts telling me what to do.
Well, listen to your experts instead, then.
Experts! If I'd listened to experts, little Puffin would still be a furious unfertilised egg.
And if a lifetime's riding to hounds hadn't given you a grip like twin pythons No, Henry, listen, I will not be diverted.
Look, all I was going to suggest was that we We have tried to reach an accommodation with those bloody fossils.
We've tried for six months.
Meanwhile the country's been virtually without government.
Ireland, for God's sake, should have home rule by now.
That is just one instance.
There are dozens.
Henry, I do believe that I have the answer.
Ah, yes, I have got to - You must go back to the King.
go back to the King.
I'm seeing him tomorrow afternoon.
I'll take Crewe along with me, as Leader of the House of Lords.
Very pleasant for the time of year, don't you think, Asquith? Crewe? Indeed.
Your Majesty Yes, I know.
I've been waiting for it.
Your Majesty, we are in extremis.
We have tried for six months to find a middle way.
There is none.
Lord Crewe will confirm it.
The opposition peers are quite intractable, sir.
I can find no means of doing business with them.
Therefore you ask for your swamping deluge of new peers.
I must tell you I feel the same distaste for this procedure as did my father.
Your Majesty, I am a political eunuch.
I suggest you do as my father asked you to do, as you did over the Budget.
Hold an election and see what the people say about curbing the Lords.
- We shall win the election.
- It's quite certain.
And then what? The Commons will pass the Parliament Bill and send it to the Lords, and the Lords will throw it into the Thames.
And we shall be back where we are now, with a government elected by the people to govern, but unable to do so.
How many of these puppet peers would you need? - Three hundred should suffice.
- To be safe, five.
My office has drawn up a list of suitable names.
Mr Asquith, I want you to be very sure how deeply I detest this course of action.
Yes, I'll give you your assurance, on three conditions.
Firstly, that you win the election with a convincing majority.
Secondly, that my promise shall remain utterly secret during the election.
And thirdly, that you will not call on it thereafter unless it becomes absolutely unavoldable.
On all three conditions, sir, you have my word.
And mine, sir.
Margot dear, Vizey, gentlemen.
We've cleared the first hurdle.
Nobody could possibly call 126 an unconvincing majority.
Yes, His Majesty will be well pleased.
But here's to those who gave it to us, the people.
The people.
They certainly made it clear they wanted the Lords tamed.
They've said so in two elections.
First the one over the Budget, and now this one.
Now on to the next battle.
We'll send the Parliament Bill up to their Lordships.
Accompanied, I hope, by a fleet of ambulances.
Apoplexy will be commonplace.
It may all be quite mild.
The Lords passed the Budget jolly quickly after the last election.
Don't deceive yourself, Vizey dear.
They'll be fighting for their ultimate dominance.
Their ancestral claim to rule the country.
Paper! All the latest! Read all about it! Lords reject Parliament Bill! Get your evening paper now! All the latest! All the latest! There you are, madam.
Read all about it! Paper! Paper! Get your evening papers now! Lords reject Parliament Bill! But surely the Lords have only made amendments to the Bill.
They've thrown the Bill back at us.
Now is the time to tell them it is not at the right hand of God they sit, but in the bloody House of Lords.
Now is the time to unveil to the Leader of the Opposition, Lord Lansdowne, the King's promise to me.
I can't wait to see their exploding faces.
It's a pleasure you'll have to be denied, my dear.
This is not going to be a ladies' coffee morning.
- You - Do I understand you, sir? - The King said what? - Not said, my dear Halsbury.
Committed.
How many new peers, hm? How many? As many as we need to push the Parliament Bill through and make it possible for us to govern.
Our estimate is 300-500.
- Good heavens! - Good God, man! You'll make the peerage as common as membership of boxes! - That's the least of your troubles now.
- It's outrageous! It's a damned insult to the whole of the English aristocracy! Accept our Parliament Bill and you will still have considerable powers.
The powers to suggest amendments.
The powers to hold up any bill you don't like for two years.
That's extremely generous of you! Whereas consider the alternative.
With an additional several hundred Liberal peers packing the house, the Tory Party'd have no power at all.
We'd be able to steamroll through any measure we liked, without so much as a "by your leave".
Now, just just supposing, supposing we were to lose the next election, - and your Party got in.
- Yes? You'd be faced with a permanent Liberal majority in the Lords.
Who could render a Tory Party totally ineffective.
Don't you rattle your bogeyman at me, sir.
The King won't do it.
The King must stand on the side of the aristocracy! Are you doubting His Majesty's word? We haven't had His Majesty's word.
We've only had your report of it.
Are you therefore doubting my word? Of course noone's doubting your word, but this has come as a terrible shock.
Might I remind you, sir, that when Queen Anne created just 12 peers for a similar purpose, the man who advised her ended up in the Tower.
What's going to happen to me? Hanged, drawn and quartered? Any peer who votes for your poisonous bill will be expelled from his clubs.
No man'll take him by the hand ever again.
His friends will disown him.
And both socially and politically, he'll be ostracised.
He'll be a dead duck, sir.
Dead! Dead! Dead in the marshes! If we could bring this discussion back to a more rational level? Yes, well, I'm afraid that may not be possible.
This matter goes to the very heart of the power and pride of the nobility.
It's an intensely emotive issue.
It also goes also to the heart of the rights and dignity of the freemen and commoners of England.
That's why it must be approached with reason and calm.
Yes, well, those are two commodities that will be in very short supply in the next few days.
I'll give you good day, sir.
The division's very soon.
Halsbury's got squads of whippers-in chasing around town, collecting Tory peers.
Freddy tells me they've been dragged out of hibernation, dusted off, pointed precariously in the right direction, and some have even been winched into their seats.
How do you think it will go, really? Oh, Lansdowne's proved a realist.
He's got 320 peers who are prepared to abstain from voting.
I'd own 8oobviously will vote for the Bill.
What we don't know is how many the wild man Halsbury's got up his sleeve.
Whole thing's balanced on the point of a needle.
Come along, Master Puffin.
Say good night to your mama and papa, now.
- Good night, Mama.
- Good night, my darling.
- Good night, Papa.
- Night, Puffin.
You won't cut off all the Lords' heads as the French did, will you? No, I won't.
They do look very nice, actually, in their fancy dress.
Yes, Puffin, they do.
- Good night, Mama.
- Good night.
Off to bed now.
Come along, Master Puffin.
It is an hour later than it usually is.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has just made a speech that should give us the bishops.
- That's another 13 to us.
- I believe we're going to do it.
And you did want to do it democratically, didn't you? You didn't actually want to couper les cous? I don't, the King doesn't, and they don't.
What we need now is British common sense.
Did Haldane say when they'd divide? He said they'd just started.
Who wants to bet that I know before any of you? No takers, I'm afraid.
Freddy? We didn't? - We won! - Oh, congratulations.
A hundred and thirty-one to a hundred and fourteen.
- Oh! - Sanity by 17 votes! Bless you, Freddy! This calls for a celebration! Oh, I'll swear Lindsay knew before anybody else! I did have an inkling, miss, from an underteller.
Many congratulations, sir.
Thank you, Lindsay.
That was a close-run thing.
The country would never have been the same.
- Here's to democracy.
- Ah, yes.
To you, sir.
To the last of the Romans.
Yes.
Oh, poppycock.
By the way, who is Freddy? I couldn't possibly tell you.
He voted for the other side.