Number 10 (1983) s01e02 Episode Script
Underdog
Pardon me, miss, what's your business? My name is Ishbel MacDonald.
I'm the eldest daughter of Mr Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour politician and leader of the opposition.
Mrs Baldwin, the Prime Minister's wife, asked me to call.
I see, miss.
Come in, my dear.
I saw you arrive.
So glad you could come.
Of course it's usually the wives.
- The wives? - Of the PMs, incoming and outgoing.
They usually have a word.
- Mark each other's cards, as it were.
- Oh, I see.
One can't expect the men to do it, can one? In the first place they're too busy, and in the second they know nothing about it.
But since I know that Mr MacDonald's wife died many years ago, - I thought his eldest daughter - Yes, of course.
But I didn't know it was so certain - I mean, my father taking over as Prime Minister.
Oh, heavens, my dear, yes! Unemployment, tariff barriers - Stanley's got it all wrong.
The Conservatives will be defeated on a vote of no confidence this afternoon and then the King will call upon your father.
First Labour government in history.
Rather exciting! Boat trains to the continent are already jammed with people stampeding abroad.
My father's not a monster.
No, of course he isn't, my dear.
He's a gentle person, he thinks only of people's good.
I shan't be sorry to go.
Long walks in the meadows, game of cricket now and then - we both play, you know.
Bliss! Now then, I thought you should know what goes and what stays, and I thought a guided tour might help.
- Yes, of course, please.
- Good.
The sofas will be going, they're ours.
The easy chairs, the chaise longue.
All the tables will be going.
We'll be taking the pictures, all the candlesticks and candelabra of course.
This is Stanley's study.
Everything goes from here - desk, chairs and soon.
Oh, I believe that little table stays.
That's from the Board of Works.
Oh, thank heavens for that.
It's a rambling old place, but I'm sure you'll soon get used to it.
- Er, Miss MacDonald, excuse me! - What does it feel like, being the Prime Minister's daughter? I don't know that he is the Prime Minister yet.
How do you feel about living in a place like this after your semi in Hounslow? It's a big house and very complicated, but a house is a house.
I shall leave college and run it.
What are we going to do, Ishbel? All our furniture put together would hardly fill this one room.
Mrs Baldwin explained to me.
All the other prime ministers have brought their own furniture, but since we can't, the Board of Works will supply it.
Right.
Well, we're going to have to do better than this.
I may have been only a schoolteacher and a clerk, but I know what's becoming to a man representing his nation.
There's not a stitch of linen, nor one knife, fork, nor plate in the house.
Mrs Baldwin said the State didn't supply any of that, we have to provide our own.
Well, the January sales are on.
Get hold of your Aunt Bella, she's a good wee manager, get yourselves to the Co-op and buy what you think is needed in the way of crockery, linen and soon.
But don't go mad.
- There's something else.
- What? Well, domestic staff, the house can't be run without them.
Well, the State provides them, naturally.
No, I'm afraid they're the Prime Minister's responsibility.
My God, no wonder we've had three centuries of more or less Tory government - nobody else can afford to do the job! How many? The Asquiths had fourteen, the Baldwins ten.
Fourteen? How in the name of decency - Well, to start with, there's the butler.
- Ah, a parlour maid will do us.
But there's always been a butler at Number 1o.
Parlour maid, cook, pantry maid, and that's it.
Er, ornaments, vases, things like that? - There are none.
We have to provide our own.
- Cor.
Oh, the Board of Works might be able to arrange with the National Gallery - to lend us some pictures to put on the wall.
- Good, we might be able to sell a few to help us to stay afloat.
- From the Palace, sir.
- Oh, thank you.
- Who pays for the messengers? - The State.
Oh, well, that's something, at least.
It's a Royal summons.
I have to go to the Palace.
I thought you'd already been.
Aye, that was to be sworn in as a privy councillor.
This is to kiss hands to be made officially Prime Minister.
Oh, Daddy.
- Daddy! - Joan, Sheila! - You found your way from schooI, then? - Yes, Ishbel worked out the buses - from Camden Town for us.
- But we walked and saved the fare.
Er, do you know where your rooms are in that rabbit warren? Ishbel thought up in the attic.
She says it's cosy there.
- And we won't get in your way.
- Away with you.
- It wasn't too bad, was it? - I have no fear of formality, Your Majesty.
It has its place.
Have you never seen a Durham Miners' Gala? Do sit down.
- Cigar? - Thank you, no.
There are other formalities you might like to know about.
First time your Party's been in power, thought you might like someone to tell you the form.
I would appreciate it.
Well, it's customary for the Leader of the House to send me a letter every night telling me what went on in the Commons that day.
But wouldn't it be more sensible to wait for Hansard? Lacks the personal touch.
- Besides, you fellows do tend to goon a bit.
- Quite so.
It's also usual to submit all important Foreign Office dispatches to me before transmitting.
I, er, can sometimes help, you know.
Been in the game a long time.
I hope you will continue to help us.
The singing of the Red Flag at your Party's meeting at the Albert Hall the other night - - bit un-British.
- If I had tried to stop it, there would have been a riot.
It was as much as I could do to prevent them bursting out with it in the Commons when Mr Baldwin was defeated.
They've got into the way of singing this song, but I hope by degrees to break them of it.
What are your thoughts on the Cabinet? Oh, I'm not that far along yet.
Well, as far as you've got.
For Colonial Secretary, JH Thomas.
Engine driver, wasn't he? - That is so.
- Who else? - Lord Privy Seal, JR Clynes.
- Mill hand.
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden.
Factory worker.
Your Majesty is very well informed.
I try to be.
- It occurs to me - Yes, sir? when my ministers attend court ceremonials, - they're expected to wear court dress.
- Yes, I'm aware of that.
Now, the full thing costs, I'm told, £73.
A monstrous sum, especially for men of little capital.
- Indeed, sir.
- Tell them, all I shall require - is evening dress and knee breeches.
- I shall do so.
And tell them they can hire that from Moss Brothers for tuppence ha'penny.
- Daddy.
- Mm-hm? You've got such a serious face.
I'm as the Lord made me.
What she means is you're Prime Minister.
You've just become the most important man in the whole of the United Kingdom.
Well, that's usually champagne and balloons and all that.
Well, perhaps it would have been if your mother Daddy, Mummy's been dead nearly 14 years.
Finish your breakfast.
Aunt Bella and I ordered the things we need from the Co-op.
- They'll be arriving tomorrow.
- Oh, have you the bill? Good grief, child, my salary as Prime Minister for the last two days is far less than what you've already spent.
I have to be careful.
I'm only here on sufferance.
What does "on sufferance" mean? It means I'm only in because the Liberals are voting with me.
If they decide to vote with the Conservatives, Labour will be out tomorrow.
Still and all, it's the first time in history.
We're very proud of you, Daddy.
- Permission to leave the room.
- And me.
And I.
Och, away to schooI with you.
Have you got your bus money? Yes, I've got it! - Daddy.
- Hmm? Can't we ever make it up to you for your losing Mummy? We try so hard.
Darling child, of course you can.
You do.
Just in a different way.
A man and wife such as we were, walking the hills and streams of Lossiemouth, she would say, "Don't let's speak.
"Let's walk silently, for then we speak most truly.
" She was rare.
She believed in the absolute oneness of mankind.
Sometimes I feel like a lone dog lost in the desert, howling for pain of the heart.
You never let anyone else see that.
No.
Mr Thomas and Mr Snowden, sir.
Thank you, Rose.
Jimmy! Philip! Well, at least you're the first here, but you're still late.
This isn't a constituency meeting, you know, it's the first bloody Labour Cabinet.
I had a hell of a job getting here - buses were all full.
Me too - the nearest tube's Westminster, you know.
My God, you sound like two typists talking to the office manager.
Well, sit down, sit down.
Well what do we call you, then? Oh, I've been doing some research into that.
You call me Prime Minister, I call you by your surnames or your office.
- Oh, lot of damned rigmarole.
- Ah, rigmarole has its place.
It shapes the mind.
Up to now, Labour has used Parliament as a kind of Speakers' Corner, a soapbox for propaganda aimed largely at people who already believe us anyway.
But now we've got a chance to show that we are government timber, not just wreckers.
We've got to be statesmen, not jumped-up hecklers.
So long as we remember we are Labour, not just Tories with water added.
What are we going to do about two million unemployed? Whose side are we on? What if the transport workers do goon strike, and the power workers after that? We behave like a responsible government - we get world trade moving again, we stop the French bleeding the Germans white in war reparations.
Now, if the transport workers do strike, we put volunteer drivers on the roads while we negotiate.
If the power workers strike, we put the navy's engineers in.
- Good God - If we don't cut the loaf now, we'll not get another one, so we do what has to be done - we govern.
My God, I could be listening to Baldwin or Asquith or any of those other perambulating sepulchres.
Is this really MacDonald I'm hearing, the boy from the bothy in Lossiemouth? Aye.
MacDonald of Lossiemouth.
I'm your man.
Bastard son of an itinerant cowman and a serving maid.
Born and bred in a two-room shack next to the stables, with six-inch cracks between the walls to let in the stink of horse shit and horse piss! Here! Here's my birth certificate.
I carry it with me, just in case I'm ever tempted to forget who I am.
So don't you talk to me, you little feather-bedded bloody Sassenach.
I mean to pull this party into credibility if it cripples me, or preferably you! Ach, I didn't mean that, Philip.
Well, when you two jessies have finished Here, I don't believe a person may smoke in the Cabinet Room.
Ramsay, you're Prime Minister, man, a person can do any bloody thing he likes in the Cabinet Room so long as you say he can.
Prime Minister, have I got your permission to smoke? Aye.
Why not? Where do I knock the ash, then? In the inkwells? Rose? - Yes, Mr MacDonald? - Ashtrays, Rose, - Cabinet members, for the use of.
- Yes, Mr MacDonald.
Er, who pays for them? The Office of bloody Works does.
God knows I apparently pay for everything else in this house.
Yes, Mr MacDonald.
Er, just before the others get here, I thought I should tell you, I'm recognising the revolutionary government in Russia.
I hope you'll support me.
We're only just in power.
Do you think it's wise? It's always been British policy to recognise whoever's in power, and the Bolsheviks are.
A Tory government could do it without comment, but can we? They'll call us Communists.
A minute ago you were calling me a watered-down Tory.
What do you want? I don't know, Ramsay, I'm just glad I'm not sitting where you are.
- There's a general to see you.
- A general! He says he's from a special branch of Scotland Yard, General Sir Borlase Childs, I believe he said he was.
Oh, aye.
Show him into the study, Maggie.
I've heard of General Childs.
You are perhaps not aware that my department issues a weekly report to the Prime Minister of the day on revolutionary movements in this country.
I read an old copy this morning.
- Do you wish the practice to be continued? - Why should I not? Oh, of course, the revolutionary movements in question are all Communistic revolutionary movements, and I might have a degree of sympathy? - I did not say that.
- No.
Neither you did.
However, I have a suggestion to make.
Your report might be a due livelier and and more complete if it also covered the activities of other political movements of an extreme nature, say, on the right wing.
Now, a little knowledge of the Fascist movement in this country and its apostles might give an exhilarating flavour to the document, and by enlarging its scope convert it into a complete and finished work of art.
I'm already fully informed of the activities of the Fascists.
Aye, but the point is, surely, not whether you are, but whether I am.
Do take note of it, General.
The man from the Board of Works is here.
- Show him in, Maggie.
- Aye.
- Mr Meynall, isn't it? - Meynell.
I was expecting to meet Mr MacDonald's political hostess.
I am Mr MacDonald's political hostess.
I'm also his social secretary, I'm also his daughter.
I'm 20 years old and I have little knowledge of the world.
But I do know this - the furnishings in this house are a disgrace.
It doesn't matter that you've seen fit to put this office next to the Cabinet Room lavatory, I am of no consequence.
My father is.
He wants beautiful pieces, not stockroom throw-outs.
He wants good carpets.
You're to borrow pictures from the National Gallery to put on his walls.
You're to make this house fit for him to live in.
I understood you were Socialists.
If you don't understand it's to honour the office and not the man, you understand nothing.
- I have come a long way, Ramsay.
- We both have.
You the son of a railway guard, and me a wee bastard.
- I know I had some whisky hereabouts.
- Will it not be in the decanter? Och, you're not at home now.
There are no decanters here.
Mr Grant.
How nice.
Ishbel.
Before a man dies of thirst, will you show your faither where the whisky is? Of course.
Ah.
You are bonnier and cannier than ever.
And you're a worse flatterer than ever.
Thank you.
You've made three social appointments for Wednesday when you're supposed to be in Paris arguing with the French.
Oh.
Er, you'll get me out of them, Ishbel? Do I ever not? - Slàinte.
- Slàinte.
Are you going to be able to get the French and the Germans together? If I don't, Europe's going to fall apart.
- Would you like a cigarette, Sandy? - Aye, I would, but dinnae fash yersel, Ramsay, I was never a great smoker.
No, I know I have some cigarettes here somewhere.
Ah, here we are.
You see, the French are still bent on revenge, but I want conciliation and co-operation.
- Have you got a match, Ramsay? - Matches, matches Oh, man, to hell with the matches.
- Is there anything the matter with the chairs? - No.
Well, could we sit down? James Ramsay MacDonald.
- What did I say to you just now? - Oh, something about - I said you had come a long way.
- Aye, that was it.
Aye, well, I don't think you realise how far you've come.
- You're Prime Minister.
- I know, I know.
- Well - It's all in hand.
Ishbel gave the Board of Works hell a fortnight ago.
You'll see.
But it's not only that, Ramsay, it's Well, where did I find you just now? - At the - You were coming from the tube station.
Struggling with a suitcase.
Where had you been? I'd been to Chequers for the weekend and I was coming from the station.
You were coming from the station.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain, trailing back to Downing Street carrying a suitcase.
I had to go by tube and train, the official car had broken down.
You should have your own car, man.
But you are in charge of all our futures.
You cannae do your job properly.
I work from seven in the morning till an hour past midnight every day of the week! Well, all the more reason why you shouldnae be bothered by trivial things like motorcars.
Sandy, the job pays £5,ooo a year, and out of that I have to do all my own entertaining, pay for my personal private secretary, 1o1 things that crop up, how the devil am I going to buy a motorcar? I don't mean just a motorcar, I mean a great, big, sleekit Daimler, and a lot more besides.
- Now, will you listen to me for a minute? - Aye, there's no harm in listening to a man, - even if he is raving.
- Well, will you sit down? Right.
Now.
- Do you mind? - No, help yourself.
No, not that.
That can stay.
Put that over there.
- Hello, Harry! - Miss Joan, Miss Sheila.
- Is Daddy back from France yet? - Tomorrow.
He's been away a long time.
He's trying to get the French out of the Ruhr.
- Where's that? - It's where all the big German factories are.
- Will everything be all right, then? - We hope so.
What's a Bolshevik infiltrator? It's a secret Communist.
Why? Well, Betty Hurst at schooI says her father says that's what Daddy is.
She says he gets money from the Russians so he'll be on their side.
Well, you tell Betty Hurst from me that I'll personally come and box her ears and her father's too.
Daddy's trying to help the Russians, just as he's trying to help the Germans.
He wants everyone to work together to make things better.
- You understand that, don't you? - Oh, yes, we do.
It's the others.
Don't pay any attention to them, they're not worth the effort.
Come on.
I'll get your teas.
- Sandy, good to see you! - Ah, good evening, sir.
I've done it, Sandy, I've done it! I know you have, it's in all the papers.
Congratulations.
What the Tories couldn't accomplish in five years, the first Labour government has done in five months.
Harmony in Europe, the French out of the Ruhr, the Germans in a position to get their lathes going and help us out of the depression.
Oh, aye, you're very big in Europe.
This fella says you're the tallest man around.
I want to beat the Tories on their own ground, Sandy.
They've been the lordly masters of foreign policy for too long.
Politicians can run home affairs but it takes statesmen to deal with abroad, and I think we've shown the country we can do that.
You'll get no thanks for it, Ramsay.
The Tories will be jealous.
Ach, I can get by without pats on the head from them.
And I would watch out for this Russian loan you're pushing too.
People do not like the Bolsheviks.
It's necessary.
Has nobody offered you a dram? Things are looking up since I was last here.
And the Board of Works cannot take the entire credit.
Oh, we Lossie loons must stick together.
I like a man who knows how to hold the hand that's held out to help him.
- Slàinte.
- Slàinte.
Oh, man.
How is the motorcar? It's like being transported in a bowlful of strawberries and cream.
Er, what can I do for you, Sandy? Oh, nothing, nothing at all.
No, I was just hereabouts.
I heard you were back, so I just looked in on the off chance, you ken.
Aye.
Well, you're always welcome, you know that.
- Cigar? - Thank you, no.
How's business? People still eating your biscuits? Oh, aye, enough.
No just as many, but enough.
Good.
- The wife's a wee bit restless, you know.
- Oh? Well, you know how they are.
I mean, she's mixing a wee bit more with the quality these days and, er well, she would dearly love a banner to wave.
- A banner? - Aye, it's damn silly, but Do you know, I believe that she would be the most contented woman on earth if she could just put "Lady" up in front of her name.
Aye.
Well, there's no accounting for tastes.
Will you get me Central 6000? Ah.
Daily Mail? - Where the hell did they get it from? - Snoopers are always with us.
What does it matter? They'll use it to crucify me and the Party.
I agree.
Question is not where they got it from, but is it true? Some it's true, some of it's half-true, some of it's totally false.
- What does that mean? - In the sense that Sandy helped me, it's true.
In the sense that that had anything to do with my recommending him for a baronetcy, it's false.
Not just helping, Ramsay, it is a Daimler, a chauffeur and £4o,ooo.
£40,000.
Don't you realise what you've done, man? You've gone down to the trough.
You've spoiled everything you've ever done for the character of the Party.
You had us looking like a Party of government, with status, command, authority.
And you've been caught with your hand in the till like a sneak thief.
I would have thought, Jimmy, I might have expected not to hear that from a friend.
These leery, conniving, lying swine! I have my lawyer issuing a writ right this minute.
Sir Alexander, I wish you wouldn't do that, not just for now anyway.
What's this? Don't tell me you believe these muck peddlers.
- Ramsay.
- We'd only just started, Sandy, I was about to put the matter in its proper perspective.
Aye, well, if you'll pardon me, I think I'm better able to do that than you.
- No, Sandy.
- You and your bloody Party! You let this man take the most pocket-draining job in the country without lifting a shilling to help him.
He was living like a pauper, man.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain, trailing round the streets wi' a suitcase like a commercial traveller.
Now, him and me grew up together.
Lossiemouth loons, they cry us in Scotland.
I spent my life making money and he gave his to his country, so what the hell? I bought him a motorcar.
There's no law says a man cannae do that for his friend.
You gave him a great deal more than that.
What's the point of giving the man a Daimler if he hasnae got the money to run it? £40,000 is a bit more than running costs.
So you do believe the muckrakers, don't you? I did not give Ramsay MacDonald £40,000! I lent him shares in McVitie & Price to the value of £40,000 which is a very different matter.
He gets the income off the shares, that's all.
Oh, I admit it's maybe a wee bit more than you need to run a motorcar, but the difference, once you're buying the bits and pieces that a man needs to turn a workhouse into a home, particularly a home fit for a man that has the nation in his hands.
There is still the question of the baronetcy.
- The baronetcy - The honour was not connected.
- Wait a minute, Ramsay - No, Sandy.
Now, I shut up for you, you just shut up for me a minute.
Alexander Grant made his fortune himself, and is no doubt heartily disliked by those who inherited theirs, the more so because, unlike them, he's made a habit of giving his riches away toothers.
He's built orphanages, endowed schools, founded scholarships throughout the country.
This year he donated £1oo,ooo towards a national library for Scotland.
Well, I've known Tories get baronetcies for farting in a discreet and gentlemanly manner.
Alexander Grant got his for services to his country, he didn't buy it for a motorcar and the loan of shares in a biscuit firm.
And furthermore, I bloody resent having to defend my friend against my friends, and myself against my friends.
I have enough to do to beat off the hounds of the Establishment without having to beat you off as well.
Then it is a great pity you timed it so badly.
God Ramsay we're only acting as the devil's advocate.
You will have a great deal worse to face in the House.
They've already got this Russian loan against you - which you seem determined to push through.
- I never said I wouldn't.
Against bitter opposition from most of us in your own Cabinet.
And now they've got this.
Well, if we were on board an ocean liner, I'd say, "Strap yourself to your bunks, boys, "and forget about eating for a week.
" Sir, would you care to comment on the Grant affair? Sometimes I don't seem to understand MacDonald.
He seems to live in a world of his own, where noone thinks ill or draws false conclusions.
- Did you ever meet his wife, Margaret? - No.
Nearest thing to a real Christian I ever encountered.
She made you feel, well optimistic just to be with her.
I saw the influence she had on Ramsay.
I know he still thinks of her every day.
She taught us all two things - that folk were basically good and that all you had to do was follow your own conscience.
- Well, you can't take exception to any of that.
- What? Trouble is, Ramsay believed it.
If only Mummy hadn't died.
She would've helped him so much.
- What a poor substitute I am.
- You're helping him very much, I swear to you.
You run his household, his social life.
You are his hostess.
- I'm only 20, I know nothing.
- Ishbel.
All I can tell you is you've given him exactly what he needs.
A quiet, steady home life, organised, no fuss.
I know a lot of politicians who'd give their knighthoods for that.
You should have been in the Diplomatic Service, Rose.
You've weathered the Sandy Grant storm, but it hasn't helped.
The Russian loan thing's becoming far more dangerous than ever the Grant affair was.
Do you mind if I take off this damn monkey jacket until we leave? No, please, please.
You know, you've been suspect with the lunatic Tory right wing ever since your first act in power, which was to recognise Soviet Russia.
Now you're hellbent on lending money to her.
Why? For the same reason I'm lending it to Germany.
They're bankrupt.
Bankrupt nations can't get prosperous again without our help.
If they're not prosperous they can't buy our goods, if they can't buy our goods, we can't get unemployment down.
All men are one, mankind is indivisible.
You're the economist, I don't have to tell you that.
The country's in the grip of a Communist phobia.
People are seeing Reds round every corner.
You may have reason on your side but people are scared of the Reds.
Er, you won't have read this yet, it is the latest edition of Workers' Weekly.
No, no.
Listen to this.
"Soldiers of the British Army, let it be known that, neither in the class war "or a military war, will you turn your guns on your fellow workers.
" Hysterical rubbish.
It's the official organ of the Communist Party in this country, and it's Communists people see you helping out.
- There is no connection.
- It can't be ignored.
The Attorney General immediately decided the piece was an incitement to mutiny, and a warrant has been issued for the arrest of the editor, John Campbell.
- Why was I not informed about this? - You weren't here, there wasn't time.
The Tories instantly capitalised on it and started telling the country the article represented Labour Party policy.
- I want to see this John Campbell.
- What good is that going to do? He's got to be prosecuted and slapped inside.
I want to see him before another single forward step on this matter is taken.
Mr Campbell's here.
Show him in, Maggie.
Mr Campbell, sir.
Take a seat, Mr Campbell.
Oh, of course, you've already got one, haven't you.
Huh.
I'm glad to see you don't go in for the slop most people wallow in when you see a man in a wheelchair.
Er, that'll be all right, Constable.
A lot of good men got smashed up in the war.
You were against it, I seem to remember.
I was.
But once we were in, we had to win.
- Both feet blown off.
- More or less.
- This is a most distinguished war record.
- So they say.
Decorated for conspicuous gallantry.
I was fighting for my country.
Why this? In between throwing up with fright in the trenches, I sorted out quite a lot of things in me head.
I realised that if ever I did get out of it alive, there'd still be the same gang in charge back here - high-hat crooks and money grubbers - so I decided to do my bit to try and change things.
So did I, and I'm still at it.
But this this article, encouraging our soldiers not to fire on their country's enemies, how's that gonna help? - I had nothing to do with that.
- Come on now, you're the editor.
Temporary, acting, in the absence of the real editor.
That article was already set up in type and rolling when I took over.
Now, are you telling me that if you'd been in complete charge, that article would never have been published? Ah, you politicians are always refusing to answer hypothetical questions, I think I'll follow your example.
On the basis of my information, which he has checked, the Attorney General is of the opinion that a prosecution would not succeed.
He has therefore decided to drop it.
Well, you seem to have saved us from making fools of ourselves, Ramsay.
- I'm not so sure.
- What do you mean? Well, we know you're telling the truth.
Will the opposition know? Will the public believe you? Oh, the whole press is Tory down to the last headline.
Can't you see what they're going to make of this? Not directly, but the innuendos, the sly little hints.
MacDonald has quashed the case against a Communist agent who incited the forces to mutiny, he's whitewashed it.
Funny how keen he is on this loan to Russia.
He was against the war too, if you remember.
They can say what they damn well like.
I refuse to throw an innocent man to the wolves just to keep my sledge moving.
Yes, but how innocent is he? He's a Communist after all.
Since when has being a Communist been a crime? - There you go again! - You're saying it is a crime? No, of course not, it's not that, it's Somehow, it It is the kind of things you say, it's the impression you give.
Jimmy.
I know what Phil means, Ramsay.
You, me, all of us in the Party, yes, we were all brought up on the brotherhood of man, the solidarity of the workers, but Russia, Bolshevism, it scares hell out of people.
And you seem to suggest an atmosphere of I don't know.
Complicity with the Reds.
They think you have the brimstone whiff of revolution about you.
Revolution! They don't know the meaning of the word.
I was in Russia in 1919 in the middle of it.
I saw the prophets, the beautiful visionaries in action, standing on tables, howling and being howled at, laughing and laughed at, provoking and being provoked.
They went down to their graves, butchered, encompassed in hate and passion and chaos.
And what came after was worse than what had been before, so don't talk to me about revolution.
Revolution is the old enemy that makes me sweat in the hour before dawn.
I know it is, Ramsay, but the opposite impression is being quietly fostered by the newspapers.
Newspapers, the lavatory roll of the nation.
They create a climate.
Think what they could do with this Zinoviev letter the Foreign Office intercepted.
The Zinoviev letter is a forgery.
I told you that in Cabinet this morning.
Aye, that's fine.
But think what it would look like to the people who might not believe that.
Zinoviev the Russian Communist leader, writing to his followers over here, painting a picture of a Labour Party already penetrated by Communist cells, which are being used to infiltrate industry and to subvert the armed forces.
- Oh! If it were to get out - It won't get out.
The Foreign Office are playing it straight, they know the letter's a forgery.
I have an understanding with them not to make it public until we have a chance to prove that to the hilt.
Ramsay, these things have a way of getting out! Look perhaps if you dropped the idea of the Russian loan.
I will not.
I want peace, I want prosperity.
I want smoke belching from factories clear across Europe.
I want a job for every man in this country, and if people don't understand how I'm going about it, that's their bad luck.
- And yours.
- And the Party's.
I picked this Party up by the scruff of its neck, and shook it into the seat of power.
Well, if it finds that seat too hard for its tender arse, it can always go back to its role of underfed mongrel, snapping at the heels of the Tories! Daddy? I bungled it in the House today.
In spite of all my arrogant boasting to Jimmy and Phil Snowden, I bungled it.
How? Oh, I was asked by Kingsley Wood about the John Campbell affair.
I meant to say I had exerted no pressure to have the prosecution dropped, I'd simply uncovered the facts.
Instead I said I had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
I can't see what's so dreadful about that.
It was a lie, Ishbel.
I was so angry at the way Wood put the question, implying that I was covering up for a fellow Bolshevik, I I just wanted to smash him.
And I went too far.
- It's not terribly important.
- Oh, yes, it is.
They'll link it up in some way with the Russian treaty and the £4omillion Russian loan and paint a picture that will bring me down.
The Tories are already bringing out a motion of censure on the Campbell affair and the Liberals are with them.
You'll have been in ten months.
You didn't expect to last two.
Oh, I can withstand it, I've stood worse.
When I opposed the German war, I was spat on, I was thrown out of my golf club in Scotland, I even had my bastard's birth certificate published in John Bull for all to see.
But I'm sore at heart for the Party.
You see, they'll put a stain on that that will linger for decades.
Perhaps you're too pessimistic.
Maybe they won't get you out after all.
They're even at this moment preparing for the election.
A sympathetic print worker sent me these at the Commons today.
They're proof copies of the Tories' campaign leaflets.
There are others warning against Labour youth clubs and Sunday schools where, according to Tory central office, children are baptised into the Communist faith and taught the elements of street fighting.
And yet others saying that health visitors could be Communist spies, and if the Communists come to power, as they will through us, children will be taken away from their parents and made the property of the State.
What a filthy way to fight an election.
It's politics, Ishbel.
But you're right.
Forcing me into an election is one thing, beating me is another.
Truth has an iron fist, so you'll see how they stand up to that.
- Jimmy.
- What is it? I have the Orpheus Choir singing their hearts out through there, I mustn't seem rude to them.
You'll wish it was a battalion of the Highland Light Infantry you'd got there.
Ach, what are you talking about? We're holding our own in the election so far, just about.
Even the Tory press admit it, better than I'd hoped.
That forgery, the Zinoviev letter the Foreign Office intercepted, supposed to come from the Communist International.
- Yes? - The Daily Mail have got hold of it.
They're publishing it tomorrow.
Then we're scuppered.
Well, we we can't fight that.
You see, there's no time to prove it's a forgery.
It's too damn good.
Thank you, Jimmy, for all you've done.
There'll be another time.
We've staked our claim, you'll see.
I tried it, my love, what we always believed - that honesty of purpose is all a man needs.
But it hasn't proved to be so.
Not if that man is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
He also needs guile, and mendacity, and deceit, and you never taught me those.
Would to God you were here to teach me now.
Though you wouldn't, would you? You wouldn't know where to begin.
So next time.
And there will be a next time.
I must learn them for myself.
Daddy! The weight of the choir, it's proved too much for the drawing-room floors, there are cracks in the ceilings downstairs.
Er, paste stamp paper over them.
Let the bloody Tories deal with it.
I'm the eldest daughter of Mr Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour politician and leader of the opposition.
Mrs Baldwin, the Prime Minister's wife, asked me to call.
I see, miss.
Come in, my dear.
I saw you arrive.
So glad you could come.
Of course it's usually the wives.
- The wives? - Of the PMs, incoming and outgoing.
They usually have a word.
- Mark each other's cards, as it were.
- Oh, I see.
One can't expect the men to do it, can one? In the first place they're too busy, and in the second they know nothing about it.
But since I know that Mr MacDonald's wife died many years ago, - I thought his eldest daughter - Yes, of course.
But I didn't know it was so certain - I mean, my father taking over as Prime Minister.
Oh, heavens, my dear, yes! Unemployment, tariff barriers - Stanley's got it all wrong.
The Conservatives will be defeated on a vote of no confidence this afternoon and then the King will call upon your father.
First Labour government in history.
Rather exciting! Boat trains to the continent are already jammed with people stampeding abroad.
My father's not a monster.
No, of course he isn't, my dear.
He's a gentle person, he thinks only of people's good.
I shan't be sorry to go.
Long walks in the meadows, game of cricket now and then - we both play, you know.
Bliss! Now then, I thought you should know what goes and what stays, and I thought a guided tour might help.
- Yes, of course, please.
- Good.
The sofas will be going, they're ours.
The easy chairs, the chaise longue.
All the tables will be going.
We'll be taking the pictures, all the candlesticks and candelabra of course.
This is Stanley's study.
Everything goes from here - desk, chairs and soon.
Oh, I believe that little table stays.
That's from the Board of Works.
Oh, thank heavens for that.
It's a rambling old place, but I'm sure you'll soon get used to it.
- Er, Miss MacDonald, excuse me! - What does it feel like, being the Prime Minister's daughter? I don't know that he is the Prime Minister yet.
How do you feel about living in a place like this after your semi in Hounslow? It's a big house and very complicated, but a house is a house.
I shall leave college and run it.
What are we going to do, Ishbel? All our furniture put together would hardly fill this one room.
Mrs Baldwin explained to me.
All the other prime ministers have brought their own furniture, but since we can't, the Board of Works will supply it.
Right.
Well, we're going to have to do better than this.
I may have been only a schoolteacher and a clerk, but I know what's becoming to a man representing his nation.
There's not a stitch of linen, nor one knife, fork, nor plate in the house.
Mrs Baldwin said the State didn't supply any of that, we have to provide our own.
Well, the January sales are on.
Get hold of your Aunt Bella, she's a good wee manager, get yourselves to the Co-op and buy what you think is needed in the way of crockery, linen and soon.
But don't go mad.
- There's something else.
- What? Well, domestic staff, the house can't be run without them.
Well, the State provides them, naturally.
No, I'm afraid they're the Prime Minister's responsibility.
My God, no wonder we've had three centuries of more or less Tory government - nobody else can afford to do the job! How many? The Asquiths had fourteen, the Baldwins ten.
Fourteen? How in the name of decency - Well, to start with, there's the butler.
- Ah, a parlour maid will do us.
But there's always been a butler at Number 1o.
Parlour maid, cook, pantry maid, and that's it.
Er, ornaments, vases, things like that? - There are none.
We have to provide our own.
- Cor.
Oh, the Board of Works might be able to arrange with the National Gallery - to lend us some pictures to put on the wall.
- Good, we might be able to sell a few to help us to stay afloat.
- From the Palace, sir.
- Oh, thank you.
- Who pays for the messengers? - The State.
Oh, well, that's something, at least.
It's a Royal summons.
I have to go to the Palace.
I thought you'd already been.
Aye, that was to be sworn in as a privy councillor.
This is to kiss hands to be made officially Prime Minister.
Oh, Daddy.
- Daddy! - Joan, Sheila! - You found your way from schooI, then? - Yes, Ishbel worked out the buses - from Camden Town for us.
- But we walked and saved the fare.
Er, do you know where your rooms are in that rabbit warren? Ishbel thought up in the attic.
She says it's cosy there.
- And we won't get in your way.
- Away with you.
- It wasn't too bad, was it? - I have no fear of formality, Your Majesty.
It has its place.
Have you never seen a Durham Miners' Gala? Do sit down.
- Cigar? - Thank you, no.
There are other formalities you might like to know about.
First time your Party's been in power, thought you might like someone to tell you the form.
I would appreciate it.
Well, it's customary for the Leader of the House to send me a letter every night telling me what went on in the Commons that day.
But wouldn't it be more sensible to wait for Hansard? Lacks the personal touch.
- Besides, you fellows do tend to goon a bit.
- Quite so.
It's also usual to submit all important Foreign Office dispatches to me before transmitting.
I, er, can sometimes help, you know.
Been in the game a long time.
I hope you will continue to help us.
The singing of the Red Flag at your Party's meeting at the Albert Hall the other night - - bit un-British.
- If I had tried to stop it, there would have been a riot.
It was as much as I could do to prevent them bursting out with it in the Commons when Mr Baldwin was defeated.
They've got into the way of singing this song, but I hope by degrees to break them of it.
What are your thoughts on the Cabinet? Oh, I'm not that far along yet.
Well, as far as you've got.
For Colonial Secretary, JH Thomas.
Engine driver, wasn't he? - That is so.
- Who else? - Lord Privy Seal, JR Clynes.
- Mill hand.
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden.
Factory worker.
Your Majesty is very well informed.
I try to be.
- It occurs to me - Yes, sir? when my ministers attend court ceremonials, - they're expected to wear court dress.
- Yes, I'm aware of that.
Now, the full thing costs, I'm told, £73.
A monstrous sum, especially for men of little capital.
- Indeed, sir.
- Tell them, all I shall require - is evening dress and knee breeches.
- I shall do so.
And tell them they can hire that from Moss Brothers for tuppence ha'penny.
- Daddy.
- Mm-hm? You've got such a serious face.
I'm as the Lord made me.
What she means is you're Prime Minister.
You've just become the most important man in the whole of the United Kingdom.
Well, that's usually champagne and balloons and all that.
Well, perhaps it would have been if your mother Daddy, Mummy's been dead nearly 14 years.
Finish your breakfast.
Aunt Bella and I ordered the things we need from the Co-op.
- They'll be arriving tomorrow.
- Oh, have you the bill? Good grief, child, my salary as Prime Minister for the last two days is far less than what you've already spent.
I have to be careful.
I'm only here on sufferance.
What does "on sufferance" mean? It means I'm only in because the Liberals are voting with me.
If they decide to vote with the Conservatives, Labour will be out tomorrow.
Still and all, it's the first time in history.
We're very proud of you, Daddy.
- Permission to leave the room.
- And me.
And I.
Och, away to schooI with you.
Have you got your bus money? Yes, I've got it! - Daddy.
- Hmm? Can't we ever make it up to you for your losing Mummy? We try so hard.
Darling child, of course you can.
You do.
Just in a different way.
A man and wife such as we were, walking the hills and streams of Lossiemouth, she would say, "Don't let's speak.
"Let's walk silently, for then we speak most truly.
" She was rare.
She believed in the absolute oneness of mankind.
Sometimes I feel like a lone dog lost in the desert, howling for pain of the heart.
You never let anyone else see that.
No.
Mr Thomas and Mr Snowden, sir.
Thank you, Rose.
Jimmy! Philip! Well, at least you're the first here, but you're still late.
This isn't a constituency meeting, you know, it's the first bloody Labour Cabinet.
I had a hell of a job getting here - buses were all full.
Me too - the nearest tube's Westminster, you know.
My God, you sound like two typists talking to the office manager.
Well, sit down, sit down.
Well what do we call you, then? Oh, I've been doing some research into that.
You call me Prime Minister, I call you by your surnames or your office.
- Oh, lot of damned rigmarole.
- Ah, rigmarole has its place.
It shapes the mind.
Up to now, Labour has used Parliament as a kind of Speakers' Corner, a soapbox for propaganda aimed largely at people who already believe us anyway.
But now we've got a chance to show that we are government timber, not just wreckers.
We've got to be statesmen, not jumped-up hecklers.
So long as we remember we are Labour, not just Tories with water added.
What are we going to do about two million unemployed? Whose side are we on? What if the transport workers do goon strike, and the power workers after that? We behave like a responsible government - we get world trade moving again, we stop the French bleeding the Germans white in war reparations.
Now, if the transport workers do strike, we put volunteer drivers on the roads while we negotiate.
If the power workers strike, we put the navy's engineers in.
- Good God - If we don't cut the loaf now, we'll not get another one, so we do what has to be done - we govern.
My God, I could be listening to Baldwin or Asquith or any of those other perambulating sepulchres.
Is this really MacDonald I'm hearing, the boy from the bothy in Lossiemouth? Aye.
MacDonald of Lossiemouth.
I'm your man.
Bastard son of an itinerant cowman and a serving maid.
Born and bred in a two-room shack next to the stables, with six-inch cracks between the walls to let in the stink of horse shit and horse piss! Here! Here's my birth certificate.
I carry it with me, just in case I'm ever tempted to forget who I am.
So don't you talk to me, you little feather-bedded bloody Sassenach.
I mean to pull this party into credibility if it cripples me, or preferably you! Ach, I didn't mean that, Philip.
Well, when you two jessies have finished Here, I don't believe a person may smoke in the Cabinet Room.
Ramsay, you're Prime Minister, man, a person can do any bloody thing he likes in the Cabinet Room so long as you say he can.
Prime Minister, have I got your permission to smoke? Aye.
Why not? Where do I knock the ash, then? In the inkwells? Rose? - Yes, Mr MacDonald? - Ashtrays, Rose, - Cabinet members, for the use of.
- Yes, Mr MacDonald.
Er, who pays for them? The Office of bloody Works does.
God knows I apparently pay for everything else in this house.
Yes, Mr MacDonald.
Er, just before the others get here, I thought I should tell you, I'm recognising the revolutionary government in Russia.
I hope you'll support me.
We're only just in power.
Do you think it's wise? It's always been British policy to recognise whoever's in power, and the Bolsheviks are.
A Tory government could do it without comment, but can we? They'll call us Communists.
A minute ago you were calling me a watered-down Tory.
What do you want? I don't know, Ramsay, I'm just glad I'm not sitting where you are.
- There's a general to see you.
- A general! He says he's from a special branch of Scotland Yard, General Sir Borlase Childs, I believe he said he was.
Oh, aye.
Show him into the study, Maggie.
I've heard of General Childs.
You are perhaps not aware that my department issues a weekly report to the Prime Minister of the day on revolutionary movements in this country.
I read an old copy this morning.
- Do you wish the practice to be continued? - Why should I not? Oh, of course, the revolutionary movements in question are all Communistic revolutionary movements, and I might have a degree of sympathy? - I did not say that.
- No.
Neither you did.
However, I have a suggestion to make.
Your report might be a due livelier and and more complete if it also covered the activities of other political movements of an extreme nature, say, on the right wing.
Now, a little knowledge of the Fascist movement in this country and its apostles might give an exhilarating flavour to the document, and by enlarging its scope convert it into a complete and finished work of art.
I'm already fully informed of the activities of the Fascists.
Aye, but the point is, surely, not whether you are, but whether I am.
Do take note of it, General.
The man from the Board of Works is here.
- Show him in, Maggie.
- Aye.
- Mr Meynall, isn't it? - Meynell.
I was expecting to meet Mr MacDonald's political hostess.
I am Mr MacDonald's political hostess.
I'm also his social secretary, I'm also his daughter.
I'm 20 years old and I have little knowledge of the world.
But I do know this - the furnishings in this house are a disgrace.
It doesn't matter that you've seen fit to put this office next to the Cabinet Room lavatory, I am of no consequence.
My father is.
He wants beautiful pieces, not stockroom throw-outs.
He wants good carpets.
You're to borrow pictures from the National Gallery to put on his walls.
You're to make this house fit for him to live in.
I understood you were Socialists.
If you don't understand it's to honour the office and not the man, you understand nothing.
- I have come a long way, Ramsay.
- We both have.
You the son of a railway guard, and me a wee bastard.
- I know I had some whisky hereabouts.
- Will it not be in the decanter? Och, you're not at home now.
There are no decanters here.
Mr Grant.
How nice.
Ishbel.
Before a man dies of thirst, will you show your faither where the whisky is? Of course.
Ah.
You are bonnier and cannier than ever.
And you're a worse flatterer than ever.
Thank you.
You've made three social appointments for Wednesday when you're supposed to be in Paris arguing with the French.
Oh.
Er, you'll get me out of them, Ishbel? Do I ever not? - Slàinte.
- Slàinte.
Are you going to be able to get the French and the Germans together? If I don't, Europe's going to fall apart.
- Would you like a cigarette, Sandy? - Aye, I would, but dinnae fash yersel, Ramsay, I was never a great smoker.
No, I know I have some cigarettes here somewhere.
Ah, here we are.
You see, the French are still bent on revenge, but I want conciliation and co-operation.
- Have you got a match, Ramsay? - Matches, matches Oh, man, to hell with the matches.
- Is there anything the matter with the chairs? - No.
Well, could we sit down? James Ramsay MacDonald.
- What did I say to you just now? - Oh, something about - I said you had come a long way.
- Aye, that was it.
Aye, well, I don't think you realise how far you've come.
- You're Prime Minister.
- I know, I know.
- Well - It's all in hand.
Ishbel gave the Board of Works hell a fortnight ago.
You'll see.
But it's not only that, Ramsay, it's Well, where did I find you just now? - At the - You were coming from the tube station.
Struggling with a suitcase.
Where had you been? I'd been to Chequers for the weekend and I was coming from the station.
You were coming from the station.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain, trailing back to Downing Street carrying a suitcase.
I had to go by tube and train, the official car had broken down.
You should have your own car, man.
But you are in charge of all our futures.
You cannae do your job properly.
I work from seven in the morning till an hour past midnight every day of the week! Well, all the more reason why you shouldnae be bothered by trivial things like motorcars.
Sandy, the job pays £5,ooo a year, and out of that I have to do all my own entertaining, pay for my personal private secretary, 1o1 things that crop up, how the devil am I going to buy a motorcar? I don't mean just a motorcar, I mean a great, big, sleekit Daimler, and a lot more besides.
- Now, will you listen to me for a minute? - Aye, there's no harm in listening to a man, - even if he is raving.
- Well, will you sit down? Right.
Now.
- Do you mind? - No, help yourself.
No, not that.
That can stay.
Put that over there.
- Hello, Harry! - Miss Joan, Miss Sheila.
- Is Daddy back from France yet? - Tomorrow.
He's been away a long time.
He's trying to get the French out of the Ruhr.
- Where's that? - It's where all the big German factories are.
- Will everything be all right, then? - We hope so.
What's a Bolshevik infiltrator? It's a secret Communist.
Why? Well, Betty Hurst at schooI says her father says that's what Daddy is.
She says he gets money from the Russians so he'll be on their side.
Well, you tell Betty Hurst from me that I'll personally come and box her ears and her father's too.
Daddy's trying to help the Russians, just as he's trying to help the Germans.
He wants everyone to work together to make things better.
- You understand that, don't you? - Oh, yes, we do.
It's the others.
Don't pay any attention to them, they're not worth the effort.
Come on.
I'll get your teas.
- Sandy, good to see you! - Ah, good evening, sir.
I've done it, Sandy, I've done it! I know you have, it's in all the papers.
Congratulations.
What the Tories couldn't accomplish in five years, the first Labour government has done in five months.
Harmony in Europe, the French out of the Ruhr, the Germans in a position to get their lathes going and help us out of the depression.
Oh, aye, you're very big in Europe.
This fella says you're the tallest man around.
I want to beat the Tories on their own ground, Sandy.
They've been the lordly masters of foreign policy for too long.
Politicians can run home affairs but it takes statesmen to deal with abroad, and I think we've shown the country we can do that.
You'll get no thanks for it, Ramsay.
The Tories will be jealous.
Ach, I can get by without pats on the head from them.
And I would watch out for this Russian loan you're pushing too.
People do not like the Bolsheviks.
It's necessary.
Has nobody offered you a dram? Things are looking up since I was last here.
And the Board of Works cannot take the entire credit.
Oh, we Lossie loons must stick together.
I like a man who knows how to hold the hand that's held out to help him.
- Slàinte.
- Slàinte.
Oh, man.
How is the motorcar? It's like being transported in a bowlful of strawberries and cream.
Er, what can I do for you, Sandy? Oh, nothing, nothing at all.
No, I was just hereabouts.
I heard you were back, so I just looked in on the off chance, you ken.
Aye.
Well, you're always welcome, you know that.
- Cigar? - Thank you, no.
How's business? People still eating your biscuits? Oh, aye, enough.
No just as many, but enough.
Good.
- The wife's a wee bit restless, you know.
- Oh? Well, you know how they are.
I mean, she's mixing a wee bit more with the quality these days and, er well, she would dearly love a banner to wave.
- A banner? - Aye, it's damn silly, but Do you know, I believe that she would be the most contented woman on earth if she could just put "Lady" up in front of her name.
Aye.
Well, there's no accounting for tastes.
Will you get me Central 6000? Ah.
Daily Mail? - Where the hell did they get it from? - Snoopers are always with us.
What does it matter? They'll use it to crucify me and the Party.
I agree.
Question is not where they got it from, but is it true? Some it's true, some of it's half-true, some of it's totally false.
- What does that mean? - In the sense that Sandy helped me, it's true.
In the sense that that had anything to do with my recommending him for a baronetcy, it's false.
Not just helping, Ramsay, it is a Daimler, a chauffeur and £4o,ooo.
£40,000.
Don't you realise what you've done, man? You've gone down to the trough.
You've spoiled everything you've ever done for the character of the Party.
You had us looking like a Party of government, with status, command, authority.
And you've been caught with your hand in the till like a sneak thief.
I would have thought, Jimmy, I might have expected not to hear that from a friend.
These leery, conniving, lying swine! I have my lawyer issuing a writ right this minute.
Sir Alexander, I wish you wouldn't do that, not just for now anyway.
What's this? Don't tell me you believe these muck peddlers.
- Ramsay.
- We'd only just started, Sandy, I was about to put the matter in its proper perspective.
Aye, well, if you'll pardon me, I think I'm better able to do that than you.
- No, Sandy.
- You and your bloody Party! You let this man take the most pocket-draining job in the country without lifting a shilling to help him.
He was living like a pauper, man.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain, trailing round the streets wi' a suitcase like a commercial traveller.
Now, him and me grew up together.
Lossiemouth loons, they cry us in Scotland.
I spent my life making money and he gave his to his country, so what the hell? I bought him a motorcar.
There's no law says a man cannae do that for his friend.
You gave him a great deal more than that.
What's the point of giving the man a Daimler if he hasnae got the money to run it? £40,000 is a bit more than running costs.
So you do believe the muckrakers, don't you? I did not give Ramsay MacDonald £40,000! I lent him shares in McVitie & Price to the value of £40,000 which is a very different matter.
He gets the income off the shares, that's all.
Oh, I admit it's maybe a wee bit more than you need to run a motorcar, but the difference, once you're buying the bits and pieces that a man needs to turn a workhouse into a home, particularly a home fit for a man that has the nation in his hands.
There is still the question of the baronetcy.
- The baronetcy - The honour was not connected.
- Wait a minute, Ramsay - No, Sandy.
Now, I shut up for you, you just shut up for me a minute.
Alexander Grant made his fortune himself, and is no doubt heartily disliked by those who inherited theirs, the more so because, unlike them, he's made a habit of giving his riches away toothers.
He's built orphanages, endowed schools, founded scholarships throughout the country.
This year he donated £1oo,ooo towards a national library for Scotland.
Well, I've known Tories get baronetcies for farting in a discreet and gentlemanly manner.
Alexander Grant got his for services to his country, he didn't buy it for a motorcar and the loan of shares in a biscuit firm.
And furthermore, I bloody resent having to defend my friend against my friends, and myself against my friends.
I have enough to do to beat off the hounds of the Establishment without having to beat you off as well.
Then it is a great pity you timed it so badly.
God Ramsay we're only acting as the devil's advocate.
You will have a great deal worse to face in the House.
They've already got this Russian loan against you - which you seem determined to push through.
- I never said I wouldn't.
Against bitter opposition from most of us in your own Cabinet.
And now they've got this.
Well, if we were on board an ocean liner, I'd say, "Strap yourself to your bunks, boys, "and forget about eating for a week.
" Sir, would you care to comment on the Grant affair? Sometimes I don't seem to understand MacDonald.
He seems to live in a world of his own, where noone thinks ill or draws false conclusions.
- Did you ever meet his wife, Margaret? - No.
Nearest thing to a real Christian I ever encountered.
She made you feel, well optimistic just to be with her.
I saw the influence she had on Ramsay.
I know he still thinks of her every day.
She taught us all two things - that folk were basically good and that all you had to do was follow your own conscience.
- Well, you can't take exception to any of that.
- What? Trouble is, Ramsay believed it.
If only Mummy hadn't died.
She would've helped him so much.
- What a poor substitute I am.
- You're helping him very much, I swear to you.
You run his household, his social life.
You are his hostess.
- I'm only 20, I know nothing.
- Ishbel.
All I can tell you is you've given him exactly what he needs.
A quiet, steady home life, organised, no fuss.
I know a lot of politicians who'd give their knighthoods for that.
You should have been in the Diplomatic Service, Rose.
You've weathered the Sandy Grant storm, but it hasn't helped.
The Russian loan thing's becoming far more dangerous than ever the Grant affair was.
Do you mind if I take off this damn monkey jacket until we leave? No, please, please.
You know, you've been suspect with the lunatic Tory right wing ever since your first act in power, which was to recognise Soviet Russia.
Now you're hellbent on lending money to her.
Why? For the same reason I'm lending it to Germany.
They're bankrupt.
Bankrupt nations can't get prosperous again without our help.
If they're not prosperous they can't buy our goods, if they can't buy our goods, we can't get unemployment down.
All men are one, mankind is indivisible.
You're the economist, I don't have to tell you that.
The country's in the grip of a Communist phobia.
People are seeing Reds round every corner.
You may have reason on your side but people are scared of the Reds.
Er, you won't have read this yet, it is the latest edition of Workers' Weekly.
No, no.
Listen to this.
"Soldiers of the British Army, let it be known that, neither in the class war "or a military war, will you turn your guns on your fellow workers.
" Hysterical rubbish.
It's the official organ of the Communist Party in this country, and it's Communists people see you helping out.
- There is no connection.
- It can't be ignored.
The Attorney General immediately decided the piece was an incitement to mutiny, and a warrant has been issued for the arrest of the editor, John Campbell.
- Why was I not informed about this? - You weren't here, there wasn't time.
The Tories instantly capitalised on it and started telling the country the article represented Labour Party policy.
- I want to see this John Campbell.
- What good is that going to do? He's got to be prosecuted and slapped inside.
I want to see him before another single forward step on this matter is taken.
Mr Campbell's here.
Show him in, Maggie.
Mr Campbell, sir.
Take a seat, Mr Campbell.
Oh, of course, you've already got one, haven't you.
Huh.
I'm glad to see you don't go in for the slop most people wallow in when you see a man in a wheelchair.
Er, that'll be all right, Constable.
A lot of good men got smashed up in the war.
You were against it, I seem to remember.
I was.
But once we were in, we had to win.
- Both feet blown off.
- More or less.
- This is a most distinguished war record.
- So they say.
Decorated for conspicuous gallantry.
I was fighting for my country.
Why this? In between throwing up with fright in the trenches, I sorted out quite a lot of things in me head.
I realised that if ever I did get out of it alive, there'd still be the same gang in charge back here - high-hat crooks and money grubbers - so I decided to do my bit to try and change things.
So did I, and I'm still at it.
But this this article, encouraging our soldiers not to fire on their country's enemies, how's that gonna help? - I had nothing to do with that.
- Come on now, you're the editor.
Temporary, acting, in the absence of the real editor.
That article was already set up in type and rolling when I took over.
Now, are you telling me that if you'd been in complete charge, that article would never have been published? Ah, you politicians are always refusing to answer hypothetical questions, I think I'll follow your example.
On the basis of my information, which he has checked, the Attorney General is of the opinion that a prosecution would not succeed.
He has therefore decided to drop it.
Well, you seem to have saved us from making fools of ourselves, Ramsay.
- I'm not so sure.
- What do you mean? Well, we know you're telling the truth.
Will the opposition know? Will the public believe you? Oh, the whole press is Tory down to the last headline.
Can't you see what they're going to make of this? Not directly, but the innuendos, the sly little hints.
MacDonald has quashed the case against a Communist agent who incited the forces to mutiny, he's whitewashed it.
Funny how keen he is on this loan to Russia.
He was against the war too, if you remember.
They can say what they damn well like.
I refuse to throw an innocent man to the wolves just to keep my sledge moving.
Yes, but how innocent is he? He's a Communist after all.
Since when has being a Communist been a crime? - There you go again! - You're saying it is a crime? No, of course not, it's not that, it's Somehow, it It is the kind of things you say, it's the impression you give.
Jimmy.
I know what Phil means, Ramsay.
You, me, all of us in the Party, yes, we were all brought up on the brotherhood of man, the solidarity of the workers, but Russia, Bolshevism, it scares hell out of people.
And you seem to suggest an atmosphere of I don't know.
Complicity with the Reds.
They think you have the brimstone whiff of revolution about you.
Revolution! They don't know the meaning of the word.
I was in Russia in 1919 in the middle of it.
I saw the prophets, the beautiful visionaries in action, standing on tables, howling and being howled at, laughing and laughed at, provoking and being provoked.
They went down to their graves, butchered, encompassed in hate and passion and chaos.
And what came after was worse than what had been before, so don't talk to me about revolution.
Revolution is the old enemy that makes me sweat in the hour before dawn.
I know it is, Ramsay, but the opposite impression is being quietly fostered by the newspapers.
Newspapers, the lavatory roll of the nation.
They create a climate.
Think what they could do with this Zinoviev letter the Foreign Office intercepted.
The Zinoviev letter is a forgery.
I told you that in Cabinet this morning.
Aye, that's fine.
But think what it would look like to the people who might not believe that.
Zinoviev the Russian Communist leader, writing to his followers over here, painting a picture of a Labour Party already penetrated by Communist cells, which are being used to infiltrate industry and to subvert the armed forces.
- Oh! If it were to get out - It won't get out.
The Foreign Office are playing it straight, they know the letter's a forgery.
I have an understanding with them not to make it public until we have a chance to prove that to the hilt.
Ramsay, these things have a way of getting out! Look perhaps if you dropped the idea of the Russian loan.
I will not.
I want peace, I want prosperity.
I want smoke belching from factories clear across Europe.
I want a job for every man in this country, and if people don't understand how I'm going about it, that's their bad luck.
- And yours.
- And the Party's.
I picked this Party up by the scruff of its neck, and shook it into the seat of power.
Well, if it finds that seat too hard for its tender arse, it can always go back to its role of underfed mongrel, snapping at the heels of the Tories! Daddy? I bungled it in the House today.
In spite of all my arrogant boasting to Jimmy and Phil Snowden, I bungled it.
How? Oh, I was asked by Kingsley Wood about the John Campbell affair.
I meant to say I had exerted no pressure to have the prosecution dropped, I'd simply uncovered the facts.
Instead I said I had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
I can't see what's so dreadful about that.
It was a lie, Ishbel.
I was so angry at the way Wood put the question, implying that I was covering up for a fellow Bolshevik, I I just wanted to smash him.
And I went too far.
- It's not terribly important.
- Oh, yes, it is.
They'll link it up in some way with the Russian treaty and the £4omillion Russian loan and paint a picture that will bring me down.
The Tories are already bringing out a motion of censure on the Campbell affair and the Liberals are with them.
You'll have been in ten months.
You didn't expect to last two.
Oh, I can withstand it, I've stood worse.
When I opposed the German war, I was spat on, I was thrown out of my golf club in Scotland, I even had my bastard's birth certificate published in John Bull for all to see.
But I'm sore at heart for the Party.
You see, they'll put a stain on that that will linger for decades.
Perhaps you're too pessimistic.
Maybe they won't get you out after all.
They're even at this moment preparing for the election.
A sympathetic print worker sent me these at the Commons today.
They're proof copies of the Tories' campaign leaflets.
There are others warning against Labour youth clubs and Sunday schools where, according to Tory central office, children are baptised into the Communist faith and taught the elements of street fighting.
And yet others saying that health visitors could be Communist spies, and if the Communists come to power, as they will through us, children will be taken away from their parents and made the property of the State.
What a filthy way to fight an election.
It's politics, Ishbel.
But you're right.
Forcing me into an election is one thing, beating me is another.
Truth has an iron fist, so you'll see how they stand up to that.
- Jimmy.
- What is it? I have the Orpheus Choir singing their hearts out through there, I mustn't seem rude to them.
You'll wish it was a battalion of the Highland Light Infantry you'd got there.
Ach, what are you talking about? We're holding our own in the election so far, just about.
Even the Tory press admit it, better than I'd hoped.
That forgery, the Zinoviev letter the Foreign Office intercepted, supposed to come from the Communist International.
- Yes? - The Daily Mail have got hold of it.
They're publishing it tomorrow.
Then we're scuppered.
Well, we we can't fight that.
You see, there's no time to prove it's a forgery.
It's too damn good.
Thank you, Jimmy, for all you've done.
There'll be another time.
We've staked our claim, you'll see.
I tried it, my love, what we always believed - that honesty of purpose is all a man needs.
But it hasn't proved to be so.
Not if that man is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
He also needs guile, and mendacity, and deceit, and you never taught me those.
Would to God you were here to teach me now.
Though you wouldn't, would you? You wouldn't know where to begin.
So next time.
And there will be a next time.
I must learn them for myself.
Daddy! The weight of the choir, it's proved too much for the drawing-room floors, there are cracks in the ceilings downstairs.
Er, paste stamp paper over them.
Let the bloody Tories deal with it.