All language subtitles for NTLive Hansard by Simon Wood

Oh no!

Unbelievable. Every shitting time

Leave me alone!

- They never will, you know
- Diana?

Whole point about the Furies.
Never let you go

My God, she's still alive!

- I know, it's a nightmare
- It's a triumph

- Still breathing away
- Well done you, darling

- Still hauling my carcass round the kitchen
- Ah, but what a carcass it is

- Look at that, ladies and gentlemen, she's still got it
- Do I really?

Dazzling, Diana!
Age shall not weary her, nor the years condemn

There we are.
Miss Havisham, eat your heart out

- Miss what?
- That's the hope, though, is it?

Get back one weekend
and find me face down in the catmint

- I can see it must be terribly disappointing
- I'm spending a penny

Especially when one thinks
of the poor old Health Service

I can't hear

Because you're turning them away in droves,
aren't you?

They're dying in the corridors,
and I can't even catch a bit of shingles

- You know what I blame?
- Me, I imagine

- All this fresh air
- You blame...

But then this is what's so terrifying
about living in the Cotswolds

One could go on forever

You know what we need?
If you're ever going to get rid of me?

A dual carriageway

- A...?
- An A road. Steady stream of heavy goods vehicles

Oh I see

It's your constituency.
You could make it happen, couldn't you?

Deconsecrate the green belt. Offer up the paddock.
And we know Burford's desperate for a bypass

- Are you all right?
- I'm not just all right, I'm thriving. This is it

You're not dressed

The odd self-inflicted fracture aside,
I'm in relentlessly good health

It's after eleven.
And you know what day it is

- I suppose there's always smoking
- I'm sorry?

How many do you think
one would have to get through a day...

...to give oneself a really good shot at cancer?
Ten do you think? Twenty?

- Oh for goodness sake
- No?

- Don't be disgusting
- No, you're right. Of course you are. Terrible idea

- Anyway...
- Because it's such an unattractive way to go, isn't it?

All that hair tufting out in the shower

There we are.
Vanity prevails yet again

- Are you going to be like this all day?
- Do you know, I think I am

Oh good. Excellent. Thrilled I came back

But then you didn't think
you'd get away with it, did you?

- Sorry?
- Didn't think you'd get off scot-free

- What is it?
- I'm just...

- What?
- No, it's no good

- What are you doing?
- I was trying to remember why I married you

And why I still come back like this.
That's the real question

Because it's hell out there on the roads.
Did you know that?

And yet every week I flog my way back to you

The Hangar Lang gyratory, the Oxford bypass,
the horrors of the A40

My God, why do I put myself through it?

I don't know, Robin. Guilt, I imagine

- I'm sorry?
- Well it's either that or the garden

- Oh don't
- What?

- It's unbearable
- The guilt?

- The garden. Don't tell me you haven't noticed?
- Noticed?

- Oh for goodness sake, Diana. The damage!
- Oh the damage! Oh I see

- Again
- No, I did notice that, of course I did. I'm so sorry

- Because it's heartbreaking, isn't it
- Well I think so

- To see it in that sort of state
- Yes

- Ravaged like that
- Exactly

- Decimated. Whole country in tatters
- What?

And yet for some extraordinary reason
they all keep voting Conservative

- What's wrong with them?
- Ha ha

Because you think they'd learn, wouldn't you?
At some point?

- And I'm always telling them not to vote for you
- Oh, are you?

- I wander the streets of Witney, telling them
- Oh good

I accost them in the supermarket.
I say they may talk a good game...

...but the truth is they're unbelievably dangerous

- I should know, I say. I'm married to one
- I'm so pleased

Because if you really stop and look...
this is what I say as I totter the fruit and veg aisle

...you'll notice that the natural party of government
is in fact unbelievably bad at it

Yes, I was talking about the garden

And yet like a battered wife,
they keep coming back to you, don't they?

- Oh do shut up, Diana
- I tell you, it's the great mystery of our time

The insatiable desire of the people
of this country to be fucked by an Old Etonian

- I was talking about the fox
- The fox?

As you know perfectly well.
Look at my poor lawn. It's like the Somme out there

- Oh, I see
- No-man's land. Bout of particularly heavy shelling

Oh, I'm so sorry, Robin. How embarrassing, because
I thought you were talking about the country, you see

- Yes, all right
- 'This blessed plot'

- Yes
- 'This England...'

Oh don't start up again.
I'm not sure I can take any more

- Go on, I can have one more bash
- No you can't

- Not even a little...
- No

No, all right. Wasn't bad though, was it?
This stage in the day

- It was all right
- Without a warm up

- It was fine
- Just a sort of... standing jump

- Sorry?
- Isn't that what it was called?

No run-up. Both feet together and they just
hurled themselves out into the sandpit

- The standing jump, Robin
- I don't...

Of course you do. Oh, come on.
The moments of sporting triumph in our family...

...have been so few and far between,
you can't possibly have forgotten

That final sports day at The Dragon

The kind of summer's day you only get
on the playing fields of an English prep school

The banks of the Cherwell, the distant sound
of cricket balls, the car parks full of Volvos

- What are you doing?
- Nostalgia, darling

Well, don't give me that look. It's more or less
the entire electoral strategy of the Tory Party

- Oh, she's off again
- And he won a rosette

- Sorry?
- Didn't he? There we are, you see

'That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain'

'Those happy highways where I went,
and cannot come again'

- I suppose there's always AIDS
- I'm sorry?

- What do you think?
- AIDS?

Only you said you wanted to catch something.
In the absence of an A road

And of course it's terribly infectious. That's the real
advantage. Trouble with cancer, it's so hit and miss

Now who's being disgusting?

Oh, go on. A bit of intravenous drug use.
Some unprotected sex. You might even enjoy it

- What? I think it could be rather a good idea
- Do you?

Really put you on the map.
There's nowhere it can't go, that's how we'd pitch it

It can reach the very highest houses in the land.
Men and women, rich and poor, young and old

I think it could be a real public service.
And you know what?

I bet we could get you a visit from Lady Di

Because she's mad about them.
We can't keep her out of the AIDS wards

So many photographers in there,
the nurses can hardly get at the patients

We could get the Soames' to put a word in.
Bring some press along, it could be your big moment

And you know what?
You've waited in the wings for long enough

Is that what I've been doing?

All these years you've been there
in the background, cheering me on

- The torrents of support
- Ha!

- It's your turn to shine
- Thank you, darling

Well, there we are.
I shall drive you into Cirencester after lunch

- You're too kind, Robin
- Well, I am

- Too thoughtful
- No, it's a failing, isn't it?

It's why the great offices of state have eluded me.
Here I am, cursed with emotional intelligence

I thought you hadn't made it to the top
because you didn't have the right sort of wife

- What's that?
- That's what you normally imply

I'd never dream of implying that

Poor old Hesketh. That's what they all think, isn't it?
Lumbered with that frightful left-wing woman

- Nobody thinks that
- Of course they do

No, they don't think you're left wing, darling.
They think you're highly strung

- Oh, fuck off
- It's not exactly the same thing

And I'm not highly strung. I'm profoundly unhappy.
Not exactly the same thing

- Do you know what's really unbearable?
- I do, actually

It's beginning to feel like a vendetta

When it has the entirety
of mainland Britain to choose from

Because it isn't just my constituency it returns to.
It's my actual garden

- I'm back on the fox
- Yes

Do you see? The whole sceptred isle
spreading out around us on every side

I do

And if you think of the great open spaces
it could dig up. That's what gets me

The whole of the Cotswolds are there.
The South Downs

- Yes
- The Welsh valleys, the Yorkshire Moors

- No, it's terribly unfair
- The Brecon Beacons

- Oh my God, he's on a roll
- The Peaks, the Dales

- That's it
- The Cairngorms

- You tell 'em!
- The Highlands of Scotland, the playing fields of Eton

- Ka-pow!
- And yet every week it chooses here

- That was very good
- I mind about it, Diana

- I know you do
- And what does it even want, the fox?

- Want?
- What does it think it's going to find under there?

Gosh, I don't know, Robin.
Roman coins, do you think?

- What's that?
- An Anglo-Saxon hoard?

You don't care at all, do you?
You're probably feeding them

No I do care, I'm sorry

Because it's been a labour of enormous love
over all these years

I know it has

And if you remember how it was
when we first got here. Great lumpy patch of field

No, I do remember

And the hours I spent out there with the roller

- Back and forth, week after week
- Yes

- Colonising the paddock
- Yes, I'm agreeing with you

And every few hours I'd come in
and I'd tell you I was ready for an inspection

And you'd wander out in your bare feet.
Babe in arms. Very serious, very grave

I've found a lump, you'd say.
More rolling required

Yes, all right

Well there we are, you see.
You never believe me, but we were

- Were what?
- Happy

Happy?
No, darling, you're getting confused

- That was the other one
- The other what?

The first Mrs De Winter

Oh lord, you haven't forgotten?

Jane, she was called.
You remember? Lot of curly hair? Nice smile?

- Oh don't. She was a very a nice woman
- I know she was

- To whom I behaved extremely badly
- Well, I know that too

- What do you mean?
- What do I...? Oh dear, this is awkward

I was the girl in the hotel, Robin.
I was the bit on the side

- No!
- I know! Can you bear it?

It was me,
clattering against the headboard

- Yes, all right
- Legs in the air

Well, don't do that face.
That was the high point of it all

The two-star hotels.
The Berni Inns

It's been downhill ever since

We did have fun, I think. At the beginning

- Fun?
- We made each other laugh

Oh I adored you, Robin

Couldn't believe my luck, actually.
That you'd chosen me

And the rest, as they say, is tragedy

I don't think that's exactly what they say

No? Then they should come
and spend the weekend with us

- Is that still the drill, by the way?
- Sorry?

- A regional hotel
- What do you mean?

No, I see the logic. Because one's never going
to run into anyone one knows in Swindon, is one?

- Swindon?
- Or wherever it is, I don't know. Wolverhampton?

Because there's something unutterably
lower middle class about them. Towns

I remember when I told you my parents
lived in Reigate. You were horrified

And the awful thing is that in our little family
we'd always felt Reigate was rather smart

I mean, we'd made it out of Dorking

- What are you talking about, Diana?
- Well, I'm talking about your Wednesdays

- My Wednesdays?
- Oh don't do coy, darling. You're too old for it

- I'm genuinely not with you
- Yes, that's rather my point, funnily enough

Oh, come on. Look at you.
I see that swagger in your step

- Swagger?
- Swish in your tail. Something must have set that off

Can't just be the damage you're inflicting
on the most vulnerable in society

No, I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding,
darling. Because I think you'll find...

- ...that I haven't risked a swagger in years
- I'm sorry?

I tell you, with a lumbar spine like mine,
with discs as herniated as these...

And as for a swish! My God!

- No, there's no need to panic
- I'm not panicking

Honestly, the squandering of my affections
is the least of our worries

Your affections?

Pales into insignificance
alongside the Local Government Act

Diana, I haven't been on the receiving end of your
affections since some time during the Falklands

Oh, I see.
That's how you're going to play it

- Poor old Robin
- I'm not playing anything

Only I'm not sure you can pin that one on me,
actually. Dereliction of wifely duty

If you recall what happened
the last time I essayed that particular peak

- When?
- If I remember rightly...

I got hold of the remote control,
turned off Newsnight and edged my way...

...with what I thought was no small amount
of allure over to your side of the bed

- Allure!
- You had a peer under the duvet

You've got no clothes on, you said.
I said, I know

- Aghast, that's how you looked
- Oh, come on

You did. You looked at me and you said
'You're not getting Alzheimer's, are you?'

I did not

'First you left that courgette in the knife drawer,
and now this'

Oh no. I do remember the courgette,
it was tucked away with the bread knife

There we are, you see

Forcing myself for a moment to recall
the details of the night in question...

- I'm sorry?
- Forcing myself, your honour...

...to revisit the whole painful episode,
I feel bound to say that I was overcome

- Overcome, were you?
- To state the case for the defence...

- ...it was the gin fumes wot did it
- Oh don't start that up

Because I'm afraid it's like being downwind
of the bottle bank when my wife clambers into bed

That's the truth, your worship

I'm afraid this 'allure' smells like a marquee
the morning after a wedding

Yes, all right

- Speaking of which...
- What?

- Holy shit!
- What?

Look at that!
My darling, your liver is a thing of wonder

And the Dubonnet too.
My God, Dennis Thatcher has nothing on you

'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair'

That's it. I thought you said you didn't
need to drink when I wasn't here

Sometimes just the thought of you is enough

I shall have to do something with it when you die

One of the great wonders of medical science.
Preserve it for the nation

I imagine one of the teaching hospitals would take it,
don't you? I could do an endowment to go with it

- You're still going, are you?
- One for the lush fund, I shall call it

- Oh my God, you are
- I shall get a little plaque made

Here lies the liver of Diana Hesketh, it will say.
Ginorously donated

- Yes, you've done that now
- Oh go on. I can have one more bash

- No you can't
- No, all right

- Wasn't bad, though, was it?
- It was fine

- Without a run-up
- Sorry?

- This stage in the day
- That's it!

- That's what?
- Oh, I'm so pleased

- What are you doing?
- You do remember the standing jump

- I'm sorry?
- I knew you would

Oh that's really made my day, Robin.
It felt too awful that you could have forgotten

Particularly because I remember you being
so pleased at the time that he'd won something

It was called the standing jump, wasn't it?
I'm not making that up?

Both feet together and they just
threw themselves out into the sandpit

- But you know what?
- What are you doing?

- We had a cine film of it
- Sorry?

Didn't we?
Of the sports day. We did

Prize-giving ceremony. Tom cartwheeling about

You remember? Well, of course you do

You always loved those sports days.
You used to get quite misty-eyed about them

But then, it was rather moving.
All those boys in their cricket whites

The ruling class being formed before one's very eyes

Because a sense of entitlement isn't something
one's born with. No. It must be instilled in a chap

I'm not sure I'm necessarily in the mood for this

Now, let's think... It would have been '68.
Is that right? Last year at the Dragon?

Oh, that's rather good. Our summer of love

Don't do that face. I kept thinking that
this week, you know. As I watched it all unfold

- That we don't look back enough
- Watched what unfold?

There it is! I knew we had one.
'1968. Dragon Sports Day'

Look at that, it's on the same reel as that hustings
you did in Wallingford. So you'll enjoy that at least

Now listen, I'll find the projector,
you close the curtains

What are you doing, Diana?

Do you remember those hustings?
And the tea afterwards. That was the worst bit

You'd go off with the men
and I'd have to sit with the wives...

...and tell them how marvellous you were.
In my little hat

You know what they wanted to hear? Those awful
women? That you didn't know how to boil an egg

- You've been cooped up all week, have you?
- Sorry?

Not enough excitements?
Because this is quite a performance

Actually I've had a rather busy week

- Busy?
- One way and another

Good lord, you haven't been moving the cushions
round on the sofa again have you?

Here it is

- You're not really doing this
- Oh, go on

And I was still in my adoring phase then, wasn't I?
1968

Nodding up at you in all those village halls,
clapping in all the right places

- There was an adoring phase, was there?
- I was very good in the beginning

All those headscarves I wore.
The twin-sets. The casual racism

Best supporting wife

Although you didn't actually vote for me, I don't think

- Of course I did
- No, go on. You can tell me in the privacy of the booth

I kept on voting for you for years, Robin

But then in my defence,
you do all look like you know what you're doing

- Sorry?
- That's the trouble with the class system

So easy to mistake an expensive education
for an actual understanding of the world

Yes, you couldn't rekindle it, could you?
Just for the day?

- Rekindle?
- The early nodding. Just in front of our friends

What do you think?
I'm not asking for the full Norma Major

I'm thinking more a sort of... Tintern Abbey feel.
We may be ruined, but we're still standing

Present something more or less intact
to the outside world

Try not to get downwind of the sherry
too early on in proceedings?

There'd be no need
to listen to what I was saying

That would be the trick.
Just nod along with me occasionally

That's how my mother dealt with my father

'Yes, darling', she'd say every three or four minutes.
'Quite right.' Little nod

And that's what you'd like us to aim for, is it?
Your parents?

- Well, it worked pretty well for them
- Huh!

You laugh, but they were married for sixty years.
They must have got something right

- Oh my God
- What?

You're not joking, are you

Why? I think they had a pretty successful marriage.
Didn't they? On the whole

Robin, your father had a mistress
and two children in Hemel Hempstead

- Oh, that
- He had an entire second life running in parallel

- Of course he didn't. Honestly
- What would you call them, then?

- Well, it was a different time
- It was 1962

The point is, it worked for them

No, darling, it worked for him.
I realise that's an incredibly nuanced distinction

Oh Christ, I bet he did them on a Wednesday too

- They were happier than we are
- I'm sorry?

My parents.
Before you go on any more

- You don't think your mother was happy?
- Of course I do

- Oh, Robin
- What?

- Did you ever try to give her a cuddle?
- Mummy?

No, of course you didn't.
I tried it once

- Well, she wasn't touchy-feely
- She was barely functioning as a human being

No, you see, this is it.
You think everyone is like you. Psychological

The fact is, it's perfectly possible
not to get bogged down in all that

Darling, you have a half-brother I've never met

The point is, one can choose
not to become a victim of these things

- Yes, it's called denial
- No

But then I'm sensing
they didn't teach you Freud at Eton

What would you have preferred?
A full nervous breakdown?

- Sorry?
- Or would a light depression have done it?

I tell you, this the great mistake. This idea
that one ought to excavate all one's problems

All these people spending
the productive parts of their day...

...lying on a sofa in North London
talking about their childhood

- You think it's self-indulgent?
- I think it's self-sabotage

This lifting up the bonnet and peering at the engine
all the time. Just get in the car and drive

- Get in the car and drive?
- Look outwards

But I thought you said it was a nightmare
out there on the roads

What?

Fighting your way through
the Hangar Lane gyratory every weekend

I'm not being obtuse, Diana. I'm saying that in my
experience of life the trick is to do something

It doesn't even really matter what it is. Just pick
something and do it to the best of your ability

Derive a sense of satisfaction from one's
accomplishments rather than one's identity

And do you know why?
Because it's dangerous, actually

This fixating on your problems.
This obsession with working out who you are

- Dangerous?
- Frightening. It is

You never know what you might find in there

No, you know what's frightening? The fact
that you lot are in charge of the nation's children

But then, this is what I feel
I need to tell people, you see

Oh, for goodness sake!
I am not going to watch a wretched cine film

No, stop! I've let you go on like this
all morning but that's enough

More than enough. You're behaving appallingly

Look at all this mess, honestly.
Wretched woman. Put it all back in the box

- Put it back in the box?
- Yes

- Oh, darling
- What?

I mean, I know we don't believe in Freud...

One day I just won't come back, you know

- Sorry?
- One weekend

I won't turn off at Burford. I'll keep on driving.
I will. On past Cheltenham. Hereford. Aberystwyth

I could do it, you know. Leave you sitting here

I suppose the foxes would get in eventually,
wouldn't they? Tunnel under the house

Come up through the floorboards.
If the gin hadn't got you first

But then this is why you can't trust the philistines
to run the country. It's because you don't read

- What's that?
- Go on. When did you last read a novel?

A novel? Really?
Er... I read that Jeffrey Archer over Easter

- Jeffrey Archer doesn't count
- I'll tell him you said that

Because you think it's a waste of time,
don't you. Fiction

When there are all those biographies of Churchill
you could be reading. Histories of the Second World War

- Well...
- But you know what it does? Fiction?

- It gives you a pattern. Do you see?
- Not really, no

Cause and effect, Robin

I'm making some coffee over here

- I'll do you a reading list
- Would you like one?

That's the answer.
You could hand them out at cabinet

- A bit of Margaret Drabble
- Oh good idea, yes

- Doris Lessing
- Excellent

Slip Virginia Woolf into Margaret's red box.
That'll shake her up

- What do you think?
- I think she'd love it

Because it does require imagination, actually.
Government

No, I think it's a terrific idea

Otherwise it's too easy
to let yourselves off the hook, isn't it

We could start a book club. Everyone'll be thrilled

- Or you could take them to the theatre
- What?

If you don't think they could manage a novel.
Maybe that's the answer. Cabinet outing

Oh God, not the theatre

Take Margaret to Hedda Gabler.
Could change the whole course of British history

I'll tell you why we don't read novels,
why we don't go to your plays

Because they are full of people
attempting to understand themselves

Yes they are, that's the point

- People with a fine appreciation of beauty
- What?

People with a vivid emotional life.
Because it's never people with jobs, is it?

Never people making roads, building companies,
paying tax, in these appalling plays you've taken me to

No, it's always people who in real life contribute
the absolute least who get all the sympathy

It's always the neurasthenic daughters, isn't it?

- The artistic sons, the women
- I'm sorry?

- That's always where the sympathy resides
- Oh, my God

- And the sneer that comes with it! The superiority!
- The women?

Oh I meet them. These liberal arts people
with their jumpers and their beards

And their profound moments of epiphany,
who don't have a clue about running the country

And yet somehow because they've just read
the latest Ian McKellen novel...

...they think they can look down on those of us
who are doing these appalling, oppressive things

Like worrying about employment figures
and exchange rates

And whether the pension funds
have any bloody money in them

- I think you mean...
- No, you listen to me

You think your culture makes people empathetic,
don't you? Open minded

Well let me tell you, there is no group of people
more narrow minded...

...than you book readers. You theatre goers.
Appalling people

You try being a member of Margaret Thatcher's
government and standing in the foyer of a theatre...

...if you want to talk about prejudice.
If you want to talk about a lack of empathy

- Ian McEwan
- What?

As opposed... oh, doesn't matter

Look at this week.
These frightful people attacking the newsreaders

Disrupting the business of the House of Lords

If you're talking about the passing of
the Local Government Act...

...which I think in your own inimitable way, you are

Did you see how they behaved?
It's too much

The derangement of these people on the left.
The feeling they have...

...that the people who disagree with them
are not only wrong, but actually malevolent

The result of which, of course...

...is that they are unable to engage
with questions of policy in any reasonable way

Because you know what it is? This Section 28 they're
all up in arms about? It's a safeguarding measure

No, Robin, it's not a safeguarding measure.
It's a deterrent

Have you seen the books
these councils are putting into schools?

Young Gay and Proud. Honestly!
Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin

They're maniacal, these people

They won't rest until we're all homosexual
or black or at the very least disabled

I tell you, in twenty years time one won't be allowed
to be a white heterosexual male. It'll be illegal

One can hope

And do you think that the religious parents
in my constituency...

...want their children being taught about gay sex?
Of course not

And I hate to tell you,
but I'm afraid I have to represent them too

- You're worried it might catch on, are you?
- Sorry?

One positive word from the headmaster...

...and the entire sixth form'll have their hands
down each others trousers

No...

But then this is the great anxiety of you
public school boys, isn't it?

That you might all be queer if you're not careful

- It's an incredibly delicate thing, childhood
- Yes, it is

You can't go around telling children
they can be whatever they want to be in life

Do whatever they want.
Honestly. This isn't America

Look at you.
There's no inner life in there at all, is there?

Not much, darling, no.
You'll find as a Conservative it's easier that way

Enables one to trample more cheerfully on the poor
and needy. Eviscerate the public services

But then I suppose that's always been your template,
hasn't it?

- Sorry?
- Don't mention it and it doesn't exist

I remember the first time I saw it in action.
That first summer with your mother

Well, it was my first exposure to the upper class

My God, I'd never seen
so much well-dressed unhappiness

Because there wasn't just one elephant
in the room. There were herds of them

The illegitimate child, the unmentionable sister

The sheer volume of heroin addiction
among the nephews and nieces

- And none of them so much as mentioned
- Your coffee's on the table when you're finished

And she wasn't a heroin addict, Arabella.
She was at art school

She was here when we got back
from the hospital

Do you remember? Your mother.
Inspecting the longed-for grandson

Your coffee's on the table

And we all came and sat in here
and I had him in my arms

- It'll get cold
- And I was kissing him...

...and telling him how much I loved him
and how beautiful he was

And he was making those little dinosaur noises
he made at the beginning

And it all felt so right and wonderful.
And then I looked up, and there was your mother

She was watching me,
and she had this tight little smile on her face

You're very affectionate with him, aren't you,
she said. It's very sweet

- Well, she wasn't sentimental
- And I had this awful feeling, suddenly. In my chest

Oh my God, it's going to be another thing
I get wrong, isn't it? Motherhood

- It was about molly-coddling
- It'll all end in tears

That's what she used to say to me.
Did you know that?

When nobody else could hear. She'd say it
under her breath as she was walking past me

All end in tears. Such a lovely woman

- Stop it, Di
- But then she wasn't wrong, was she?

I said stop. You're determined to have a fight,
and I'm not going to do it

- No?
- I refuse

- Oh that's too bad
- Isn't it

- Because I'm afraid we're already under way
- Sorry?

I know. Show's already started, darling.
And you know the worst thing? There's no interval

For shit's sake, Diana, will you be nice to me?
It's my birthday

It's your... Oh my God it is!
Well, that snuck up on us

I accept that we are beyond mawkish devotion

But I wonder if you might try
not to be on your most monstrous form

- Me?
- Given the circs

You think it's me on monstrous form?
After the week you've had?

Please! We could do Christmas Day
on the Somme, couldn't we?

Emerge from our trenches.
Stumble towards one another across the mud

Oh go on. Just for the day.
I'll even be the Germans if you like

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht!
Alles schläft...

I often think, I've often thought,
that we shouldn't have stopped doing a tree

At Christmas. That that was a mistake

I don't want a fight, Robin.
I want to be terribly calm about it

- About?
- Because I'm aware that if an argument is made...

...in emotional terms, and particularly
if that argument is made by a woman...

...then you're spared the obligation
of engaging with it, aren't you?

Well, that's what you said about those women
chaining themselves to Sue Lawley's desk

- You can write them off as hysterical
- That's not what I said about them

- Furious lesbians
- You mean?

I mean this week's catastrophes, darling.
Enshrined into law...

...by the men and women of the Conservative Party
in the year of Our Lord 1988

- Here we go
- We'll start with acceptability, I think

'The local authority shall not promote
the acceptability of homosexuality'

- Don't get yourself into a state, darling
- I'm not getting myself into a state

The fact is, it's a very specific piece of legislation...

...designed to protect children
at a particularly vulnerable stage of their lives

Oh no, Robin, no. It's a very specific piece
of legislation designed to cement the support...

...of the seventy-five percent of the British electorate
who think that homosexuality is morally wrong

No

But then this is the great talent
of the Right, isn't it?

The ability to disguise craven electoral self-interest
as the taking of a moral stand

- Yes, I'm afraid it was in the manifesto
- I'm sorry?

I know. Isn't that a bore. Blame the
British people, darling. They voted for us

Oh, I do blame the British people.
Look at them! They're a total liability

- Can't be trusted with anything important
- Terrible habit of getting it wrong?

Of course they do when you lot are out there,
pandering to their worst instincts

Oh I know. We are simply awful, aren't we.
Catching the mood of the electorate like that

You don't catch the mood of the electorate.
You create it

Is that right?

You teach them what to want. And then you promise
to give it to them. You. Your newspapers

Oh my God, it's like spending the day
with Noam Chomsky

Because your words matter, Robin.
You people in politics

Mine don't. Mine just evaporate

But your words have weight, Robin.
So when you say that a person is unacceptable...

Oh dear, no, I'm afraid if you want to blame someone,
you're going to have to blame the Labour Party

- Sorry?
- It's all their fault

The Labour Party?

If they will keep choosing the most unappealing
people possible as their leaders...

...then this is what is going to happen.
We're going to be in power for ever

Don't change the subject

We look at them across the dispatch box
and we can't believe our luck

The succession of badly dressed
geography teachers they march out in front of us

Neil Kinnock, Michael Foot.
It's one absolute gift after another

You make people feel that something is under attack.
The Falkland Islands, the family...

- The Falklands were under attack
- The trouble with this is there has to be an enemy

- They landed at Port Stanley
- A group against which you turn people

Oh dear, no, I see what's happened.
You've been at The Guardian again, haven't you?

We've talked about this, Diana.
It's terribly dangerous

It's why I keep telling them in the village shop
not to sell it to you

Terrifying combination of righteous indignation
and typographical inaccuracy

No, you know what's dangerous, Robin?

No, darling, I'm sorry, I'm not going to do it.
I mean it

I used to be willing to put up with these rows
when they were a necessary part of our sex life

But I'm afraid the appeal of debating the issues of
the day with you has abated somewhat of late

- Oh my God, unless that's what's going on here?
- Sorry?

She's not going to get her allure out again? Is she?

Holy shit, she is!
That's why you're still in your nightie

You were thinking we might rekindle
the dying embers, were you?

- Bring the conjugal soot pan back to life?
- Pathetic

And why not? We used to be
quite good at it, didn't we? Back in the day

Get some cod liver oil in me,
who knows what I'll be capable of

A spoonful of malt.
I shall be ravishing you on the stairs

- What do you say?
- I say you want to be careful, Robin

Because one can feel quite destructive, you see.
Watching you all in action

And I keep having this thought that perhaps
I've got a duty to do something about it

- Blow the whistle, as it were
- Blow what whistle?

Because you know
who I keep thinking about this week?

When I hear you talking about
other people's children?

- Carol
- Carol? As in...?

- Thatcher
- Right

- Because that can't be easy. Can it?
- You mean...

I mean, do you think she ever manages...

...to stroke Carol on the cheek
and tell her she's wonderful? Margaret?

'Come here, you great silly thing.
Come here, my beautiful girl'

Do you think she can ever muster
that kind of tenderness?

- I shouldn't think that's her forte somehow
- Come to Mummy

I tell you, if I see her at conference
I'm going to do it

I don't understand

I'm going to stride right up there
onto the podium and give her a cuddle

- Oh lord, oh Di, I can't bear it for you
- Sorry?

- Come on
- What are you doing?

You've gone potty, darling. Since last weekend.
I knew something was wrong

- It's why I keep telling you to do the crossword
- I haven't gone potty, Robin

- You haven't?
- Still grimly lucid, I'm afraid

You're quite sure? Because you know,
I'd have to take you down to the vet's if you had

Oh, would you?

Only humane thing to do in the circs.
Coming on top of the gammy hip

But listen, they're very good at it these days.
Hardly feel a thing, apparently

- You know, I think I'm rather touched by that
- I'm sorry?

I am. Because it's surprisingly hard
to accomplish on one's own, isn't it?

As they all kept saying at Christmas,
if the stairs had been one flight longer...

- Don't!
- Or if we hadn't put that wretched runner in

Please don't start that up again

It's the self-protective reflex.
The hands just shoot out

Please, Di! I heard you doing this at that dinner
last weekend. Buffy didn't know where to look

- Yes, it was wonderful
- It was extremely embarrassing

Have a heart. It's one of the few remaining pleasures,
frightening the wives

I mean it. People will believe you. It'll end up in the
papers. Even Ken asked afterwards if it was true

- And what did you say?
- I said don't believe a word of it

She's only after the attention. Truth is, I said,
it was nothing more glamorous than a drunken stumble

- You didn't!
- Mid-morning sherry. Arse over tit

You're always undermining me. It's very unkind

No, I'm terribly generous to you, actually.
When you're out of earshot

I tell them she only behaves appallingly
because she's unfulfilled

Forgive her, I say, for she's squandered herself
on the herbaceous border

When she ought to have been someone dazzling

- You don't say that
- I do

No wonder she drinks like a minor royal, I say

There you are, you see? I can do your psychology
if I have to. Even without the novels

Poor old Di, I say.
She's wasted down here in the country

I mean, knowing your gin intake,
you'd be wasted up in London too

They did ask, you know. In the hospital at Christmas.
Any history of it in the family?

Because apparently it can be passed down.
Like a weak chin

- The urge to fling oneself down three flights of stairs
- What are you doing?

- Doing?
- What the hell are you trying to achieve?

I suppose I could drive into Oxford.
Walk into the BBC building on the Banbury Road

Say I've got a bit of background
they might be interested in

Take the old cine film with me. They'd watch it

I don't know what this game is,
but I'm telling you now, I don't want to play it

Yes, I'm afraid it's going to have to be
a new one today

- A new...?
- Game

You show me your shame, I'll show you mine.
That's the gist of it

Gosh, what rotten luck. Because I'm afraid I'm
off games today. Note from matron and everything

Think of it as a sort of confession

- I'm sorry?
- Bad form notwithstanding

- Confession? Oh my God
- 'Fraid so, Robin

- No! So it was you!
- What do you mean?

How could you, Diana? There I was, all these
months, thinking it was the fox and it wasn't

- The fox?
- It was my own wife

I can see you now, out there with the trowel
while I'm up in London

- There we are
- Just turning up the dial on my blood pressure?

Is that the idea? Hastening the arrival
of the long promised coronary?

That's it

Don't think I haven't spotted you
trying to get my cholesterol up

I saw you last weekend,
slipping an extra yolk into my scrambled egg

Poor me, honestly. And yet every week I come back
for more. That's what I can't understand

Oh Christ. You know what it must be?
I must still love you

It might be true, you know.
It might be love. It might be longing

Don't you dare do that

You know what I was trying to remember in the car?
Who was it that had his brain preserved?

Couldn't bear the thought that when he died, all the
wonders of his mind were just going to evaporate

So he had it pickled. Do you remember?

- It was one of the philosophers
- Bentham

- We saw it at that fundraiser. UCL
- Bentham

- That's right. Well done, old girl
- All still there, you see

I was thinking it's not a bad response, is it?
Set oneself in aspic. Live on in the larder

Because what will one leave behind otherwise?
Really? At the final reckoning?

Oh I don't know...
A deregulated financial services industry

- What's that?
- A less equal society

- I mean it
- So do I

A bag of one's clothes
trundling down to the charity shop

Is that the best one can hope for?
One may be dead, but one's suits will still be worn

Who needs God when you've got Sue Ryder?

Thank God for Hansard.
Because that's the great consolation in all this

That one's been transcribed. That one will live on
in the library of the House of Commons

Throw in an obituary of some sort, presumably.
Minor figure, but not without his contributions

I don't suppose I'd warrant a full page, but I think
they'd give me half, don't you? To wave me off?

Or not even half?
That would be the nightmare. After all this effort

I came up to the flat

- I'm sorry?
- On Wednesday

- But I wasn't there on Wednesday
- No you weren't

- I was...
- Yes you were

Oh, I see

- Rotten luck, wasn't it?
- Well, you should have said

- You should have warned me
- But it wasn't planned, you see. That's the trouble

One minute I was sitting here, listening to your
colleagues talking about safeguards on the radio

Next thing I know, I'm in the mini metro,
hurtling up Stokenchurch Hill

And how was I to know it was Wednesdays?

Because it used to be a Thursday in our day,
didn't it, during the reign of my predecessor

- You haven't come up to the flat for years
- I know

- You've never come up without telling me
- Unbearable, isn't it?

What did you want?

Well, there were one or two things
I thought we ought to discuss, you see

- One or two...
- Yes, I know

I know it isn't the house style,
but I thought we might give it a go

Open up the bonnet.
Better late than never

I mean, I know we've traditionally favoured
a more indirect approach

But I'm beginning to feel that might not
have stood us in the most brilliant stead

I mean, I still remember your mother keeping
her appointment at the hairdresser's the next day

I know. That's the look I gave her.
I remember thinking...

...Christ, there's a woman who knows
how to brush a catastrophe under the carpet

- Well, there we are, you'll know for next time
- Sorry?

Not to come up to the flat like that.
Because it can be a very busy day, a Wednesday

- Can it?
- Chockablock

But then this is what happens when one's
as devoted to one's constituents as I am

Speaking of which, I don't suppose you listened,
did you, last night?

Don't suppose you found time
in your exhausting schedule for that? No?

It was my Any Questions, Diana. Live from Leeds.
But then of course you didn't listen

Because it's a lot to ask, isn't it? Actually to have
to think about somebody else for a moment

Well, you'll be pleased to hear
that I emerged more or less unscathed

- One or two smatterings of applause, even
- Did you really?

Apparently the PM listened from Chequers
and thought I did rather well

- No!
- Apparently

The old gorgon approved

Word is, I shall be getting
a little pat on the head on Monday

- Not a pat on the head!
- Anyway

- Or the bottom, do you think?
- I'm sorry?

- Does she do pats on the bottom, Margaret?
- No

- When you've really stuck it to 'em?
- Not even then

Oh, I bet she does if you're Alan Clark. Cecil.
One of the thrusters

I see the way she straightens all your ties.
Picks fluff of your lapels

- She's like a dominant female gorilla
- No, she isn't

- Prowling her pack
- I promise you

All her public schoolboys
lined up in Smith Square, panting up at her

- Your willies throbbing away in your y-fronts
- Come on!

Well, she never picks any girls
to sit round the table, does she?

Just roomfuls of men, ratcheting up
the Local Government Act, section by section

- Oh God. It's not her is it?
- I'm sorry?

The Wednesdays

That really would be something, if it were Margaret
you were whisking away to Wolverhampton

- She's Mummy
- I'm sorry?

- The straightening of ties
- Mummy?

- The fluff on the lapel...
- Oh now, that really is heartbreaking

I'm saying she's a profoundly un-erotic woman

I mean, I know your mother was more or less the
missing link between Nancy Mitford and Atilla the Hun

But the point about Mummy, in general,
is that she's the soppy one

She's the Prime Minister, Diana.
She's not Esther Rantzen

I wonder if there's a psychological explanation for it

Perhaps she had an appalling
experience of childbirth. That would do it

If one of them got stuck on the way out.
Maybe Carol had an enormous head

- Must be it
- Do you think?

- If only they'd been quicker with the forceps
- Well it's either that...

...or she's got one of the syndromes, isn't it.
What's the one called...

...where you can't imagine the
impact of your actions on somebody else?

It's called Free Market Economics

- Well don't joke about it
- Oh cheer up, darling

You can have a Bloody Mary soon.
That'll take the edge off

Because you have to mind about people

- Mind about people?
- And you don't. Not really

In fact, having watched you
in action all these years, I would say...

...that the word that best describes
your attitude towards your constituents...

- ...is disdain, actually
- Absolute rubbish

Mingled sometimes
with a kind of appalled amusement

Oh God,
I'm really going to have to do this, am I?

- Imagine there are two sets of parents, Diana
- You're not going to...

And both these sets of parents
are teaching their child to ride a bicycle

You are!

The first set are terribly protective. Every time their
child falls off, they rush over, scoop him up

Ask him where it hurts, kiss it better.
Horrid old bike, they say, throwing you off like that

In the end they can't bear it any more
and they screw the stabilisers back on

- That'll keep you safe, they say
- Yes, I'm just about there

Meanwhile, the second set of parents
take a different approach

They don't!

They don't love their child any less than the first set.
They also hate to see him hurt himself

They also want to rush straight over
and re-attach the stabilisers. But they resist this urge

They force themselves to appear nonchalant, relaxed.
Come on old boy, they say, up you get

- That was very good
- But you see my point

No, I do. As a woman,
I find a domestic analogy such a help

The point is, you have to ask yourself which set
of parents are being kinder actually to the child

Because one wants the boy to be on his BMX, Diana,
zooming off down the hill with his friends

That's all I'm trying to say.
One wants him to thrive

No, you know why it's so brilliant, your analogy?

Because there is more than one way
to mind about people

Because you're always standing up there
at the top of the hill

- What?
- It's perfect, isn't it? As a visual representation...

...of the relationship between the Conservative Party
and the people they govern

Oh, don't be so aggravating

Because it's never you
clattering onto the tarmac, is it?

It's always the social workers or the miners
or the fledgling homosexuals...

- Oh my God, she's going to start on the miners!
- Nothing's ever going to touch you

But then this is the classic
intellectual cowardice of the Left, isn't it?

It's so much easier to argue
against a distortion of who we are

I'm not distorting anything

Shall I tell you a secret about the miners?
And I hate to spoil your fun

But the Conservative Party isn't killing off
the mining industry. It's dying all on its own

And you know what? That's a good thing.
Because it's polluting, and it's dangerous...

...and it's a bloody awful way
to make a living, actually

And do you think the next generation of
young people are going to want to do these jobs?

Stuck in a hole in the ground, clogging up their lungs?
Lousy pay? No prospect of advancement?

Of course they're not. They want to get out.
They want to buy a bigger television and a new car

You're doing them a favour!

- They want more
- Of course! Dear old Margaret

Do you know what they don't want?
To be pitied by people like you...

...who romanticise the working-class way of life
without having the first clue about it

Because you know what it does, that attitude?
It keeps people in their place

So don't talk to me about the miners.
Oh, and don't talk to me about Margaret either

As though she was sitting there in Downing Street
plotting the destruction of the working poor

Honestly! You preach empathy at me...

...but you never think it incumbent upon you
to understand Margaret, do you?

Well, I hate to tell you, but she's not Pol Pot

- No?
- She's not even General Pinochet

I don't know, darling.
I saw her sticking out of that tank

Shall I tell you the key
to understanding Margaret Thatcher?

I sense you're going to

She's a grammar school girl from Grantham.
That's all

- I'm sorry?
- For example, nobody knew her at Oxford

- Oh, my God!
- I know

The great towering figure of our age,
and yet she hardly even registered

And you know why? Because the women's colleges
were full of Margaret Thatchers

It was a type, these grammar school girls.
They weren't there...

...because they had exceptional minds,
or because they had any sort of intellectual flair

No, they were there because they worked
harder than everybody else, do you see?

Went to every lecture.
Read every book on the reading list

That's who Margaret is.
Look at her. Second class degree in Chemistry

- You really don't see it, do you?
- Sorry?

But then, of course you don't.
Because every time you open your mouth...

...everyone shuts up and listens, don't they.
That's been your entire experience of life

No matter how ill-informed, ill-thought-through
or frankly banal your opinion is...

...everyone is desperate to hear it

But if you're a woman, Robin...

And I can't believe you've now forced me
into defending Margaret Thatcher...

But if you're a grammar school girl from Grantham,
then you have to demonstrate...

...that you've read every book on the reading list,
otherwise nobody listens to a word you say

Yes, you've gone off
on a sort of nightmarish tangent

And actually, can I just point out what's
really pernicious about what you just said?

Do you have to?

It's that you then claim that the extra work a woman
has to do in order to be taken seriously...

...is in fact indicative of her lack of intellectual flair

- That's not what I was saying
- Implicit in which, and this is the crowning glory...

You actually think you've made it to the top
because of innate talent

Don't you? You see, you do

You think you chaps are running the country
because you're brilliant

- But then it's a type, isn't it?
- I'm sorry?

The men's colleges were full of them

Yes, if you'd listen rather than attacking me, you'd
discover that I am explaining something to you

You're explaining something to me!
How incredibly unusual

I'm saying that if you want to understand Margaret's
politics, you have to understand who she is

Because she's not charismatic, she's not a great
orator, she's a nightmare to sit next to at dinner

And yet there she is.
The most successful Prime Minister since the war

And you know how she got there?
Sheer dogged determination

By working bloody hard.
By not expecting anything from anyone

And as a result, that's her template
for helping other people. Do you see?

Don't look after people if you want them to do well.
Don't encourage failure by subsidising it

Don't tell everybody they're wonderful,
or whatever it is you want her to do to Carol

Make them strong. Set them free.
That's her version of being kind, Diana

She's a bloody difficult woman. I accept that.
But she's not a monster

And do you know what else she isn't?
A bottom patter

- Oh no! I can't bear it!
- What?

- You've forgotten the Scotts are coming
- No I haven't

- And you've got a plan for lunch, have you?
- For lunch?

Only the fridge is looking particularly Soviet
this morning, even by your standards

- Oh no! But I thought you were doing lunch
- I'm sorry?

- I thought it was your turn
- My turn?

- Was that not right?
- But it hasn't been my turn once in thirty years

- Oh, I see
- Well, has it?

- Oh, very funny
- I just give you the rope, darling

You've been rubbing away
at Germaine Greer again, have you?

- That's it
- You've been fumbling with the female eunuch

I tell you, she's a lovely girl. Lot going for her

Listen, I'd love it if you discovered feminism. I would

Only I'm afraid the boring thing about emancipating
yourself from the shackles of the weekly shop...

...is that you have to do something else in its place

- Is that right?
- Look at you, standing there in your nightie

And it's not much to ask, is it?
A bit of cold ham. Some coronation chicken

I work bloody hard, Diana. And nobody else
has to put up with this sort of performance

Even the Tebbits can manage a Sunday lunch

If I did murder you...

- ...I'd bring this up as a mitigating circumstance
- Would you?

The defendant returned
after a particularly gruelling week in London...

...at eleven o'clock on the morning in question
to discover his wife still in her dressing gown

Rumpole's back

Imagine his dismay, ladies and gentlemen
of the jury, when he also discovered...

...that the only item fit for human consumption
in the entire house was one small slab of cheddar

Objection!

Said cheddar being of what one might
charitably call uncertain provenance

- I said objection!
- On what grounds?

- On the grounds that it's a Yarg
- It's not! My God

And how was the defendant planning to serve up
this Cornish delight? Cold on crackers?

Or were you thinking
you might stretch all the way to cheese on toast?

I find if one calls it a rarebit...

- Oh, do you?
- Smear of mustard...

There we are,
they'll be so pleased they made the effort

Oh, I wouldn't worry about the Scotts, darling.
They're like all our friends over sixty

They're only eating to soak up the claret

- Twelve at a squeeze
- I'm sorry?

Ten comfortably, twelve at a squeeze

First thing we bought together, wasn't it.
You and I. As a pair. Antique shop in Woodstock

Ridiculous, of course.
An enormous table like that for the two of us

But the man persuaded us it was the thing
we most needed in the world. Do you remember?

You'll live your life around a table like that, he said

Birthdays, clan gatherings, long Sunday lunches
stretching into the afternoon

By the time he'd finished talking
we were almost worried that it was too small

And here he is, facing cheese on toast

- Oh well. I find if you call it a rarebit...
- That's the spirit

Thirty pounds it cost. Absolute fortune.
Funny the things that stay with you

Vast swathes of one's life get washed away
and these moments remain

Pair of suckers, I suppose.
But then one had such confidence, didn't one

In the shape one's life would have. The ability to
make it happen. When we embarked on all this

- She's got a well-stocked fridge, has she?
- I'm sorry?

Wednesday nights? Feeds you up?

Nursery food, I imagine.
Steamed puddings. All the old favourites

Oh my God! What's that?
It's not the fox?

Sounds like someone's being murdered out there

- You know what it's doing, don't you?
- You're going to tell me it's mating

- It's summoning its friends
- Oh don't!

From the Welsh valleys, they will come.
From the Cairngorms

Do you know who I am?

I'm on the Agriculture and Fisheries
Select Committee. I could order a cull

And you know what's going to happen next?
They'll be coming through this Channel Tunnel

- Not foreign foxes!
- It's serious

Not European foxes! They think
they can just come in here. Eat our hens

They're saying that they'll have someone there
with a gun when it breaks through...

- ...shooting them as they come out
- That's what she wants, is it?

- Because of what they'll bring in
- Yes

All the things we've been safe from as an island

- And I suspect they'll be lacking the moral values too
- Sorry?

No it's brilliant, darling. No wonder
you frighten people into voting for you

You want rabies back in the country do you?

- And we do not frighten people into voting for us
- Of course you do. You work out...

...which particular sub-set of the population
they're most prejudiced against and you're off

You wanted to know why people
keep putting us back in power?

That's why. Because you mistake
people's legitimate concerns for prejudice

And you know what? Funnily enough, people
don't like being called bigots. You'd be amazed

But it's always us against them, isn't it?
That's always the story you tell

That's what politics is, Diana, us against them.
That's literally how it works

And people need a story. They need to be told
who they are. Always have

George and the Dragon. Henry the Fifth.
We shall fight them on the beaches

- We'll arrest them at the ports
- I'm sorry?

We'll find them on the ferries.
Isn't that what you said on your Any Questions?

- So you did listen!
- Of course I listened. I'm your wife

- And? What did you think?
- What did I think?

I was unbelievably ashamed of you

- You didn't agree with Polly Toynbee?
- I thought she was very persuasive

I'd be persuasive if I was a liberal
in a large house in Islington

- She was being kind
- I hate to tell you, Diana...

...but politics isn't just about being nice to people

Although that wouldn't be
a bad place to start, would it?

I'm not going to go into all this

- We'll take them to the pub, will we?
- I'm sorry?

The Scotts.
Given the absence of food in the house

We'll tell them you've had a frantic week.
Torrid time at the hairdressers

I'll book a table. Oh, meanwhile...

...do you think you might manage to get dressed?
It might give a more normal air to proceedings

Or shall we tell them them you were
too busy for that as well?

- We could start with the Thesaurus story, I suppose
- The what?

You remember the Thesaurus story, Robin.
Twelve children sitting in a circle on the floor

It's a birthday party and there's an entertainer.
Smarty Arty, he's called

And he goes round all the children
and asks them what their favourite dinosaur is

And all the other children say the Diplodocus
or the Pterodactyl or the Tyrannosaurus Rex

Until it comes to the birthday boy
and he sits there, very solemnly, very seriously...

...and he says the Thesaurus
is his favourite dinosaur

And all the grown-ups laughed, you remember?
And he didn't know why it was funny

And he burst into tears,
and he came and sat on his mother's knee

And his father said... Well, you remember.
What did his father say?

- Right in front of all of his friends
- What are you doing, Diana?

Well you said it. If you don't have a story,
then how do you know who you are?

- Henry the Fifth, George and the Dragon...
- All right

Don't be such a girl about it.
That's what you said

- What's that?
- I did try to do it with the cine film

- Would have been gentler
- I don't understand

As luck would have it...

June 17th, 1971. Dad took me out for lunch.
Lot of material today, he's written. 'Lot' underlined

- We went to the dreaded club
- That's not...

I know! Isn't it tremendous.
At least one of us kept a record

Dad ordered a bottle of claret and we ate
enormous and extremely manly steaks

After lunch he said
'I've got a birthday present for you'

We got in the car, and he drove us down
to a mews off the Bayswater Road

We got out and he rang a doorbell.
'Have fun', he said. 'I'll be parked round the corner'

This is in extremely bad taste

Linda, her name was.
She said 'I hear it's someone's birthday'

In the car on the way back to school,
Dad asked me how it had been

'She was gorgeous', I said.
I let him drive on for a bit, looking pleased with me

Then I said 'The thing is, we shared
an absolute abhorrence for chintz'

'You shared what?' 'Chintz', I said. 'Neither of us can
stand it. I tell you, she's got a real eye for fabric'

That's enough now

'You should go and have a look', I said.
'Her curtains are a fabulous toile de joie'

Coming back to you, is it? Because I tell you,
it's all there. Our own private Hansard

And there's masses more, if you'd like it.
I tell you he's bloody good

Wait till you get to the sex scenes.
It's riveting

- What are you doing, Diana?
- The boy on the bicycle

Seeing as that's the analogy we're using.
Wobbling down the road

Oh for goodness sake, that wasn't the wrong thing
to do. That thing you read out in the diary

- Not the wrong thing?
- It was cack-handed, possibly

Amazing. But then this is why I needed to talk
to you on Wednesday, wasn't it? Before the vote

- Do you want to know where I was on Wednesday?
- Not really

- Where do you think I was?
- I don't even care

- No go on, tell me
- I rang through to Barbara in the office

'Are you two having a lovely time?' she said.
'What a treat for you both to get away mid-week'

I was surprisingly sad, you know. Because
I ought to tell you, I don't have anyone

I want you to know I pulled it off.
'Oh yes, ' I said. 'Huge treat'

- It's not what you think
- No?

- Oh God, it's not love, is it?
- Sorry?

Because sex I think one could somehow cope with

But what if it's some nice middle-aged woman
in an Alice band. Corduroy skirt. Sensible shoes

Do you want me to explain?

If you just clamber into bed.
Read each other tit-bits from The Times...

- You've got the wrong end of the stick
- You didn't come back all night, Robin

- You didn't stay all night?
- I sat on the chair by the door

Waiting to hear your footsteps on the stairs.
Only they never came. Did they?

- No
- No

But you made it to the vote, though. Presumably.
From wherever you were

Yes, of course you did.
Christ, Robin

And then to have to listen to you
last night on the radio, defending it

Of all the people they could have sent out there

Why didn't you say no?
Why didn't you say you couldn't do it?

- Because I could. Because I wanted to
- You wanted to?

They have an agenda, these councils

It's about identity, difference, minorities.
That's how they do us against them

But imagine the child going to the teacher
to ask for help. Imagine that moment

They want people to feel victimised, resentful

Even you must be able to see it.
How much is riding on that teacher's response

You're missing the point

Because to be absolutely clear,
not only are you telling that teacher...

...that it would be illegal to comfort the frightened
and bewildered child standing in front of her

You are also telling that child that their worst
anxieties are true. That it is unacceptable

And you'd like them to be told it's going to be easy,
is that it? Walk in the park? To be a homosexual?

I'd like them to be told it's normal

But it's not the norm, Di, it isn't.
That's exactly the point

And it's not an easy life

If one lived in... San Francisco,
maybe it would be different

But we don't. This is England.
We're a conservative nation. We are

People don't want the world to change

They want it to look the same as it did
when they were growing up and they felt safe

They feel bewildered. Lost.
They don't recognise the country they grew up in

And the result is that they feel threatened by people
who are different. Frightened of them, actually

Then it's your responsibility as a politician
to tell them they don't have to be frightened

We trust other people who are like us. It's a human
instinct. We want to belong. We want to feel safe

Ask a black man.
Ask him who he would trust his life to

Ask the Sikhs in Hounslow.
Ask the homosexuals, actually

- You're saying...
- I'm saying that it's easier to be in the majority

And I'm saying that if you're that teacher...

...you have to think very carefully, actually,
about what the kindest thing to say is

Because one wants a young person
to choose a life that is going to offer him the most

And perhaps it's not a terrible idea
to send him off in an easier direction

One's not fully formed at that age, Diana.
Still malleable

And it does shut you out from things. That sort of life.
You can't deny that. Family, children

Power, actually, if that's important to you.
And there's a sadness to it. A loneliness

Look at Uncle John. Sitting there in that house
on his own, surrounded by all that china

You think the best thing is to tell them
their life is going to be normal

But perhaps it isn't.
Perhaps it's going to be bloody difficult

- And this AIDS, Diana. If you saw them
- I'm sorry?

These young men. Wasting away

Don't you dare. Don't you dare do that. When you
have been using that illness to demonise them

- That's not what we've done
- Look at your newspapers!

- They're not our newspapers
- A plague. That's what they call it

You really think that we're all bigoted, do you?
Is that it? Grow up, Diana

The Party is full of homosexuals.
Look at St John Stevas

I don't think you're bigoted.
I think you're cynical. And I think you're careless

And for you, Robin. For you, of all people,
to be out there, defending this thing

You don't understand the Bill

Because I think it would have made a difference,
don't you, to the way people heard you last night

If they knew that the man out there
on the radio talking about safeguards...

...had a son all of his own.
Swam out one day into the Norfolk Broads

- What are you doing, Diana?
- Sunny day, Robin. Cloudless sky

- No, thank you
- You've got to admit...

- ...that puts a slightly different perspective on it
- I said no, thank you

Because it wasn't an accident sort of day, was it?
Not a ripple on the water

And how many times had we all swum there?
The three of us. Over all those summers

- That's enough now
- 'Died suddenly'

That's what you and your mother had them put
in The Times. 'Died suddenly while on holiday'

And then on Sunday evening
you went back up to London

I don't think you want to do this

And I know you had a quiet word with someone.
Kept it out of the papers. Off the coroner's report

No need for it to become a story.
Well, you'd just got your seat

Worst thing is, it's a way of keeping people alive.
Talking about them

- And not to have even done him that honour...
- For Christ's sake, Diana, it was for you

What was?

For once in your life. For once in your life,
take responsibility for something, will you?

Because you think it went well?
Your version of looking after?

All that emotion you shovelled into him?
All that encouragement?

And if we didn't talk about it,
if I did have a quiet word with someone...

...can you possibly imagine
that it might have been for your sake?

'Died suddenly'

But this is what you always do, isn't it? You let
yourself off the hook. Well, that's enough

You tell me how dangerous I am.
But take a look at yourself

Everything you've ever done has gone bad.
Everything you've ever touched

No wonder nobody comes near you.
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why that is?

Because I'm the only person here, aren't I?
I'm the only person who comes anywhere near you

In return for which, I wonder if you might possibly
do me the courtesy...

...of going and getting your fucking clothes on

I see

- I didn't mean...
- No, it's good, Robin

First honest thing you've said to me in fifteen years

I just want you to get dressed, Di. That's all.
The Scotts'll be here in a minute

That's what you think went wrong?
The over-loving mother

- Sorry?
- That's what you were protecting me from

Please get dressed, Di. Please don't be like this
when they come. It's important to me

I needed to be zipped up. That's why I'm not dressed.
Because I needed someone to help me

Stuck out here on my own.
Nobody comes anywhere near me

You make a choice, Di.
The life you want to have

This is what I chose.
This life we had. That we squandered

I remember standing at the window showing him.
When he was a baby

One day, my boy, all this will be yours.
Ridiculous, of course. Half an acre outside Burford

You wondered
why I mind so much about my lawn?

It's because it was for him

It's because I was making this perfect wicket for him.
Back and forth with the roller

Perfect cricket pitch. On which I thought I would
bowl and bowl and bowl at him, at my son

I'd go on until the middle of the night,
if that was what he wanted

Always have enough time for him.
Opposite of my father

Only it wasn't what he wanted.
Always far away from me. Never friends

He was sixteen

He didn't like me

And the two of you.
I did worry about it. You know I did

All that emotion between you. I did think
he needed to be tougher. A bit of armour. I did

- I'd been out all morning
- I'm sorry?

At lunchtime I came back to the house
as I said I would

- I don't understand
- Sunny day, Robin. Cloudless sky

- That house. Lawn stretching down to the water
- You mean...

I called up the stairs.
Tom, I said. I'm home

No answer. Which was strange. Because normally
he would have bounded down to me, wouldn't he?

It wasn't till I got to the threshold of our room
that I saw him

And now I realise that he looked incredibly beautiful.
Heart-stoppingly beautiful

Our son, standing in the window of our bedroom,
the sun pouring in on him

What do you mean?

I mean there was nothing sordid about it.
I think that's the most important thing for me to say

- There was something pure about it
- I don't understand

It was my going-away dress from our wedding.
That fine grey silk

My God, I'm so proud of him
when I think of the bravery of that moment

Because I should say before I go on
that he knew I was coming back for lunch

Which means, of course, that this moment
was an unveiling. Do you see?

And for a moment I just stood there
not knowing what to do

Then he held out his hands to me. He held out
his hands to me and he said, hello Mum

So you see, I have to hope that it was the shock

- I'm sorry?
- Panic

That I'd somehow done this to him.
As you always said I would

All the things that wouldn't be available to him.
The children he wouldn't have. Possibly

Because what I have to confront
is the fact that perhaps I was disgusted

Do you see? Perhaps I was repulsed
at the sight of my brilliant boy

With my rouge on his cheeks and that first hair
on his chest and my lipstick on his mouth

- I don't need to know any more
- Oh but you do, Robin

Because you can see
how much faith he had in me in that moment

And we know what I ought to have said, don't we?

To my boy. Standing there in my dress.
All of his life stretching out ahead of him

I ought just to have given him a hug and told him
I loved him. Told him everything was going to be ok

- You...
- Oh Robin, I didn't say any of those things

- Not any of them
- What happened?

- I was sick
- You were...

I ran into the bathroom and I was sick.
At the sight of my son

It wasn't that day? It wasn't

I sat on the stairs, waiting for him to come back

All afternoon, into the evening.
Waiting for him to walk through the door

It was almost midnight when I heard footsteps
on the path. Oh thank God, I thought

Only of course...
Policewoman standing there

Diana Hesketh? she said.
And she took off her hat

I never got the chance to say sorry.
To tell him I loved him

- So you see, it was my...
- Don't say that

It was. It was my fault

You should have told me.
I wish you'd told me

- You could have left me if I'd told you
- I could have looked after you

- Oh, don't say that
- I could have tried

And then this week

Because it would have made a difference.
Tell me it would. On Wednesday

If I'd been brave enough to tell you.
If you'd been there to hear

- I was in Norfolk
- I'm sorry?

That's where I was on Wednesday

- You were...
- Yes. He was my son too, Di

- You go there?
- Sometimes

- I didn't know
- It's been... private

- So you weren't...
- No, of course I wasn't

There's only ever been you, you stupid woman.
Just you

You and Tom

Anyway...
Scotts'll be here in a minute

I'm sorry

He knew, Di. He knew how much you loved him

We'll take them to the pub.
It doesn't matter. It's not important

She's bringing lunch. Claire.
She's made a coronation chicken

We've...

He would have thrived. Wouldn't he?

Yes. Yes, he would