Steve McQueen had a vested interest in this story. He is a person with dyslexia and as consequently found himself shunted into remedial classes at school because of it.
When the mother is told there is hope that her case about her son being shunted off to a substandard school can be appealed because there is a new Secretary of State named Margaret Thatcher,the audience doesn't need to be told anymore to know what a lost cause it will be.