Photos
Quotes
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Queen Elizabeth II : What is it you'd like me to do?
Michael Fagan : Save us all. From her.
Queen Elizabeth II : Who?
Michael Fagan : Thatcher! She's destroying the country! We've got more that three million unemployed. That's more than at any time since the Great Depression, doesn't that bother you?
Queen Elizabeth II : Yes, it bothers me greatly. But there's nothing I personally can do about it. When you've been in... my position as long as I have, you see how quickly and how often a nation's fortunes can change. Joblessness, recession, crises, war, all of these things have a way of correcting themselves. Countries bounce back. People do. Because they simply have to.
Michael Fagan : That's what I thought. That I'd bounce back. And then I didn't. First the work dried up, then my confidence dried up. Then... the love in my wife's eyes dried up. And then you begin to wonder, you know, where's it gone? Not just your confidence or your happiness, but your... They say I have mental health problems now, but I don't! I'm just poor.
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Margaret Thatcher : On behalf of the government and the Metropolitan Police, I am so sorry. It is a national embarrassment that the Queen of the United Kingdom should be subjected to troublemakers and null consent at liberty to resort to violence...
Queen Elizabeth II : [kindly intervenes] Oh, but he wasn't violent. In fact, the only person Mr. Fagan hurt in the course of his break-in was himself.
[short pause]
Queen Elizabeth II : And while he may be a troubled soul, I don't think he's entirely to blame for his troubles... being a victim of unemployment - which is now more than twice what it was when you came into office, just three years ago.
Margaret Thatcher : [calmly] If unemployment is *temporarily* high ma'am, that is the *necessary* side-effect of the medicine we are administering to the British Economy.
Queen Elizabeth II : [kindly intervening] Shouldn't we be careful that this medicine... like some dreadful chemotherapy, doesn't *kill* the very patient it's intended to heal? If people like Mr. Fagan are struggling, do we not have a collective duty to help them? What of our *moral* economy?
Margaret Thatcher : [calmly] If we *are* to turn this country around, we really must *abandon* outdated and misguided notions of collective duty. There are individual men and women and there are families. Self-interested people who are trying to *better* themselves. *That* is the engine that fires a nation. My father didn't have a state to rely on should his business fail. It was the risk of *ruin* and his duty to his family that drove him to succeed.
Queen Elizabeth II : [respectfully] Perhaps not everyone is as remarkable as your father.
Margaret Thatcher : [calmly] Oh you see? That is where you and I differ. I say... they have it *within* them to be.
Queen Elizabeth II : Even someone like Mr. Fagan?
Margaret Thatcher : [calmly] Mr. Fagan... is another matter. Two different Doctors have reached the conclusion he is suffering from a schizophrenic illness. If he is spared criminal prosecution on account of his condition, then a nice secure mental hospital will ensure he will not be a danger any longer.
[Prime Minister Thatcher looks at her watch and gets up]
Margaret Thatcher : Now if you will excuse me, I really must go.
Queen Elizabeth II : Where to?
Margaret Thatcher : To the Victory Parade... at the city of London.
Queen Elizabeth II : A Victory Parade?
Margaret Thatcher : Yes ma'am. We have just won a war.
