The Audience Margaret Thatcher

AUDIO	VIDEO	
THATCHER: Your majesty.	Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher enters the Queen’s chambers for an audience with her	
QUEEN: Prime Minister.		
THATCHER: Before coming today I checked with the cabinet secretary,		
and it turns out that in the seven years that I've been Prime Minister we have had 133 audiences.		
Always the model of cordiality  productivity and mutual respect.		
So seen within a context like that it is perhaps not unreasonable to expect an isolated hiccup.		
QUEENL What hiccup		
THATCHER: I was under the impression that her Magisty never 		
expressed her political views in public.		
QUEEN: I did.		
THATCHER: There was an unbreakable code of silence between 		
sovereign and First Minister.		
QUEEN: There is. One I should tell you I have never broken not once in 34 years.		
THATCHER: Until now.		
QUEEN: If you're referring to the Sunday Times I had nothing to do with that story.		
I've always advised my prime ministers against reading newspapers.		
THATCHER: I don't ma'am.		
QUEEN: They misunderstand, misquote and misrepresent. Then everyone gets in a flood scrap.		
THATCHER: But my press secretary does, and has working relationships with all the editors,		
and the editor in this case assured Bernard that the sources were unimpeachable.		
Close to the Queen. Very close.		
Unprecedentedly close.		
And of course, before running a story like this, a story with huge constitutional ramifications,		
the editor checked the story word by incriminating word, and it seems the unprecedentedly close sources inside 		
the palace didn't backtrack at all.		
On the contrary, they offered one or two editions encouraging the paper to go further.		
QUEEN: Well I have no idea who is behind it all but I assure you a clarification will soon be forthcoming,		
along with the name of a culprit. In the meantime should we not make a 		
start on the business of the week?		
Only, I'm mindful of the time.		
THATCHER: This is the business of the week, ma'am.		
they earn their business besides it's not necessarily a bad thing is it?		
Just for once to break with tradition and shed the straitjacket of our protocol,		
to ask ourselves some of the 		
bigger questions. I think we have enough respect for the institution's we both represent.		
and for one another personally to do that.		
Woman to woman we are the same age after all		
QUEEN: Are we?		
THATCHER: Just six months between us.		
QUEEN: Who's the senior?		
THATCHER: I am, ma'am