_
No.
No, no, no. I have...
I have very serious reservat...
I have very serious reservations about meeting again.
_
Yeah.
Fine.
All right.
Lunchtime. St James's Park.
The... the bench by the Horse Guards Parade.
Then that is the end of it.
_
- Do you have chilblains? - Er, yes.
Well, blame underfeeding.
Poor clothing and poor circulation play a part.
Tight boots and warming the hands
and feet at the fire when they are cold encourage them.
*CREDITS*
_
Let's just stop.
That didn't go very well, did it?
You're very clearly rattled.
Well, one would be rattled, wouldn't one?
You're flinching from me like I'm an actual Nazi
about to cut off your fingers.
I was flinching because you have very bad breath.
Hold out your hand.
This was my first time.
I get to have another try, don't I?
Telephone call for you, Brigadier.
What are you smiling about?
Hey, Feef, you OK? You did good.
The war is over? I can't believe it.
And how long do you think it will take before
I have an American accent?
What? After I get to Iowa.
I don't think my wife will like you very much.
I don't want the war to be over.
Me neither.
We're the worst two people in the world.
Was I going to be an agent?
Probably.
I'm not terribly good at being interrogated.
Most people aren't good at it the first time.
That's why they call it training.
Now I won't be parachuting into France.
Can't hide messages in bicycles and operate a secret radio,
blow up bridges.
And I'll have to leave this land of umbrella stands
and knitted little hats for teapots.
What will you miss most? The bad food or the bad weather?
Say I'm going with you.
Just lie.
You're coming with me.
To America.
Come on, Peter! No, you first.
Come on.
Drop her off, then I'll go on.
Can I see a picture of your wife?
It'll be easier for me if I understand
you're back where you're supposed to be.
Tell Jackson.
Jackson, the war is over.
You can go home.
We can have the lights on now.
_
Whatever it takes!
Wanted to talk to you about someone, a girl.
Clever, keen, still interested in adrenalising work.
For who? For us? Maybe.
Maybe?
Haven't approached her.
Thought I'd talk to you, see if you have a spot for her.
She's intelligent, pretty, talks perfect French.
Yeah? That fight's over.
Does she talk Russian?
Not as far as I know, but she
loves America. Loves, Americans.
Trained?
Mostly.
Disappointed she never got to serve.
A mostly trained French speaker you're fucking.
Thanks for the tip.
Seems a waste just to let her be a bureaucrat
in the civil service or whatever.
The civil service? That's perfect.
Yes.
The SOE suggested she apply.
Imagine, if you will, an island through
which a terrible storm has passed.
Prior to the storm there were huts made from the plentiful supply
of palm trees that grow at the edge of the shore.
The island's canoes, also made from palms, have been destroyed.
The island's church and schoolhouse,
established by unpopular Christian
missionaries, have also been destroyed.
There are only enough surviving palm trees to house 30 families.
There is another island, uninhabited,
approximately a seven-hour canoe ride away.
Yet a third island which is inhabited, approximately
a 12-hour canoe ride away.
One canoe can take two adults and requires a single palm tree.
All three islands are British protectorates.
Another storm is due to batter the island in three days' time
and may be worse than the last.
You are in charge.
What do you do?
How significant is the language barrier? I need a translator.
There's the missionaries.
If everyone hates the missionaries,
they're the last people we should use.
How did I get there and did it involve an aeroplane?
Because I think an aeroplane would be quite useful.
On your original application, you wrote you were particularly drawn
to the civil service for the possibility of travel,
which I took to be a not-so-subtle
hint that your real area of interest
is simply the Foreign Office and the opportunity it affords for...
Well, for gadding about.
Well, I do like the idea of travel.
It's actually an incredibly exciting time to be at home.
The country has been flattened, rather.
Now we rebuild.
Exciting.
Would you have any moral compunction
if you were to be serving under a socialist government?
No. But you yourself are...
You do not need to state your political allegiance.
I'm a Tory.
But, if Mr Attlee comes to power,
it will be our duty to serve his government.
He won't come to power.
Elected on the basis that the poor in this country
have had to put up with a damn lot. Language.
And... won't take any more.
And we must serve them with alacrity.
The point is we are neutral.
Of course.
If you aren't accepted here, what will you do?
Anything but go home again.
How's the family?
Yeah, good.
The girl you like.
The other girl.
She's in.
I want to know more about her.
Money?
Her family need it, but she has a complicated relationship
with them, so...
Ideology?
Basically a Tory.
Not a zealot.
Compromise? Coercion?
Her brother's probably a homosexual.
Ego?
Adventure.
That's the ticket with her.
Let her settle in.
Then we make our move.
The civil service?
Sorry, I don't understand.
You're going to be a secretary?
Why can't you just meet someone?
Even Freddie has managed to meet someone.
Well, he had to, otherwise people would talk.
Shut up, Feef.
Honestly, she doesn't know anything about anything
and then tries to hide it by talking too much.
Something wrong with the meat?
I'm vegetarian.
What?!
I'm sorry, I'm vegetarian.
I don't eat meat.
Hugh is a very fine solicitor and I think will be instrumental
as you make decisions about the house.
Fucking army used the east wing as a
barracks and treated it appallingly.
You will seek compensation and then fix the bloody roof.
We'll present you with a variety of options.
Including a tax haven.
Always wise.
A little wiser if the socialists get in.
Not that there's a chance of that.
Freddie's going to replace me in the Commons.
I shall take my seat in the Lords.
Good luck in the election.
Thank you.
I'm also running for the Labour Party.
You're running for Labour?
They've got no hope.
- Congratulations. - What for?
For irritating my father and brother.
Seems fairly easily done.
If you're a socialist, why are you
fiddling my father's taxes anyway?
Don't you want all his money to go to the poor?
Well, I can only afford my principles
on my day off, unfortunately.
Actually, there is no fiddling your father's taxes.
So, what will you tell Daddy tomorrow?
The cheapest option is to demolish the house.
Gosh.
When someone says something like
that you expect the sky to fall down
or something, don't you?
I'm sorry.
Want to go swimming?
It's not that hot.
But I always swim when I'm home.
Come on.
Let's just celebrate the end of the war.
You swim, I'll wait.
Don't bother.
- _ - And when do you leave us for London?
This afternoon.
How terribly exciting.
Good morning, Mrs Herbert. Lovely to see you.
And you've arranged accommodation?
Yes, staying with a college friend initially..
I think we're about done here.
But it's only 11, Freddie.
Yes, I know, but I'm hungry.
There's some meat at the butcher's. I bought it up.
We can have it for lunch.
Can I induce you to wear one of these, Vicar?
No.
Are you sure this is all right?
Plenty of room for all of us.
What's going on?!
I don't know.
Keep it down, would you?!
What's going on?
- The election results are in. - Who won?
The bloody socialists!
Hello!
First day? Quite a day, good luck.
I can't believe they won.
Remember your interview.
We are neutral.
We are neutral...
This is all the data collected so far about wood.
Wood?
Wood.
From trees.
Wood builds houses.
There is, you may have noticed, a lack of housing
in the United Kingdom as a result of the last six years.
Questions that will need to be answered. What
type of wood would be most cost-effective?
Do weather conditions affect the type of wood required and, if so,
do we need to make logistically specific decisions?
Perhaps you should be writing some of this down?
From whence should we access the wood?
East Germany? Scotland? Consider political
as well as practical ramifications.
How much wood should be used in comparison
to other building materials?
Is there a different type of information we need to follow up on?
What kind of things do we think is important?
Tonight, Peter.
Make it romantic.
You got it.
Thank you.
I heard you made it to London.
I wanted to say hello.
That's very kind of you.
I got the distinct impression the last time we met
that you didn't really like me.
Not at all.
I like you very much, very much.
I just, erm, my situation is...
No, I was being silly.
And I'd had too much to drink, so... Anyway, congratulations.
I assume you won your seat, unlike my brother.
A socialist?
It's going to be impossible to get good service.
Excuse me?
You know I'm happy for you and everything
but I don't think it says very much for the country.
Churchill single-handedly held off the Nazis.
Voting him out of office is a rather peculiar way
of showing our appreciation.
Churchill ran the war, Attlee ran
England, he deserves credit too.
He just doesn't have quite the same genius for self-promotion.
And what a wonderful job Attlee did on the home front.
"Keep things going at home?" Look, the lamb's off!
And the beef's off.
All Churchill wants for peacetime is to go back to business as usual.
Well, that's what we all want, isn't it? With meat.
Business as usual before the war was mass unemployment
and the worst slums in Europe.
Obviously some lucky people could afford meat
but not as many as you might think.
Depends on the circles you travel in and how limited they are.
Well, it doesn't give me much faith in democracy, anyway.
People don't know what they need.
I mean, it hardly makes a difference who's at Number Ten.
Although, I heard Attlee knows nothing about foreign policy,
so God knows what the consequences will be from that.
The beef's off and the lamb's off.
What a repellently overprivileged universe you come from
if you really believe a vote is something to be thrown away
over a misguided sense of politeness.
Erm, can you excuse me for a second, please?
I'm going to continue being impolite
and ask if you wouldn't mind if we skip dinner.
This is a special night for the Labour Party, for the country.
I'm sorry.
I thought you were different.
How was your first day?
Unbelievably boring.
Lie on me.
Stay on top.
You deserve to do great things.
I can make that happen.
I want you to meet someone.
Peter tells me you had all the makings of an excellent agent
but that your career was cut short.
Well, the war ended.
Wars don't end.
Really?
Because I definitely attended a couple of victory parties.
Why did you want to be a special agent?
It seemed insane to sit around and wait
to see if we were going to be invaded or not.
I hate passivity.
So do I. So does Peter.
Why sit on your ass when you can save the world?
Plus, it's fun.
It's fun being an agent.
So, if wars don't end, who are we fighting now?
I would phrase that question differently.
Who's attacking us now?
From whom must we defend ourselves?
Russia's why Attlee won the election.
Did you know that?
Not really.
Doesn't it strike you as odd that Churchill,
the most heroic man of the age and, by the way,
extremely alert to the Russian threat,
is ousted and suddenly socialists rule England?
Odd. Terrible. Baffling. Stupid.
It was inevitable.
The war left England very weak.
Economically, structurally, psychologically.
Weakness is always exploited.
We see that in nature.
Right now, Britain is absolutely at war and the scary thing is...
..she doesn't know it.
We believe Whitehall has been infiltrated by Communists.
That's why I need an agent in the civil service.
But, spy on my own government?
Well, there's a name for that.
Peter told me you were prepared to jump out of a plane
to save your country.
Yes, but, what about MI5? 6?
Right now we're standing by a statue of Lenin.
England's way too slow to recognise her enemies.
People around here still call Stalin "Uncle Joe".
Let me tell you something, "Uncle Joe"'s army raped so many women
on their way to Berlin that the orphanages have agreed
to take children in whose mothers are still alive
but can't stand to see their progeny.
He's another psychopath in charge
of another army of psychopaths
and I'd like to stop this one a little more effectively.
Plus, if the Commies are infiltrating the British government,
we'd like to know about it.
England still needs you, it just doesn't know it.
Are you in or out?
Should we shake hands or something?
You have to consider moisture and movement.
Great Britain is moist.
It is.
Moisture content has got to match the proposed environment
- _ - or there'll be splitting and warping.
And what about a species?
You've got to consider fungal decay.
You have to.
Fungal decay? Yes.
_
Hurry up, Feef!
Camilla?!
_
Do you want to see National Velvet this week? Harry won't come.
Yes, all right.
Any night but Wednesday.
I know you love Elizabeth Taylor.
I do love her hair.
Did you like the book?
I did, actually.
I tore through it.
Then, according to my mother, you shouldn't see the film.
Elizabeth Taylor's the only English thing in it.
She said the Americans just about destroyed it.
She said it would've been better
if they'd just stolen the story
and reset it in California or something.
Well, I think we'll see for ourselves, Harry.
Your mother is hardly a noted critic.
My mother, Feef, is a very intelligent woman.
Yes, Camilla raves about her.
_
I don't think I can do this.
So, what? Now you're out?
I got news for you, Bug.
If you work for the president
you're not going to agree with every decision he makes.
This one is particularly egregious.
War is... whatever that word was.
Egregious.
No-one can sign off on half the shit their country does.
You guys scooped up India and Africa just cos you wanted them.
We took out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This is the world.
It's fucking ugly.
The question isn't, "Are you proud of your country?"
The question is, "Are you proud of yourself?"
"Are you doing everything you can
to make the world a better place?"
I'd like to.
Then do this job.
Because you're intelligent...
..and intelligence saves lives.
The military rely on Neanderthal tactics but what we do,
what I do, and what I have invited you to do
is use your brain.
And, do what you want,
but opportunities like this don't come along very often.
Thank God I met you.
I want my life to matter.
Now that the war with Japan is over,
whatever you're working on is to be aborted.
What the fuck?
President Truman is of the opinion that there is no need
for field agents outside of Berlin.
Has anyone been reading my reports?
What I'm working on is a matter of international security.
All reports have been read.
And the president has determined that a skeletal crew will remain
in the UK but to receive intelligence from MI6 only.
As of eleven hundred hours next Tuesday,
we will commence returning you to the United States.
Hey, I'm on your side.
Meaning?
This will not stand.
Truman's saying this now but the men with money disagree.
Since when do the men with money share their
thinking with junior diplomats, Jimmy?
Whose chief responsibility is making sure the right
swing band is booked for the right BS event.
Let me add a few details to my biography.
Dalton Prep.
Then Yale.
My family is in shipping and has been since 1759.
And you're imparting this to me because...?
Disbanding is dangerous.
Clearly you agree with me.
You walked out of the meeting.
Not using our own intelligence?
Is he out of his mind?
So, fuck that.
Let's go talk somewhere more private.
Let's drink to a job almost well done.
We could still do it.
They're keeping a skeletal crew.
We sign up, we run our girl.
I'm not doing that.
That's insane. An order's been given.
By who? A draper's son thrust on
to the podium by nothing but chance?
Try as he might, the president
cannot relocate us to an imaginary
universe where differences are
settled by handshakes and jousts.
Let's let the Brits handle this.
They can't! They're not capable.
They're not capable of winning their own wars.
At the moment,
they're not even capable of putting food on the table.
Come on, Peter! Whatever it takes!
The war is over.
No, that war is over.
Now there's a new one.
And it's our duty to fight it.
We're fighting for the same goals, the same dreams.
It's another iteration of the same fucking enemy!
If we don't fight, we won't win.
If we don't win, we won't survive.
But if we do win, we could tell the president all about it
and we won't get our wrists slapped.
I guarantee it.
We'll get medals.
I mean, what are you thinking? Just you and her against the Russians?
And Jimmy.
Jimmy's a sleaze.
I'm not going to tell anyone about this conversation
and I'm not gonna mention that you suggested insurrection
and that Jimmy should lose his job.
What I am going to do is call Feef and tell her that it's off.
And then I'm going to get on a plane.
Don't call her.
She's in place.
She's in Whitehall.
Let me run her.
No.
OK. OK.
It was worth a shot, right?
Whatever it takes, right?
You look nice.
New dress?
Um, they gave it to me.
What are you doing here?
Well, it's a party to celebrate the new government,
so what are you doing here?
Family friend invited me.
If the purpose of these evening was to prove you can carry off silver
then mission accomplished.
I'll take that as an apology for dinner.
It wasn't.
Isn't he getting married this year?
To a lovely girl.
A Quaker.
Nice.
That's Feef.
It was really nice to see you. Excuse me.
Thank you.
No, thank you.
And that's on behalf of the president.
This is Jimmy Derby.
We're going to be working together, so may I have the pleasure?
Drive.
Where was Peter?
He's working.
You can catch up with him later.
That politician you were dancing with. A friend?
Not really.
Well, make him one.
What else? I'm in the civil service. Now what?
Well, you're in the Ministry of Housing, correct?.
I need you to find a way to move to the Cabinet Office.
Why?
You need to be where the power is.
It's the heart of government.
Don't you want to be at the centre of it all?
Drop me here.
Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker!
Mr Speaker!
Order!
We now have a maiden...
..Mr Hugh Fenton.
Come on, Hugh!
Come on. Come on!
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me my first opportunity to speak.
I have the privilege and the pleasure of representing
some of the poorest constituents in Derbyshire.
In the village where I grew up, we lost 68% of the men
of fighting age to this war.
And that means 32% of them are coming home.
32% of the fellows I went to school with and climbed trees with
and played Knock Down Ginger with and played war with using sticks
are coming home with a lot more than scraped knees and black eyes.
And I'm here in Parliament to make sure my friends,
my family, my community, the working people of Britain
are not betrayed by the men in power.
Rubbish! Rubbish!
Only 27 years ago the Last Great War, the war to end all wars, ended.
And Lloyd George promised that we would build in peacetime
a land fit for heroes.
The heroes that came home.
And what did Westminster do? What did the Tory party do?
They presided over economic deprivation!
From their comfortable houses and
back rooms warmed by fires and whisky,
hard-faced man slapped each other on the back
and talked about the Great British Empire,
that encompassed India, Africa, Australia, Canada...
..and slums in Manchester, Liverpool and London
so squalid that, for those of us who
had the courage to walk through them
and not look away, they seemed like a very picture of hell.
We of the Labour Party have our eyes wide open and know full well
that the disease and squalor and poverty of education and employment
that we face are not the result of acts of God or blind forces
but are the sure and certain result of the concentration
of too much economic power in the hands of too few men!
Order! Order!
It was the common man who fought the war.
Yes!
It was the common man that won the war.
Yes!
And it is the common man that now, as this last election has shown,
will define the terms of the peace.
Health care for all. Yes!
Housing for all. Yes!
Culture for all. Yes!
Someone said to me recently it makes
no difference who's in Number Ten.
What a shock they have coming.
*CREDITS*