Stand Down Margaret

We've been watching The Crown TV series over the past couple of years. We  watch an episode every now and then and we certainly have not been binging it but sometimes we watch it in spurts. Season 4 which we are watching now was released in November 2020 and we're about halfway through the season here in March.

Season 4 takes place during the Margaret Thatcher years and the other day we watched one particular episode that particularly resonated with me. The fifth episode Fagan about a desperate out of work man who breaks into Buckingham Palace to talk with the Queen. I had totally forgotten about that little bit of history which was so weird at the time but I don't think I ever knew that he broke into the palace and got to her bedroom twice.

The episodes this season have had a few that focused on Thatcher and her policies including the Falklands War which she used to distract the public from the high unemployment that she was responsible for along with the crack down on unions and working people in general. It was kind of funny that Fagan put the idea into the Queen's head that she was striving to bypass the crown as the moral authority of the nation and the show ended with Thatcher taking the salutes from the troops that would have normally gone to the Queen who was not happy. The actor that places Margaret Thatcher is very good.

I've also been reading a crime novel that takes place in Belfast Northern Ireland during this same time period. The police force has been decimated by the army reservists in their ranks that have been called for service in Thatcher's Falklands War. One scene has two detectives talking in an office where one sits at his desk blowing smoke up at the ceiling that has a yellow tobacco stain shaped like "Thatcher's hair".  

The music at the end of this particular episode was the English Beat's song Stand Down Margaret.