- Prime Minister.
Prime Minister.
Prime Minister.
- Oh, I'm glad you have time in your rich and interesting life to come and see me.
(dramatic music) - So we meet Peter, who's quite a junior minister within the cabinet.
And his relationship with Dawn Ellison, the Prime Minister, is tetchy at best.
- Peter Lawrence is employed by a Prime Minister, Dawn Ellison, who is cautious, incredibly capable, hardworking, and all the things that he is not.
She is a safe pair of hands.
And there's a sort of merry war between those two characters, as there often is at the top of politics.
- I thought Dawn hated you.
- No, she doesn't hate me.
She fears me, which is different.
Great Britain is going to be redefined.
- He has just been let off on a court case.
He's won the case, and unfortunately for me, he's also won popularity.
He comes back into the fold, and with it is a new threat.
And she decides to take him on.
I am asking you to shake all the skeletons out of your closet right now.
And that way I can make an informed decision.
- About what?
- About your future.
- First of all, I suppose his job demands a degree of loyalty to the Prime Minister as the leader of his Party.
But that is negotiable.
That's something that he does not give automatically.
That's something that he feels entitled to withhold when it suits him.
And we discover fairly soon that he is actually plotting for the top job.
But this must be true of every Cabinet that's ever been.
There's a Prime Minister sitting in the middle of the table, and at least 15 of the 20 people around the table want that job.
- You think you're too popular to be sacked, but if the moment comes, I shall be happy to prove you wrong.
I think she realizes that he's popular.
She realizes that he's highly ambitious, as she is, and he's without scruples, as she is.
Her problem with Peter is she doesn't recognize him, and because she doesn't recognize him, she doesn't realize how dangerous he is.
(dramatic music stops, dramatically)
