Prime Minister on the advice of DI5, Wainwright replaces the entire Cabinet and abandons most of Perkins' policies, much to the jubilation of the conspirators who cheer their achievement of 'a very British coup'. The epilogue reveals that Perkins, Cook, and Steeples would never hold government office again, that Sir Peregrine quietly retired, that Fison and Smith both received peerages, and that Thompson married his aristocratic girlfriend Elizabeth Fain, moved to Scotland, and started writing a (likely to be unpublished) book about what really happened to Perkins' premiership. Main characters Harry Perkins MP, Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party Sir Peregrine Craddock, Head of MI5, head conspirator Frederick Thompson, former reporter and Perkins' Press Secretary Lawrence Wainwright MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, conspirator Joan Cook MP, Home Secretary, later Chancellor of the Exchequer Tom Newsome MP, Foreign Secretary, resigns over affair Jock Steeples, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons, briefly acting Labour leader Sir George Fison, owner of a consortium of newspapers, conspirator Alford, Director of the BBC, conspirator Fiennes, assistant to Craddock Marcus Morgan, United States Secretary of State Inspector Page, Head of Security for the Prime Minister Sir Montague Kowalski, Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Horace Tweed, Prime Minister's aide Sir James Robertson, Cabinet Secretary Molly Jarvis (née Spence), former lover of Perkins (changed to Helen Jarvis, née Spencer in the television series) Analysis The book was written in 1981, at a time when Tony Benn looked likely to become deputy leader of the Labour Party which at the time was strongly challenging the government of Margaret Thatcher in the opinion polls. It also has strong echoes of the persistent rumours that have circulated over the years about attempts by members of the British security services, and other wings of the British Establishment, to undermine and depose Harold Wilson's Labour government of the mid-1970s. This first became widespread public knowledge around 1986 with the controversy over Spycatcher, after the publication of the novel but before the broadcast of the TV version. The story also has echoes of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis in which there was alleged CIA involvement to remove a government proposing to close US military bases on Australian soil. Some editions of the book include a quote by Peregrine Worsthorne from his article "When Treason Can Be Right", which argues that treason to defend the UK's alliance