The lady's not for turning

Margaret Thatcher's speech to the Conservative Party Conference on October 10, 1980, came as Britain sank into recession, with unemployment at about 2 million and rising, and her critics wanted a change of course. Her answer, "You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning!", was written by the playwright Ronald Millar as a pun on Christopher Fry's play The Lady's Not for Burning, a reference she reportedly missed. Watching the conference film shows how the line was set up and how the hall greeted it, and it is the best single clip for understanding why "U-turn" became such a loaded word in British politics.