Non-British, and even some British, must be having difficulty understanding the present differences that have cropped up in London between Queen Elizabeth II and her prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. The important thing to know is that Mrs. Thatcher is prime minister in the government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but has no rank and no authority in a lot of places that are associated with Queen Elizabeth. Thatcher is solely and exclusively British. The Queen is a good many other things besides a British Queen. The Queen must act on Mrs. Thatchers advice in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but she has to act on the advice of other people in other places. And now we have a case where the advice she is getting from some of her ministers in some of those other places is at variance with the wishes of Thatcher. It puts her in a difficult position. Not even all the islands covered by the phrase "British Isles" are under the British Parliament or are even British. For example, the Isle of Man lies in the middle of the Irish Sea and is equidistant, from England. Scotland. Wales, and Ireland. But its political antecedents are Scandinavian. Its citizens call themselves Manxmen. They have their own local legislature. They recognize the Queen as the Lord of the Isle of Man, not as at British Queen.