Christmas lunch in the Garnett household is anything but peaceful as it turns into a debate of politics, the Monarchy, the Monarchy's politics, religion, whether there is a heaven or hell, the fuel to burn the Christmas pudding and a trip to the hospital for Alf to remove a coin he has swallowed accidentally eventually follows in the episode "In Sickness and in Health".

Redecorating the living room leads on to discussions of sexual mores, including suspicions that Mike and Rita had premarital sex. They convince Rita's parents that they didn't, but as soon as they leave the room, Mike and Rita begin laughing, leaving this debate open-ended. Else then reminds Alf that he attempted sex with her before they were married. A discussion with Wally the Milkman leads on to a discussion about the existence of God, to which Mike denies His existence. After Alf is left alone to complete the wallpapering, he realises that he has accidentally left the wallpaper strips too short. Later, he pays a local decorator to complete the job while the rest of the family are out. When Else comes back, she then decides she doesn't like the floral pattern she herself chose, and Alf storms out, insisting "I'm going down the pub!" before returning moments later realising he has no more money, having paid the local decorator £8 10s.

The two men of the household make pledges to give up smoking after Mike catches a cold and is left coughing because of his smoking a cigarette and that of his father-in-law smoking a pipe. It's every man for himself as whoever loses must pledge the savings they make from not smoking to their respective spouses and Mike begins enjoying his new found healthiness from giving up smoking. Alf, however, struggles and is left tempted by both Harold Wilson seen smoking a pipe on TV (a popular image that Wilson cultivated) and Rita and Else both still smoking. Then Alf has a brainwave and makes sure the rest of the household see him smoking his pipe, claiming he is being patriotic by smoking, his logic being that by smoking, he is paying extra tax to support British public services. He takes Else out to dinner on his savings from temporarily giving up smoking. For once, the tables are turned on Mike and Rita, who are both left speechless.

A visit by people collecting for a Vietnam War victims charity leads to a debate about war – the Vietnam, Second and First World Wars – only then resulting in Alf opening up a world map and showing his complete lack of knowledge of where Russia and even Asia is. This, naturally, is down to the Labour Government for giving away the British Empire. When questioned whether he supports the causes for all three of those wars, he claims to support the causes of the First and Second World Wars, citing his time out in the deserts of North Africa for the Second. Then a lorry parks outside, blocking the sunlight entering the Garnett living room window. An argument erupts between Alf and the lorry driver, with the lorry driver refusing to move. When he thinks no-one is looking, he lets the tyres on the lorry down, only to be overlooked by a lorry driver and a policeman. The policeman hands him a tyre pump, to which Alf reluctantly obeys. So much for the bulldog breed!

Mike is certainly crowing when he loses his job – not that that is anything to be pleased about – but the Government have just announced an increase in Unemployment Benefit payments. Combined with having to pay Alf £1 a week rent yet claiming £5 a week national assistance for rent, Mike is pleased with the profit he is making, until he is told by a friend that these things are checked up on. When he gets home, Mike is behaving unusually friendly towards Alf, but Rita sees right through him. He then reveals why his attitude has changed – he is wanting to curry favour with his father-in-law and landlord so that Alf will not report Mike to the authorities.

Alf returns home late, after doing overtime to find no fire, no family and no food. The family, it turns out, have been out to the cinema, Rita and Else arrive back without Mike in tow, who it is revealed is at a local fish and chip shop for the three of them, leaving out Alf. Rita surmises that if Alf were to call the chip shop from the local phone box (many households, including the Garnett household, in the late 1960s, were not connected up to the national telephone network, relying on calls made from and received in local call boxes), he might get through in time before Mike places the three orders – Mike is queuing to place the orders.

A picture of the Duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII, leads to Alf praising the former King for being "the greatest monarch the country ever had". He then goes on to claim that his father and the former King used to drink regularly at The Royal Crown pub, where he claims they were the only two who could down a yard of ale in exactly 8 and a half seconds. Else discredits the first half of the story but believes the part about Alf's father's drinking abilities. When asked how he knew this person was the real Duke of Windsor, Alf claims he can always see Royalty in breeding.

Alf is ill in bed with the rest of the family downstairs ignoring him, watching TV. Eventually an NHS doctor with a cough, with questionable competence, arrives and declares that there is nothing wrong with Alf. Alf retorts that on a previous occasion that this doctor diagnosed nothing wrong with a patient, the patient died shortly after. Alf demands to see a specialist and is admitted to hospital, but is frustrated that he has to go on a bus and an ambulance will not be called. In hospital, he frightens a fellow patient, shows surprise at how much compassion the coloured nurses show and overhears a discussion by two surgeons about the operation they are due to perform on Alf tomorrow, including how they must not drink too much brandy that night and how they will have to hurry the operation tomorrow so they can play a round of golf.

Alf is furious that the Russian premier, Kosygin, has been invited to Downing Street by Harold Wilson. Believing that Britain is selling out to the Commies, Alf decides to take Else on a trip to Downing Street to protest—and then on to see Her Majesty at the Palace!

A quiet afternoon in the Garnett household is the result of Mike and Alf both reading their own new books, and Else and Rita boredly sitting by, wondering what their respective husbands are reading. It transpires that Alf is reading "Cleaning up TV", the book written by the TV morality, anti-swearing, anti-blasphemy, anti-violence campaigner Mary Whitehouse. After ridicule levelled at him from both Mike and Rita ("She's concerned, for the bleedin' moral fibre of the nation!"), whose moral standards are at almost polar opposites from those of Mrs Whitehouse and Mr Garnett, Alf suffers a bout of diarrhoea, which he has been suffering from all day.