The Thick of It is a British sitcom, satirising the inner workings of modern government, that finished its fourth (and final) series in October 2012. It stars Peter Capaldi as spin doctor Malcolm Tucker. See also In The Loop, a spin-off feature film.

Series 1, Episode 1

(Malcolm's first line)

Malcolm Tucker (on his phone, in Cliff Lawton's office): No, he's useless. He's absolutely useless. He is, he's useless, he's as useless as a marzipan dildo.

Cliff Lawton: Malcolm, look, um – if you do this, it's the bollocks of the jungle out there, you know? They're like wolves. Pissed wolves.

Malcolm Tucker: I've made the announcement: I've told the Lobby you're going, Cliff.

Cliff Lawton: You've told the Lobby I'm going?

Malcolm Tucker: Yeah. Sorry, Cliff.

Cliff Lawton: Minister.

Malcolm Tucker: Yeah, get used to Cliff. I've booked you in for the usual soapy tit-wank farewell at Number 10, in 20 minutes. Also drafted you a letter of resignation: gives you the chance to say that you're jumping before you're pushed, although obviously we're gonna be briefing that you were pushed, sorry.

Malcolm Tucker: I'll tell you why I'm upset. I'm upset because these fucking morons over at the Treasury, these people, they are so paranoid. If you don't tell them about stuff like this, if you don't even cc them an email, they think you've started a palace coup!

Hugh Abbot: Mal– Malcolm –

Malcolm Tucker: You don't seem to understand that I'm gonna have to mop up a fucking hurricane of piss here from all of these neurotics! What did the Prime Minister actually say to you?

Hugh Abbot: He actually said, 'This is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing.'

Malcolm Tucker: What did he actually say?

Hugh Abbot: He said, 'This is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing.'

Malcolm Tucker: 'Should' be doing. 'Should' does not mean 'yes'.

Glenn Cullen: What we need is something that the public want, is incredibly popular and is free.

Ollie Reeder: Return of capital punishment.

Hugh Abbot: That's a joke, right? You are joking, yes, obviously? Come on Ollie, come up with something.

Ollie Reeder: National spare room database.

Hugh Abbot: What about zoos? My kids went to a zoo the other day and they said it was fucking disgusting, you know, the state of it. That's shit, isn't it?

Hugh Abbot: What are we gonna do now?

Malcolm Tucker: You're gonna completely reverse your position.

Hugh Abbot: Hang on a second. Malcolm, it's not actually that, um – I mean, that's gonna be quite hard, really.

Malcolm Tucker: Yes, well the announcement that you didn't make today, you did.

Hugh Abbot: No, no, I didn't, and there were television cameras there while I was not doing it.

Malcolm Tucker: Fuck them!

Hugh Abbot: I'm not quite sure h– what level of reality I'm supposed to be operating on.

Hugh: I want a new driver. Get me a new driver. I don't wanna see this guy ever again.

Glenn Cullen: On what grounds?

Hugh: Smiling! Inappropriate smiling! And smirking! Smiling and smirking! I don't wanna see that smile or smirk ever again, ok?

(Ollie and Angela are arguing. Tucker comes in)

Malcolm: Hi, Angela! Oh, like the hair, nice little corkscrews. How's it going?

Ollie: Fine. We were just talking about why Angela shouldn't do a big story on the big insidery piece, kinda day of spin, sort of spread in the paper...

Malcolm: Oh, I don't know. Maybe you should! Good idea!

(Malcolm leaves. Then comes back)

Malcolm: Oh, wait a minute! I know why she shouldn't! Because , you know, if she did that, she'd be dead. To me, to this department, to the government. And she'll never get another story, or even a fucking whiff of a story as long as she kept her sorry, hack bitch face lingering around Westminster, because I would call every editor I know - which, obviously, that's all of them - and I'd tell them to gouge her name out of their address books so she'd never even get a job on hospital radio where the sad sack belongs. That's what I'd tell her. But maybe you should tell her.

Series 1, Episode 2

Terri: It's not my role to have a preference. I sell the apples. If you want me to sell the apples, I'll sell the apples, and if you want me to sell oranges, then I'll go and tell people that the apples? The apples are shit, Ollie. They're shit. I'll say, go on, check out our oranges!

Hugh: I work, I eat, I shower. That's it. Occasionally... I take a dump, just as a sort of treat. I mean, that really is my treat. That's what it's come to. I sit there and I think, "No, I'm not going to read the New Statesman. This time is just for me. This is quality time just for me." Is that normal?

Glenn: It's sad.

Hugh: Well at least I've made something.

Malcolm: (on the phone to Simon Hewitt) Fuck off, back to your match reports, ya twat!

(discussing an article by Simon Hewitt)

Malcolm: Have you got to the bit where he calls you out of your depth?

Hugh: No, at the moment he's calling me 'the political equivalent of the house wine at a suburban Indian restaurant'. That's not very good, is it?

Hugh: So, how do we respond to this?

Terri: Right, we don't exchange insults with bloody Simon arsepipes titty-twat.

Ollie: Is that honestly the best swearing that you can come up with?

Glenn: This is a bucket of shit: if someone throws shit at us, we throw shit back at them, we start a shit fight. We throw so much shit back at them that they can't pick up shit, they can't throw shit, they can't do shit.

Terri: Mm.

Hugh: That's top swearing, Glenn, well done.

Ollie: Watch and learn.

Hugh (thinking of policy ideas): Shut up for a minute, please. Where else can we go? Pollution, the environment. Litter. Dog shit.

Ollie: Aiming high.

Hugh: We aimed high, now we're at dog shit.

Ollie: So what you're looking for –

Malcolm (entering): OK, this is what we're doing. I'm putting it about through a number of cronies –

Glenn: Morning, Malcolm.

Malcolm: – that Hewitt's piece was a packet of bollocks; he did it as a favour to Cliff.

Ollie: Cliff being –

Glenn: Cliff Lawton.

Ollie: Oh right.

Malcolm: Hugh's predecessor; he and Hewitt are as tight as arse cheeks.

Hugh: Are they now?

Malcolm: Fuck knows, but that's what we're saying, OK? It's personal, it's backslapping, it's borderline homoerotic, and you are an innocent victim of a nasty media stitch-up.

Malcolm: And you're against it?

Glenn: It'll die on its arse! 'My grandma was mugged by some ferret-faced teenager with a neck tattoo, what are you gonna do about it?' 'Teach him to play the bassoon.' It is, as my dear old mother would have said, double wank and shit chips.

---

Glenn: Well, my guts still say no.

Malcolm: Yeah, well substantial as they are, they've been outvoted.

---

Hugh: Malcolm, I know you were very keen on Terri's appointment but, um –

Malcolm: She's shit.

Hugh: Well, I wouldn't go that far.

Malcolm: She's a box-ticker, Hugh. She can't think outside the box.

Hugh: No, in fact she's built a box inside the actual box and she's doing her thinking inside that box.

Malcolm: Exactly, I like that.

Hugh: I'm sorry, I'm so tired, Malcolm.

Malcolm: No, that's good.

Hugh: I have so much stuff to read and think about.

Terri: Anyway, these focus groups, they're absolutely useless.

Ollie: Oh, so it's useless to ask people what they think, is it? It's useless to ask people's opinions before we formulate a policy? It's useless?!

Glenn: Look, there's no point in asking people what they think. They either don't know what they think or they think that you should bring back hanging for traffic wardens. Or they just think what every right-minded thinking person would think, and that's just common sense!

Ollie: Oh, yeah yeah yeah, oh yeah, "I'm Geoff Average, and I think the same as everybody else cos I'm Mr Average Normal Bloke and everybody thinks like me cos I work in IT, and on the weekends I pop a few pills and do a bit of DJ-ing, y'know, spare cash cos I'm a single mum and I'm a member of the National Trust, I enjoy any sports on TV, anything with Colin Firth, I enjoy domestic violence and sun-dried fucking...karaoke." Not everybody is the same, Glenn! People can surprise you!

Glenn: Was that good-natured joshing?

Hugh: How fucked am I?

Ollie: Well, you look awful, you look terrible. I mean, you often look quite bad, but...

Hugh: In terms of negative publicity. On the fuckometer, where am I?

Glenn: Oh, 12.

Ollie: Yeah. 12, say.

Hugh: Out of what?

Glenn: Er... 50.

Ollie: Oh. Mine was out of ten.

Hugh: Right, (to Glenn) so I'm 24% fucked according to you, (to Ollie) but according to you I'm 120% fucked?

Hugh: Glenn?

Glenn: What?

Hugh: I've got a bit of a problem. You remember Mary from the focus group?

Glenn: What, Miss Immaculate bloody Conception?

Hugh: She's an actress.

Glenn: What do you mean?

Hugh: Well, I mean she's – No, there's no clearer way of saying it, she's an actress.

Glenn: Are you sure?

Hugh: I've just seen her, she's in The fucking Bill!

Glenn: Oh, Jesus! Look, this doesn't necessarily have to be a total fucking disaster.

Hugh: I think it does, because she wasn't for real, she's not really a stay-at-home Middle England housewife, she's just playing a part, so what she said wasn't, you know –

(they walk past Terri, who is on the phone)

Glenn: Yes. I do know.

Terri: What, who said what wasn't what?

Hugh (to Terri): We are organising focus groups to listen to the opinions of ordinary people, except they're not ordinary people, they're fucking actors, so they're not technically people at all!

(Glenn and Hugh go to Ollie's desk)

Terri (on the phone): Can I get back to you?

Ollie (to Glenn): What is it?

Glenn: Your fucking legend is a fucking actress!

Ollie: Well, 'cause the focus group companies do it all the time: if they can't cobble together, you know, the right cross-section, they call a casting agency –

Glenn: Dial-an-opinion, is it? 'Send me three liberals, two fucking mavericks and a racist.' Brilliant, Ollie, brilliant!

Malcolm: Hugh, we have to sort this out. When I asked you about the focus group –

Hugh: Yeah.

Malcolm: – you said 'she' loved it.

Hugh: We gave her a one-on-one.

Malcolm: Why?

Hugh: She's Middle England.

Malcolm: So Middle England is a big fucking field, with one woman standing in it?

Hugh: Do you think Hewitt will find out?

Malcolm: OF COURSE HE FUCKING WILL, SHE'S HIS MOLE! THAT'S WHY HE'S GOT A PIECE IN THE PAPER TOMORROW! (to Glenn, Ollie and Terri) We've got to shut this down now, right? I want this leaked to Angela Heaney. It's damage control, OK? We put out the story the way we want it, before Hewitt fucks us up the bugle. Get onto it, now!

Malcolm (to Mary): Do you just want to think about what is going to happen tomorrow?

Hugh: Because tomorrow, you are gonna find the press all over you –

Mary: In a good way?

Hugh: No, not in a good way at all, I can tell you –

Malcolm: You know that film Notting Hill, have you seen that?

Glenn: She's probably fucking in it.

Malcolm: You know that bit where the guy opens the door –

Mary: What is this?

Malcolm: – and there's like millions of journalists and hacks and photographers and all flashbulbs are going off? In about four hours time, that's gonna be you, darling: they're gonna be all over you like fucking cockroaches.

Hugh (to Mary): It's OK, it's OK.

Malcolm: No no no, it's not OK. It's not gonna be OK, and I'll tell you why: because you're fair game. So I hope your knickers are clean. Because every seat-sniffing little shitbag that's ever filed a byline is gonna be questioning you. 'Cause now, it's in the fucking public interest, isn't it? And they're gonna hit you with any shit they can find and you're gonna be spread out there in front of them like a trollop in the stocks!

---

Glenn: Listen, if we get on the phone, can we pull the front page?

Hugh: No. It's too late.

Glenn: You mean Heaney's piece is gonna go ahead anyway now?

Malcolm: Of course it's gonna fucking go ahead, I mean, I'm good but I can't fucking hold back the tide, can I?

---

Hugh: Can you wake me in a couple of hours? (lies down on a sofa) There's no time to go home, I'll just pass myself coming back in.

Series 1, Episode 3

Terri: Did you say we were gonna do a press release?

Hugh: Yes, erm, "Following a successful report stage debate, Secretary of State for Social Affairs, Hugh Abbot, today announced: 'I'm the fucking daddy!'"

---

Dan Miller: How are you, Glenn?

Glenn: I'm good, thank you – Actually, I just thought you were very heavy-handed with the backbenchers. No need for it in this day and age.

Dan Miller: Listen, Glenn. I mean, you know as well as I do, if you're going to make an omelette, you're going to have to have some frank and honest discussion with the eggs! And that's all I was doing.

(looking at Hugh's tie)

Glenn: What are those? They're little hippos, aren't they?

Hugh: I don't know what they are actually; I think they're just unidentified amusing creatures.

---

Hugh: So what time does this Daily Mail hack get here?

Glenn: Ten minutes, it's Angela Heaney, didn't I tell you?

Hugh: So she left the Standard?

Glenn: That's right, absolutely.

Hugh: Go on then: ask me some questions.

Glenn: Right, OK, I'll be Angela Heaney, and I'll ask you some questions.

Hugh: My God, that's uncanny. Mind you, your tits are a bit bigger than hers.

Glenn: Is it true that, although this Housing Bill went through Parliament with incredible ease –

Hugh: Actually, can you just do it as yourself? Sorry, it's just slightly unsettling.

Glenn: Right, erm – that you'll find a lot of difficulty in the real world?

Hugh: On the contrary, this Bill is going to do an extraordinary amount of good for an extraordinarily large number of people. Ordinary people, but ordinary people who deserve a little bit of the extraordinary in their lives.

(both start giggling)

Glenn: Perfect. That's brilliant. That's brilliant!

Hugh: It's a piece of piss.

Glenn: There you are, you see.

Hugh: Go on, ask me something hard.

Glenn: Where's the Nazi gold, you donkey-shagger?

Hugh: I'm very pleased you asked me that, Angela, because let me just say right away that this Bill is going to do an extraordinary amount of good for an extraordinarily large –

Malcolm (in his office, on his mobile): Hi Tom, what can I do for you? – Well, I didn't know what he was doing with his flat – I told him that fucking flat w– Well, they're not running with this – No, well, I know, he's got an interview now with that Angela Heaney, you know, the twat bubble from the Standard – Fuck, she's just gone to the Mail. I'm onto it. (hangs up and leaves)

(barely audible, outside the 'goldfish bowl' where Angela Heaney was interviewing Hugh)

Malcolm (to Hugh): They're running about your fucking flat, I fucking told you about that. How the fuck did you think it was gonna run, you STUPID CUNT?! How am I supposed to control what's going on if I don't know WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? (Terri opens the door) YOU'RE A FUCKING PRICK! AN ABSOLUTE CUNT, do you understand that?

(discussing Angela Heaney)

Malcolm: Hey hey hey, if you could sweet-talk that sour-faced bitch into dropping us you'd be sweet to me, you'd be very very sweet –

Ollie: If I could sweet-talk that sour-faced bitch into anything I would have had a more comfortable four months –

Malcolm: Yeah well, I'll just have to kill the both of you then, won't I?

Ollie: Yeah, well.

Malcolm: That's a joke, by the way, not a very nice one, a nasty one which masks a lot of very negative feelings about this fucking department.

Hugh: Well what do you want me to do, resign? (Malcolm stares at him) No, no! No, that is – I'm not going over this.

Malcolm: The way out of this situation is for you to –

Hugh: This is madness, Malcolm, this desire for perfection, that – I am not perfect, I am just a person, right? I need to sleep, I need to eat, occasionally I need to take a dump. So, I mean, what's next, I mean, do we put that on the evening news, on the front page? "Minister is disgusting defecation outburst". Mollie Sugden at Number 10: "Did you enjoy your shit, Mr Abbot?" They should just clone ministers, you know, so we're born at 55, with no past, and no flats, and no genitals. Just a world of robots in a sort of – It's like a futuristic film, and you'd enjoy that, wouldn't you: you'd be in your little space station surrounded by obedient androids, like that fucking brushed-aluminium Dan Miller cyber-prick!

Malcolm: It is possible to have a good resignation, you know!

Hugh: A good resignation? Oh, I'm looking forward to how you're gonna sell this to me!

Malcolm: Look, people really like it when you go just a bit early! You know, steely-jawed, faraway look in your eyes! Before they're getting to the point when they're sitting round in the pub saying "Oh, that fucker's got to go", you surprise them! "Blimey, he's gone, I didn't expect that! Resigned? You don't see that much anymore! Old school! Respect! I rather liked the guy! He was hounded out by the fucking press!" How about that, huh? What a way to go, yeah?

Ollie: You know, I'm just the counter man in McDonald's, I'm not that important, frankly; you're the clown running the shop, you're the one that they want to see strung up from a lamppost by his fucking wig.

Glenn: What does that make me?

Ollie: Ronald McDonald.

Glenn: Well, fuck off!

Malcolm: "Department of Social Affairs", Department of Fucking Shocking, Shitty, Charlatan, Shits! That's what – (to Ollie) Feet off the furniture, you Oxbridge twat! You're no' on a punt now.

Hugh (to Dan Miller): I've missed my ideal resigning point. With every day I delay, it's another year before I can get back again. If I had resigned the day I was appointed, I'd actually be Prime Minister by now.

Hugh: Social Affairs, what the fuck does that actually mean? You know, it's so vague. You know, 'Hello, I'm Hugh Abbot, the Minister for, I dunno, stuff'.

Series 2, Episode 1

(Ollie has had sex with Emma)

Hugh (to Ollie): Morning studmuffin, enjoy your walk on the wild side? How was your dip in the wild blue – pussy?

---

Jamie: Have you seen the whips' numbers?

Malcolm: NoMFuP.

Jamie: Eh?

Malcolm: NoMFuP, N-O-M-F-P, Not My Fucking Problem – I quite liked that, did you like that?

Jamie: Yeah, it's very good.

Malcolm: I think I'll use that quite a lot today.

Jamie: I'll use it as well.

---

Malcolm: I tell you the thing that's worrying me is, er – is this dodgy?

Jamie: I don't know. The kid's firm was the second lowest bid. He says they never talked; what does it matter?

Malcolm: No, but you know me, I'm a man of principle.

Jamie: Oh, I know.

Malcolm: I like to know whether I'm lying to save the skin of a tosser or a moron!

Jamie: Probably a moron.

---

Hugh: That was funny.

Glenn: That was funny?

Hugh: Yeah.

Glenn: I don't think it was funny.

Hugh: I'm an elected representative of the people.

Glenn: Yes?

Hugh: It was funny.

(outside Malcolm's office)

Ollie: I just didn't want to interrupt you, I never know what you're doing in your –

Malcolm: Yeah, well if the PM's giving me a blowjob I always put a sign up.

Hugh: Robyn, all events are regional, hmm? Everything that happens in the world has to happen somewhere. Do you see? Even JFK's assassination was a regional event. But it was also very important. Hmm? Like this factory visit? You see that?

Malcolm (to Geoff Holhurst): How much fucking shit is there on the menu, and what fucking FLAVOUR is it?

Ollie (on the phone to Emma): Oh, Malcolm? No no, that's – I'm in a Scottish restaurant, some man's complaining 'cause they've under-fried his Mars bar – yeah, of course it's Malcolm!

---

Malcolm (to Geoff Holhurst): You're worse than dead meat. I don't know why you're laughing: you're too toxic to even feed to the vultures.

---

(discussing footage of Hugh being confronted at the factory)

Mark Davies: Malcolm, this is a traditional old-fashioned news story, called 'Minister looks a tit'.

Malcolm: Hey, everybody looks a tit, you know? Take two of these shots of him looking moronic out. Leave a couple in of him looking a little bit dim, put one of him composed, drop it down the running order, and we've got a deal.

Mark Davies: I'm not – Deal, what deal, Malcolm? He looks a tit, that's it. I'm sorry.

Malcolm: But there is a difference between allowing someone's natural tittishness to come through, and just exploiting it through camera work here! You're sticking one tit moment on top of another tit moment. That wouldn't happen in real life.

---

Malcolm: Stats, percentages, international comparison, information! Email them fucking WADS of information! And tell them they'd better get their heads around it before they put pen to paper, or I'll be up their arses like a fucking Biafran ferret, right? COME ON, UNLEASH HELL!

Hugh: I know this is what they think people like me think, so I hate thinking it, but I just find myself thinking they're from a different fucking species; you know, with their T-shirts and weird trousers and tabards. Why do they wear clothes with writing on them? And why are they so fucking fat?

Glenn: I know, and stupid.

Hugh: God, I hate this place.

Ollie: (seeing a bag of chips from a bin on his chair) Oh nice, very nice.

Jamie: WELL GO FOR FUCK'S SAKE, YOU BIG FUCKING PRICK! I'LL CUT YOUR FUCKING EARS OFF, WE NEED IT DONE!

Ollie: When I met you this morning, I thought you were the nice Scot!

Ollie: Fuck's sake. (answers phone) Oliver Reeder.

Malcolm: Have you sorted it, Ollie?

Ollie: It's not quite sorted just yet, Malcolm, it's difficult –

Malcolm: Shall I send Jamie over? Would you like that?

Ollie: No, no –

Malcolm: You and Jamie and a rubber truncheon, locked in that fucking newsroom together.

Ollie: No, I'm fine.

Malcolm: Then make me happy. Bring me sunshine.

Ollie: Right, I'll make you happy, Malcolm. (hangs up) Dickwad. (his phone rings again; he answers it) Oliver Reeder.

Jamie: Hey all right, shitebag, you done it yet?

Ollie: I'm just in the middle of doing it right now, but every time I try –

Jamie: WELL, FUCKING HURRY UP! GET OFF THE FUCKING PHONE!

Ollie: (hangs up) Fuck's sake! (his phone rings yet again; he answers) I'm fucking doing it! I'm just – Sorry Emma, yeah, hi. I'm stuck in that meeting about equal pay. It's just – it's gone over.

Hugh (in a voicemail): Ollie, hi, it's Hugh. I just wanted to say thank you very very much: the way you shifted the spotlight onto Glenn was quite Tucker-esque, really very Malc-iavellian, if you know what I mean. Well done, and bye bye.

(deleted scene)

Jamie: Oh, don't worry about Malcolm, he's only about half as scary as he thinks he is. Well, here, you can have this desk, it's free.

Ollie: OK.

Jamie: Don't worry, she won't be coming back. Hey, Joe, Joe! This guy is your replacement. I'm not fucking joking, by the way. Ollie, this is Frankie. Frankie, this is Ollie. (Ollie extends his hand to Frankie, who ignores it) Frankie, I don't know what happened, but I somehow – you know those numbers I asked you for? I never found them on my desk. Maybe somebody stole them. Or, maybe, maybe, you're fucking me around. And if you fuck me around again, I'll tell you something: (laughs slightly) I am going to rip your fucking head off, and shit right down into your neck, (grabs Frankie's head) and then I'm going to stick your FUCKING head back on, and SHIT ON THAT!

Series 2, Episode 2

(Robyn is heading to Malcolm's 8.30 meeting)

Robyn: I've really got to go now, because I don't want to be late.

Hugh: Yeah, God, don't be late!

Robyn: Apparently, they shout things at the last one in.

Glenn: If anyone shouts at you, they'll have to answer to me. I'll box his ears.

(Robyn leaves)

Hugh: Box his ears? If that was flirting, that was absolutely crap.

Glenn: What?

Hugh: Box his ears? How long is it since you've had sex?

Glenn: That is between me and my internet service provider. Anyway, about this morning's –

Ollie: You've actually gone red, Glenn. Look at you.

Hugh: Yeah, you have. Look, you've gone red.

Glenn: I have not gone red. (points to his folder) That's red.

Ollie: Yeah!

Hugh: Look, he can hardly walk properly.

---

Malcolm (asked for a line about Julius at his 8.30 meeting): 'Julius Nicholson is a hugely respected adviser. He now has a wide-ranging brief, and his blue-sky vision and helicopter thinking will enable this Government to go, in his own phrase, "beyond delivery, and beyond that".' That's the line, OK? And if he does stick his baldy head round your door and comes up with some stupid idea about 'policemen's helmets should be yellow', or 'let's set up a department to count the moon', just treat him like someone with Alzheimer's disease, you know? Just say to him, "Oh, yeah, that's lovely, that's good. We must talk about that later." OK?

Malcolm: (on his mobile) In no way, shape or form is it gonna have any (knock at door) – Come the fuck in, or fuck the fuck off.

Hugh: (entering) Well I'll come the fuck in then.

Malcolm: (back on his mobile) It's just something that Nicholson's flown, you know. It's a kind of brain exercise, like "What would it be like if men had tits?", you know? Mark Mardell, yeah, (laughs) that's pretty good, actually. All right, then. See you, then. (hangs up) Hugh?

Hugh: I thought you would want to know as soon as possible.

Malcolm: What?

Hugh: Terri's dad.

Malcolm: Yeah?

Hugh: No news at the moment.

Malcolm: Right, so you've come to talk about the reshuffle, yeah?

Hugh: Yeah, I have.

---

Malcolm (to Hugh): Well I know that you're looking for mouth-to-mouth in the reshuffle, but I don't know anything about it. The PM is still working it out on the back of a Coldplay CD as we speak.

Malcolm: Don't take it so personally.

Hugh: You're telling me she doesn't like me as a person. How else am I supposed to take it?

---

Ollie: Robyn, can you send these back to archives, 'cause they're not even highlighted, I'm not going to plough through all that myself. While you're talking to them, I need the last four months of the European Digest. I'm going to be moving –

Robyn: Is it 'cause you fancy me, is that what this is all about?

Ollie: Sorry?

Robyn: Why are you so bloody rude to me? I mean, that's got to be the reason. Other people, when they come in here, they knock on the door and they say "hello", "good morning", "thank you" and "nice top" sometimes.

Ollie: Right, um, well, no. I mean, for a start, I don't fancy you. I don't know where you got that in your head, but it's probably best to get it out. If I'm slightly polite to you on a semi-regular basis, will that in any way bypass it?

Robyn: I think that would definitely do it.

Ollie: Right, fantastic. Well, thank you very much for the work you do; hi, by the way, how are you?

Robyn: I'm really well, actually.

Ollie: Great, that's great; you look lovely; can I have the fucking Digest, please? That would be terrific.

Robyn: All you had to do was ask me.

Ollie: Yeah, well, all I did do is ask. (Robyn bends down to get something) Phwoar! (She gets up and stares at Ollie) It was a joke.

---

(discussing the latest Cabinet meeting)

Hugh: I did mention your great quiet carriages thing and he just – (pulls a slightly disgusted face)

Ollie: Well what does that mean?

Hugh: Fuck knows what it means, but I don't think it means, "Oh, Hugh, you're fantastic. Here, become Home Secretary". And even if it did mean that, when he's in bed tonight with Mrs PM, flossing, then she'll say, "What do you mean, Hugh Abbot as Home Secretary? The man is a social spastic and very probably a registered nonce, darling."

(Discussing Julius Nicholson)

Hugh: Can't we just kill him, shoot him?

Ollie: What about we just fire him at a wall from a cannon. Just a wall two feet away.

Glenn: I know, we force feed him with a mixture of garlic and Dettol in Cup-a-Soup.

Hugh: What about the old red-hot poker up the arse? Edward II?

(Julius walks in)

Ollie: I'd like to nail him to a tree through the head and watch lice slowly crawl over his body, eating off the flesh in a slow and painful death, (having already noticed Julius) but that rather bitter anomaly aside, most of the responses to the Warwick report press cuttings were pretty positive.

---

Hugh (to Ollie): I am desperate, but I don't really want to look desperate, like Glenn.

Glenn (entering): Oh, God, here we go again. Yeah, like Glenn, what?

Hugh: Well, I was just saying, the last time you saw a snatch was...

Ollie: Basic Instinct.

Hugh: You see, that's good. That's the kind of repartee I need with the PM's wife. It's that final k-tsssss! you see, that's the bit I'm missing.

Glenn: Yeah, well, I think you could drop the snatch material with the PM's wife, don't you?

Hugh: Well, OK, between the snatch and the Euro there's some sort of happy medium.

---

Malcolm (on the phone): He is not getting anywhere near my fucking pantry, I tell you that. That door is staying as open as a fat whore's bonehole.

---

Hugh: Sorry I'm late, traffic was an absolute bitch. No offence, Robyn.

---

Julius: It's Paul Webster, US Economics Secretary of State. He's unexpectedly coming over, and the Treasury are hosting a bash for him this evening. Don't tell me you've not been invited.

Hugh: Yes, no, I have. It's just that I'm actually bashing myself tonight.

Julius: So you – you've got your own bash here?

Hugh: Uh yeah.

Ollie: Yeah.

Julius: Ah! Back up, everybody, put the brakes on! We've got a bash happening here tonight and at the Treasury?

Hugh: Yeah. It sounds complicated but I like to, um, maximise my face.

Hugh: (telling a joke at his party) And Julius, Julius Nicholson, says, ”I'm sorry but I think you'll find you're sitting in my seat.”

(No one laughs)

Hugh: And this was to God, as I mentioned in the setup. Anyway, have a lovely time. (to Ollie, whispering) A fiver if you set off the sprinklers.

Hugh: Why didn't you tell me, Glenn? What possible reason did you have? You saw me, I was swinging like a colostomy bag!

Glenn: Oh, Hugh, grow up! Stuff happens in this department every day, I can't tell you everything!

Hugh: Since when, Glenn, since when does the Secretary of State for Social Affairs have to find out from the fucking press that every morning at 8:30 I'm being fisted up to the gallbladder by a bald man?

Malcolm: Right, guys, thanks very much for staying on. Julius Nicholson, right?

Glenn: Yep.

Malcolm: Blue sky thinker? Ex-business guru? Dog rapist?

Hugh: Quite possibly.

Malcolm: He's being a nuisance to me; he also has got plans to squeeze your department so hard you'll be lucky if you're left with one bollock between the three of you. So all I am doing here is asking you, formally, if you will join me in a little bit of a circle jerk.

Hugh: Circle jerk? What?

Ollie: It's when a lot of guys in a circle all, you know. (to Malcolm) Well, I assume you don't mean literally, do you? Presumably?

---

Glenn (on the phone to a journalist): Yeah I know it's probably bollocks, but that's what we all thought when Jim was up for Home Secretary, and then the next thing you know, he's given up the Colombian marching powder and taken up the sacraments.

---

Malcolm (arriving at his 8.30 meeting): Morning, morning, morning! So what's the story in Bala-fucking-mory?

A press officer: Reshuffle!

Malcolm: Excellent! You win a year's supply of condoms, which in your case is four.

---

(deleted scene)

Malcolm: So how was Cabinet this morning?

Hugh: It was good. Obviously, with reshuffle coming up, everybody's desperate to impress. Clare went round the room on a unicycle juggling burning kittens, but er – She didn't really, but what she did do was pretty embarrassing.

Malcolm: OK.

Hugh: And in terms of shuffle-y stuff, Carol ended up in Neil's seat. What do you think that means?

Malcolm: Well, I think that means that Carol wants to be nearer the biscuits, just in case her blood sugar level drops. That woman, she's unbelievable. I have seen her go into second reading debates with Pringles! Her star is somewhat on the wane, I think she's going a bit downward, actually, Constitutional Affairs.

Hugh: Ooh, that's gonna hurt, Constitutional Affairs, that's the Ginger Spice of the –

Malcolm: Of the what, Hugh? Of the what?

Hugh: Of the Gov– the whole –

Malcolm: Ginger Spice. Jesus Christ, what – what fucking century are you living in?

Hugh: There was a fantastic feature about Ginger in the Heat magazine. Apparently she shaves downstairs and she's working for UNICEF or some sort of –

Malcolm: Hugh, you are talking absolute fucking drivel.

---

(deleted scene)

Hugh: It looked like Fatty was the one who was on his way out, but now it could just as likely be me.

Ollie: Well look, Hugh, if you're worried about Fatty we can always start gently briefing against him, I know it's late in the day and, you know, obviously it's not the first thing that we want to be doing –

Hugh: Yeah, 'Abbot says Fatty's a twat'. Does that make Fatty look like a twat? I think it makes me look like a twat for calling him a twat.

Ollie: Mm – it doesn't have to be you directly, does it? That's the point.

Hugh: Robyn? Come on, it's like giving a child a firework.

Ollie: Well, not Robyn.

Hugh: Actually that's where your bit of skirt – sorry, whatever the modern – your ho, your ho could actually be quite helpful. If you were just to leave some compromising bits of anti-Fatty documents, you know, just lying by the loo –

Ollie: Whoa, whoa. Just blatantly using Emma, I'm really not comfortable with that.

Hugh: Can I remind you, in the last 12 hours you've described her as being 'as mad as a jackdaw on crack', 'castratingly right-wing zealot', and also 'disappointingly below par in the blowjob department', so why the sudden outbreak of principle?

---

(deleted scene)

Glenn: Are you still in the frame for Question Time?

Hugh: I am, but I think they're gonna go for Fatty to take advantage of the widescreen option. (Ollie laughs.) Any, erm – Are there any shuffle-y rumours?

Glenn: Yeah, yeah. Rob thinks Gerry's got the Foreign Office.

Ollie: The thing about this, moving offices, just from one place to another, completely different, it's just fucked as a system, isn't it? Because if you – it wouldn't happen in any other job – if you were, you know, Professor of Medieval English in Oxford and you were sitting in your study and somebody came through the door and went, 'Hey, guess what? You're now, er, Professor of Zoology, we want you in the other quad', you know, that would be mental, you'd be sitting in a room like a stuffed tit just saying to people, 'How many Os in Zoology? I don't really know, this isn't really my field', and all of that information that you've built up over years and years about Chaucer or whatever is of absolutely no use to you any more because Chaucer didn't really write about baboons.

Hugh: Ollie, these are very undergraduate concerns; my point is you don't have to be an expert to make decisions.

Glenn: That's why you have advisors, you twat.

Ollie: Yeah, I am being serious, Glenn.

Glenn: Yes, so am I, you are a twat.

Hugh: I mean, the point is, a lot of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

(Hugh's office phone rings; Glenn answers it)

Ollie: It's 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'.

Hugh: Well exactly, so a lot of knowledge is incredibly dangerous.

Series 2, Episode 3

Ollie (to Hugh and Glenn): Sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt. Who wants to go and watch Bollockvision?

Hugh: Bollockvision?

Ollie: Mr Malcolm Tucker, turning it all the way up to eleven, down in the lobby. Come and have a look.

(They all go out onto the balcony. On the other side of the atrium, on their floor, Malcolm is shouting at another Minister.)

Hugh: Oh, poor Keith. Malcolm must fucking love this place: four ministers in one building. It's his dream, a one-stop bollock-shop.

Glenn: Trouble is, we're gonna be getting some of that in about an hour.

Hugh: Yeah. I don't know which is worse, watching him slowly rumble towards you like prostate cancer, or him appearing suddenly out of nowhere like a severe stroke.

(Terri, whose father died after a stroke, turns towards Hugh)

Hugh: Oh. How's your sister coping?

(The Department of Social Affairs has been renamed "The Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship")

Glenn: So, Hugh, this new word, 'Citizenship', did the PM actually outline what it entails?

Hugh: Well, to be honest, I think he was making the reshuffle up as he went along, and I think we were very lucky that 'Citizenship' was the first word that sprang to mind. Otherwise we could be the Department for Social Affairs and Woodland Folk.

(Ollie has made a joke about special needs kids)

Hugh: You just took a shit with your clothes on, Ollie.

Ollie: Why?

Hugh: Glenn's boy Peter, he went to a special needs school.

Ollie: Oh.

Hugh: Yep.

Ollie: ... Glenn's had sex?

Hugh: God, you're such a prick, Ollie.

Ollie: It's just a joke!

Hugh: There's more to life, you know, than drinks parties at the Foreign Office and having Nick Robinson's mobile number on your fucking BlackBerry!

Ollie: Yes, all right, fine, sorry, Hugh. I feel for the guy: I had a girlfriend with special needs once, so I know. (smiles smugly) Luckily, I was able to fulfil them.

(looking at the atrium of the new building from their floor)

Ollie: Good spot for a suicide, this, I would think: good long drop, appreciative audience.

Robyn: What if you just broke your back? You know, you'd be paralysed for life and then you'd still be depressed about the thing that was depressing you in the first place.

Terri: What are these, um, hangy-down things?

Ollie: Oh, they're acoustic baffles, they stop it getting too echoey in here.

Robyn: So when you're breaking your back, nobody can hear you screaming?

Ollie: Well, that is the kind of attention to detail that you get in a PFI building.

Malcolm (spotting them from the ground floor): HEY! GET BACK TO WORK, ALL OF YOU!

(Hugh has privately admitted to Terri that he sent the sweary email from her account)

Terri: Now Hugh, are you going to do the right thing, are you going to admit to this publicly?

Hugh: Are you – What? No! Are you mad? I can't do that, that mustn't happen! You've got – I need you, to –

Terri: What, to lie?

Hugh: I think it was Derrida who said there is no such thing as actual empirical truth, but only –

Terri: Yeah, I'll tell you what Derrida said, he said, 'Go fuck your face, Abbot!'

(Terri tries to storm out of the door, but only belatedly notices the exit switch)

Hugh: You need to mind your language, it just will keep getting you into trouble.

Terri (finally opening the door): I can't even get out the fucking room! (storms out)

(Hugh and Glenn return from their Education Select Committee appearance)

Ollie: How was that?

Hugh: I lied to the Select Committee. I lied! Is Tucker in the building?

Ollie: Malcolm in the Middle.

Hugh: What?

Ollie: It's just what they're calling him now, 'cause he can stand in the middle of the atrium and just shout at all the departments.

Hugh: Well I don't want to see him, not at the moment, I can't take one of his scenes from The Exorcist just now.

Glenn: Look, I don't think Ballentine's on to anything.

Hugh: Oh no? No? Well, why did she keep asking, 'Just one expert? Only one? Not two experts? Less than three but not two?' The fucking bitch.

Glenn: It's her style, look, she's just trying to throw you off balance like a sumo wrestler.

Hugh: Well it worked: there I was on the floor in a big fucking nappy.

Hugh: Christ Malcolm, how do you appear out of nowhere in a building made entirely out of glass?

Malcolm: I'm a shape-shifter.

Hugh: It's going to be like sitting on a tea crate, having chicken shit sprayed all over me.

A civil servant: I'm sorry, can you stop swearing please?

Malcolm: I'm really sorry, you won't hear any more swearing from us, YOU MASSIVE, GAY, SHITE!!! FUCK OFF! (to Ollie) Right, how are you doing in sorting out whether or not he lied or not, are you OK?

Ollie: Pretty well, yeah.

Malcolm: Is that a lie?

Ollie: Yeah.

Malcolm: That is not fucking funny, you retard. I'm sorry about that, Glenn. The situation just –

Claire Ballentine: Are you lying to me now about not lying to me before?

Hugh: No, I am not a liar. I categorically did not knowingly not tell the truth, even though unknowingly I might not have done.

Hugh: I don't know what else can go wrong now. Unless the flexible energy system sets fire to my office and then puts it out by squirting liquefied human shit through the ceiling sprinklers.

Malcolm: Hey, I'm going to have a swear box installed on Monday.

Hugh: What?

Malcolm: Fucking joking, you twat! I'm on turbo.

Malcolm: God, right, okay, well, seein' as you're not used to this, I'll go through it for you, okay? What happens at a press conference is this. A bunch of press people are gonna appear, they've got things called cameras and microphones and mobile phones and hangovers and bad breath. Then you are gonna walk out and you're gonna read from what we call a "prepared statement". In that you will say, "I'm really fucking sorry for sounding like a hairy-arsed docker after twelve pints. I promise that I will never call an 8-year-old girl a cunt again. Can we now just draw a line over this, and fucking move on. Thank you". Everybody goes home and then we wait and we see what happens. The best case is you get to keep your job, although you will forever be known as the Sweary Woman of Whitehall.

---

(deleted scene)

Ollie (on the phone to a man he can see in a glass office): Yes, but you can't just dump rabies on us because you don't want it. You're Health, that's your job! You should have rabies. Health should have rabies, right? (sees the man mime fellatio) Oh right, yeah, fine. OK. So we're gonna have to swallow this one, but if we have to deal with a rabies outbreak we're gonna do it so fucking well, you're gonna be frothing at the mouth – yeah, twice! (hangs up) You prick!

---

(deleted scene)

Hugh: First day back from holiday, tanned, tawdry and cheap. I feel like something out of Footballers' Wives.

Glenn: How do you know about Footballers' Wives?

Hugh: Ollie told me. They all live in Chelmsford, have names like Madison and Chutney, they're an orange colour and they've got thongs up their cracks.

The Rise Of The Nutters

Emma Messinger: You are an extremely powerful man, Ollie.

Ollie: Very powerful, very attractive sexually, due to all this power.

Jamie: Hey, Poxbridge!

Malcolm: Hello!

Jamie: Hey, dickhead! Happy New Queer!

Malcolm: I'm really sorry, but I – don't be so offensive. I do apologise for my friend's behaviour. Did you have a nice Poof-mas?

Ollie: Have you ever been to Australia?

Ben Swain: No. Why would I want to go there? Full of people in khaki, squinting. Just the world's largest collection of poisonous things.

Ollie: God, yeah, if you want to stick around with poisonous snakes you might as well stay here. (no one laughs) Throw a blanket on me, I'm on fire.

Phil Smith: (looking at two lamps) What is that?

Peter Mannion: It's just –

Phil Smith: Is that raffia?

Peter Mannion: He's discovered IKEA, hasn't he?

Phil Smith: It's all for show. They want to look modern, like they appeal to the kind of people who go to IKEA.

Peter Mannion: I'm modern! I say 'black' instead of 'coloured', I think women are a good thing, I have no problem with gays. Most of them are very well turned out, especially the men.

Phil Smith: I know.

Peter Mannion: Why is it, this last year, I'm being made to feel as if I'm always two steps behind, like I can't program the video or convert everything back to old money? Because that's not me!

Phil Smith: You still got a video?

---

(Stewart makes Peter change into a different suit and shirt)

Stewart Pearson: Just wondering whether you're fully conversant with the new line, whether you're really up to speed?

Peter Mannion: Well, I don't know. Am I? Because I get people stopping me in the streets and saying, 'Are you still for locking up yobbos?', and I say, 'Yeah, of course we are', and then I think, 'Well, are we?' Because maybe I missed a memo from you: maybe I should understand yobbos now, or not even call them yobbos, call them 'young men with issues around stabbing'. No tie, you say?

Stewart Pearson: No tie.

Peter Mannion: Quite a nice suit, actually.

Stewart Pearson: So, we were thinking: shirt outside the trousers.

Peter Mannion: Outside? Not tuck my shirt in?

Stewart Pearson: Yeah.

Peter Mannion: I always tuck my shirt in, it's part of getting dressed. What, should I not do my flies up either? Let the old chap flop out, is that modern enough for you?

Stewart Pearson: Just try it, Peter. Not the cock out, but just the shirt thing.

Peter Mannion (untucking his shirt): I'm from a generation of men, Stewart, who tuck their shirts in. I've done it since I was a boy, I was told off for not doing it.

Stewart Pearson: Oh God, no, you were right, sorry, no, tuck it in: you look like you've been startled by a fire alarm.

Malcolm: Right, Ben, heard the big news about Paxo.

Ben Swain: Oh right.

Malcolm: What was it you did in your gap year again?

Ben Swain: Um, Interrailing, month on a kibbutz –

Malcolm: Did you ever travel, like, 100 miles per hour, head-first through a tunnel full of pig shit? Because that's what's gonna happen to you tonight with Paxman, unless you listen to us.

Jamie: He will eat you up, sick you out and grout his fucking wet room with you.

Ben Swain: Yeah, I have been interviewed on television before, thank you very much.

Malcolm: Who?

Ben Swain: George Alagiah.

Jamie: Yeah? Do you know what they call him? Easy George.

Malcolm: This is Paxo. What are you gonna do when he pulls that big rubbery horse-face of mock-incredulity at you?

(in their flat, discussing Ollie)

Phil Smith: Why the fuck do you have to keep inviting him round here?

Emma Messinger: Oh, are you a bit jealous?

Phil Smith: Of the man from the Mr Muscle adverts? No, I just think it's just unreasonable that I have to watch what I'm gonna say in my own flat; I mean, you could at least give me warning if he's coming round or something.

Emma Messinger: I tell you what, I'll put a sex grid on the fridge.

Phil Smith: Oh, yeah.

Emma Messinger: So that you can have dates and stuff: I'll put an A4 piece of paper for me up, and maybe you could have half a post-it note? You could share it with Affers, maybe.

Phil Smith: Yeah. Have to write really small, though, I've slept with three women in –

Ollie (returning from the toilet): Your life?

Phil Smith: Yes.

(Ollie laughs)

---

(Ollie, Emma, and Phil are watching Ben Swain's Newsnight interview together. Malcolm, who is also watching from his office, is on the phone to Jamie, who is watching Ben from inside the studio.)

Emma Messinger: What's he doing with his eyes?

Ollie: Oh my God. He's got a nervous blink.

Malcolm: That's a mega blink! It's not just a blink.

Ollie: He looks like what happens when you punch a cow. (impersonates a cow mooing in pain)

Phil Smith: Oh my God, this is like watching a lion rape a sheep, but in a bad way.

Jamie: The cameramen are laughing.

Ollie: 'J-j-j-j-just'!

Emma Messinger: Stop him, stop him!

Ollie: He spelled 'just' with four Js!

Malcolm: He's like a chicken, he's like an enormous chicken!

Phil Smith: It's just one word he's been saying, which is basically (gibberish).

Jamie: Well, what about the coalface?

Malcolm: Pull it, puncture his lifebelt. Pull it, give him the signal. If he shits, I'll give you 500 quid.

---

(After Ben Swain's interview)

Ollie: Well he certainly looked like a Nutter.

Emma Messinger: He looked like that little guy on the green that shouts 'You're an Arab' at everyone.

Phil Smith: It's a tough day tomorrow, picking bits of Ben out of Malcolm's car.

Ollie: He didn't mention the coalface idea.

---

Jamie: (to Ben, in the car back from the studio) You don't deserve to live!

Peter Mannion: How is my blog? My own personal blog, personally written by me?

(they all go to the computer)

Phil Smith: There we go.

Emma Messinger: Oh, brilliant.

Phil Smith: Yesterday you liked the leader's speech, it was bold and courageous and sent out the right signals, and you had a fruit lunch.

Peter Mannion: Oh, I write very well. What's the feedback like?

Phil Smith: Pretty good. Let's see on this page here. Here we go.

Peter Mannion: "I don't trust you, you Cypriot crook."

Phil Smith: What?

Peter Mannion: Cypriot? This is the shit room. You've opened the shit room door.

Emma Messinger: Oh come on, that's not too bad.

Peter Mannion: "How are the maintenance payments going on your bastard?" Christ, that was twelve years ago!

Phil Smith: I hadn't seen that one.

Peter Mannion: "Adulterous Nazi"?

Phil Smith: Or that one.

Emma Messinger: That's actually I think the same one.

Peter Mannion: This is the trouble with the public, they're fucking horrible.

Emma Messinger: Peter, you really – you can't say the public are fucking horrible.

Peter Mannion: Yes I can, I've met them. "You've always got such a pained expression. Do you take it up the chutney?" Really? I mean, for God's sake.

Emma Messinger: The chutney?

Peter Mannion: Yes, it's up the arse.

Emma Messinger: See this: I still don't understand why people do this 'h8' thing. If you're going to leave a message, I mean, at least spell it correctly.

---

Phil Smith: What the fuck was that all about? You know, nicking the other lot's ideas?

Emma Messinger: You jumped straight on the bandwagon, you hypocrite.

Phil Smith: You started it. You know, at least I'm not nicking my boyfriend's ideas.

Emma Messinger: You sanctimonious twat! Jesus, you're not my dad, Phil, even if you do dress like him.

Peter Mannion: (knocking from behind glass) What's going on?

Phil Smith: Swain was supposed to flag up the coalface idea last night but he didn't. So Emma nicked it.

Peter Mannion: (to Emma) Oh, fuck-tastic. Not only was it a shit idea to ruin my holiday, it was a shit idea you stole from the government to ruin my holiday. Good work.

Emma Messinger: (to Phil) Thanks a lot, Supergrass.

Malcolm (seeing Ben Swain arrive): Oh, here he is. Dead man walking.

Jamie: (impersonating Ben) 'I, I, I wish you wouldn't keep saying that, I, I, I –' (normal voice) What's your favourite band, blink-182?

---

Jamie: That's not a proper cigar: a proper cigar is those big Cuban whoppers, that's just a jumped-up fag.

Malcolm: Talking of which –

Ollie (entering): Hi.

Jamie and Malcolm: Hey!

Jamie: Is it Rag Week?

Malcolm: Do you fancy a cigar? I promise I won't tell any of the other prefects.

Jamie: Hand rolled on the thigh of a Cuban virgin with big tits and four kids.

Ollie: Yeah, thanks. Um, Malcolm, I just wondered if I could have a quick word, actually. The opposition have got the Week at the Coalface idea. They're gonna do it.

Jamie: Who, when?

Ollie: Peter Mannion, I don't know when.

Malcolm: How the fuck did they get that? Your fucking girlfriend, Jesus Christ!

Jamie: You should have dumped that mad bitch ages ago.

Ollie: Well I would've done! She is mad, she's a mental woman! But you two kept telling me to go out with her and stay going out with her, just in case I found anything out!

Jamie: Oh, and what did you find out? That you've been leaking intelligence to them? You're the fucking shittest James Bond ever. You're David fucking Niven!

---

Malcolm: Get him properly fucking screen-tested. I'm sorry mate, but you need a lot of powder, I've never seen anybody look so fucking ugly with just one head.

Ben Swain: Yeah. No, I lost my islands of safety, didn't I, which is –

Malcolm: And who was it that did your media training? Myra Hindley? I mean, it was terrible, all this – hands were all over the place. You were like a sweaty octopus trying to unhook a bra! It was like watching John Leslie at work!

Ben Swain: Yes, I know all of that, and it just kind of fell away. God, it was like one of those dreams when you're wandering around Covent Garden or something in just your vest and everyone's staring at you.

Jamie: I think it was much worse than that, I mean, how many people see you in Covent Garden, a few thousand? Your meltdown was witnessed by 1.2 million people. That's more people than saw Al Jolson in his entire career. And that's Al fucking Jolson!

Malcolm: He loves Al Jolson.

Jamie: The Governor!

Ollie: 'Maaammy.'

Jamie: You take the piss out of Jolson again, and I will remove your iPod from its tiny nano-sheath, and push it up your cock! And then I'll plug some speakers up your arse, and put it onto shuffle with my fucking fist! And every time I hear something that I don't like, which will be every time that something comes on, I will skip to the next track (to Ben) by crushing your balls!

Emma Messinger (to Phil): Oh, sorry! Do you know what, maybe you should dump Peter and go out with Ollie.

Ollie: Well, it wouldn't be any more disastrous than our relationship, would it, hey?

Emma Messinger: Christ, Ollie, well if it's been such a fucking disaster, why didn't you break up with me sooner?

Ollie: Well, if it had been up to me I would have broken up with you sooner!

Emma Messinger: If it had been up t– Oh, OK – This is Malcolm, isn't it? Malcolm has been pimping you out! You fucking sad little –

Phil Smith (laughing): That's funny.

Ollie and Emma: Fuck you, Phil!

Phil Smith: Oh, suddenly I'm the bad guy again.

Ollie: Go and read your blog, nerd boy! I'm going. This is the point where I go.

Phil Smith: Wow. That point actually exists. Incredible.

Ollie: I will be so not sorry not ever to have to talk to you again, you massive floppy blonde tit! I hope your blog gets done for libel and you get knobbed in prison by men. And – (to Emma) it is over, you self-serving, crypto-fascist, horse-loving, posh, weekend-at-Daddy's, vacuous nothing! (leaves)

Emma Messinger: Fuck you, Ollie, and put your keys on the side!

Phil Smith: He's got keys?

(looking at a newspaper story with the headline 'Silly Tucker: Was web of filth spun by Downing Street 'Spiderman'?)

Malcolm (on the phone): The story isn't me, Glenn, OK? Nobody is interested in me and I'll be pleased if you'd remember that, OK?

Glenn (at his sister's Welsh cottage): You sure you don't want me and Hugh to come back? We could give you some cover.

Malcolm: Hugh is not coming back: it would look like we're panicking, and we're not panicking. But I need you back here fucking ASAP to let them know that we're not panicking.

Glenn: So you want me to interrupt my holiday in a panic, so that Hugh doesn't have to interrupt his holiday and look like he's panicking?

Malcolm: You get back here! I wanna see you popping a bollock for me! (hangs up)

Jamie: (walking in, holding up the same 'Silly Tucker' story) You seen this?

Malcolm: No, I haven't seen that. I'm the senior press guy for the Government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. No, I don't look at the newspapers, that's fucking news to me.

Jamie: All right, all right. What are we doing?

Malcolm: What are we doing? Fuck all, we're not doing nothing, all right, because I am not the story here.

Jamie: Well, no, you kind of are the story, Malc: they spelt your name right and everything.

Malcolm: You take this and this, and you put it onto your bird's breasts, and you rub them and squeeze them very very gently, you get her into the sack, you bang her fucking brains out, you make sure that she cums, and you just give her the policy!

Ollie: Yeah, but I chucked her, and not in a kind of, you know, 'It's not you, it's me' sort of way, more in a 'It is you, you hideous vacuous Sloane bitch from hell' kind of scorched-earth kind of –

Malcolm: I'm really not interested at all in your little tiff. Get round there, take your Barry White album and your lube and your fucking policy folder.

Ollie: Malcolm, this is really crossing the line here –

Malcolm: Don't start with the moral objections, you fucking Blue Peter badge-wearing ponce! Go and make a contribution to fucking Amnesty International, go and buy a goat the whole village can fuck! But you are doing this for me.

Ollie: Malcolm, you're bullying me, and, you know, I don't know why you're bullying me, you're –

Malcolm: How dare you? How dare you! Don't you ever, ever, call me a bully. I'm so much worse than that. Do it. OK? Wash your hands.

Peter Mannion: Do I know you? Oh, don't you work for somebody famous? Er, Malcolm Hamish MacDeath?

Jamie: It's, er, Peter Onion, isn't it?

Peter Mannion: Hah! That's right.

Jamie: I always forget, were you the forced abortion or the love child? Or the guy who asphyxiated himself with a kiwi?

Peter Mannion: Just the love child: I was the quiet one.

Phil Smith: Like John Deacon in Queen.

Terri (on her phone): Well I might as well call myself on unofficial leave now: nothing will happen for the next three weeks, absolutely zero. I'm gonna book that holiday. Yeah, well, I mean, all they'll be doing, they'll be bobbing about like emperor penguins trying to swap over an egg.

(deleted scene)

Jamie: Is your department looking at a 10 million overspend? Yes, or no?

Ben Swain: Well, I don't have the figures to hand, but all I can say is that if there has been an overspend or a perceived overspend within this department, then certainly I think I've – (sees Jamie mime fellatio) He's not gonna do that, is he?

Malcolm: Oh yes, he will, and he will do a lot more. Jazz hands, he'll be touching you up under the table, he's got all the tricks.

Ben Swain: No he won't! Fuck off, Malcolm.

Malcolm: You, listen. First things first: you need some interruption lines, yeah? Something that you can throw in.

Ben Swain: All right: how about, er, 'I will answer the questions in the order you asked them, Jeremy'.

Jamie: That makes you sound like a smug Oxbridge twat. Oh, I know you are, but everyone doesn't need to know.

(deleted scene)

(while watching Ben Swain on Newsnight)

Ollie: Still, at least Hugh will be pleased.

Phil Smith: Yeah, he'll be thrilled, I'm sure! His department on the rack, he'll be like, 'Hey, Ollie, thanks for running the department, although it seems to have all turned to shit!' You're like the man with the Midas touch, except instead of everything you touch turning to gold, it turns to shit. You're like the man with the shit touch. Shitfinger.

Ollie: Shouldn't you be online pretending to be a Hobbit, eh? Trying to get a date with a lady Hobbit, but failing?

Phil Smith: Shitfinger.

(deleted scene)

(seeing Ben Swain arrive)

Malcolm: Oh hey, hello, here he is! The walk of shame.

Jamie: You never told us you had epilepsy of the eyes. Was that a sweat, or were you crying?

Malcolm: Have I seen you on the telly?

Ben Swain: (laughs) Yeah. Blockbuster, 1991, I got a Gold Run.

Malcolm: You know what, I have never seen anyone sweat so much in my life. And I've had a sauna with Pavarotti! I know that politicians and hot air are supposed to go together, but I've never actually seen one vapourise!

Ben Swain: Can I get you two fellows a drink?

Malcolm: An orange juice, yeah, yes.

Ben Swain: Jamie?

Jamie: Oh, I'll have a pint of 'Fuck right off and die, you miserable fucking tosser'. Do they do that in here?

Malcolm: He's a wee bit disappointed.

Jamie: We'll get you on Newsround next time. You reflected badly on me, and I don't like that.

Ben Swain: Oh come on, Jamie, look, I'll get you a drink and then we'll –

Jamie: DO YOU WANT A FUCKING SPLINTER GLASS FACIAL? I'm not pretending to hate you here, I actually fucking hate you! I'm not playing a fucking game. Fuck off! (leaves)

Malcolm: He trained as a priest.

Ben Swain: Really? Yeah, he'd be fantastic, I'd confess everything to him.

(deleted scene)

Malcolm: Where are you tonight? 'Cause you're not here. What, no invitation for number one party animal, Julius Pete Doherty Nicholson?

Julius: Who's Peter O'Doherty?

Malcolm: Stop trying to joke, OK? Don't joke, you are not funny, Julius, you're about as funny as a blind toddler in a fucking minefield.

(deleted scene)

Glenn (in his sister's Welsh cottage, on the phone): Ah, Malcolm. Terri's just rung about the wankers' announcement, and I thought you'd want to know, Hugh's on the way to the airport, but do you want me to definitely tell him to get on the plane?

Malcolm: No, it's too fucking late. What's he gonna do, come and shadow the shadow of DoSAC shadowing him? Show him where the bogs are?

Glenn: Yeah, but you told me to tell him to come home.

Malcolm: Did I?

Glenn: Yeah!

Ollie (in Malcolm's office, on the phone): Right, Hugh, hi. Er, no, I don't think you're going to be wanted back here.

Malcolm: What is the problem?

Ollie: He's on some road somewhere where he can't do a U-turn for about five miles or something.

Malcolm: Good! I like to know that I can still make him miserable even though he's 12,000 miles away.

Spinners and Losers

Angela: So go on, tell me: who else is running?

Ollie (in the men's toilets): Well, no one. No one's gonna stand against Tom now, surely, it's going to be unopposed. (Starts using the urinal) They'll be rebranding him as we speak, I would imagine: new hair, Ted Baker teeth, all the modern trappings of your political leader –

Angela: Ollie! Are you pissing?

Ollie: Er no, that's the flush of the automatic urinals, it's a gentlemen's lavatory.

Angela: I don't want to talk to you while you're holding your penis.

Ollie: Well, that's not what you used to say, Angela.

Angela: Er, yes it is.

Ollie: No, well – actually it is precisely what you used to say.

---

Malcolm: Has anybody seen Jamie?

Glenn: Why, have you lost him?

Ollie: Oh, don't tell me he's gone feral, 'cause he was fucking terrifying when you had him on the leash!

Malcolm: Let's not overreact.

Ollie: Easy for you to say, he threatened to shove an iPod up my cock!

Malcolm: But you get that a lot, though, don't you?

---

(discussing Dan Miller)

Glenn: You don't think he's got a chance, do you?

Ollie: Nah, he's just a droid, isn't he? He's just – (makes robotic noises and gestures)

Malcolm: Hey hey hey, don't let him hear you doing that sort of stuff. What happens if he does stand a chance, eh? He'll fuck you harder than Ron Jeremy, and with less warmth.

Jamie: Are you a horse?

Cliff Lawton: ...Sorry?

Jamie: Are you a fucking horse?

Cliff Lawton: Um... I... don't know what you mean, what—

Jamie: Are you a fucking horse?

Cliff Lawton: Okay, no, I'm not a horse.

Jamie: Are you sure?

Cliff Lawton: I'm sure—

Jamie: You've got a pretty fucking horsey face... and a bit of a horsey wife — are you a fucking horse? Are you?

Cliff Lawton: Okay, leaving the wife aside for a second—

Jamie: Are you a horse?

Cliff Lawton: No...

Jamie: EXACTLY!

Cliff Lawton: —Categorically say that I am not a horse!

Jamie: Exactly! You are not a fucking horse. You are no horse, and you're not a stalking horse. You... are the real thing. And we are going to ram you up Tom's arse so hard that he has to shit out of his lying mouth.

Cliff Lawton: ...It's not a very nice image. It's very motivating.

---

Adam Kenyon: Right, Geoff Holhurst?

Angela Heaney: Yeah.

Adam Kenyon: Right, Ollie's our source on this, is he? Ollie Reeder? Shallow Throat? Brilliant.

Angela Heaney: Yeah, I know you don't rate him.

Adam Kenyon: You can say that again; Ollie Reeder is, to quote Bobby Kennedy, a complete fucking spasmoloid. Plus you know how Geoff Holhurst photographs: it looks like his body's in the foreground and his head is really really far away, he looks fucking weird! Just something solid, all right? Otherwise our front page is gonna be an interview with Janet Street-Porter on why she hasn't been asked to be Prime Minister and a giant fucking Sudoku.

---

Malcolm: Well look, I'd love to stop and chat to you, but you know, I'd rather have type 2 diabetes.

Cliff Lawton: Yes, fuck you, Malcolm.

Malcolm: Yeah, Happy New Year.

---

Jamie (to Malcolm and Nick Hanway): Oh! Trinny and Susannah! Well I'm sorry to burst into your little fucking boutique, but you've got a fight on your hands. That's all I'm saying. I'm backing a rival candidate, (to Malcolm) so fuck you, (to Nick) and fuck you and your Nutter coronation 'cause it ain't happening.

Nick Hanway: So you're backing Dan Miller, are you?

Jamie: No, I'm not backing Dan Miller! Don't you fucking ever ask me a question again!

Malcolm: Fatty?

Jamie: Oh aye, Fatty, yeah, wee Spider-Man pyjamas, fucking idiot. From now on, it's a proper fight: it's a pub fight, Motherwell rules, and Tom is gonna get a pint glass in his fucking eye, and a pool cue up his arse, and another pool cue in his other fucking eye!

Malcolm: Geoff Holhurst.

Jamie: Oh, what, Mr Baby New Potato Head? Fuck off.

---

Glenn: And then, Liam said that someone suggested that Tom should go on Strictly Come Dancing.

Ollie: He can barely even walk properly. He looks like he shat himself the whole time.

Glenn: He often has.

---

Malcolm (to Robyn): You are going to bury this Watford arseache tonight, OK? 'Cause tomorrow morning, from broadsheets to wank rags, I want page one, two and three to be a profile of Tom looking like a fucking political colossus, you know: Tom meeting the Pope, Tom in an NHS hospital chatting to little, baldie kiddies. I want pages four and five to be a timeline of the last few years in British politics with me at the centre, looking fucking indispensable, and fucking benign. And I want page six to be fucking – Israel or some bullshit, not a fucking DOSAC, DIPSHIT, LEGACY-DISTRACTING COCK-UP!

Robyn: Right, um, Jamie. Look, I just have to say at this point that I do find him just a little bit frightening.

Malcolm: Relax, he has never hit anyone. Or at least, anyone he has hit has never had the balls to take it to a superior. (Robyn still looks terrified) It's a fucking joke. It's a joke, OK? The man is a professional, you will be fine.

Glenn: Actually, Malcolm? We still have no word on Dan Miller. I mean, he's gone dark, he's not answering his phone –

Malcolm: Maybe he's in a hotel with his own huddle. Ring around, try and find him.

Glenn: What, ring every hotel in London and ask if Dan Miller's booked in?

Malcolm: Yeah! Although he could be using an assumed name.

Glenn: So you want me to ring round every hotel in London, and ask if anyone, of any name, has booked in?

Malcolm: Well it will keep you busy, you know, you need to keep the mind active at your age.

---

Jamie: OK, the line is: wildcat walkout, we'll be talking to the unions, it's too early to comment. Off the record: er, union Neanderthals with brains the size of children's bogies couldn't take the heat of Hugh Abbot's ring-stinging, shit-hot, public sector reforms, but he's flying back like Harrison Ford with a big whip in one hand and a skinny latte in the other and he's gonna whip six shades of shit out of them and save the world, OK?

Jamie: Nobody gives a shit if you got shafted by Malcolm.

Cliff Lawton: I will never ever forgive him for what he did to me.

Jamie: Jesus, this isn't EastEnders! This is politics! We're all in the same plague pit, Cliff, there's no clean hands.

Cliff Lawton: Alright.

Jamie: (phone rings. Jamie answers) Yeah?

Malcolm: Jamie! What's that sort of droning noise in the background there? What, kind of boring, kind of low, sort of droning, boring, kind of miserable, whining, boring kind of, sort of boring noise going on?

Jamie: Yeah, well you've got it wrong, yeah?

Malcolm: Cliff fucking Lawton. Hey, nice. Was the Cillit Bang guy not available?

Jamie: Fuck you. [hangs up]

Cliff Lawton: (reading from his speech) "...to put it simply, I'm back!"

Jamie: Oh fuck off, Cliff.

Cliff Lawton: Sorry?

Jamie: Fuck off! You're a busted flush! You're not gonna be any Prime Minister, you're not gonna be anything, so fuck off!

Cliff Lawton: That's your thing, isn't it? Everything has to be in absolutes, everything has to be black and white. You know, "I love you -fuck off!" There are lots of shades of grey, you know!

Jamie: I know that, I'm looking at fifteen of them right now!

---

Malcolm: You've got this bullshit Watford story covered, yeah?

Jamie: Yeah.

Malcolm: You and I will have a little discussion later.

Jamie: Yeah. I think Watford will get bumped by the fact that we're about to hand the nuclear codes to a guy who, every now and then, loses it so bad he needs satnav to find his own nipples.

Malcolm: What are you talking about?

Jamie: Well, I just thought it was fair to let everyone know about the Tom rumours, you know. How the guy that's about to become Prime Minister chugs antidepressants like they're fucking Smints. How the Black Dog humps his leg and shits in his duvet every four months; I think that will bump the Watford walkout.

Malcolm: You've gone fucking psycho son, fucking psycho! (leaves) TWAT!

Julius: Why don't I get something in? A man cannot live on Jaffa Cakes alone, obviously. I've tried!

Malcolm: (On phone to Jamie) There is a glacier of shit at DoSaC! I need you over there with a fucking blowtorch, right now!

Malcolm: (on the phone to Ollie) Right, what's the plan?

Ollie: They don't have a plan.

Malcolm: Perhaps you should give them one.

Ollie: Yes, fantastic actually, Malcolm, because obviously I have a very suitable one tattooed on the underside of my scrotum, so--

Malcolm: Shut it! You're using all the minutes on my "Talk until you get head cancer" tariff!

Ben: What do you think?

Nick: To be honest, I was really hoping that was going to be shit, because I'm tired, and I'd quite like to hit someone.

Jamie: I'm not leaving it to you. You couldn't organise a bum-rape in a barracks.

Malcolm: Au contraire!

---

Angela Heaney: They've ditched Ballentine.

Adam Kenyon: What? Already?

Angela Heaney: Yeah.

Adam Kenyon: What the fuck is wrong with these people? I mean, what is this, potential leader speed dating? Right, who is standing?

Angela Heaney: I dunno.

Adam Kenyon (to another journalist working on a Ballentine story): Well, ditch that for a starter, get rid of her, I can't stand her fucking face.

Angela Heaney: You know, I think you should eat something.

Adam Kenyon: Oh right, yeah! Eat something, that'd be right, wouldn't it? You know what, our coverage so far has either been wrong or guesswork, which was wrong. So all we have now is a story-shaped hole!

Angela Heaney: Seriously, your blood sugar's low.

Adam Kenyon: Right.

Angela Heaney: Makes you very irritable.

Adam Kenyon: No, what makes me very irritable, Angela, is having no fucking stories and having to fill an entire newspaper with just fucking prepositions!

Malcolm (On the phone to Adam Kenyon): If you do think about running with this pill story, I'll personally fucking eviscerate you, right? I mean, I don't have your education, I don't know what that means. But I'll start by ripping your cock off and I'll busk it from there. Okay?

---

Malcolm (to Ben): I'm just gonna go make some nuisance calls, I'll see you in about half a – Stop fucking blinking! Or I will take your optic nerve and strangle you with it. OK. You look after him, Ollie, OK? He's a very important man. Cock like a caber.

---

Adam Kenyon: What's the news, just –

Angela Heaney: What?

Adam Kenyon: Just tell me what the fucking news is and I'll put it on the front page. It's not like we're The Independent, we can't just stick a headline saying 'Cruelty' and then stick a picture of a dolphin or a whale underneath it. I mean, that's just fucking cheating, that's rubbish.

Angela Heaney: Well, what I'm hearing is Ben Swain.

Adam Kenyon: Ben Swain?

Angela Heaney: Yeah.

Adam Kenyon: Right, I literally don't know who he is. I'm not being stupid or anything, but I physically don't know who Ben Swain is. He could be the leader of the Special Boat Squadron –

Angela Heaney: Service.

Adam Kenyon: The Special Boat Service or whatever it's fucking called, and this could be a massive coup.

Angela Heaney: Ben Swain is what I'm hearing.

Malcolm: The Tom wobble. It's over.

Ben Swain: So what does that mean?

Malcolm: Well, it means that the rats are now returning to a very buoyant ship... and they're playing deck tennis. So that's lovely, isn't it?

Ben: What does that mean for me, then?

Malcolm: I guess that means that you're standing in the chamber of the House of Commons with your big flaccid dick hanging out with a "Vote for me" sticker on the end.

Ben: B-but you said I had a chance! About half an hour ago you said I was in with a shot!!

Malcolm: Well half an hour ago you were in with a shot! This is half an hour hence! We've fucking time-travelled, yes? We're in a weird and wonderful world where everything is different! Maybe, outside, the polar ice caps have melted, maybe there's fucking robots knocking about and Davina McCall's the new Pope! Maybe, you can download rice! I want you, right now, to think about your future, okay? Think about what you are doing! Get yourself back on the train to fucking Tomsville, yeah? (as he's walking out) "Half an hour ago...!"

Malcolm: What's that, cricket? That's the English equivalent of sport, isn't it? No actual physical contact, just glaring.

Jamie: What we're having here is a secret conversation, and I'm hoping that this time you can keep the fucking secret, because normally you're about as secure as a hymen in a South London comprehensive.

Terri: Yep, well done. That's offensive on a number of levels, in a very concise way.

Jamie (to Terri and Robyn): Hey, Desperate Housewives, have you found out who's leaking it yet?

Glenn: I have. It's Julius! He just told me –

Jamie: No, no, no, wait, Julius? Nicholson?! That baldy pussy?! Well, I'll tell you, if he thinks he's leaking now, wait 'till you see when I'm finished with him! He'll look like fucking Mel Gibson's Jesus! FUCK!! FUCK FUCK!! FUCK!!

(Jamie has found out that Nicholson has leaked Immigration figures)

Jamie: Nicholson! NICHOLSON! The immigration shit! It was you, wasn't it?! You mimsy, bastard, quisling, leak FUCK!

Julius: (smirking) Sorry? What are you--

Jamie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you will be sorry, you inflatable cock! You fucking sold us out, didn't you? Deny it!

Julius: Well, James, I can't deny something until I have the actual charge presented...

Jamie: (impersonating Julius) Oh, oh, oh, oh, "the actual charge"? (normal voice) Yeah, well, apart from the charge you're gonna get when I clamp jump leads to your baldy bollocks? Okay, okay, okay, okay! You, Julius Nicholson, being of sound mind but with a body that looks like a giant sex toy did knowingly do us up the shit-hole by passing confidential information to the enemy! And I am going to have your guts as a skipping rope! And your lungs sun-dried and turned into a little fucking waistcoat!

Julius: James, technically it was not a leak, because firstly-

Malcolm: Eat that prawn.

Julius: -there's not confidential-

Malcolm: Eat that fucking prawn.

Julius: I'm not eating prawns, Malcolm.

Malcolm: Eat that prawn. Eat a bit of fucking pizza. (throws a bit of half eaten pizza at Julius)

Julius: Don't be stupid.

Malcolm: Eat another prawn. (throws another prawn at Julius)

Julius: Stop it!

Malcolm: Have some fucking chow mein!

Jamie: Stuff it in his fucking head! Stuff it in his big baby head!

Julius: Stop it!

Malcolm: (to Ollie, who has just walked in on the spectacle) Get that fucking cheese over there!

Jamie: Eat the cheese!

Julius: STOP IT!

Glenn: Go on, have some!

Jamie: EAT THE CHEESE! EAT THE FUCKING--

Julius: This isn't funny! This is an expensive suit!

(Jamie tries to beat up Julius)

Julius: James, just--

Jamie: Fuck!

Julius: Fuck you, mate! (runs out the room)

(Jamie runs after Julius)

Malcolm: Hey, hey hey hey! Right!

Jamie: EAT THE FUCKING CHEESE! EAT THE CHEESE, NICHOLSON!

Glenn: Fucking hell! Fuck! Jesus... I'm not a joke, okay, all right, hello?! I am a man. I am a man, you know? You know?! This, THIS... THIS IS MY LIFE!! I'M A HUMAN BEING, AND ALL THIS IS MY LIFE!! And it's... collapsing in front of me! You know, Tom's lot, they're never going to want me, are they? And fucking Hugh, now, he... Jesus Christ, this is all...! I AM A MAN!!! AND, NO YOU DON'T, I'M IRRELEVANT!! No, no, go away! I'm irrelevant, I'm irrelevant, I'm irrelevant! FUCKING HUGH JUST WANTS TO SPEAK TO TINKY WINKY?!! WELL FUCK TINKY WINKY!!! FUCK YOU, TINKY WINKY!!! AUF WIEDERSEHEN, PET! THE PARTY'S OVER! GOODBYE, YELLOW BRICK ROAD! WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HITLER?! WELL, HE HAD A MOUSTACHE AND HE LIVED OVER THERE!! FUCK US ALL!!!!

---

Malcolm (receives an alert on his phone): Oh, I've been summoned to the breakfast meeting, to talk to Tom about This Morning: some details about Claire Ballentine, maybe; Geoff Holhurst; young Benjamin here.

Nick Hanway: Fuck you very much, you unscrupulous bastard.

Malcolm: Scruples? Scruples, what are they? Is that those low-fat Kettle Chips? OK people, wake up and smell the cock! Hey Ben, next time that you wanna stab Caesar, make sure you're not holding a fucking plastic spoon.

(The Mail are revealing that Ben Swain was racist to a cleaner)

Glenn: I've been leaking for 27 years, I know how it's done, I leaked it!

Ollie: You don't leak! Well not from the mouth, anyway.

Malcolm: You fucking shut up. At least this is Hugh's Glenn. All that you are, mate, is fucking Ben's Glenn.

---

(deleted scene)

Ollie: Guardian Online, right?

Glenn: Yes.

Ollie: I notice they got Tom to do the questionnaire.

Glenn: What, trying to make himself look more like a human being and less like a calculator with Aspergers? What does he say?

Ollie: 'When were you happiest?' 'At the birth of my son.'

Glenn: Bollocks, he wasn't even at the birth of his son. Actually no, he was in an all-night sitting of the Communications Bill, fast asleep. And his sister-in-law woke him with a text.

Ollie: 'What was the last CD you bought?' 'The Scissor Sisters'. (Glenn laughs.) And do we believe him? 'Which living person do you most admire?'

Glenn: Er, well that's tough. Nelson Mandela?

Ollie: Correct! I think you just press F5 for that one, to be absolutely honest with you. 'How do you relax?' 'Cannabis and wanking'?

Glenn: He hasn't.

Ollie: No of course he hasn't, you idiot, 'Listening to opera'.

Glenn: Oh, right.

Ollie: While wanking.

---

(deleted scene)

Nick Hanway: Why tonight of all fucking nights, why tonight?

Malcolm Tucker: Oh well, that's easy: Tucker's Law. 'If some cunt can fuck something up, that cunt will pick the worst possible time to fucking fuck up because that cunt's a cunt.' I've got that embroidered on a tea towel at home.

Series 3, Episode 1

Malcolm: He’s making Paul Remington a Cabinet Minister. Remtard Remington. I mean the guy is an epic fuck-up. He’s so dense that light bends around him.

Malcolm: Come on people, let’s get going here! I’ve got a to-do list that’s longer than a fucking Leonard Cohen song!

(discussing the Cabinet reshuffle)

Terri: Oh look, Fatty's staying put! They're not moving Fatty.

Ollie: That's because they haven’t got five big blokes and a winch.

Terri: They couldn't really demote Fatty because he knows too much.

Ollie: Well he doesn't know where the Ryvita is kept, does he?

(on the phone to a colleague about how busy he is)

Malcolm: I've got more on my plate than a spinster at a wedding. That wasn't a reference to your daughter by the way, Andrew.

(later in the episode, on the phone again)

Malcolm: Doug Hayes is a massive abortion. Again, not a reference to your daughter.

Malcolm: Here he is! Cock like the Pink Panther's tail.

Doug Hayes: I'm afraid I turned it down, Malcolm.

Malcolm: Do you know ninety percent of household dust is made of dead human skin? That's what you are, to me.

Malcolm: Get me Nicola Murray. Yeah, if she says "no", the only other candidate is my left bollock with a fucking smiley face drawn on it.

(Hugh has lost his place in the reshuffle)

Glenn: Well, that's Hugh gone, then.

Terri: It's so sad, isn't it - Hugh?

Ollie: You don't give a shit!

(beat)

Terri: ...No, perhaps I don't.

Ollie: Who's Tom Rudd?

Terri: Isn't he in Harry Potter?

Glenn: Tom Rudd is army slang for standing up buggery.

(Glenn and Ollie don't know if Nicola will keep them on)

Terri: Well, thank goodness I'm safe.

Glen: Je- We know you're safe Terri! How do we know you're safe? Because you keep using the word 'Safe' like you're bloody Jim Bowen!

Ollie: [Immitating Jim Bowen presenting Bullseye] You've got DoSAC, that's safe. Do you want to go for the treasury, young lady?

Terri: Well, it was a bit of a shock for us. In a good way. Like twins, or a tax rebate.

Nicola Murray: (On the phone to her husband) So, I'll take your warm congratulations as... implied.

Nicola: My primary focus is social mobility, that's very much my Big Thing.

Ollie: Right.

Nicola: And I suppose I'm telling you that, really, partly to get your take on it and also so that you can, you know, start spreading the news and printing the posters and, you know, fire up the turbo chargers, set the phases to equality: it's Murray time!

Glenn: The thing is – and Ollie, please correct me here if I'm wrong.

Ollie: I will certainly do that.

Glenn: Social mobility, making people richer, costs money.

Ollie: Yes, and we don't have any of that, really.

Nicola: Right.

Ollie: I mean, if you speak to Nick at the Treasury he will tell you the same, only with his annoying lisp.

Nicola: What you're telling me is that basically I'm gonna be a woman with a computer and some pens.

Ollie: Well, it's just a pen budget.

Nicola: I mean, I have about as much real power as those twats who sit either side of Alan Sugar.

Ollie: Well – Yes.

Malcolm: That's the sort of thing the press will throw at you. I mean you step out of line they'll be all over you like a pigeon on a chip, you know? Is that your chair?

Nicola: Oh God yes, it's cool isn't it. It's got lumbar support.

Malcolm: Bin it. People don't like their politicians to be comfortable. They don't like you having expenses. They don't like you being paid. They'd rather you lived in a fucking cave.

Nicola: Ok, fine. So what should I be sitting on? Should I just get an upturned KFC bucket?

Malcolm: A fucking normal chair, right. Not a fucking massive vibrating throne.

---

(Discussing Nicola's 11-year-old daughter, who is starting secondary school in September)

Nicola: She's not going to the comprehensive, Malcolm. She's going to a local independent school.

Malcolm: Jesus H fucking Corbett. Do you honestly think, do you honestly believe that as a minister you can get away with that? You are saying that all your local state schools, all the schools that this government has drastically improved are knife-addled rape sheds, and that's not a big story? For fuck's sake. Sort it or abort it!

Nicola: Let's get this clear: my family is off limits, all right? This job is not gonna get anywhere near my husband and my kids, it just doesn't.

Malcolm: Of course it fucking does: as per the wee barcode and the serial number under your right armpit, you are now built and owned by the state, and you are under the spotlight 24 hours a day, darling! Do you know what you are? You're a fucking human dartboard, and Eric fucking Bristow's on the oche flinging a million darts made of human shit right at you. Can you take that? Can you?

Malcolm: What's up with you? You look like you've shat a Lego garage.

Ed: What do we do?

Malcolm: We send everyone up there, to support Liam Bentley, including the Prime Minister.

Ed: You want to send Tom up there?

Malcolm: Yeah, fuck it, he'll be all right as long as he doesn't do the smile. You hit the phones, right? I'll be with you in two shakes of a crying baby.

Malcolm: You have been asked by the PM, specifically, to pop along to Leamington, and do some photo ops with Liam Bentley, supporting him, yeah?

Nicola: I don't really have any choice, do I?

Malcolm: Of course you have a choice. You can decide exactly how you say yes. You can do it with a voice. Have fun with it.

Nicola: (Pause) Yes. (Beat) In my own voice.

Malcolm: (on the phone) Well you know what, Howard, she's not bent, either in the sense of being corrupt or being gay. And by the way, that's an incredibly homophobic headline, you massive poof. (enters Nicola's office) You've got egg on your face, Howard, you over-easy pissbag. (hangs up. To Terri, Ollie and Glenn) Oh hey, Yoko Ono and the two remaining Beatles, piss off.

(Nicola suspects that Malcolm set up the 'I am bent' photos)

Nicola: Malcolm. Sorry, can we just carry on talking about that thing? Was it you who positioned me there?

Malcolm (waiting for a lift): Do you know what the first sign of madness is? Paranoia. Have you seen that film, you know, A Beautiful Mind, the one with that, er, Russell Crowe? The one where the maths guy thinks that the CIA are working away in his shed at the bottom of his garden? That's you.

Nicola: No. I'm not the mad one here. You are the mad one, you're Russell Crowe.

Malcolm: No, no, no, you are Russell Crowe. (waves patronisingly at her) And you need to fucking listen to me, Russell, you fucking Antipodean fucking kangaroo-loving fruitcake! See this poster stuff? That's fucking small fry. That's fucking whitebait, Russ me old cobber. (enters the lift) The really horrible stuff, that's all still about to happen to you, right? Right, you're coming in here so we can carry this on?

Nicola: What, now?

Malcolm: Err, if you can spare the time!

Nicola: Err, no. (Pause) No, I can't – I don't use lifts, I'm claustrophobic.

Malcolm: (incredulous) You're what?

Nicola: Not hugely, I can be in rooms, you've seen that, I just don't do lifts, that's all.

Malcolm: But this lift is – I mean, it's fucking huge! I mean, this is bigger than some rooms, this is bigger than some people's flats!

Nicola: It's about not being able to get out.

Malcolm: Oh, well that's great. That's fucking great, that's another fucking thing, right there: not only have you got a fucking bent husband and a fucking daughter that gets taken to school in a fucking sedan chair, you're also fucking mental! Jesus Christ, see you, you are a fucking omnishambles, that's what you are. You're like that coffee machine, you know: "from bean to cup, you fuck up".

Nicola (to herself, returing to her office): He so is Russell Crowe!

Terri (at her desk, overhearing): Who?

(deleted scene)

Malcolm: Where the fuck is Doug Hayes?

Ed: Yes, we put in a lot of calls.

Malcolm: Well, put it a lot more calls: I'm talking 'psycho ex-girlfriend with a really good tariff'.

(deleted scene)

Glenn: Because if you are worried about Malcolm, well, you know, Ollie and I have amassed one or two tips, how to deal with him, over the years. It's pretty much common sense, really: don't drive a gas guzzler, don't sign up for Bupa, don't have an affair. Don't tell racist jokes, however ironic.

Nicola: Oh!

Glenn: Don't send your children to independent schools.

Ollie: Don't dig up Diana and have Patrick Moore play Nazi drinking songs on her ribs.

---

(deleted scene)

Ollie: Yeah I suppose so, he's gonna have to let her go free-range for a week, isn't he? Till after the by-election. Then he can snap her beak off, cram her into the battery cage; Nicola: 'I'm not really good with cages', (impersonates Malcolm) 'Get in there Nicola, fucking get in till you're perfectly square, and you're shiteing cuboid eggs!'

Terri (sighing): Thank God I'm safe. I'm glued to this department and you'd have to steam me off.

Glenn: Yeah. Well you don't have to worry about me: you don't hang around in this business as long as I have without picking up contacts.

Ollie: Yes, but Disraeli's dead, Glenn, he died in the Crimea, did you not hear the town crier announce it?

---

(deleted scene)

Malcolm: It's never too soon to go to Leamington. It's the Venice of the Midlands, if Venice was fucking horrible.

Malcolm: Have a lovely time in Leamington, yeah? I hear it's got the best Lidl in the West Midlands.

---

(deleted scene)

Nicola (at the poster launch in Leamington): And we need to be investing, er, at least –

Glenn: Invest? Did I hear her say 'invest'?

Terri (on the phone): Ollie, she's gone off-piste, she's off the mountain now.

Glenn: Oh, Jesus. She's so far off the mountain, she's being finger-banged in a chalet by Bigfoot.

Series 3, Episode 2

Malcolm: Look, stop worrying: the PM is not going to sack you after a week. Sacked after twelve months, looks like you've fucked up; sacked after a week, looks like he's fucked up.

Nicola: I'm not doing terribly, am I?

(beat)

Malcolm (looking out of the car window): I love the way that they've sandblasted everything around here. It's so clean!

Malcolm (to Nicola's driver): Can you just pull in over here? And you can take out that cyclist as you go in, I think he's Shadow Cabinet.

Glenn (to Nicola): I have here the minutes which are a record and –

Ollie: No no no, you can't just overwrite minutes! You specifically can't do it, 'cause you can't unlock a PDF file.

Robyn: Do you know, Malcolm? (Malcolm stares back, gravely) Er, the best way to clear a paper jam?

Malcolm: I don't know. Kill a kid an hour until it sorts itself out?

---

(Nicola has told Malcolm about the data loss)

Malcolm: Do you know what, you know what's really fucking sad here is that I don't even have the energy to pretend I already knew. Which is for the best, because I'm gonna need all of my fucking energy to fucking rip all of your bodies to bits with my bare hands and sell off, (sees Nicola gesture to herself) yeah, sell off your fucking flayed skin, as a sleeping bag! To a fucking normal person!

Nicola: Can I just say that getting angry actually isn't gonna help anything. I've done anger, I'm currently at grief, I'm working my way towards, er, bargaining, whatever, you know – you're behind me.

Malcolm: So what is your great strategy for dealing with this? Come on: I mean, I'm fucking all ears, I'm fucking Andrew Marr here!

Nicola: So let's – Terri, let's hear what you –

Malcolm: Let's go, let's get going, high-level tactical discussion, I'm up for it!

Terri: Right, er, blaming the department minister might be a high-risk strategy.

Malcolm: Oh, high-risk: saucy! Power serve!

Nicola: My pitch would be: this department is fatally flawed, it's out of condition, it's obese, it's asthmatic.

Malcolm: That's it girl, back over the net.

Glenn: You need to be really sure about that, Nicola.

Malcolm: Yes, wise words from the distinguished elderly gay fucking tennis coach here.

Ollie: Seriously, I think we should talk about my strategy further because I really think that that's the way.

Malcolm (interrupting): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the fucking wee ball boy's having a go now with his wee fucking tight shorts on! (to Robyn, who has returned with a tray of drinks) What about Sue Barker's little sister here? What's she got to say? You got something to say, to add to the conversation?

Robyn: No, er, just that there was no lemon zinger so, um, (to Nicola) this is coffee, is that all right?

Malcolm: Do The Guardian know about this?

Nicola: Oh fuck, I don't – Fucking Guardian, I don't know.

Malcolm: Yeah, as it's referred to in my department.

Terri: Should I find out? Get some feelers?

Malcolm (looking at Terri's breasts): Yeah go on, get your feelers out for the lads.

Malcolm (arriving at Nicola's Guardian lunch): Afternoon, ladies! I heard there were sandwiches and I'm a fucker for cress – No no no, please don't get up, I'm not Viagra. Geoffrey. (shakes hands)

Geoffrey: Always a pleasure.

Malcolm: Good to see you. John, how are you doing? (John gets up to shake hands) I just want to tell you, I really enjoyed your novel.

John: Oh, thank you very much!

Malcolm: Way of writing a fucking awful story. Joking, joking!

---

(Nicola has accidentally revealed the data loss to an on-the-record journalist)

Malcolm: FUCK'S SAKE! Jesus – Christ! Well, now we've got another fucking adjective to add to fucking 'smug' and 'glum', haven't we?! Fucking 'RETARDED'! JESUS Ch– Do you not think it would be germane to check who you're talking to?! IT'S A FUCKING NEWSPAPER OFFICE! IT'S NOT A FUCKING SANATORIUM FOR THE FUCKING DEAF, IS IT?! ARE YOU SO DENSE?! Am I gonna have to run around, slapping badges on people, with a big tick on some and a big cross on others, so you know when to shut your gob and when to open it?! Jesus Christ! Oh, but that'll probably confuse you as well, won't it?! That'll be too confusing! You'd see the cross and go "Oh, fuck! X marks the spot! Better tell this little person all about the Prime Minister's fucking CATASTROPHIC ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION!" Oh, but not to worry, not to worry, you've sent fucking Ollie over there to deal with it. (Nicola tries to speak) FUCKING OLLIE! HE'S A FUCKING- HE'S A FUCKING KNITTED SCARF, THAT TWAT, HE'S A FUCKING BALACLAVA!

Nicola: It just seems to me that all we'd be losing if we got rid of Robyn is somebody who makes a weak cup of tea, you know, I don't think we've – (mobile rings) Shit, Malcolm. (answers) Hello?

Malcolm (in his office): Get over here, now. Might be advisable to wear brown trousers, and a shirt the colour of blood. (hangs up)

Nicola: Fuck.

Glenn: Has he run off? He does that.

Nicola: Yeah, it's all just gone really HBO.

---

(Nicola and Terri sit down in Malcolm's office)

Malcolm: I just wanted to say to you, by way of introductory remarks, that I'm extremely miffed about today's events and, in my quest to try and make you understand the level of my, um, unhappiness, I'm likely to use an awful lot of what we would call violent sexual imagery, and I just wanted to check that neither of you would be terribly offended by that.

Nicola: I could actually do without the theatrics, I think, Malcolm –

Malcolm: Enough. E-fucking-nough. You need to learn to shut your fucking cave, right? Today, you have laid your first big fat egg of solid fuck. You took the data loss media strategy, and you ate it with a lump of E. coli. And then you sprayed it our of your arse at 300 miles per hour.

Nicola: I simply made a mistake, Malcolm –

Malcolm: You got 'on the record' and 'off the record' fucking mixed up! What would have happened if, like, George Martin had done that? We'd have no fucking Beatles, that's what. Now, I don't give a fuck about that: I've had to fucking sit next to Paul McCartney at fucking Chequers!

Nicola: The data loss wasn't my fault.

Malcolm: Fine, yeah, but I tell you what, it came out fucking pretty fast once you were in there, didn't it? Which makes me wonder, should I just go and talk to the boss? Should I go and tell him, "I don't think she's up to the job"?

Nicola: You said yourself that if he sacks me after a week it looks like he's fucked up.

Malcolm: Yeah, but that was before, when your only problem was a fucking shit pun in a newspaper, and a face like Dot Cotton licking piss off a nettle!

(Terri speaks for the first time in the meeting)

Terri (with pen and diary ready): Right, what's the strategy?

Malcolm (dramatic growl): The Kraken awakes!

Terri: No no no, it's just that, I mean, this is the first bit of the meeting that hasn't been about expletives and fezzes and stilts and teabagging, I mean, this is the bit that relates to media management.

Malcolm: I didn't say anything about teabagging. Do you even know what teabagging is?

Terri: Not really, no; er, I'm told it's unpleasant.

---

(deleted scene)

Nicola: I don't know where 'smug' comes from, I mean, I've aged ten years in the past week: I looked at myself in the mirror this morning and I thought, 'Fuck me, it's a pantomime dame'. So an informal off-the-record lunch meet at The Guardian: apparently it's a sort of shoot-the-breeze, you know, 'Have you seen the latest Mad Men? Isn't Andrew Neil a jerk?' sort of thing.

Malcolm: The Guardian? Don't tell them any fucking anecdotes about your children, or they'll offer you a fucking column.

---

(deleted scene)

Nicola: Right, when I came into this department I thought, 'OK. Let's turn a fresh page.' So I turned a fresh page, and you collectively have drawn a gigantic fucking cock on it!

---

(deleted scene)

Glenn (to Robyn): Part of the strategy is to warn us when Malcolm is coming back, so it's your job to block the path. You're the Spartans at Thermopylae. You're Richard Egan with an oily chest.

(later, in Nicola's office)

Ollie: One possible strategy might be not to tell anybody.

Glenn: What, we keep it a secret?

Robyn (running in): Sorry, sorry. Malcolm's coming. Sorry.

Glenn: What? You were meant to be delaying him, you're supposed to be the Spartans!

Robyn: Well I couldn't really remember what the Spartans did, I'm not as old as you, Glenn!

---

(deleted scene)

Marianne Swift: Data, exactly, I heard what you said about your data loss.

Malcolm: Did you say that?

Nicola: No, er, well I don't remem– I don't recognise those words, and I don't recognise you!

Marianne Swift: What?

Malcolm: So you see, the Minister may just have misspoke. But what she said was just words, right, not real statements. You know, that's like – you know, if there was a blast of wind over a harp, and it hit the strings, this wind, and it made the harp accidentally say, 'I'm a cat fucker', would that mean that that harp was actually a cat fucker, in real life, in reality? In the world we live in?

Nicola: Yeah, that's a really good question, yeah.

Series 3, Episode 3

Malcolm: We need to persuade Matt Delaney not to cross the floor. I think we should use the carrot-and-stick approach, yeah. You take a carrot, you stick it up his fucking arse, followed by the stick, followed by an even bigger, rougher carrot.

John Duggan: How was your holiday?

Nicola: Ah, well, you know, we wanted to go to Florida but Malcolm 'suggested' we went to Suffolk, and so the kids were miserable, weather was miserable, and Malcolm rang and shouted at me for looking miserable.

John Duggan: I saw the photo of you, in the wellies next to the horse. 'Why the long face?' It was funny. (Nicola looks up, unimpressed) Or not, depending on your perspective. Still, things are looking up: you're in Eastbourne now, which really is the jewel in the crown of our shit seaside resorts. Clacton of the South West, they call it.

(discussing Julie Price, Nicola's 'people's champion')

Ollie (to John Duggan): Glenn says that she's changed her Facebook status to 'single and up for it', (John starts laughing) which I believe is actually why Glenn brought her here in the first place.

Glenn: Listen, John: there's an outside chance that she may just prefer to meet a human being, so I'm gonna come down with you.

Ollie: Good idea, you can buy her a coffee, can't you – you could maybe buy her a Collapsuccino.

John Duggan (laughing): Might bring back memories of her latte husband. As in late husband. We're like Dick and Dom, aren't we? Great chemistry.

Glenn: Yeah. Except neither one of you are Doms.

Nicola: OK, right, what have we got on the workplace gym reward scheme?

Ollie: Er, fighting obesity is one of the biggest challenges we face, sleepwalking into a crisis, ticking time bomb –

Nicola: You write almost entirely in generic meaningless buzzwords, don't you?

Ollie: I could take it more street, if you prefer – 'You is all proper bloaters and it is well gay, biatch' – but, you know, this is the language –

Nicola: No, but, you know – I just don't want to come across all nanny-state and sort of – 'Death by Chocolate is not a funny name for a pudding, it's a real and genuine concern', you know, I don't want to give the press another opportunity to see me as Mrs Sour Power Vinegar Tits sucking on a lemon.

Ollie: Fine, I understand, so we'll sugar-coat it.

Nicola: Well, leaven it, ideally, with a couple of jokes.

Ollie: Yeah, all right, no problemo. (beat) Now, jokes now?

Nicola: Yeah!

Ollie: OK, how about: 'We want people to be fit, not fit to burst'?

Nicola: I'm gonna have to go down the slapstick route, aren't I? Do the speech straight, but dressed as Freddie Starr's Hitler.

Malcolm: Listen, just casually mention to Alan Dunn and, er, Lindsay Anorexi at the Mail, that the PM has brought Julie Price to the conference.

John Duggan: That's not strictly true, though, is it?

Malcolm: Yeah, well Strictly Come Dancing isn't strictly dancing, is it? They also have a bit at the beginning where an old man dribbles. So what?

John Duggan: Well, I didn't really follow that.

Nicola: I think you should leave.

Malcolm: Oh, do you?

Nicola: Yes! (beat) What, are you gonna hit me?

Malcolm: I don't fucking hit women.

Ollie: Except Glenn, obviously.

Malcolm: Just you fucking leave Glenn out of this: Glenn's been through enough as it is! (to Glenn, who is in the bathroom) Listen mate, I'm really – I'm really sorry, right, I'm really sorry about what happened in the heat of the fucking moment, yeah? I'm under a lot of pressure right now, I'm trying to plug a lot of leaks out there; I had my finger in the dyke, but the dyke's very very squirty.

Ollie: Is it Fat Pat? I've heard that she's, er –

Malcolm: Shut up.

---

Malcolm: Now that you've lost Geordie Julie, the merry fucking widow, you've got a hole in your speech. Right, so have we got a contingency for that?

Nicola: Yeah, we'll figure it out, thank you.

Malcolm: Well look, why don't I help you? Let's roll some tits up the flagpole, and see if anyone gets wood!

Nicola: Oh Christ, it's like being trapped in a fucking boys' toilet. Right, all we've got is Mannion's second holiday, we need to take the piss out of that.

Ollie: OK, how about, er, "He's called Peter 'Two Holidays' Mannion"?

Malcolm: Glenn.

Glenn: Erm, 'He's, erm – works really hard – at planning his holidays'?

Malcolm: That's really fucking quality fucking explosive sarcasm you're lobbing at them, mate, boom!

Glenn: I feel I'm in a therapy group being run by my own rapist.

---

Malcolm: Women, huh? Women slam the door, where did this idea come from, huh? (bangs on the bathroom door) WILMAAA! Fuck off.

Nicola (from inside the bathroom): I'm making a phone call.

Malcolm: Make a phone call. Phone a fucking friend.

Nicola (looking at her speech): 'Government department – The gov–' Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck! How can I learn this when you're still writing it? I feel sick!

Ollie: No, it's exciting, it's good, it's really good. In fact, I would say: the fact that you're hearing it for the first time when you say it will possibly give it a freshness and a zing, you know –

Nicola: You think?

Ollie: Yes, you know, this is politics as it is, isn't it? It's The West Wing!

Nicola: You're not Josh, Ollie, just write the fucking speech.

Ollie: It doesn't mat–

Nicola: Come on Nicola, pull yourself together.

Ollie (to himself): I fucking am Josh.

Nicola: Nicola Murray can do this, come on!

Ollie: Wow, did you just refer to yourself in the second and third person? 'Cause they're both –

Nicola: Write the fucking speech.

Ollie: Right, OK, yes, I'm just slightly distracted by all the Nicola Murrays in the room.

John Duggan: Malcolm, you're really scaring me now.

Malcolm: I'm scaring you? I'm so sorry I'm fucking scaring you. I mustn't scare you, must I? I won't scare you, OK, I'll just explain to you what I'm gonna fucking do to you: I'm gonna take your bollocks, I'm gonna fucking rip them off, I'm gonna fucking paint eyeballs on them. And I'm gonna stitch them onto a fucking sock and use that as a mouthpiece.

Malcolm (to John Duggan): Oh, twat features! I mean that literally.

---

(deleted scene)

Malcolm (on his phone): No, Dan Miller is not positioning himself for the leadership. Well, for a start, you can't have a prime minister called Dan. People called Dan work in fucking fitness centres and listen to West Coast jazz.

---

(deleted scene)

John Duggan: Er, no, I've gotta wait for Glenn to bring Julie what's-her-face back from the toilet so I can give her the tour.

Ollie: Where are they?

John Duggan: Glenn has taken her to Nicola's toilet. It's like being back at college, isn't it, you know, Freshers' Week, it's just as busy, isn't it, you know –

Nicola: Stop talking.

John Duggan: Right, OK.

Ollie: Oh dear, that's bad, Glenn and a woman in a toilet. 'Hello Julie. Would you like to see the Minister's room? (John starts laughing) It's very cosy, isn't it, just right for a little kissy-kissy? Maybe some tickle-me tickle-me? (mimes undoing his flies) Have you met my little friend, old blind Bob?' (turns round to find that Glenn and Julie Price have returned) Just an impression of my friend, old blind Bob.

John Duggan: Liar.

Ollie: Listen, right, I'm not being really horrible, but are you actually autistic?

John Duggan: No; but you'd be surprised how many people ask me that.

---

(deleted scene)

Malcolm: And I need you, big man.

Glenn: Why?

Malcolm: Because I'm gonna invite some hacks up here. I'm gonna give them some drinks, and I'm gonna show them what good mates we are, huh?

Glenn: Do we have to?

Malcolm: Yes, we do have to do it! And I want you to be telling some really fucking amusing anecdotes about our long weekend in Prague.

Glenn (to Ollie): He's gonna hit me again, isn't he? I don't mind being hit, it's just the making up afterwards that scares me shitless.

---

(deleted scene)

Nicola: Terri, I really need you to come down here and help me. All I've got here, right, is a psycho man, a bleeding man and a sarky teenager. It's like some fucking logic problem: 'How do I get the chickens across the river? How do I get the fucking chickens across the river?'

---

(deleted scene)

John Duggan: See, this is the problem with the modern age, the blogosphere, and it is a fear, it's everywhere, we call it the i-Zilla. No one can tame the Beast of Blogmin.

Malcolm: What the fuck are you talking about? Make a deal with these bloggers. Threaten them! It's your fucking job, isn't it?

John Duggan: Malcolm, that is not how the internet works; it's a world-wide, you know, web, that's where that comes from.

Malcolm: Look: I need you to find the incy-wincy fucking spider, take your rolled-up wank mag and fucking squash the fucker, right, can you do that?

John Duggan: Malcolm, I've got a lot on. (Malcolm glares at him) Not a problem. That's a Duggan promise.

---

(deleted scene)

Ollie (looking out of the window onto the car park): You've got to see this, come here. Glenn is putting on his retrosexual moves.

Nicola: No!

Ollie: Yeah.

Nicola (looking out of the window): Who is she?

Ollie: I dunno, but she's smashed, if she is a she. I think I can see her madam's apple there.

Nicola: Maybe they're just talking.

Nicola and Ollie (seeing them kiss): Oh!

Ollie: That's horrific. This is like the worst porn film ever. This is like the porn film where the woman rings for a special adviser to give her an overview of the last five years of social policy and they end up fucking.

(both laugh)

Nicola: The Porn Ultimatum.

Series 3, Episode 4

Ollie: What's happened to Terri? She looks like a female impersonator!

Glenn: Yeah I know, I thought you only got made over like that at a gay undertaker's.

---

Ollie: (re: Nicola's daughter, Ella) She's kicking off at school. Basically, ever since Malcolm made Nicola put her in the fucking comp, she's headed for what Mr. Neil Diamond I believe would have called 'a Sweet Columbine incident'.

---

Emma: Hey, do you know what, I wonder if we'll get to sneak up on Ollie and catch him not working.

Phil: Better still, I'd like to see him getting bollocked by Malcolm. (impersonates Malcolm) 'I'm gonna rip out ya bladder and wear it as a bandana!'

Emma: OK, erm –

Phil: I need to know what Glenn Cullen looks like.

Emma: Oh, Glenn Cullen, er, fifties, kind of depressed looking; I always think of, like, a bloodhound.

Phil: OK, I'll get a picture of Mick Hucknall.

Peter (arriving): Morning, comrades! How goes the revolution?

Phil and Emma: Morning.

Peter: Our tanks on their lawn at last, fuck-a-doodle-doo!

Phil: Talking of which, may I present the DoSAC Implementation Matrix!

Emma: Don't ask.

Peter: Look, this is a very straightforward set of meetings with the senior civil servants. You know, 'Where's the stop-cock? Where can I get a decent cup of coffee? Here's our legislative agenda for the next three years'.

Phil: Yeah I know, but Stewart's very keen for us to use a visit to DoSAC as a scouting exercise?

Peter: Well I'm very keen to use Stewart's mouth as an ashtray, but it doesn't mean I'd do it.

---

Malcolm: (explaining the Opposition Drill) When the Opposition are here, you tell them nothing except where the toilets are, but you lie about that. And Terri, keep your tits in.

---

Emma: (receiving an alert on her phone) That's Stewart. I'm just gonna have to show him up.

Peter: Great, Mr. Blue Sky; we're not gonna practise fist bumps again, are we?

Emma: Phil, if you mention anything out of turn while I'm gone, I will send your mum that picture of you dressed up as Cher, OK? (taps her phone) One button... (leaves)

Peter: Cher?

Phil: Celine Dion, karaoke night. It's totally harmless. (checks that Emma has gone) OK, Ollie told Emma that there's a shitstorm brewing about the minister's daughter.

Peter: She was only the minister's daughter, but she knew how to take the collection.

Phil: She's 12.

Peter: Oh, shit, strike that last remark, it's actually a little poem that... gets much worse.

---

Stewart: Ah Peter, glad we could hook up. Just wanted to take a couple of turns with you on the ideas carousel, yeah? Think of ways we could turn your team into a little cluster of excellence.

Peter: Oh, you mean you wanted to have a chat.

---

Peter: I hate to be a spoilsport, but can we briefly refocus on our visit to DoSAC?

Stewart: Yeah, who are you meeting?

Phil: Got a couple of meetings with two top people, you know, the big swinging dicks.

Stewart: Yeah, OK, well don't forget the tiny static dicks.

Phil: Yeah, we're not allowed to talk to her boyfriend, though.

Emma: Very funny.

Ollie: Oi! Oi! James fucking May! It was you sprayed the private information about the school, wasn't it?! Like Jenson Button shaking up a magnum of piss!

Phil: Oh, just listen to yourself! Okay, at first it was private information between you and your boss, then it was private information between you and your girlfriend, then it was private information between your girlfriend and her colleagues!

Ollie: Yeah?

Phil: I mean, I can draw you a diagram if you like! it's like a fucking swine flu pandemic!

Ollie: I've clearly made an error, which I have to take up with Emma...

Phil: Exactly!

Ollie: ... but you shouldn't be fucking using it for political –

Phil: This is your fault! It's not my fault! You're like the man who fucked the monkey that gave us AIDS, that's who you are!

Ollie: (incredulous) I'm like the man who did what? Who "fucked the monkey (laughs) that gave us AIDS"?

Phil: That's right: you keep saying "it wasn't me, it wasn't me" and there's monkey shit on your balls, not mine!

Malcolm: (walking in) I love it, I love it - it's the pre-match sparring for the big Super Gayweight Title Fight, eh? (makes boxing motions) Okay, Oliver, wipe away the pre-cum. You've got some work to get on with.

Ollie: (quietly) Yeah, Malcolm, um...?

Malcolm: What?

Ollie: The Nicola thing, I think, is getting a bit worse. It looks like her daughter's about to be excluded for bullying.

Malcolm: Yeah, I know, Glenn told me that.

Ollie: What? When did –?

Malcolm: Yeah. The thing is, all we've got to do is, if we try and keep this info very, very closely contained, we'll be all right, yeah?

Ollie: Okay.

Malcolm: Okay?

Ollie: Okay.

Malcolm Tucker: On you go. (walks up to Phil) Okay, Shitehead Revisited. Did you know that Nicola Murray's daughter is about to be expelled from school for fucking bullying?

Ollie: (to Malcolm) What are you doing?

Phil: No, what...

Malcolm Tucker: (to Ollie) Don't worry. (to Phil) Did you not know that?

Phil: No, why would I... No...

Malcolm Tucker: Of course you wouldn't know that, 'cause the only people who know that right now are Mrs. Murray, her daughter, Ollie and me, yeah? If this gets into the press, I would know that it came from you.

Phil: Clever. (chuckles, trying to hide his nervousness)

Malcolm Tucker: (also chuckles, rather deviously) And I would rain down on you so hard, you would have to be reassembled by fucking air crash investigators. (Phil tries to protest) Do not fucking interrupt me, son, ever! Now get this into the noggin, right? You breathe a word of this, to anyone, you mincing fucking CUNT, and I will tear your fucking skin off, I will wear it to your mother's birthday party, and I will rub your nuts up and down her leg whilst whistling Bohemian fucking Rhapsody, right?!

Phil: (nods in shock) Yeah.

Malcolm Tucker: Now, get out of my fucking sight.

Phil: Yeah. (wanders off, visibly terrified)

Peter Mannion: (Discussing Malcolm) His bark's worse than his bite. (Sees Malcolm approaching)

Malcolm Tucker: Peter!

Peter Mannion: And speaking of rabies injections, here he is!

Malcolm Tucker: I didn't know you were still alive. How's the 80's tribute band? Still doing the Robert Palmer lookalikey thing, huh?

Peter Mannion: Malcolm, you're looking well, for someone twice your age. Any news on the aneurysm?

Peter Mannion: (Answers his mobile phone) Ah, Stewart. What flavour of nut-brown piss are you going to pour in my ear?

Stewart: How's the info-pump firing?

Peter Mannion: You mean Terri Coverley? She's useless, she knows nothing. You two would get on.

Glenn: Nicola, just got a text from Malcolm. He says he knows Mannion was here.

Nicola: How does he know that?

Glenn: Text reads: 'I know about your fucking meeting with that ageing flamenco guitarist. You are NOT' (big letters) 'to go home.' There's been an escalation. He says he wants you at Number 10 'ASAFP'.

Nicola: 'F' meaning –

Glenn: Feasibly, I should imagine.

(Nicola arrives at Malcolm's office)

Malcolm: Hi Nicola, thanks very much for coming over. Can I get you something?

Nicola: Actually, you haven't got any whisky, have you?

Malcolm: Whisky, yeah. Hasn't been touched for a while; still got Anthony Eden's lipstick on the bottle.

Nicola: OK, so it's Mannion. What do we do? I mean, do we go after him with one of your, you know, things that you say, like a big bum-dildo of vengeance or something?

Malcolm: There you go, that's my girl, yeah! Indiana Murray and the Bum-Dildo of Vengeance, I like it.

---

(deleted scene)

(arriving at the DoSAC building)

Phil: This is mint. It's like the fall of Troy but with visitor's passes instead of a wooden horse.

Peter (quoting Tennyson's Ulysses): 'It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, / It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles / And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.'

Phil: I meant the film Troy?

Peter: Awesome.

---

(deleted scene)

Emma: Do you fancy a cup of tea?

Stewart: Er, yes, you got anything herbal?

Emma: OK, yeah. (walking off, to herself) Something perfumed and essentially gay. (sees Phil) Oh, speak of the devil. Whoa, you look like you've shat yourself.

Phil: I had a close encounter with Malcolm Tucker. (Emma laughs) It's not funny, he's like some horrible character from an Ian Rankin novel.

Stewart: Where's Peter?

Emma: Yeah, where is Peter?

Phil: I don't know. It's a bit of a blur to be honest, I just kind of ran out of the building. I just kept walking, I ended up in Greenwich.

Emma: Greenwich?

Phil: I think I was following the river, I wanted to get to the sea.

---

(deleted scene)

Peter: Do you channel all your passions into pie charts, Stewart? I don't even think you're excited about winning. I bet when you orgasm, you just put a little tick on a chart next to your bed.

Series 3, Episode 5

(Terri smiles and waves at Peter)

Peter: Why does the useless one keep staring at me?

Phil: Because she's a mentalist and she loves you. You ever crash your car in the mountains, she'll be the one waiting to drag you out. (both chuckle) You've seen Misery?

Peter: I'm in the fucking BBC, aren't I?

---

(Terri continues to smile and stare at Peter)

Peter (quietly): The stupid one keeps staring at me; could you block the view, or something?

Phil: OK. (sits on the table, between Terri and Peter)

Peter: OK.

Phil (to Terri): Sorry.

Peter: Why isn't Emma here to help?

Phil: She's dumping Ollie tonight. Result! Probably crying his eyes out right now, like Kate Winslet losing on a scratch card.

Stewart: Two axes dissecting the midpoint to create four diametrically opposed quadrants. I like the plasmic nature of your data modelling. Nice.

Glenn: Well, that's a nice tan you haven't quite managed to get there, Peter.

Peter: Oh yes of course, that's very funny, because of the shitstorm you created about my second holiday. I had to cancel my second holiday. I see what you did there, you should be in stand-up.

Phil: Glenn Elton. 'Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen!'

Peter: Sorry about the puffin.

(Malcolm opens a box. It contains a cake which reads 'Happy Birthday C*nt')

Malcolm: This could be from anybody. (opens the accompanying card) Ah, it's from the Prime Minister. This is fucking Tom's idea of a joke, yeah? And he wonders why we don't let him out in public.

---

Malcolm (listening to Nicola on the radio): Fuck me, this is like a clown running across a minefield!

Terri: The problem is, though, Glenn, if you say to a journalist, 'Can you avoid that topic?', that's when they really go for it. I mean, it's like saying to the school bully, 'I'll wet myself if you tickle me'.

(Throughout his show, Richard reads out listeners' texts about piercings)

Richard Bacon: 'Dear Richard, I don't see the point of piercings. If you were a robot, you wouldn't stick bits of dangling flesh all over yourself, would you?'

Richard Bacon: 'Dear Richard, my friend's daughter got piercings all round her mouth. She looks like she works in a ball bearings factory, and there was an explosion and all the shrapnel got embedded in her face. I don't like it.'

Richard Bacon: 'Dear Richard, I love piercings. They are part of who I am, literally. Tina in Weymouth.'

Glenn (answering his phone): Malcolm?

Malcolm: Are you producing porno now for the visually impaired?

Glenn: Wh– What?

Malcolm: Because what I'm hearing here, on my radio, is Nicola Murray being roundly fucked. What is this, Bukkake at Bedtime? Just, fu– put Ollie on.

Glenn: Ollie, erm – Well he's not here, he's at home.

Malcolm: Tell that fucking stick of celery to get his arse out of there, and get down to 5 Live right now. Tell him to inject some energy into Nicola's performance; at the moment, she's coming across like a Nazi float at the fucking Notting Hill Carnival.

Glenn: Oh hello, nice dinner?

Emma: Fuck off, Bagpuss.

Ollie: What the fuck are you doing here?

Emma: Oh, I'm having an affair with Richard Bacon. I'm incredibly aroused by men with meat in their surname.

(Phil enters the green room)

Ollie: Right, if you speak to me, I will pour hot coffee on your balls.

Phil: Hey, I don't want to fight. I want to clear the air, actually. We're like those two little old people in the weathercock: you come out, I'm in there, and we're swapping round.

Ollie: You're Mr Sunshine, are you?

Phil: I'm Mr Sunshine!

Ollie: You're a little wooden twat, in a little wooden house.

Phil: Come on, there's no need – we can be friends! I'm thinking two enemies, they come together when they realise it is no more. Aragorn and Boromir! Me: Aragorn, the true king. You: Boromir. Your horn is broken, and will be blown no more.

Ollie: This inability to talk without using Lord of the Ring metaphors is one of the very many reasons that we could never be friends.

Ollie: Why would she tell you first, dickwad?

Phil: I've no idea, she told me to get out of the flat tonight so she could dump you. Anyway, in the words of Shakespears Sister, (sings in falsetto) 'You're History'! (Ollie throws his coffee at Phil's groin) Ah, f– It's a dark suit and it's only lukewarm, I still win!

Janice: I can't believe my ears, did we just break a story that wasn't 'the Ipswich manager just got sacked'?

---

Glenn: Do you mind keeping it down? Some of us are trying to listen.

Phil: I can fill you in: Peter's tearing through her like a Viking at a nunnery.

Glenn: If he's a Viking, he's King Cnut!

---

Janice (entering the green room): OK, do you want to shut up? And if you lot don't keep this down, I'm gonna have you all ejected from the building. (points at Terri) You are the worst, my chair still smells of your perfume.

Terri: Excuse me! For the record, I have done nothing.

Glenn: Yes, that will be your epitaph, Terri.

---

Emma: I just don't think he should be talking about me at all, let alone things that are totally private.

Terri: No, I agree, I absolutely – (sees that Ollie has returned) Then the bank bonuses are very high, aren't they?

Ollie: I know you've been talking about me, Terri, because I've got this weird Derren Brown thing going on where I can see and hear things, Terri.

Emma: So, Ollie, what exactly have you been saying to them in the office about me?

Ollie: I've been saying, er, you smell of fennel, you're racist –

Emma: Funny.

Ollie: – you torture horses, and you're in The Bangles, that's what I've been saying about you at work.

Emma: See, I think you've been sexually bragging.

Ollie: Well, don't flatter yourself.

Nicola (seeing Stewart enter the control room): How perfect. Who should walk in...

Stewart (to Janice): I'm Stewart Pearson, yeah? See the fat man that you're berating like he's a piñata? Well, I own him.

Richard Bacon: Peter Mannion, that's a fascinating development –

Peter (seeing Malcolm arrive): Oh! And as we speak, who should come rolling along the corridor but Malcolm Tucker, the man who was once referred to as the Gorbals Goebbels...

Stewart: Oh, don't do a joke, Peter, don't do a joke.

Malcolm: That's your fucking career over, right, OK, you're fucking dead. And those three little words, 'Tim in Ruislip', are the fucking nails in your coffin, dear. (imitates hammering) Tim. In. Ruislip. Tim in fucking Ruislip. And as for Tim in fucking –

Janice: Yeah, okay, can you stop fucking saying that, please?

Malcolm: – FUCKING, fucking Ruislip, he's fucking dead as well! That fucking texting coward. Give me his number. What's his fucking number? Give me the fucking number of Tim in Ruislip.

Janice (to a colleague): Erase it. Take it off the screen now.

Malcolm: If you don't give me his fucking number, do you know what I'm gonna have to do? I'm gonna have to fucking go to fucking Ruislip, and fucking snap the thumb and forefinger off of every single person I see, who I think resembles the kind of wanker that would be walking around in this day and fucking age with a name like fucking Tim! How do you think that sounds, huh?

Stewart: Quite, quite mad.

---

Malcolm (to Stewart): Listen, you know what I have got at the back of my fucking filing cabinet? I've got a fucking photograph that I've been waiting for a fucking rainy day to show everyone, which is a photograph of your fucking Shadow Chancellor, at one of his fucking parties, dressed up in fucking bra, suspenders, and fucking blackface! What's his defence gonna be, hey, when I email that to the fucking Sun? "Oh, well I am just de Shadow Chancellor"?

---

(Malcolm listens to the radio as he leaves in Nicola's car)

Richard Bacon: Andrew in Suffolk writes, 'The body is a temple. Temples aren't made of metal. Case closed.'

Malcolm (to Nicola's driver): You couldn't turn that to Magic FM, could you mate? Otherwise I'm gonna have to tear my eyelids off and scrunch them up into fucking earplugs.

(deleted scene)

Phil: You just start off about how great the City used to be, then how it's not so great now, and then end with a joke. It's the classic shit sandwich, you know: bread, shit, bread!

Peter: Phil, if anyone bites into a shit sandwich, they don't say, 'Mmm, bread!', they say, 'Oh fuck, I've got a mouthful of shit! (Janice the producer shoves him into the studio) You mental bastard! Why have you filled my sandwich with shi–'

Series 3, Episode 6

Glenn: Morning, Ollie. How's your head? Like a bat shat in it at all?

Ollie: No, I am, if anything, Glenn, I am hung-under.

Ollie: Right, so Ben Swain, the man you love to hate and love to sack, actually, is on his way up.

Nicola: Oh great, I'm flypaper for dickheads today. Right, I'm gonna get out of this funeral suit and chisel off the first three inches of makeup. (leaves)

Glenn (seeing Ben arrive): Ah, the prodigal Swain returns.

Ollie: Ben 10, Benstrual cycle, Ben on the Fourth of July!

Ben: Ollie Put the Kettle On, On the Good Ship Ollie-pop, Oll-d Lang Syne.

Ollie: How are things going at the Department of Education Education Education?

Ben: They're going up the fuck-pump, Ollie, mainly because you are the Robin Hood of politics.

Ollie: Well, Robin Hood was a hero.

Ben: No, he was not a hero, he was a terrorist.

Nicola: I've been told by Steve Fleming to think the unthinkable.

Malcolm: Well, listen, I am telling you to un-think the unthinkable – shit, you can't even cope with thinking the thinkable.

Malcolm: Have you been at Number 10 lately? Jesus, it's like the break-up of the Beatles, right? During the fall of the Roman Empire, while fucking Jordan's getting divorced from that bloke. All happening at the same time in a tiny fucking terraced house, yeah?

Malcolm: Right, people, listen up! It's a fucking lockdown, right now!

Nicola: Oh, come off it! We're not in a prison drama, are we?

Malcolm: We are in a prison drama and this is the fucking Shawshank Redemption, right? But with more tunnelling through shit and no fucking redemption.

---

Malcolm: Is that trainers that she's wearing? (to Terri) Are you wearing fucking train– You're supposed to be a civil servant, not a fucking playgroup assistant.

Ben: It's like wet play, isn't it?

Ollie: Hah!

Glenn (playing chess over the phone, with a miniature chessboard): Queen to knight 4.

Ben: I never had you down as a chess man, Glenn, I thought you might be more the kind to play Ludo or something.

Glenn: Do you mind?

Ben: Oh what, can you not multitask, Deep Beige? (He and Ollie laugh)

Glenn: What, check? Oh, fuck you!

Ben: Well, you know, politics is like a game of chess, Glenn, insofar as you're shit at both of them.

---

Malcolm (answering his mobile): Nicola Murray is not going to make a leadership announcement this evening. Permission to speak frankly and off the record, yeah? She's an idiot. I know that she's in the Cabinet, but look, that's like being disabled at a football match, yeah? I mean, she's very close to the action, but hardly likely to score a goal. That – No! That – How is that offensive? That is a very fair and accurate portrayal of just how fucking retarded she is.

---

Nicola: Are you emailing? Are you stirring this up? Is that why you came into DoSAC today: did you have a big bucket of shit and a whisk?

Ben: No. (beat) Yes, a bit.

Nicola: What are you saying?

Ben: Just, you know, 'Joan Rivers wants to be the new Prime Minister. Have a look at this clip of her online, staking her bid.'

Nicola: You treacherous shit.

Ben: Come on, it's not my fault you've dressed up like a dead geisha.

Nicola: Why are you doing this?

Ben: Because I'm bored, it's funny and – and I hate you. There you are, the holy trinity of why.

Nicola: Do you know, talking to you is like talking to a fucking whoopee cushion!

---

Malcolm: So, one at a time. Private Godfrey, get to your station. (Glenn runs to his desk) I want to hear what the word is on the street.

Glenn: All right, (reporting from his computer) 'Ben has been seen coming into DoSAC but not going out. Possibly Ben is her running mate as number two in a leadership bid.'

Ben: Hah! Right, I don't mind going out there now and telling them all face to face just how much I hate Nicola and how unlikely that is to happen, and get myself a sandwich, I'm fucking starving –

Malcolm: What did I just fucking say, what did I just fucking say? I said one at a fucking time. Stand up. (Ben does not stand) I'm telling you to fucking stand up, you sack of fucking cum! Stand the fuck up! (Ben stands) Fucking move, right. (grabs a keyboard) See that? Fucking play with that, right? Never mind your fucking toys, play with that. (hands Ben the keyboard and pushes him) Go and stand in that fucking corner. Stand over there, right? And do not move, or I will perform a fucking living fucking autopsy on you! With a fucking rusty spade, and I'll have your kidneys for fucking CUFFLINKS!

---

Malcolm: (to Ben) See, you? Get me a fucking Curly Wurly, right?

(shortly afterwards, Ben gives Malcolm a Curly Wurly)

Malcolm: It's a classic Curly Wurly I wanted. A Curly Wurly should be the size of a small ladder.

Ben: Your hands have got bigger.

Nicola: That was utterly humiliating. For fuck's sake, Malcolm!

Malcolm: Shouldn't that be 'of fuck's sake'?

Nicola: I don't know what you're talking about.

Malcolm: May I just quote it to you? 'The Prime Minister is the right man for the moment.'

Nicola: Yeah. That's what you told me to say.

Malcolm: Of the moment, of the moment, I told you to say 'of the fucking moment': there's a huge difference between me saying to you, 'Nicola, I would like to go for a lovely walk with you', and 'Nicola, I would like to make a hat out of your fucking entrails!'

Ben: Look at this! Takeaway and a fight. All I need now is a handjob in a bus shelter, I've had the great British night out.

Nicola: Jesus, you're about as on the ball today as a dead seal!

Malcolm: Hey, that's one of my fucking lines!

Malcolm: Terri, I thought we had a deal, right? When I need your advice I'll give you the special signal, which is me being sectioned under the fucking Mental Health Act.

Malcolm: How fucking dare you. Have you any idea of the amount of pressure that has been exerted on my skull, huh? It feels like my brain has been fucking emptied into little packets, into fucking crisp packets. Cheese and onion fucking crisp packets, that contain my living, breathing, fucking brain!

Terri: Malcolm, I'm really sorry, I –

Malcolm: And these crisp packets – cheese and onion, smoky bacon – they've been stomped on. They've been fucking stomped on! By Ben, fucking Nicola –

Terri: I didn't mean to be horrid –

Malcolm: AND FUCKING YOU!

(long silence)

Malcolm: I'm sorry.

Terri: I'm sorry.

Malcolm: I'm sorry.

Terri: I'm sorry.

Malcolm: No, I'm over it, okay? Don't you apologise, don't you fucking apologise, you don't need to apologise. I love this place. I do! I mean, fucking compared to Number 10, this place, this place is fucking tranquil, yeah? Over there, 300 yards down the road, I mean it's like a fucking cancer ward: I mean, there are people in there, they're fucking screaming at each other. They're screaming, 'You gave me this fucking disease. You gave me this fucking disease!' And every corner that I turn, there's another threat, Terri: hacks! Hacks, fucking vampire hacks! And they're slaughtering us, Terri, THEY ARE FUCKING SLAUGHTERING US, AND THEY WANT MY FACE FOR A FLANNEL!

Terri: Yeah.

Malcolm: And you know what? I used to be the fucking pharaoh, Terri, I used to be the fucking pharaoh! Now I'm fucking floundering in a fucking Nile of shit! But I am gonna fashion a paddle out of that shit. Yeah?

Terri: Mmm. Good idea.

Malcolm: I'm not going down. I am not going down. Yeah?

Terri: (whispers) Yeah.

Malcolm: How are you feeling about things?

Terri: Well, you know, I'm just trying to do my best and, you know, make sure I can still get home by six o'clock. Do you want a huggle?

Malcolm: No, I think – That's nice of you, I really appreciate it. Terri, it's been nice to have a chat, but I've gotta get on.

Terri: Okay.

Malcolm: Yeah. Let's get back on track.

Terri: Get back on track.

(both leave the room)

Malcolm: As they say, right?

Terri: Funny to use that phrase.

Malcolm: All righty-o, okay, Nicola, let's see you in your office, please.

Ollie: What did he say?

Terri: Dunno, it was all about ancient Egypt.

Ollie: Ancient Egypt?

Terri: Yeah.

Malcolm: Ladies and Gentlemen, the dirty protest is now over; please mop up your shit and fuck off home.

Malcolm: Make sure fucking Nicola doesn't top herself, eh?

Terri: Yeah, sure.

Malcolm: Make sure that Ben does.

---

(deleted scene)

Ollie: What are you gonna do when the shit goes down, then?

Glenn: Oh, plenty of options, Ollie.

Ollie: Really, have you really, you've got plenty of options, have you? (Glenn nods.) What are those options, let's see, you can't – you can't hold a golf sale sign because of your back, you can't be a prostitute 'cause your waterworks aren't up to it, you can't be a drugs mule, 'cause of your arse, that's too slack, isn't it, so what does that leave you with, you could be – Local weatherman would be perfect; or, er, you could run a whelk stall, how about that? You could be a dinner lady or a sleeping policeman, actually on the road: just lie down, let the cars – You could become one of those people who manipulates their cock and balls into funny shapes for the paying public, it would be nice for them to have a little run out. Or, you could just basically walk into a hospice, and wait to kark it.

---

(deleted scene)

Malcolm: That's from me, Cack Efron. It's a coded message basically telling you that, if you ignore me or my fucking calls again, I'll fucking rip your head off, right? I'll fucking plant a palm tree in your neck, and I'll fuck you fucking tenderly in its shade!

Ollie: I can tell you've been away, your threats are including palm trees now.

---

(deleted scene)

Malcolm: Jesus Christ, Crosby, Still, Nash and fucking Young – Look at the lot of you, it's like walking into an installation at the Tate Gallery that everybody's forgotten about.

Series 3, Episode 7

(Malcolm is at home serving Indian food to some journalists)

Malcolm: Here they come, it's the Flying Scots-curry-man. (sings) 'Where's your pappadam?' You have got to try this aubergine, it's cooked in ghee, right? I fucking love ghee, it's like fucking freebasing butter. Have some more wine, come on, get quaffing. (mobile rings) Christ, here we go. (answers) No, we don't do takeaway, right? (all laugh, as Malcolm walks away) Listen, see, if this is recorded spam, I'm gonna hunt you down and burst your fucking lungs.

Ollie (at his desk): Where actually are you, Malcolm?

Malcolm: I'm on holidays!

Ollie: Where are you on holiday, where?

Malcolm: Right, OK, I'm in Thailand, in a sex spa. About to get a fucking facial.

Ollie: Right, quick summary: Andy Murray, famous tennis player, also lovely Scotch person, face of Healthy Lifestyle Choices. Nicola Murray, slightly panicky, er, minister-lady: wonder if that's OK with you?

Malcolm: Yeah yeah yeah, Andy Murray, yeah, Andy Pandy, fucking Gandhi having a hand-shandy, whatever, just, you know, fuck off out of my life, OK?

Ollie: Okey dokey! (hangs up. To Nicola and Glenn) The man from Hell Monte, he say 'Fucking aye'!

---

Geoffrey: So, Malcolm, what's all this about?

Malcolm: Well, I know that these are hard times for print journalists, yeah? I mean, I read that on the internet. I mean, one day you're writing for the papers and the next you're sleeping under them.

(Steve Fleming enters the office and starts greeting the staff)

Steve Fleming: Morning! Morning, DoSAC.

Glenn: Oh.

Nicola: Bollocky bollocks. It's the Ghost of Christmas Shit.

Glenn: There's your answer, Terri: that's the man driving the bus, that's Reg bloody Varney. All stops to electoral oblivion, ding ding.

Nicola: Get in my office, come on. It'll buy us a bit of time.

(they all do so, as Steve continues to move towards them)

Glenn: Come on, have a look.

Ollie: I've never seen Steve Fleming in the flesh.

Nicola: You're lucky.

Ollie: For a man who brought us back into power, he's not very imposing, is he? He's like a Lego policeman.

Nicola: Look at him. Super Mario.

---

(after their first meeting with Steve Fleming)

Ollie: What do you call that? Obsessive Repulsive Disorder, I would say.

Nicola: I'm gonna ring Malcolm. Holiday or no holiday, I'm gonna ring Malcolm about this.

Ollie: (impersonating Steve) 'Caffeinated gifts!'

Terri: Malcolm never brought us coffee. I like him.

Ollie: Yes, well you like bath salts, you're basically an idiot.

(Glenn has kicked open a box of crime stats)

Ollie: Well, that's given us an unexpected head start, well done. I would kill you but I'd have to add you to the fucking figures.

---

Steve Fleming: If you want to stay late, or pull an all-nighter, if you think it'd help –

Glenn: You want us to work all through the night on this?

Steve Fleming: It would be very much appreciated upstairs.

Ollie: Hah, well: I'm an atheist.

Steve Fleming: (laughs) By the Prime Minister. I did get the joke, by the way.

Ollie (mouthing): Well done.

Malcolm: Sam, prepare my horse. I ride – to DoSAC!

Steve Fleming: Malcolm!

Malcolm: Oh, there he is, Bob Carolgees; how's the wee comedy dog?

Steve Fleming: Welcome back. Good holiday? I hear your kitchen's lovely at this time of year.

Malcolm: Yeah, well actually, I went to Spain.

Steve Fleming: Oh, nice.

Malcolm: Yeah yeah, I went to Malaga, it was lovely. I was golfing with Stephen Hawking, he's fucking shit. He lied about his handicap. Mind you, I never had to hire a golf buggy, I just sat in his lap.

Steve Fleming: We both know we don't like each other, everyone knows that, we are the Gallagher brothers of politics.

Malcolm: How does that work? Does that mean that I'm the semi-talented songwriter and you're the fucking loutish prick? That's a lovely analogy.

Steve Fleming: You were the one who forced me out of the sodding band. (chuckles) Come on, let's have a chat.

Malcolm: You were asked to leave the fucking band. And you wouldn't fucking go, would you? You had to hang on in there, like a limpet up a whale's arse.

Steve Fleming: Why do you thrive so much on being disliked?

Malcolm: People hate me? Good, bring it on! Do you know what they think about you?

Steve Fleming: I'm sure you're going to tell me, Malcolm.

Malcolm: I'll tell you exactly what people think about you!

Steve Fleming: All right, go on then!

Malcolm: Fuck-all!!

Steve Fleming: Oh, do they? Fuck-all?

Malcolm: People have no fucking opinion about you! You're like fucking Special K or fucking the Moody Blues. That's you, fucking white noise in the background—is that funny? Do you find that funny?!

Steve Fleming: Nicola, you and your department have screwed up!

Malcolm (entering): I'd like to agree with the previous speaker, only adding the words 'fucking royally'.

Nicola: Oh Jesus, am I being gang-bollocked?

Malcolm: Andy Murray's Henman-fisting us in the press. We can't have that –

Steve Fleming: Well, with undue respect, Malcolm, the crime stats cock-up is a much bigger deal.

Nicola: This is such a great double act, isn't it? Good cock, bad cock.

Malcolm: I'll tell you what, why don't you go first, mate? I need a wazz. (leaves)

Steve Fleming: I like you, Nicola, I quite like you. But darling, I've gotta ask you, what the bloody hell happened?

Nicola: Like you asked, we published the crime figures from 2004 up to the last quarter.

Steve Fleming: Yes, up to the last quarter but not up to and INCLUDING the last quarter, you dozy mare!

Nicola: 'Up to' includes the thing you're going up to. Right? If you say count up to 20, it means count up to and include the number 20!

Steve Fleming: The events leading up to the Second World War do not include the Second World War!

Nicola: We haven't got time for a semantic argument about this.

(Malcolm returns)

Steve Fleming: Listen, sweetheart –

Nicola: Do not fucking call me sweetheart!

Malcolm: I think you'll find that Steve was addressing me: the 'tache is a bit of a giveaway.

Steve Fleming: I will draft a statement.

Malcolm: You fucking will not draft any fucking statement!

Steve Fleming: I've been minding the shop!

Malcolm: You were fucking minding the shop, and what happened? A bunch of fucking schoolkids came in and fucking dropped their trousers and fucking had a shit in aisle 5!

Steve Fleming: Well thank you for giving us a guided tour around the Freudian nightmare of your head!

Nicola: Could you two decide between you in which order, and from which direction, I'm gonna be shafted?

Malcolm: (answering a knock at his door) Listen, if you are not a prostitute or a pizza guy, fuck off! Steve, listen, could you eat or fuck whatever's at the door on your fucking way out, please? (to a colleague) No thanks. (back on his phone) How can I be held responsible? What, for what? I've created a what around the government? I've created a vibe? Listen, son, the only fucking vibe you have to worry about is the one that your wife hides in her knicker drawer.

(reading stories about Malcolm in the newspapers)

Ollie: I had no idea, no idea that it was Malcolm who drafted Fleming's resignation letter in 2003.

Glenn: I forgot your political memory only goes back two issues of The Economist.

Ollie: Hey! There's a reference to you here, Cullen.

Glenn: Where?

Ollie: 'Alleged to have assaulted an elderly aide at a party conference.'

Glenn: Elderly aide?

Ollie: Elderly aide.

Glenn: God, that makes me sound like a fucking stairlift!

Nicola: You're all over the newspapers like a pissing puppy, Malcolm.

Malcolm: Well, I think you'll find that's what we masters of the dark arts call a blip.

(Malcolm has organised positive press coverage of DoSAC's Healthy Lifestyles policy)

Glenn: Well done Malcolm.

Ollie: He's very impressive, isn't he? In the way that, you know, Chairman Mao was actually quite impressive.

Glenn: Well that's the thing about the evil, isn't it, their amazing work ethic.

Malcolm: How are the hacks?

Steve Fleming: Ready to eat their own cocks.

Malcolm: They're only journalists, Steve, not fucking Rangers supporters.

Steve Fleming: I know they are.

Malcolm (to Steve): Oh, what happened? Did you get heckled off? What was the line? 'Taxi for Tom Selleck!'

Steve Fleming: Malc, Malc –

Malcolm: Don't fucking touch me!

Steve Fleming: Come on, Malc!

Malcolm: You cannot fuck me! You cannot fuck me! I am unfuckable! I have never been fucked! And if you fucking try and fuck me, you'll find my fucking arse will fucking grow fucking fangs!

Steve Fleming: Yeah, all right, now come and listen to me! Will you listen to me –

Malcolm: And fucking snap your fucking cock off –

Steve Fleming: MALCOLM TUCKER, WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME?

Malcolm: Go right ahead. Yeah, let's hear it, let's hear it.

Steve Fleming: Listen to me for one second.

Malcolm: Go right ahead.

Steve Fleming: I wouldn't tell you what I've just told you before I'd told the press pack, would I? That would be very very unprofessional. So there's no point in getting angry because the show's over. It's curtains. No curtain call. Everyone loved the show, but it just wasn't buttering any parsnips ANYMORE, BROTHER!

Malcolm: YOU WILL SEE ME AGAIN! You will fucking see me again! (leaves Number 10)

(deleted scene)

Marianne Swift: So all this is homemade, is it?

Malcolm: Of course it is! Look, I mean, this is going to be like Jamie at Home, right, except I'm not going to be bouncing around spouting Cockney drivel out of my fat, lisping, ox face.

(deleted scene)

(thinking about options other than Andy Murray for the Healthy Eating launch)

Terri: What about Lynda Bellingham?

Ollie: Yes, that'd be convincing, 'Eat less salt', says the dancing Oxo lady, good idea. No one from the stage show of Calendar Girls.

(deleted scene)

(reading stories about Malcolm in the newspapers)

Glenn: I forgot your political memory only goes back two issues of The Economist.

Ollie: That's right, Glenn, you'll have to hold my hand through this complicated world: some of us weren't up the Acropolis the day that you and Roy Jenkins invented democracy.

Terri: Oh my God. Did you know that he'd been some kind of womaniser?

Ollie: You wanna check the Sun, they've got a woman who claims he womanised her three times in a day at the gazebo at Chequers. Front, back, and in the gallery, as I understand it.

Series 3, Episode 8

(Malcolm is at home with a man going through alternative career options)

Man: Do you want to swim the Channel for Scope?

Malcolm: No!

Man: Do you want to do Dragon's Den for Children in Need?

Malcolm: I'd rather fuck a real dragon.

Man: Would you consider promoting a politically themed restaurant?

Malcolm: How does that – how does that even work? Oh fuck no, I don't care.

Man: Would you like to write a children's book, called 'The Angry Spider'?

Steve Fleming: So, everything: good.

Ollie: Yeah, you know, a bit of instability with Malcolm gone, a sort of sense of Post – you know, Psychotic Twats Disorder, but –

Steve Fleming: No no, listen, I understand, but you know, right now, you're all emerging from the cellar – pleased that the beatings have stopped, scared of what the future might hold – but long-term, I think we're all going to be okay. Pep talk, over! Return to your desks, and prepare for government.

Ollie: We're in government.

Steve Fleming: (smiling, but clearly annoyed) Well then, prepare to stay in government.

Ollie: Oh right. How do we do that?

Glenn: We pack an overnight bag.

Steve Fleming: (apoplectic) Will you PLEASE, FUCKING WELL – (he immediately composes himself, and lets out a forced laugh) I'm sorry, I've lost my temper! Where is it? Where is it? Oh, no, I've found it again. It's alright.

Ollie: Always in the last place you look, eh?

Nicola: Ollie! Glenn! I need you in here now. Quick!

(Glenn approaches the office while taking off his glasses)

Nicola: Oh Glenn! Don't faff around with your glasses, I know you take them off every time you come in here. It's not impressive!

Malcolm: (At home after being sacked, Malcolm answers the phone) Hello, Phillip Schofield, I fuck lobsters for money.

(While sharing an Indian take-away in his office, Julius is trying to persuade Malcolm Tucker to return)

Julius: Let me put it this way. See this onion bhaji? Let us pretend for a minute that this onion bhaji is the problems that would be caused by a report that criticised you or Steve Fleming. Hmm? Watch. (he takes a bite of the bhaji) See what I’m doing? I’m eating.. the onion bhaji. (he eats the rest of the bhaji) Why? Because I am the man that makes the bhaji go away.

(Steve approaches Julius while he's feeding ducks)

Steve Fleming: The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.

Julius: Well, actually, that is a popular misconception because what happens is the rain falls just before the mountain ridge, but they wouldn't want you to know that because it would spoil the rhyme.

Steve Fleming: Julius, what's up, Boo Boo? (both laugh)

Julius: Not much, I'm just feeding some victuals to these poor old ducks. That red-crested pochard there is positively hoggish with this Hovis.

Steve Fleming: I heard certain rumblings that I don't come out terribly well in this report of yours. Off the record, matey, am I fucked?

Julius: Off the record, and this is strictly between you, me and that ornamental gatepost over there, of course; the report is strictly confidential until publication. Haha, do you see what I've done there? The bald man has done a funny.

Steve Fleming: It's not funny. No, it's not funny at all, Julius.

Julius: (continuing to laugh) I beg to differ. I think I'm on sparkling form.

Steve Fleming: For fuck's sake! You FUCKING... Pontius Pilate, with the emphasis on PONCE!

Glenn (reading a headline about Steve and Julius on Times Online): 'Care to do another draft, Sir Whitewash?'

Ollie: What have The Mirror got?

Terri: 'Give us the bald facts?' Oh it's very rude that, isn't it: I was always taught never to make personal remarks about people.

Glenn: OK, listen up everybody, that was Gavin over at Number 10. He reckons that Steve Fleming has just joined the cabal.

Everyone: Ooh!

Terri: That's a complete disaster, there'll be nothing else on television for weeks.

Ollie: Where's Malcolm? Where's the dark knight in all this?

Glenn: Malcolm will have grabbed his false passport by now, he'll be on a plane to Brazil, and he's about to spend the rest of his days being the world's scariest dentist.

Nicola: Hello. You all right? You've got that 'cock in the cookie jar' look.

Ollie: He's back.

Nicola: Who? Barrymore?

Ollie: No.

Nicola: Clement Attlee? (realises) Oh fuck!

Ollie: Yes.

Nicola: Malcolm.

Ollie: Yes.

Nicola: Oh, no. God, he's gonna kill me. I was there when he was being sacked and he asked me for help, and I held out and now he's gonna want revenge isn't he? Fuck, fuck, fuck, it's gonna be like 'Kill Bill' or 'Get Carter', only it's gonna be 'Get and kill Nicola and then get Carter and Bill to fucking kill her too'!

Nicola: Malcolm.

Malcolm: Hey Nicola! How are you doing?

Nicola: You're back.

Malcolm: Yeah I'm just, you know, tying up a few loose ends.

Nicola: With which you're going to plait some kind of garotte and strangle me.

Malcolm: Forgive and forget. That's my motto.

Nicola: I thought your motto was 'Who fucks wins' or 'Honi soit qui Malc y fuck'.

Malcolm: I've got a lot of mottos. Don't take that job, Nicola.

Nicola: God, Malcolm –

Malcolm: The anti-Tom brigade are just waiting for the first piece to fall. If you resign, it's political fucking Jenga. You will cause a landslide that will bury this Government. And you'll keep the party in opposition until Daniel Radcliffe is advertising walk-in baths in the fucking People's Friend.

Julius: You...

Malcolm: Julius!

Julius: ...are a naughty bastard!

Malcolm Tucker: (Holding up Julius' report) Best thing I've read all year. It's the only thing, mind you.

Julius: You've done some pretty awful things to me in my time, but this takes the bloody biscuit. And you've pissed on that biscuit and I've got to eat it. Well, here's the news, Malcolm, I will not eat the pissy biscuit!

Malcolm: Sam, no pissy biscuits.

Malcolm: Are you off to clear your desk, Steve? Don't forget your lucky gonk, and your "World's Shittiest Dad" mug.

Steve Fleming: I'm going to resign from the Cabinet. And then, I'm going to join Dan Miller's team. (beat) I think we need a new leader. (walks off)

Malcolm: (following) Steve!

Steve Fleming: Oh, no, no, no!

Malcolm: Steve, don't you ever take up fucking poker, 'cause you're a crap liar.

Steve Fleming: I am gonna join Dan Miller's team and then we are gonna take you down; we are gonna take you down to funky town! Funky Town Centre, here you come! CHOO FUCKING CHOO!

Malcolm: Is this what you're threatening me with, fucking disco lights and a fucking choo-choo train? You're a joke, Steve!

Steve Fleming: (laughing) There's nothing you can do!

Malcolm: Steve!

Steve Fleming: Yeah?

Malcolm: There's one thing I can do!

Steve Fleming: What are you gonna do?

Malcolm: Yeah, wouldn't you like to know!

Steve Fleming: Who are you gonna meet? Who's your meeting with?

Malcolm: (walking off) Bye-bye!

Steve Fleming: I'M NOT FUCKING WORRIED, MATE! (walks down the corridor) Fuck him! Fuck him! Fuck him! Fuck him!

Stewart: All right now, listen up, my children of a lesser god, you will find a file marked 'Snap Election Drill' on the J drive. And if you don't know how to access the J drive, hand your pass in at reception, go and buy some silver body paint, and pretend to be a robot on the South Bank. Fly my pretties, fly!

Phil: (his phone rings) Stewart! Stewart, The Fucker's downstairs.

Stewart: No, he's not downstairs; if he were, I'd know about it, and if I knew about it, I would have vetoed it!

Emma: He is, and he is complete poison.

Peter: Ah, The Fucker! (to Stewart) And you thought he was just a myth created to frighten naughty MPs into eating all their truffles and swan.

Phil: Should I escort Stewart from the building, then?

Emma: Don't be such a fucking turncoat.

Cal Richards: Yes, Phillip, excellent idea. And while you're at it, could you do me another favour, please; could you find a hostel, go there, and take a fucking overdose of barbiturates?

(The Opposition have their first meeting with Cal "The Fucker" Richards)

Peter: I'm sensing a change in management styles from touchy-feely to smashy-testes.

Cal Richards: FUCK, THAT IS BRILLIANT!! THAT IS INSPIRED! WHAT SAUCE! GET IN! IT'S THE ECONOMY, STEWPOT! Fuck, what I REALLY need to do is to shoot you all in the back of the head! (imitating a gun) FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! But I can't, because it's illegal!

Terri (on the phone): I think we're just playing it in the wrong key. It's when we go, (sings at a low pitch) 'Red and yellow and blue' –

Nicola: What's she talking about?

Ollie: Oh. She's putting on her annual production of Joseph, in Hemel Hempstead. She doesn't license it ever because she considers Joseph to be public domain.

Terri: But I need to just pitch it a little higher. More like, (sings at a much higher pitch) 'Red and yellow and blue and green' –

Glenn: She's directing it. And starring.

Ollie: As Jacob.

Nicola: With a beard?

Ollie: Well, one assumes with a beard. Maybe she'll just let herself go for a couple of weeks, see what happens.

(Malcolm and Cal Richards are giving pre-election pep talks to their respective parties)

Malcolm: I know what people say to you, right? They say: 'We hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.' Everybody hates you. So fucking what? Some people, they just fucking love to hate. Some people, they'd fucking walk around the fucking Garden of Eden fucking moaning about the lack of fucking mobile reception. These are the kind of fucks who watched Mandela – fucking Nelson Mandela – walk to freedom, and said 'Is Diagnosis: Murder not on the other side?' So we fucking forget about them.

Cal Richards: This government has run this country into the ground. This used to be a green and pleasant land, now it's the colour of the fucking BBC Weather map. It looks like anaemic dogshit.

Malcolm: JB, Cal Richards, and their hordes of fucking robots, they're coming over the hill, towards us! And all you have got to do is this: bend down, pick up any fucking weapon you can, and twat the fuckery out of them –

Cal Richards: This government is maimed, but it can't be shamed. It will. Be. FUCKED!

Malcolm: Let's get out there, and let's fucking kill them, LET'S SET FIRE TO TEARS! Let's go! (all applaud and cheer) Come on! Let's go, yes!

Cal Richards: OK, let's get going.

Phil (to Emma): What do we do?

Cal Richards (on an office phone): What do I call for an outside line?

Emma: That was great, wasn't it?

Phil: What do we do?

Cal Richards: Is it 9, 'cause that's what it is everywhere else?

Cal Richards: (to an anonymous Opposition member of staff) Stop saying "Abingdon" to me, I want a fucking chocolate biscuit!

---

Peter: Yeah, for the first time in a decade, I can feel the old dog twitching to life.

Phil (Chinese accent): 'So sorry me! This election give me an erection.'

Peter: The old dog I was referring to was me.

(All DoSAC staff are leaving because of the election)

Terri: See you, Nicola! (to herself) Or not.

---

(deleted scene)

Ollie: Is this good, all this panic? I haven't seen Snakes on a Plane, but I imagine this is pretty much how people would react on finding their plane was brimming with snakes.

Nicola: Except Malcolm is the snakes, isn't he? I mean, this is more Snakes Not on a Plane.

---

(deleted scene)

Malcolm (walking into Steve's office): Steve! Look! I've made an unexpected comeback. Like Noel Edmonds or secondary cancer.

Steve Fleming: Don't get any ideas, Malcolm. I can cut you loose any time I like; I can toss you aside like an unwanted panettone, which, I warn you, is most panettones.

---

(deleted scene)

Cal Richards (giving his pre-election pep talk): Remember, this government is like going out with Madonna: at first you think, 'Result'; now we wake up every morning to see an increasingly crazed, craggy-faced egomaniac who jumps on every fucking passing bandwagon.

---

(deleted scene)

Terri (leaving an answerphone message): If you have any political enquiries, at any time, 24 hours a day, Oliver Reeder and Glenn Cullen will take –

Ollie: 24 hours a day? Fuck off. No, we're political advisors, we're not fucking prostitutes.

Terri: Well, you've spoilt it now.

Series 4, Episode 1

Terri: You're a very tidy man, aren't you?

Phil: 'There's no happiness without order.' It's a Nazi quote, but nonetheless stands the test of time.

---

Peter (on the phone): Oh, sorry darling, I've gotta go, I think the bailiffs are coming to take away my will to live.

---

(explaining to Fergus and Adam why Peter is launching their Silicon Playgrounds policy)

Stewart: You see, Coalition's like a band, guys, yeah, and every band has a frontman. He's Florence and you're – well, you're The Machine.

Stewart (at Peter's office door): Ah, Peter. I'm expecting great things!

Peter: Then you're an idiot.

Stewart: Laters, legislators. (leaves)

Peter (looking at Fergus's policy): The only way this policy launch could be worse is if I understood the bloody thing.

Glenn (walking in with a file which he dumps on Phil): Right, I'm gonna put the old tea-cauldron on! Anybody fancy a brew?

(They all ignore him. During Emma's line, he gives up and leaves.)

Emma: Peter, risk of sounding like your mum: time for school. You need to get to this meeting.

Peter: I hate schoolchildren, they're volatile and stupid and they haven't got the vote. Might as well be talking to fucking geese.

Terri: Before you go, I do really need a comment, I'm sorry, on this Tickel protest, please.

Peter: OK: 'As we enter the third week, I find Mr Tickle's attention-seeking tent-based twattery even more annoying than weeks one and two.'

Terri: Can't actually say that.

Peter: Really? Oh then by implication you know what you can say, so say that instead.

Fergus Williams: Well you can't stop me, Terri! OK? I want you to know, YOU CANNOT WIN, NURSE RATCHED, because this is my moment! Now, you like musicals: well this is Tonight from West Side Story, yeah? And I'm going to bring the bloody house down, so you can't Rain on my Parade, Funny Girl. Why don't you go and have a lie-down and a Hobnob while we run the fucking country, all right?

(Peter, Phil, and Emma are in the car to the policy launch)

Fergus: Does he understand the policy? Forgive my concern, but it's a bit like asking if a dog can grasp the concept of Norway.

Terri (on the phone to Emma): We have a question: does he understand the – Oh, she's hung up! Ever the charmless minor royal.

Peter: And I keep a straight face, do I, when I say to a room full of frogspawn, 'Upload your future'?

Emma: You know, that sounds great! No pronunciation traps. 'Cause you know what happened to the Chancellor, don't you, at the BRITs? 'Tinny' Tempah?

Phil: Well, it could have been worse, I heard he opened his stag do speech with 'my niggaz'.

Peter: Why is it that Silicon Valley is in America when we have so many net-savvy tech-heads here? They may have the silicon chip, but we have the silicon chap. And of course, chapesses. Er, and we want you to design game apps for use in the classroom.

Emma: Sorry, sorry to interrupt: erm, it's not game apps, we're actually looking for educational apps.

Peter: Er, of course. That's why I'm here to say: I call you up. App. I, I Call App Britain. Yes. And everyone will benefit, not financially, er, not cash in hand, of course: all profits will be stored as part of a digital dividend, which –

Raj: 'Scuse me, are you saying that if I wrote an app I wouldn't get any money for it? I would be working for free?

Peter: If you don't mind we'll keep the Q&A to the end. What I wanted to emphasise –

Charlotte: Sorry, er, why can't you just answer him now?

Teacher: Charlotte.

Charlotte: Well, the other lady was allowed to interrupt.

Peter: Yes, but she's my lady. (everyone laughs except Emma) Er, what was your question again?

Raj: Why won't we profit from this?

Peter: Oh, but you would! Er, maybe I didn't explain it properly. What's your name?

Raj: Rajesh.

Peter: I'm sorry?

Raj: Rajesh, Raj.

Peter: Well, er, Rajesh Raj – (the students laugh) Oh, right. (chuckles) Well, er, what I, what I wanted to say is that, that you would, er, profit, that any profits you made would be offset against tuition fees –

Charlotte: Sorry, we don't believe in tuition fees.

Peter: Well, erm, what's your –

Charlotte: Charlotte.

Peter: Oh, well, that's an easier one.

Emma (to Phil): Fuck me, I feel like I've just been pushed out of a plane.

Raj: I make apps. I sell them through Apple and I get paid for it.

Peter: Good for you, Ra– er, good for you, but with us, you let us license it as part of the Networked Nation policy. We all put in, you see –

Raj: What do you put into the Networked Nation?

Peter: Well, er, I am – a Minister.

Raj: But what do you actually do?

Peter: I take the, the – science that, that you made earlier, and I – apply it, in – scenarios that are – cost-effective.

Peter: Well at least I got 'I Call App Britain' right.

Phil: Thankfully with only a modicum of the contempt you used just now.

Emma: 'Hooray, you got the title right! Let's get the driver to do some victory doughnuts.' You're gonna have to issue an apology, you know.

Peter: I'm not going back there and saying, 'Oh, that moment when I mistook an abbreviation of your name for your surname: sorry.' I'll look completely mental.

Phil: You can't apologise for a fart you did a day ago.

Emma: No, you're gonna have to apologise for the follow-up as well. 'Charlotte, that's an easier name.'

Peter: But it is! That's a fact, not a judgement!

---

(after being confronted by journalists outside his home, Peter gets into his car)

Peter (to his driver): Run those fuckers over. Fifty quid for every one you maim.

Peter (shouting at Fergus on his return to DoSAC): Thanks a fucking bunch, mate! I couldn't have looked more of a twat, unless I'd announced it dressed as a mermaid with scallops on my tits!

---

Stewart: Drinking champagne in the middle of the day during a recession. Who do you think you are, P. Diddy?

Peter: It was a half-bottle, on my thirtieth anniversary, and I was recycling it; at least give me credit for that!

Stewart: Oh right, no, sorry Peter, yeah, I take it all back. About as strong a defence as 'the fertiliser in my homemade bomb was organic'!

---

Stewart: What was the word I used this morning?

Peter: Oh, you used a lot of words this morning, it was like a fucking Will Self lecture.

Stewart: What was the word I used?

Fergus: Coalition?

Stewart: Boom! So you will go to the learning centre where you will re-explain Silicon Playgrounds with Peter, who will make an abject grovelling apology for being both a digi-tard and an elderly racist.

Fergus: So first you take the policy away from me for Peter to screw up, then you take salvaging the policy away from me for Peter to screw up. Good, yeah, that's just great.

Peter: I'm bored of this, I'm going for a Twix. (leaves)

Peter (storming out of his office): She's NOT on the FUCKING LIST! (enters Fergus's office) Will you please tell me why Terri Coverley is not on this list?

Fergus: Sorry Peter, she's too expensive to get rid of.

Peter: Oh Christ, Fergus, we both know she's a fart in a frock and I want her wafted out of here.

Fergus (smiling): My hands are tied.

Peter: Fuck you! You're not getting in my car tonight. (leaves)

Glenn: What a very principled stand you're taking.

Fergus: Yep, but did you see how stressed Mannion was there? Soon he'll be so weak and disorientated he'll stagger off in the night like a tramp who's stood up too quickly.

Peter (on the phone): No, I don't think today is our entire marriage in a nutshell. Well, we had champagne, and your sister wasn't there.

---

Phil (to Adam): You're getting a coffwee: coffee with wee in it.

(deleted scene)

Peter (on the phone to his wife): Champagne looks bad, PR-wise. I might as well be seen urinating through the letterbox of a closed-down library.

---

(deleted scene)

Terri: Right, I'd better get on. Sometimes I think I never stop working.

Phil: You leave at 5:40!

Terri: One last thing.

Phil: Yes, Columbo?

Terri: The staff cuts. What do you know?

Phil: Ah, I see, that's what this whole chat's been about, has it, mental pickpocketing?

Terri: You see, you don't need to tell me: I'll just list off a few names. You do that girly flicky thing with your hair, OK?

Phil: Bye, Terri.

Terri: Was that it, was that code? Am I going?

Phil: No, I'm telling you to fuck off.

---

(deleted scene)

Raj: What do you actually do?

(quiet laughter from the students)

Peter: I am the, er, Secretary of State for Social Affairs a-and Citizenship.

Phil: It's a bit like being the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch? Er, you watch Game of Thrones, yeah?

Raj: This is bullshit!

(the students laugh)

Teacher: Hey, quiet now – quiet! Raj, that language is unacceptable, OK?

Peter: I'll say, you – you wouldn't use that kind of language in front of your extended family.

Students (shocked): Oh!

Emma: Oh my good God, I cannot believe childbirth is more painful than this.

---

(deleted scene)

Adam: We have to distance ourself from this now.

Fergus: Right, OK, I'll call Terri and get her up to speed.

Adam: Terri is never up to speed. She's stuck in neutral in a fucking rainy car park listening to Ken Bruce.

Glenn (on his phone): Who told you I was the guru? Terri Coverley, right, thank you. Well, I am the guru of the policy, but I'm not the guru of the colossal gang of Henrys who tried to explain it just now.

---

(deleted scene)

Peter (to Raj): Yes, well, for you, App-ortunity Knocks.

Fergus (to Raj, quietly): It's a show, it's like Britain's Got Talent, from his era.

Series 4, Episode 2

Ollie: Right, sorry to interrupt you at this very sad time, but we do have Prime Minister's Questions in one hour.

Nicola: No it's fine, I've got the lead question, I've got the follow-up sarcastic question and I've got the withering put-down, so I'm prepped, I'm fucking prepped.

Ollie: Yep. You'll walk rings round him.

---

Ben: The Leader of the Opposition is in that room, Malcolm, practising walking. I mean, baby horses can walk from the womb, she's one-nil down to a pony.

Malcolm: A pony isn't a baby horse, it's a foal, a fucking foal is a baby horse.

Ben: Right, our guest tonight on 'I Don't Give a Fuck about Baby Horses' is me. But we need to do something about Nicola, Malcolm, I mean, you know about her plan – I mean, Nicola with a plan, that's like a toddler with a harpoon, there's a toddler wandering around in that office with a harpoon.

Malcolm: Yes, well, don't you worry about Nicola's plan. I'll deal with that, Sweaty Betty – Listen, when you wake up in the morning you've got a routine, haven't you?

Ben: Big shit, granola, check the email, shower and a shave, Nespresso, sometimes a second shit.

Malcolm: Exactly. You have a plan: that's good. Nicola has a plan: that's not good. But I have a plan: that's fucking great.

---

Malcolm (seeing Nicola bend down in front of the photocopier): Oh, that's very moving: 'They shall not grow old, who photocopy their arses at the Christmas do'.

---

(Brainstorming a buzzword for do-gooder members of the public)

Ollie: They're commuters, they are the street-pounders, street – walkers, um –

Nicola: You can't call them streetwalkers.

Ollie: They're the people who deal with the little stuff, erm – Wombles, Honest Wombles, Everyday Wombles?

Malcolm: Sorry, I've just got to take a call.

Nicola: Erm, straights.

Ollie: No!

Nicola: No. No, of course, sorry.

Helen: Commuting champions.

Nicola: Interrai– human interrailers –

Ollie: Human interrailers? That's interrailers. Er, everyday superstars, all British supremes –

Malcolm: That sounds like a racist tribute band.

Nicola: Ordinary people, with something special about them, with a special power.

Ollie: Please don't say special. Don't say special.

Nicola: No but – you know, but like sup– people as superheroes.

Ollie: Ironpeople, Spiderpeople. Wolfpeople.

Nicola: They're just regular citizens, but they have this – that one special quality that makes them like Batman, or Batpeople. Erm, Quiet Batpeople.

Malcolm: (glaring) Quiet Batpeople?

Malcolm: She's going to have to fall on her sword, which means that we are gonna have to stick one in the ground, trip her up onto it and get somebody to jump up and down on her back for ten minutes.

Malcolm: Reshuffle: don’t send Ben to the back-benches, he’ll just wank and eat Pringles, leather seats are an invitation to men like him.

Nicola: Before we finish, I just want to throw one more pebble into the thought pool.

Ben: Ploop.

Nicola: Sorry Ben, I missed that?

Ben: Just I'm sorry, I just, I said 'ploop', it's just the noise of a pebble.

---

(A photographer has managed to take a picture of Helen's 'Quiet Batpeople' notes)

Nicola: Quiet Batpeople on every fucking paper!

Malcolm: Right, this is a wake-up call. And by the way, Helen, the next time you want to make Nicola look like a clown with her fucking hair on fire in a Zumba class, why don't you just take your notes down to Snappy Snaps and get them blown up to gigantic charity cheque size, so the partially sighted can be in on the fucking gag?

Malcolm Tucker: It's time for you to step up Ollie. What's that film that you love?

Ollie: What film?

Malcolm: The one about the fucking hairdresser, the space hairdresser and the cowboy. The guy, he's got a tin foil pal and a pedal bin. His father's a robot and he's fucking fucked his sister. Lego! They're all made of fucking Lego.

Ollie: Star Wars?

Malcolm: That's the one, right. It's like that, okay? Where you fucking kill all the bad guys, and you'll be able to blow up the big –

Ollie: Death Star.

Malcolm: The Death Star thing. Then you can go and live happily ever after on the planet of the teddy bears.

Ollie: They're Ewoks, they're Ewoks. It's a fantastic analogy, well done.

Ben: Malcolm, could I have a couple of words please?

Malcolm: Political lightweight? Making up the numbers? Sorry that's four isn't it?

Dan: So, your loyalty to Nicola is –

Malcolm: Unwavering. Right up to the point that –

Dan: Someone challenges her?

Malcolm: Not necessary: she's going to kick her own head in, which will be easy for her because she does yoga. No, we just need somebody to hold her jacket while she commits political hara-kiri, and sweep in unopposed, being careful not to tread in the mess.

Dan: So you think – I should challenge her?

Malcolm: What the fuck is this, Tinker Tailor Soldier Cunt? Do you, or do you not, want to be the next leader of this party?

Dan: Yes.

Malcolm: Right, well, she needs to fuck off in eight months, so it looks like we're giving her a chance. I will teach you the way of tears and love, my friend; now, let's get out of this fucking cupboard before Ben Swain comes in for his lunchtime wank.

Malcolm (putting his glasses on to read Ollie's phone): What is this tiny font? Is it to match your subatomic thoughts?

(Malcolm and Ben, and separately Ollie and Helen, are watching Nicola at the Remembrance Sunday ceremony on TV)

Malcolm: You're right, she can't fucking walk.

Ben: I mean, should we get a pony to challenge her?

Malcolm: It's not a fucking pony, it's a fucking foal.

Ben: Sorry.

Helen: I don't understand how you can get that wrong.

Ollie: It's this: (demonstrates) de-de-clunk!

Helen: She is officially a Ceno-twat.

Ollie: Fabulous work, sister. Bury her in a grave. The Unknown Leader.

Helen: I can't watch: I feel a bit sick.

Ollie: I just hope there is no afterlife, because if people fought and died for this, it is going to seem even more ridiculously futile.

Ben (to Malcolm): Why d'you know so much about horses, anyway? I thought you were raised by wolves.

---

(deleted scene)

(during the Quiet Batpeople brainstorming)

Ollie: Wombles, Honest Wombles, Everyday Wombles?

Helen: Right, OK, obviously, you know, we're not gonna block anything 'cause this is a think-thoughting session, erm –

Malcolm: Sorry, I've just got to take a call.

Ollie: Think-thoughting, Helen, is what we call, in the real world, thinking. It's the same. Am I say-speaking out of turn? Have I not understood-comprehended you?

Helen: I don't know, I tuned you out a bit.

---

(deleted scene)

Ollie: Hiya, I thought you were bollocking Dan Miller.

Malcolm: Oh, I am. (to the empty chair next to him) Look at you! You bourgeois, fucking side-parted twat, you flap that bammed-up nutcrease of yours again, and I will fuck you so deep, that if you're not drowned in the blizzard of jizz, your rectum will become the biggest fucking indoor venue in fucking Europe.

Ollie: Are you OK?

Malcolm: Sit down.

---

(deleted scene)

Malcolm (to Ollie): This is monkey typewriter stuff. There's not even a fucking infinite amount of monkeys with an infinite amount of time with an infinite amount of typewriters that'll produce the words, 'Nicola Murray, PM'.

---

(deleted scene)

Ben: How do you know so much about horses, anyway? I thought you were raised by wolves.

Malcolm: I don't know anything about horses, apart from that a grown-up one's a fucking horse and a baby one's a foal. And why are you eating my biscuits?

Ben: I don't know, I found them on here. There's one left.

Malcolm: They are big wreaths.

Ben: It's like a toilet seat, isn't it? I mean, it's not, it's lovely.

Malcolm: What size of a wreath would you need for a nuclear war?

Ben: There wouldn't be anyone left to put it on the Cenotaph, would there? It'd be carried along by cockroaches or whatever it is they say'll survive.

Malcolm: Yeah.

Series 4, Episode 3

(in the car, on the way to Thought Camp)

Peter: Where are you taking us, Stewart? This Mind Kampf is in the middle of nowhere.

Stewart: Thought Camp, Peter, and isolation is the mother of renewal. We shall retreat to go forwards.

Emma: Terrible signal! Phil sounded like he was phoning in a report on an African coup.

---

(Glenn and Phil are alone in the DoSAC building)

Glenn: Yeah, well, we've got the whole palace to ourselves, eh? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!

Phil: Yeah, but very much alive. Well, one of us.

---

Stewart (to party staff arriving at Thought Camp): OK people, abandon phones, all ye who enter here. And watches too: time is a leash on the dog of ideas.

---

Stewart: OK lovely people, let's go truffling in the forest of knowledge.

Stewart: OK people, I'd like to start this session with a question: when is a party not a party?

Peter: When it's at your house?

(quiet laughter)

Emma (quietly, annoyed): Peter!

Stewart: A party is not a party when it is plural. (brings up a slide of a woman on her phone in a crowd) There she is, the party, singular: she thinks like you, she votes like you, she is not you, and yet of course, she is you.

Peter (to himself, sighing): I feel like I've joined the Scientologists.

---

Stewart: OK, let's McIntyre this: stand up.

---

(Glenn is bringing a tray of coffee and biscuits into Fergus's office)

Adam: Glenn, you're a marvel, you know, you're like a modern-day Jeeves. Only not modern. Day. You're like Jeeves, but only not as good.

(Discussing potential new Leaders of the Opposition)

Stewart: OK, let's architecturalise this, yeah?

Peter: Oh, don't bother. If it's Ben Swain, we all shout Sweaty Swain as he dehydrates himself through PMQs. Holhurst looks like a shepherd dressed up to meet the Queen, and if it's Dan Miller we're fucked.

---

(Phil believes that Adam and Fergus are working on a policy behind Peter's back. He runs to Fergus's office.)

Phil: Right, that's enough. Stop, stop, stop! I demand an explanation.

Adam: Sorry, Phil, we're busy. Maybe come back in, I don't know, 2017?

Phil: As Peter's representative, it's as though you lied to him. That's not good, probably illegal.

Adam: If you want to see something probably illegal, pass me that fucking stapler over there!

Tara Strachan: Er, listen, is there a problem with me being here?

Phil: Yes, you're not supposed to be here, the minister is unaware that you're here, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave.

Adam: Oh right, so she's a security risk? Oh no no no! I'd forgotten: you're not allowed within 50 feet of most women.

Phil: How do you explain this, then? (waves his arm in and out of Adam's personal space) I'm within 50 feet of you. Hahaha. You're a woman.

Adam: Oh, brilliant. That is really good.

(They stop bickering when they hear Glenn)

Glenn: (offscreen) FUCK! TICKLE'S DEAD!

Phil: Oh shit...!

Adam: Jesus...!

(Phil, Fergus and Adam run to the TV, where Glenn is watching BBC News)

Glenn: Oh God, he's killed himself, suicide. He used a car exhaust.

Phil: Hey, classic: the Bohemian Rhapsody of suicide.

Glenn: Oh, Phil, for fuck's sake!

Phil: What have we just green-lit?

Adam: Well, we are starting a community bank with £2 billion.

Phil: Right, is that the £2 billion we keep in the biscuit tin?

(Phil, sitting in Peter's office chair, has just left a voicemail for Emma)

Glenn (entering): Have you got any of them yet?

Phil: No, everyone's ignoring me. It's like the first year of university all over again. Fuck it, the whole of university! (Peter's office phone rings) Jesus. (answers) Hello? No, I can categorically say that Peter Mannion will not be resigning over this. Thank you. (hangs up)

Terri (entering): Who was that?

Phil: World At One. I handled it.

Terri: You don't handle The World At One, Phil, they're not stolen goods. Now listen, if you want to go and play phones, you can go down to the crèche where there's a big phone with big boggly eyes that go round and round when you wheel it about. Now piddle off!

(Phil leaves. Terri sits down in Peter's chair)

Glenn: We've got to put something out there, Terri.

Terri: That boy is a simpleton. Two hundred years ago, they wouldn't have let him milk a cow. (phones a journalist) Jonty! Terri here over at Hectic House. (laughing) No! No, Peter's not resigning!

Female party worker: Free apples! [throws ball]

Everyone: Yes and ho!

Male party worker: Uh, free coffins. [throws ball]

Everyone: Yes and ho!

Peter: Reduce the deficit with spending cuts.

Everyone except Stewart: Yes and ho!

Stewart: Peter, Peter, I want to hear new ideas ricocheting off your synapses like a pinball, not just a two year old slogan.

Peter: Okay, Doctor Jazz, let's hear it. [throws ball]

Stewart: We do away with computers.

Everyone except Peter: Yes and h-

Peter: You idiot! That's fucking mental!

Stewart: No blocking, Peter, only counterpoint. Do away with computers, what do we think? How will it affect us? Good idea? Bad idea?

Peter: Good idea for me, I wouldn't get anymore of your fucking emails. [Peter gets up]

Stewart: Try and stay cross-legged if you can, but don't break the circle...

Peter: I'm 54, Stewart. My knees are fucked and my patience is snapped. Some of us had to go through this hippy shit the first time around.

Stewart: I'm not talking about trying to sell it to the electorate, Peter. I'm talking about exploring it within the free space of the circle.

Peter: Okay, give me the ball. Give me the ball! Give me the ball. [Peter tries to wrestle the ball of Stewart]

Stewart: No!

Peter: Give me... give me the FUCKING ball, Stewart! [grabs the ball] Let's do away with you.

Stewart: What?

Peter: Filter's off, daddy-o! Let it all hang out! Just suppose your free-range no-consequence bullshit was hugely entertaining when we were in opposition and shitting money, but now we're in government and it's all gone a bit J.G. Ballard, it's irrelevant and infantile!

Stewart: Oh, very droll, Peter.

Peter: Oh, and maybe the reason you don't mind handing your phone in is that it doesn't ring as much as it used to. Oh, sorry; doesn't ring as much as it used to, yes and ho.

---

Glenn: Want the opinion of an old lag? Mannion will have to go.

Phil: Stick to 'policemen are getting younger', Glenn. Peter's going nowhere, and I don't mean that in a Glenn's career kind of way.

Glenn: I've seen a lot of people resign, and they're always happier afterwards.

Phil: You're thinking of lobotomies. Peter resigns over my dead body.

Glenn: Yes. Yes, that would be the ideal scenario.

---

(wondering why they have been called away from the Thought Camp)

Emma: It's probably just Phil, he'll have run out of colouring books or something.

Peter: Anything to get out of Stewart's think sphincter.

---

(In the car back to London from Thought Camp, Phil hands Peter a rainbow tie)

Peter: What's that? I'm supposed to be commenting on a suicide, not a fucking camel race!

Phil: I thought it would balance out the bad news. You know, yin-yang. Jon Snow does it.

Stewart (on his phone): I want Tickle's movements over the last 24 hours, and I want his complete mental health records since he first sat on a potty.

Peter: Do you think you might need one or two computers for that, Stewart?

---

Peter: This is great, isn't it, Stewart? A conference on crisis management that's been scuppered by an actual fucking crisis.

Phil: We don't even know why he killed himself yet. I mean, suicide, it's pathetic! At least take some of your enemies with you, that's a noble death.

Emma: This is going completely nuts, so many questions being asked!

Stewart: Yes, starting with "Why did Phil bring a tie from the '90s?"

Phil: Yeah, don't panic, I brought an alternative. (shows Peter a black tie)

Peter: But that's too far the other way!

Stewart: It makes him look guilty.

Phil: How can he be guilty? He's got the perfect alibi, he was at boot camp.

Peter: Oh!

Emma: Brilliant, let's release that, hey? 'There's no actual blood on his hands and he remembered to wipe the fingerprints off the knife!'

Phil (showing Peter his tie): Look, you can wear my tie, what about mine?

Peter: What's on your tie?

Phil: Tintin moon rockets.

Peter: Oh, for fuck's sake.

Stewart: God, it amazes me you ever found your way out of your mother's womb.

Stewart: Terri, poppet, can you send me out a cry-mail, 'We give a toss, we're sorry for your loss', yeah? Peter, we might need to relaunch the trousers. And get him a tie, a bland one; Glenn, one of yours, yeah?

(Phil goes to get Glenn's tie)

Fergus: Er, Peter, I have a bit of news I should probably make you aware of.

Peter: Yes I do know, Fergus, a man with an amusing name has died.

Fergus: Er, no, actually, it's that this morning I, well, I set up a community bank.

Emma: ... What?

Peter: You did what? You s– You set up a bank?

Phil (returning with Glenn's tie): I had a moment of weakness and they exploited it, like Hugh Grant.

Fergus: Yeah, well, we didn't really have much choice 'cause it was all going to piss in a kettle here, so we had to get the economist out of the way.

Peter: What are you talking about? What economist?

Fergus: Well, we were having a preliminary meeting when Phil started to cry, Glenn was having a meltdown, it was getting embarrassing!

Peter: You bought a bank out of social embarrassment? I sometimes buy The Big Issue out of social embarrassment, I don't buy a fucking bank!

Fergus: Peter, this is so fucking us.

Stewart: Yeah, let me just wind back, right? Let's get this straight, just so that I can deal with you two properly: how much is this bank?

Fergus and Adam: Well, two billion.

Emma: Two billion?

Stewart: Sweet Tracey Emin!

Adam: Alright, don't need to shit yourself about it, because we're not buying it. OK? It's funded by taxes.

Emma: Oh, that's alright then!

Peter: Oh great, the triple! I'm a nurse-killer, a banker, and now I'm raising fucking TAXES?

Fergus: Well, you are meant to be the bad cop, so what's our out?

(Phil drapes Glenn's tie around Peter's neck)

Peter: You're giving me an actual noose along with a metaphorical one. TROUSERS!

Phil: Sorry, I'm getting the trousers – (interrupted by an alert on his phone) Jesus! What were you guys doing at the hotel? There's a picture of you on a slide, it's been tweeted by a golfer.

Emma: (looks at the photo) Oh, f–

Stewart (receiving Phil's phone): No no no no no no.

Phil: It's gonna go big, probably viral. Bigger than Charlie Bit My Finger.

Adam: You look like the Shit Family Robinson.

(Stewart suddenly screams and hurls Phil's phone at the wall, narrowly missing Emma)

Emma: Jesus Christ!

Terri: Shit!

(Stewart storms off)

Adam: Oh, poor Stewart. I think a bit of his brain broke.

Phil: My phone broke! I was up to Warlock General in Dragonlance! A year of my life, gone.

Fergus: Er, Peter, speaking of socially embarrassing situations, what the fuck were you doing being photographed on a slide?

Peter: It was the only place we could get a FUCKING SIGNAL!

Fergus: Two grown men in a playground, that's a pretty 'clear signal'.

Peter (to Emma): You've turned into the wrong Mitford sister.

Adam: It's like there's a little twelve-year-old boy, in a suit, with a fucking light-sabre on his desk - don't think I don't know it's there - running this department while Mannion's away, it's a fucking joke!

Phil: No it's not! Have you ever seen Game of Thrones Season 2?

Adam No!

Phil: Or Anakin Skywalker, he was young! Frodo, in his thirties, still young for a hobbit! I'm in charge because I'm a Jedi and you're a fucking Ewok.

Glenn: Right, what is the Ewok stand on this?

Fergus: I'm in fucking charge, and I'm going Nordic drama.

Adam: I bet you line up all your action figures along the edge of your bath don't you?

Phil: One: I've got a shower, and two: they're still in their boxes!

---

Phil (to Glenn): You're the last VHS in Oxfam. They won't take them anymore, I've tried. Series 1 to 5 of The X-Files, nothing, can't give them away.

Series 4, Episode 4

Malcolm: (on the phone) Sam, hi, listen, can you do me a favour? Buy some flowers for Nicola fucking Murray. Yeah, have them delivered to her home this evening with a card that says: "Sorry you had to go, but let's face it, you are a fucking waste of skin". Waste of skin, yeah.

---

Ollie (answers his mobile): Hi Mum. Yeah, a bit sore –

Malcolm (entering Ollie's room): Here she is, Britain's latest post-op transsexual. How did they do that, did they actually manage to graft one on? (briefly lifts up Ollie's bedsheet)

Ollie: I'll call you back, Mum. (hangs up) It's the scary Morrissey!

Malcolm (throws Ollie some flowers): I've come to cheer you up.

Ollie: Did you actually buy me flowers, Malcolm?

Malcolm: No no no, it's one of the many advantages of living close to an accident blackspot.

---

Malcolm: So have you seen this? (holds up the Guardian, which leads with an interview with Steve Fleming)

Ollie (reads the headline): "Nicola Murray is 'unelectable'"?

Malcolm (throws Ollie the paper): Fleming is foaming.

Ollie: Is that it then, is she fucked?

Malcolm: Like Caligula's favourite watermelon. Fleming's fired the starting pistol so we can all start firing our actual pistols into her fucking fat unelectable smug head.

---

Ollie: So wait, today's the day?

Malcolm: Today's the day. Once she's on the train, I'm going to detonate the main bomb, but I need you to set one off later.

Ollie (laughing): Malcolm, I'm in hospital, I'm not wearing any pants!

Malcolm: I don't care if you've been dead for a year and playing cribbage with Jimmy fucking Savile. I want you to make a bomb and explode it, today.

Ollie (confused): This is a metaphorical bomb, right?

Malcolm: This is it, Jack fucking Bauer. Time for you to embrace your inner bastard.

---

Nicola: I'm not going to exploit a suicide.

Malcolm: Come on, you can't look a gift corpse in the mouth, you should be taking that corpse and slapping the Government about the face with it. Bit of slap with Tickle, yeah?

Nicola: No, I'm not doing it, it's insensitive, as was that.

---

Nicola: Erm, John, maybe –

John Duggan: Please, call me JD, I've rebranded.

Nicola: Right. So John, if you could get us some drinks, that would be great.

John Duggan: Abso-dutely, I could murder a lager! It's all right drinking on trains, isn't it, it's one of those places where alcohol is acceptable at any time of day, like a casino, or Cardiff. That's not racist. I could have said Glasgow, or Dublin.

Nicola: Fucking fibroid polyp bitch! I hope they sprout out of her abdomen and fucking choke her.

---

Ben (to two colleagues): Yeah, it's a Nigella recipe, you sort of do it with gammon and Coca-Cola. That's fantastic.

Malcolm: Ah, the hairless Hagrid. I need a private word.

Ben: Yeah, we're kind of in the middle of something.

Malcolm (to Ben's colleagues): I need you lot to make like a tree and go fuck yourselves.

Ben: Yeah, we'll pick this up later.

Malcolm (seeing Ben's empty desk): Oh I'm sorry, I can come back if you're – I didn't realise you were so fucking busy.

Ben: Well, I could do some work, but you know what, we're still gonna lose.

Malcolm: Hey hey hey. Don't be so grim, you big quim. You are the future of this party, yeah? You are the next generation.

Ben: And you're in its past, I mean – I don't really know why you're still here, Malcolm.

Malcolm: I just want to see this thing turn around, right? I can't leave while we're getting fucked in the polls, and we're getting fucked consistently and repeatedly like a horse in the fucking Hebrides.

---

(Malcolm wants Ben to resign from the Shadow Cabinet)

Malcolm: You are doing this for the greater good of the party. As Deputy Leader, Dan Miller will take over, and he can be anointed at a later date.

Ben: So, you want me to stick my cock in a fan so that Dan Miller can become the next Prime Minister? Well fuck you very much, Malcolm. What do I get out of this?

Malcolm: I would not ask you to do this for nothing, would I?

Ben: You might.

Malcolm: I'm asking you, because you're a big fucking beast. Which is why, when you come back, it'll be as Foreign Secretary.

Ben: And you mean Foreign Secretary, that isn't code for, like, Northern Ireland, I'm not fucking going there.

Malcolm: This is the proper Foreign Secretary, with all the perks. Fuck-off breakfasts at Dubai hotels. Tours of secret Russian sex yachts.

Ben: All right! All right, I'll do it. And you know what? I'd have done it for a lot less.

Malcolm (to a hospital receptionist): I'm looking for Mr. Oliver Reeder, he looks a bit like a Quentin Blake illustration.

Nicola: God, this is absolutely ridiculous. We so should have sat separately in first!

Helen: You can't go in first class, it's career suicide. You might as well do a shit in the aisle.

---

Ollie: So you know all this stuff with Mr Tickle?

Glenn: Sad business.

Ollie: Very sad business.

Glenn: Yeah. Mr Sad is actually very very sad about it.

Ollie: Yes. Mr Happy, on the other hand: fucking delighted!

Glenn: Yeah? Mr Stoic's taking it on the chin.

Ollie: Yes! Mr Milk-it says we should probably stop this now.

Glenn: Okey doke.

---

Nicola (returning to her seat): Right, wee mission accomplished.

John Duggan: Actually, having an accurate wee into a moving train toilet would make a great round on The Cube with Phillip Schofield.

---

Glenn (entering the toilet): Ollie, come on, this is my shittiest lunch break I've had since Stewart took us all out for sushi.

Ollie: Patience, old man, and you can watch the fuckpuppet master at work now. (calls Ben) Ben Swain! Benign tumour, Bental illness!

Ben: Ol– Oliver Cyst, Olivetti – Spaghet– I don't really have time for chit-chat, Ollie.

Ollie: Are you resigning, mate, are you dropping the R-bomb? Benola Gay? I'm not just, er, talking about the rumours.

Ben: Let's just say it is time to prepare the hidey-hole for Madame Hussein, her reign of error is over.

Ollie: And out of interest, Ben, what would it take to stop you from resigning?

Ben: Why, what's Nicola offering?

Ollie: Name your price!

Ben: All right. Shadow Chancellor.

(Ollie laughs. Glenn barely stops himself from doing so as well.)

Ollie: Ah, you still got it, Benny.

Ben: I'm serious, stop fucking laughing.

Ollie: All right, I'll call you back. (hangs up)

Glenn: This is a fucking joke! Ben Swain, Chancellor? He goes into debt every time he passes a sweet shop!

Malcolm (answering his phone): What have you got for me, Professor Brian Cock?

Ollie: Ben small-balled it. Nicola's offered him Shadow Chancellor, he's not resigning.

Malcolm: Christ in a diamond heist, the dopey fucking bollard. Right, how are you getting on with the old man from Up?

(Glenn is waiting outside the toilet)

Ollie: Yeah, you know, getting there.

Malcolm: Well, get a move on. I want him leaking like Cliff Richard out jogging.

Ollie: Right. OK. I'll be right on it. (hangs up)

Malcolm (entering Ben's office): Oh, here she is. Pippa Middleton, trying to steal the limelight with your peachy little arse. Right, where are we?

Dan: Well, I've just offered Ben here Deputy Leadership of the party.

Ben: I don't want it. I want Chancellor.

Malcolm (surprised): Chancellor? Of the United Kingdom?

Ben: Yeah, it's what Nicola's offering me.

Malcolm: Are you sure about this Ben, how's your economics?

Ben: Good, strong.

Malcolm: What, you're a PPE-er guy?

Ben: No, History of Art, but –

Malcolm: Oh right, so you are confident that one day you will be able to shepherd this country out of one of the darkest economic periods in its entire fucking art history?

Ben: Look, at the moment, I hold all the cards, including the card that tells you how to play, so – so it's over. The fat lady's singing.

Malcolm: No she's not. The fat man from the GoCompare adverts is talking.

Ben: This is tiger-by-the-tail time and I'm loving it, loving it, loving it!

Dan: Oh, in that case you leave me no option, Ben, I'm gonna have to say yes.

Ben: Oh, Chumba-fucking-wamba! Then I resign on the dotted line.

Malcolm: Can you give us a minute, Ben, please? Dan and I need to talk some strategy.

Ben: Might head in the direction of confection; any snack-age, anyone?

Dan: No, no.

(Ben leaves)

Malcolm: Is this for real?

Dan: No, of course it's not for real, Malcolm. I'm offering him Chancellor, but I might as well be offering him bass player in The Wurzels, because that burly haemorrhoid's getting nowhere near any fucking cabinet of mine.

Malcolm: Good, so how are you gonna shaft him?

Dan: That's not my problem. That's your problem, Malcolm.

Malcolm: Right, so this is a little test, is it, you're weighing my balls?

(Dan nods and smiles.)

Dan: Should we get Ben?

Malcolm: Oh, he'll be back. Like the shit Terminator. (Ben returns) There he is.

---

Ben: I hereby tweet, 'I have resigned. More to follow.' Didn't seem that momentous.

Malcolm: How many followers have you got?

Ben: 612, or thereabouts.

Malcolm: Christ, well let's hope it gets retweeted, otherwise you might as well just whisper it to a fucking dead tramp.

---

Malcolm: These phones are amazing, aren't they? I've got an application here that can throw grenades into people's dreams.

Malcolm: Right, come on, folks, gather round, grab your cheesy nachos and your fucking vuvuzelas: this is what we've all been waiting for, it's the Queen's fucking speech.

(a few moments later, as Nicola begins her resignation speech)

Malcolm: Come on, this is fucking history in the making, right, this is the ending of a chapter of a very thin book that nobody enjoyed reading.

Nicola (on the phone to Ollie): You are not going to try and talk me down off a ledge, are you? Cause I gotta tell you I am really tired and the pavement looks like a nice, warm, splatty bed right now.

Nicola: It has become apparent to me that I no longer have the full support of the party.

Malcolm: You never had the support of the party, you big bag of fucking useless doubt.

(Dan enters the room as Nicola concludes her speech)

Malcolm: And here he is, the anointed one!

(Malcolm leads the room in applause)

Dan: Oh – please, please, I'm not Christ. He was quite a scruffy man.

Series 4, Episode 5

Emma: Wait. We could wrong-foot Murray.

Peter: Yeah, how?

Emma: You could push for the inquiry to go wider.

Phil: Wider? That's mental, we want to shut it down!

Emma: No, shush! Just hear me out! We can look into the whole culture of PFI procurement.

Phil: That is a good idea.

Peter: Really?

Phil: Fuck, that hurt to say, but she's right, because Murray's husband's involved in PFI and he's as dodgy as a Russian, er – as a Russian.

Emma: We can backspin it Peter, it's good.

Peter: But, is – is revenge a mature response? Let me think. Yes it is. Right, let's poke her in the PFIs.

---

Stewart: Ah, Peter, this is all pretty white-knuckle stuff, eh? Is it getting the old adrenaline pumping, assuming it can squeeze past the port and stilton –

Peter: Shut the fuck up, you prancing shit!

Malcolm (to party staff, ahead of Nicola's arrival): Right, stop rolling around naked in the headlines; blind man's crumpet's on the way up. If you're gonna film her on your phones, try not to make it obvious, and no smiling. Not even a wee fucking Anne Robinson, right? The look we're going for should be solemn respect: you know, like blokes modelling underpants.

---

Nicola: I mean the thing is, Dan, (Dan nods) you know, pragmatically, I'm now a party grandee – (Malcolm enters) Malcolm, this is a private conversation.

(Malcolm takes a chair and sits down)

Malcolm: You are not a grandee, you are a fucking blandee. No one knew what the fuck you stood for. Political fucking mist, no substance, no weight. You've got all the charm of a rotting teddy bear by a graveside. By the way: women fucking hate you. I can show you the polling. They think you come across like a jittery mother at a wedding. The best thing you ever did in your flatlining non-leadership was call for an inquiry, because that will fuck the government and it will fuck you. So now, please, just fuck off back to your home, you headless frump, and prepare for your column in Grazia.

Dan: Steady on, Malcolm, that's a bit strong.

Glenn (on the phone): Ollie, look, I'm feeling very exposed here: I've got my cock out, it's covered in breadcrumbs and the fucking pigeons are circling. Look, please, just ring me back.

---

Emma (looking at her phone): Oh, shit with a capital shit. We've got to go.

Phil: Great! (stands up)

Stewart: Hey, no no no, sit.

Emma: The Guardian have received an email from Fergus – actually, do you know, strike that, a chain of emails – oh, perfect, with all of our comments about Mr Tickle underneath.

Phil: Oh God, not the one where we all piled in with the Mr Men jokes?

Emma: Yes, yes, that one, Phil.

Stewart: Oh, you kid me!

Phil: Oh, Jesus!

Emma: I kid you not!

Peter: Oh my giddy fuck.

(they all run back to DoSAC while reading the emails on their phones)

Emma: They've leaked all the bloody emails: 'Mr Tickle sounds like a gropey clown at a kids' party'.

Peter: I can't see! Can I make it bigger?

Phil: Go to Settings. 'Poor ickle Mr Tickle, perhaps he's mentally sickle.' Must be Fergus.

Peter: Is this Settings? Oh, I think I've just taken a picture of my feet.

---

Malcolm: Why is he still here? Can you not perform a simple task? When there is a shit on your doorstep, you hose it off.

Ollie: Right.

Malcolm: You don't try to talk it into leaving of its own volition.

Glenn: I got rid of Nicola for you, you owe me!

Malcolm: I owe you? Your act of treachery wiped the slate clean. Rudolf Hess's fucking senile older brother!

Glenn: Look, I know you think I screwed up, but I came here on my hands and knees, Malcolm.

Malcolm: You, my friend, you don't exist to me anymore, I can't even fucking hear you.

Glenn: Do you want me to beg? Is that it? Because I will.

Malcolm: Listen, Mary Queen of fucking Shits: in the old days we would've just slit you up the middle like a fucking Cornish pasty, hanged your steaming entrails all around the Tower of fucking London – Catch you later, you fucking traitor! (turns to Sam, who has appeared on the stairs) Sam, what is it?

Sam: It's a call from Stewart Pearson.

Malcolm (takes the phone from Sam): Stewart Pearson. (to Glenn) I'm the fucking wankers' lodestone today. (answers the phone, walking away) Stewart. Yes, the goatee-bearded guru-boy of Company B.

Ollie: It's a no, Glenn.

Fergus: I just wanted one solid shit, to go in one direction! Not Madras, fucking everywhere!

---

Adam: Hey! 2,000-year-old man! Why the FUCK did you send the whole email?! Huh?! You were supposed to redact it, send the top email, not the whole fucking exchange! JESUS CHRIST ON A CRYSTAL METH BINGE!

Glenn: Terri and I sent what you gave me.

Adam: (in hysterical disbelief) Terri?! Why the fuc– THE ONLY REASON I'D EVER ASK TERRI FOR HELP IS TO SHOOT ME IF I EVER ASKED TERRI FOR HELP!

Glenn: Same reason you gave it to me: distance! TWO PEOPLE, TWICE THE DISTANCE!

Fergus: BUT TERRI DOESN'T GIVE US ANY DISTANCE! TERRI GIVES ME A TWITCH, (points to his eye) RIGHT HERE! YEAH, LAUGH IT UP, GLENN, BUT I'VE GOT A TWITCH, CALLED TERRI!

Terri: (from behind a book shelf) I am actually here, you know!

Fergus: Yeah, and that, in a nutshell, is the whole fucking problem!

(he storms off, Adam follows)

Adam: (singsong) Fuck you very much! (to the carers, who have witnessed the entire exchange) Five minutes, guys, yeah?

Ollie: An inquiry into all of leaking, all of leaking! We are so – We are so screwed!

Malcolm: He's done it. That chinless horse-fiddler. Our fuck-lustrious PM has opened Pandora's fucking Box, and curled a massive steamer right into it!

Stewart: In the time it has taken for Terri to extract herself from her Bluetooth, this little inquiry has fused! It is now growing faster than the speed of bloody light! It's not gonna be something that we can see from space, IT'S GOING TO BE SPACE! BRIAN COX IS GONNA PHONE ME, AND ASK FOR THE FILM RIGHTS!

Peter: BUT WHAT LEAK, WHAT LEAK, WHAT FUCKING LEAK?!

Stewart: ANYTHING! If I find out that anyone from here has leaked anything, I will make sure they have to emigrate after this to a country where they don't speak English, and there's no Internet!

Peter: But everyone who leaked anything, that would fill the fucking Caspian Sea, we're just a drop in the ocean here!

Stewart: No, no, no, what you are, Peter, is Leak Zero! It started here! You have presided over a shambolic showering of info! Peter Mannion, 'Singing in the Rain'! (mobile rings) Oh, Christ. (answers) Hello, Malcolm!

Malcolm: Right, was this your idea? Because I don't remember signing any suicide pact.

Stewart: Malcolm, look, I'm as shocked about this as you are.

Malcolm: Yes. You sound really shocked, you big fucking spunk lolly.

Stewart: Yeah, look, I don't even know what that is. But I, you know, I think we all need time to, to process this data, yep?

(Fergus and Adam burst in)

Fergus: WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!

Adam: (restraining Fergus) All right, Fergus. (calmly) What the fuck is going on?

Phil: The Ark has been opened, and your face is gonna melt!

Emma: There's gonna be an inquiry.

(to Ollie)

Malcolm: Leaking is a fundamental component of our governmental system! If a government can't leak, do you know what happens? Dark shit builds up, and then – it bursts. And that's something you don't want to see! You think your appendix was bad?

Malcolm: When this inquiry lands, you'd better have developed a very flat, stony face with no expression. But that'll be easy for you: it's your fucking cum face, isn't it?

---

(deleted scene)

(Malcolm wants Ollie to visit Nicola at her home)

Malcolm: Just go and stop her doing anything mental, right? Which, given that she thought she could be Prime Minister, the parameters for mental are about as wide as your mother's legs when the fleet's in town.

Ollie: All right, if I'm doing this for you, can we have a bit more respect for my mother, please? Those sailors get lonely.

Malcolm: This is some of my best stuff, and it's being ignored.

Ollie: Yeah, what does that tell you?

---

(deleted scene)

Glenn: But I came here on my hands and knees, Malcolm, I'm supplicating here; I'm a supplicant, Malcolm.

Malcolm: Well, unfortunately, that ship has sailed, hit a fucking iceberg, sunk, and Julian Fellowes has written a fucking shit drama about it.

Series 4, Episode 6

Matthew Hodge: Hello, Mr Pearson. Tab 28 in your bundle there, page 263. (Both turn to that page in their folders.) A paper that you presented in 2006, 'The Iconography of Consensus': would you care to summarise the argument you present there?

Stewart: Sure, yeah, the main thrust –

Matthew Hodge: Bearing in mind Lord Goolding's desire for plainness and clarity.

Stewart: Right. OK. I hypothesise that – Sorry. I say that the design structure for a parliamentary democracy should be that of the Pompidou Centre: morally and structurally explicit and open, a porous membrane.

Lord Goolding: Maybe just a little bit plainer, Mr Pearson?

Stewart: People should know, er, what politicians are doing.

Lord Goolding: Brilliant.

Stewart: Thanks.

Matthew Hodge: Government should be porous?

Stewart: Yes.

Matthew Hodge: But not leaking.

Stewart: Come on, if someone is determined to leak information, there's nothing that anyone can do about that.

Matthew Hodge: So as Director of Communications, you are unable to prevent sensitive material being communicated to journalists?

Stewart: If someone chokes on a packet of crisps, do you issue an arrest warrant for Gary Lineker?

Matthew Hodge: Well, is it fair to say that you have in fact changed nothing, and government communications carries on exactly as they did before, by leaks and whispers?

Stewart: No, it is not fair to say that.

Matthew Hodge: In fact, because you disapprove and condemn these practices, are they not more covert and more hidden and more secret than ever before?

Stewart: I think that is also an unreasonable assertion.

Matthew Hodge: In spite of your desire to create a political Pompidou Centre, Mr Pearson, haven't you created the opposite, Centre Point? I mean, everybody sees it looming over them but nobody has the faintest idea what happens in there.

Stewart: I think there's some kind of club on the top floor.

Baroness Sureka: So, Mr Pearson, have you identified the source of the leak of Mr Tickel's records?

Stewart: No, no.

Baroness Sureka: Have you ever leaked yourself?

Stewart: No. No, I was over that pre-Britpop.

Baroness Sureka: Do you have any idea where the leak might have come from?

Stewart: Well, you know, if this was CSI: Miami, I guess we'd be looking for the person who'd have most to gain from the leak being made public.

Baroness Sureka: Well, despite your shirt, this isn't CSI: Miami. Who do you think would benefit most from the leak?

Stewart: Well, I guess I'd be sending David Caruso knocking on the door of Mr Malcolm Tucker.

---

Baroness Sureka: I've highlighted some quotes. The Guardian: 'Malcolm Tucker has the physical demeanour and the political instincts of a Velociraptor.'

Malcolm: Yes, the Guardian, the newspaper that hates newspapers.

Baroness Sureka: Telegraph.

Malcolm: The Telegr-arse.

Baroness Sureka: 'Tucker's writ runs through the lifeblood of Westminster like raw alcohol, at once cleansing and corroding.' The Times: 'If you make eye contact with Malcolm Tucker, you have spilled his pint.' The Spectator: 'Iago with a BlackBerry'; I mean, you're saying these quotes are, what, misguided?

Malcolm: The Spect-hater. Erm, no, I'm saying that you are not – you're taking these out of context, you're not contextualising these: if you were to put them into a perspective, if you were to place them into the landscape, you would see that there might be a lot of axes being ground here. I don't see the difference between what you have just done and a leak, by the way.

Baroness Sureka: Well, the difference is that what I've just read out was not obtained illegally.

Malcolm: How do you know that? You don't know what confidences have been breached in order to form these opinions, for that is what they are.

Baroness Sureka: So you accept leaking as part and parcel of the political media machinery?

Malcolm: Yes, I mean, if you didn't have leaking, the newspapers would just be full of long-lens bikini shots and adverts for sheds and offers to buy three pairs of trousers for a tenner, et cetera, it's just – it's the way it is. Big deal, no one dies.

Lord Goolding: One person did die, Mr Tucker.

---

Malcolm: You cannot not know what I or anyone else tell you, right, you can't not know that. You cannot not know what you now know.

---

Fergus: You do realise that you're being spun here, you do see that?

Matthew Hodge: Spun?

Fergus: 'Cause, you know, Malcolm Tucker's not your common or garden spin doctor, right? No, he's the chief medical officer of spin – he is Spinoza, you see? So he didn't come here in order to answer your questions, he came here in order to get you to then ask his questions.

Matthew Hodge: Yeah, right, Mr Williams, I don't want you to answer a question with another question, I want you to answer it with an answer.

Fergus: I mean, he's conducting you like, um – Goldie.

---

(discussing Douglas Tickel)

Simon Weir: Did you ever feel yourself to be culpable in any way for his homelessness?

Peter: Look, he was homeless only in the sense that he had no home, erm – (There are chuckles from the gallery. Peter briefly turns round to them.) No, no, a Housing Association flat was found, which he declined. The policy didn't make him homeless.

Lord Goolding: The policy of selling off the block of flats where he lived.

Peter: He made a positive decision to be homeless: it's the difference between being punched in the face and punching yourself in the face.

Simon Weir: Erm – Why do you think, to use your phrase, he punched himself in the face?

Peter: Why? Well, because he was mentally, er – because he had, er, mental issues.

---

(discussing Douglas Tickel's death)

Matthew Hodge: Do you think you could have made a difference if you had been contactable that day?

Peter: Why? He wasn't trying to call me, I mean, I'm not the Samaritans. In fact, apparently, tonally, I have a very depressing voice.

---

Simon Weir: Perhaps we could start by just giving us an idea of what a special adviser does?

Emma: Erm, er, well, technically, essentially, we just advise a minister. Erm, sort of, media strategies, political strategies, that sort of thing.

Simon Weir: But you're not permanent members of the Civil Service?

Phil: Er, no, they're like the, er, the worker ants. We're more like, er – well, not the queens, that would be Peter Mannion and, to a lesser extent, Fergus Williams – we're more like the soldier ants that defend the queens.

Simon Weir: Would you like to add anything, Mr Kenyon?

Adam: Yes, I'm not sure that the ant analogy helps, at all.

Matthew Hodge: Mr Smith, how would you characterise your relationship with Mr Kenyon?

Phil: Well, I think, when you get two silverbacks like Adam and I in a room, there's always going to be a certain amount of chest-beating, but, erm, there's a mutual respect.

(during Phil's answer, Adam puts his head in his hand)

Matthew Hodge: Would you agree, Mr Kenyon?

Adam: Yes.

---

Baroness Sureka: You yourselves were subject to a leak, weren't you, in the Guardian? How did you feel about the email containing your thoughts about Mr Tickel's death?

Adam: Erm, it was shameful, and it was insensitive –

Emma: Absolutely.

Adam: – and we would like to apologise for that. It's dreadful.

Emma: I agree, (points to Adam and Phil) I mean, their comments were absolutely unforgivable, mortifying.

Baroness Sureka (reading): 'How many Mr Tickles does it take to change a light bulb? He doesn't have a light bulb, he's in a tent.' 'How do you turn Mr Tickle into Mr Happy? Lithium.' 'What's the difference between Mr Tickle and Captain Oates? Captain Oates has a less stupid name.' Erm, and one I feel that is particularly cruel, Miss Messinger, given Mr Tickel's mental health issues: 'The fucker's a nutbag'.

Emma: I'm sor– It – That is not OK. Sorry.

Phil: If I could add a mea culpa here rather than dancing around it: others may choose to attempt to wriggle off the hook of shame, but I cannot, I cannot deny that my name is on those emails, and yet I do not recognise that man. It is me, and yet, it is another, and for that I am truly sorry. This has been a humbling moment in my quest to become the man I know I can be.

---

Matthew Hodge: Very good to see you this morning, Infamous Terri Coverley. (Terri laughs.) Why are you smiling?

Terri: I'm not smiling. Or rather, I'm smiling, but it's something I do when I'm nervous, erm –

Matthew Hodge: You have a guilty conscience?

Terri: No no, no no. No, I don't have a guilty conscience but I do have a guilty face, erm – I do blush a lot and that's a circulation thing, not a moral thing, though I do act guilty, erm – When I was a child, erm, my brother's hamster was put into a remote control aeroplane, tragic consequences, and, erm, unfortunately I was blamed for that, although I had nothing to do with it, it was that I just looked guilty, so I would ask you to bear that in mind.

Matthew Hodge: Can you explain to us how communications works in government?

Terri: Well, erm, I use an analogy. Erm, I like to think that dealing with the press is not so much herding cats, it's more herding sheep, and I am the shepherdess, erm, if you like, it's – In order to be an efficient shepherdess, one needs a number of things, I mean – Firstly, one needs a whistle. That's my voice. Secondly, one needs a coat, and that's my coat. And thirdly, one needs a dog, and that in my case is a lady called Robyn.

---

Simon Weir: Would you say that there is a culture of bullying within DoSAC? If I could ask you first, Ms Murdoch.

Robyn: Erm, I'd say there was a culture of bullying me at DoSAC.

Simon Weir: You've experienced bullying there?

Robyn: Well, you know, I see them all standing around, you know, chattering like squirrels on Red Bull, and when I ask them what they're talking about, they usually bark a tea order at me; or, you know, or call me, er, the blonde bombshite, if I can use that word, or some other horrible sweary thing.

Simon Weir: That's the form the bullying takes?

Robyn: And if you refuse to make your boss's tea, you know, they call you Mariella Shitstrop. Or Flouncy Sinatra, which doesn't even really work!

---

Simon Weir: Erm, we have some quotes here: some evidence from several civil servants who all independently suggest that Mr Tucker, in fact, regularly did bully you. 'Mr Tucker threatened to remove Mr Reeder's appendix, throw away Mr Reeder, and appoint the useless flap of colon as special adviser.'

Ollie: Yeah. Well that's – yes. (laughs) That's banter.

Simon Weir: 'Mr Tucker told Mr Reeder that he would have him smothered, eviscerated, stuffed, (Ollie laughs) fitted with wheels, and donated to an orphanage.'

Ollie: That's, what – 'Cause this is out of context, what you don't have there is my reply. And so, you know, it's just him.

Simon Weir: And what was that?

Ollie: Er – Well, I don't remember what it was on this occasion, but it would have been a, you know, it would have been a zinger, because I gave as good as I got, so it's not bullying.

---

Lord Goolding: Thank you for returning to this inquiry, Mr. Tucker.

Malcolm: That's no problem: I had a hair appointment, but I think they can fit me in next week.

Lord Goolding: There's no need to be so flippant about this inquiry.

Malcolm: Well, it's just, you know, you keep asking me the same questions, I can't really help it if you don't like the answers.

Baroness Sureka: Maybe you can try a little harder in answering. I'm amazed you stayed at the top of politics for quite so long with such apparently poor powers of recall.

Malcolm: Well, maybe it's my age – it's good to see you back, by the way.

Baroness Sureka: (sarcastically) Thank you, nice to see you too.

Lord Goolding: At your last appearance at this inquiry, you admitted that you have leaked, is that correct?

Malcolm: Well, everyone leaks: many many people who have appeared here in front of you have leaked, but they've just lied about it to you.

Simon Weir: Mr Tucker, that's an incredibly serious charge; do you have any evidence to substantiate that allegation?

Malcolm: Will you forgive me if I don't do your job for you? Because if you can't spot a sprayed-on halo of someone doing a "what, me guv?" panto act, then maybe you shouldn't be sitting behind that desk.

Baroness Sureka: At your last appearance we asked you very specifically how you came by Mr Tickel's NHS number and National Insurance number, and you could not recall. Have you had any more time to think about it?

Malcolm: Yes, I have.

Baroness Sureka: And could you tell us any more?

Malcolm: No.

Baroness Sureka: You've got no recollection at all?

Malcolm: No. And by the way, you should not be talking to me about this because you've been a victim of leaking, a very unfortunate victim, and I have every sympathy with you, but how can you possibly give me a fair hearing when you've been a victim of the very crime that you are accusing me of? You are prejudiced; this entire inquiry, therefore, is prejudiced.

Baroness Sureka: I can see what you're doing, it smacks of desperation and it will not work.

Malcolm: Does it? No, listen, there you go again, see, that's you, you're just rushing to judgement. You are totally discredited here.

Baroness Sureka: I am obliged to remind you, Mr Tucker, that you are under oath, and if you lie to this inquiry, it may result in a criminal prosecution.

Malcolm: Sorry, please don't insult my intelligence by acting as if you're all so naive that you don't know how this all works. Everybody in this room has bent the rules to get in here, because you don't get in this room without bending the rules. You don't get to where you are without bending the rules, that's the way it is.

Baroness Sureka: Mr Tucker, I am going to give you one more chance to respond to my question. How did you acquire Mr Tickel's NHS number and his National Insurance number?

Malcolm: Who said I acquired it?

Baroness Sureka: A photograph.

Malcolm: No no, the photograph shows me holding it. It doesn't show me acquiring it. You'd have to ask the person that gave me the folder.

Baroness Sureka: Who gave you the folder?

Malcolm: I don't remember.

Baroness Sureka: You are being deliberately evasive.

Malcolm: ... I – I don't recall, you know, I don't know, I can't remember.

Lord Goolding: Very well. Regardless of how you came by Mr Tickel's mental health records, did you then leak them to the media?

Malcolm: I can't recall.

Baroness Sureka: So that's not a denial?

Malcolm: Je ne remember rien.

Baroness Sureka: Well, if you can't recall, it leaves open the possibility that you did leak them.

Malcolm: Let me tell you this. The whole planet's leaking, everybody is leaking! You know? Everyone's spewing up their guts onto the internet, putting up their relationship status and photos of their vajazzles! We've come to a point where there are people, millions of people, who are quite happy to trade a kidney in order to go on television! And to show people their knickers, to show people their skid marks, and then complain to OK! magazine about a breach of privacy! The exchange of private information – that is what drives our economy. But, you come after me because you can't arrest a landmass, can you? You can't cuff a country. You might as well just go and – you can't lynch that guy there, can you? But you decide that you can sit there, you can judge and you can ogle me like a Page 3 girl. You don't like it? Well, you don't like yourself. You don't like your species, and you know what? Neither do I, but how dare you come and lay this at my door! How dare you blame me for this! Which is the result of a political class, which has given up on morality and simply pursues popularity at all costs. I am you and you are me.

Lord Goolding: Are you finished?

Malcolm: Ah, I'm finished anyway. You didn't finish me.

Lord Goolding: Would you like to stand down?

Malcolm: (getting up and walking out) Thanks, m'Lord.

---

Simon Weir: Although you did previously describe yourself as a shepherdess. (Robyn laughs) Now, did you have something to add to that?

Robyn: I just – Shepherdess, did she say – (to Terri) Did you say shepherdess?

Terri: Yes, I was giving an analogy – I mean, to be fair, erm, perhaps it would have been more accurate for me to describe myself as a sheep in shepherdess's clothing. Do you follow?

Simon Weir: Er, no, not completely, no.

Robyn: The shepherdess analogy's floored him.

---

(deleted scene)

Baroness Sureka: Your own privacy is important to you.

Stewart: Yeah, absolutely, I have a meditation room at home.

Baroness Sureka: Well, you know, I think we all have one of those at home.

(all chuckle)

Stewart: Oh, right, er – do you mean a toilet? Yeah, 'cause I'm talking about a dedicated meditation room.

Baroness Sureka: I see.

Stewart: Although it did actually use to be a toilet, it made it easier to plumb in the waterfall.

---

(deleted scene)

Matthew Hodge: In less figurative terms, what is the nature of your job?

Terri: Well, I don't like to toot my own trumpet, as they say, but I like to think of myself as God: erm, I fashion DoSAC in mine own image, er, to quote the Bible. (looks for the Bible on her desk) Erm, that's in the Bible, isn't it?

Matthew Hodge: Sorry, what exactly do you mean?

Lord Goolding: I'm not sure I follow you.

Terri: Oh, well I'm – Sorry. Erm, I'm a translator. Um, I translate, from the outside world, things that come into the department, and vice versa.

Lord Goolding: So are you saying you change what you hear? You manipulate?

Terri: No no no, it's a bit, erm – Songs of Praise. There's a deaf and dumb lady doing deaf and dumb language.

Lord Goolding: Sign language?

Terri: Yes, well it's like that, I take the ugly words, and I translate them, as it were, into a beautiful gesture.

Matthew Hodge: If I'm to understand you correctly, you stop information going to and from your department, and you change what that information is.

Terri: No no no, I didn't, I didn't say that –

Matthew Hodge: No, on the contrary, you did say that.

Terri: No, er –

---

(deleted scene)

Lord Goolding: You can understand how suspicion might fall upon you, given your antipathy to Mrs Murray as a leader.

Malcolm: Nicola's real name is 'If Wet Nicola Murray'; if she worked for the West End, her name would always be preceded by the words, 'Tonight the role of Mary Poppins will be taken by' Nicola Murray. Because she's basically an understudy who got lucky, she got on, she got to play the lead. But she wet herself, she was too frightened, and she went home crying, you know; it happens.

Series 4, Episode 7

Phil: I've said I'm sorry about the inquiry, okay? I started writing you a letter but it just seemed pretentious. Look, if it's any consolation, I haven't felt that humiliated since my trunks fell down at the school swimming gala.

Peter: It's of absolutely no consolation to think of you naked in front of 500 boys.

Emma: (walking in, on her phone) Yeah, absolutely, Trevor. OK, yeah, drinks soon. Yeah, you too. OK, bye. (hangs up) Oh, God! I just felt my ovaries cringe. I'm trying to flirt our way out of this police backlog.

---

Phil: I thought we weren't talking to The Proclaimers.

Peter: We have to play happy families for Mary, pretend I don't actually want to strangle Fergus's bollocks so they look like glacé cherries.

---

Emma: You are telling me that you have been running parts of this country, Terri. What the fuck are you trying to do, prove the Mayans right?

---

Malcolm: Meanwhile, an unarrested feral underclass has gone Mad Max, and police station waiting rooms are heaving like the hedgehog carvery at a gypsy wedding.

---

Stewart: Ah, Peter. This War of the Roses with the Home Office? It ends now. We want a united realm. There's no vision in division.

Peter: Well, yes there is; (looks to Fergus's office) anyway, tell Perkin Warbeck over there.

Stewart: OK people, could we briefly form a coherent group?

Terri: Mary Drake is in the building, she's on her way up.

Stewart: OK. Shields up, guys; centurions, we're forming a tortoise.

---

Mary Drake: Let me tell you something now: DoSAC is one rat's whisker away from being shut down and subsumed by the Home Office, and put in charge of cocking up the tea run! And I like mine weak, and white. Like my men. (leaves)

Peter: Stewart, any thoughts from within your fucking dream yurt?

Stewart: I will go and try and de-frag this situation, but I am staying strictly macro. (leaves)

Adam: Subtitles, you need subtitles!

Fergus: Sorry, erm, ThinkSocially. Terri, would you mind explaining rationally why I appear to be giving a ringing endorsement to a piece of shit that I've never even heard of?

Terri: It's not my fault, it's the double-stamping nonsense, that's the reason.

Adam: Oh, really? Because right now, I want to double-stamp on your fucking throat.

Terri: I'm gonna take that seriously as a physical threat.

Adam: You know, one of the many many things that baffles me about you is you remain unmurdered!

---

Ollie: So, the Leader of the Opposition is going to be filmed at a police station at the exact moment that his Head of Communications is being arrested. Yes, okay, great, great, so that's a sack full of face-chewing rats, thank you very much.

Malcolm: Look, it's – This is what you have to deal with, right? It's just another day at the fuck office.

Ollie: So now I have to step into your shoes, but after you've shat in them.

Malcolm: Ollie, look at me! I'm not pulling anything out of a magic hat. The rabbits are falling to pieces, their fucking heads are coming off and frightening the kids. So somebody else is going to have to help out.

Ollie: Well, who says I even want to be you, Malcolm? Who says that?

Malcolm: Nobody says that. Except every screaming atom of that etiolated stick of fuck you call a body says that. Every fibre of your being, every stamen, says that. But you are not me, Ollie.

Ollie: No.

Malcolm: And you never will be me. I knew Malcolm F. Tucker, sir, and you are no Malcolm Fucking Tucker. You're not even fucking Manchester's top Malcolm Tucker tribute band. And trying to be me? You?! Trying to be me will fucking kill you. I give you 18 months before you're a washed out, weeping, alcoholic. With no fucking bladder control. Sleeping on your brother-in-law's sofa.

Ollie: And so on, and so on. It doesn't have to be like that, now, Malcolm: politics has actually changed, right?

Malcolm: Oh?

Ollie: Yeah, yeah! Yeah, and you probably haven't noticed because you've been on transmit for the last fucking eight years: "Wah wah wah wah wah!" And whilst you've been doing that, everybody else has been changing, and it's all a bit softcore now, it's all about algorithms now. You don't have to be Malcolm Tucker to sit in that chair.

Malcolm: Oh, how quickly they grow up. You fucking think you know me?

Ollie: Well, yeah. Yeah, I know you.

Malcolm: You know Jackie fucking Chan about me. YOU KNOW FUCK ALL ABOUT ME! I am totally beyond the realms of your fucking tousle-haired, fucking dimwitted compre-fucking-hension! I don’t just take this fucking job home, you know. I take this job home, it fucking ties me to the bed, and it fucking fucks me from arsehole to breakfast. Then it wakes me up in the morning with a cup full of piss slung in my face, slaps me about the chops, to make sure I’m awake enough so it can kick me in the fucking bollocks! This job has taken me in every hole in my fucking body! MALCOLM IS GONE, you can't know Malcolm, 'cause Malcolm is not here! Malcolm fucking left the building fucking years ago! This is a fucking husk! I am a fucking host for this fucking job! Do you want this job?

Ollie: ... Yes.

Malcolm: Yes! You do fucking want this job! Then you're gonna have to fucking swallow this whole fucking life and let it grow inside you like a parasite, getting bigger and bigger and bigger until it fucking eats your insides alive and it stares out of your eyes and tells you what to do!

Ollie: Malcolm, this sounds like the fucking video you leave on YouTube after you've blown your brains out!

Malcolm: I'm as dead as fucking two-tone. But I can fashion my own exit.

Ollie: Oh, Christ. What, are you gonna fly to Switzerland and have a wank off a nurse and a bye-bye pill, are you?

Malcolm: Funny, funny man. Political exit.

Ollie: No, I know.

Malcolm: I'm gonna leave the stage with my head held fucking high, right? What you're going to see is a masterclass in fucking dignity, son. The audience will be on their feet. "There he goes," they'll say. "No friends - no real friends - no children, no glory, no memoirs." ... Well, fuck them.

---

(Nicola has discovered that Declan, the journalist due to interview her, is the man behind 'Mr Chop')

Nicola: I am 'ever so close to being on the verge of bawling my fucking eyes out' disappointed about this. I mean, this was it, was it? What was the alternative, going on Strictly Come Dancing and doing a fucking hooky waltz with Abu Hamza? This is pretty low. This is lower than my mother's pelvic floor, Helen.

---

(At Lewisham Police Station, where private contractors have reduced the arrest backlog)

Dan: Ollie, what the fuck are we doing here? Everything's fine. I'm like lube at a funeral.

Ollie: Yeah. I can't believe it but DoSAC have actually turned this around, they've Apollo 13'd it.

(Malcolm and his lawyer are trying to get out of Brentford Police Station. They come across a policeman escorting a prisoner.)

Malcolm: 'Scuse me, is there another way out of here?

Prisoner: You could hang yourself.

Malcolm: Fuck off!

(Malcolm and his lawyer are running away from reporters to their taxi, but it drives off)

Malcolm: HEY! GET THE FUCK BACK HERE! (the taxi stops and they get in) Jesus Christ! Go! Go go go! (the taxi drives off) You fucking drive off like that again and I'll stick your meter so far down your throat you'll be able to tell the price of your next shit.

Glenn: Come out everyone! Tally-ho, yoo-hoo! Come on, bring out your fucking dead! Right, everybody listen, I've got an announcement to make, erm –

Phil: What is it, you got an erection?

Glenn: No, I would like to tell you all that I'm resigning!

Phil: Is that it?

Glenn: No, you closeted Regency homosexual, that is not it. Morally, this department is in the gutter!

Fergus: Thanks for the speech, Glenn, but we have work –

Glenn: (grabs a desktop lamp) YOU STAY AND TAKE YOUR PUNISHMENT! I will lamp you, with a lamp!

Terri: Glenn, you've gone a tiny bit psychotic, my love.

Glenn: (puts down the lamp) You, Fergus, when you asked me to join you, all you had was your principles, but over the last two years, you've bent like a human fucking palm tree, swaying to the guff of these six-toed born-to-rule pony-fuckers.

Adam: If you're gonna go, just go. Spare us this Peter Finch bullshit.

Glenn: Oh! Adam, you're waiting for your turn! Oh no! I remember, it's your turn right now!

Adam: Brilliant. Bring it.

Glenn: You are simply the most loathsome human being I have ever met.

Adam: Yep.

Glenn: You were so well-suited at the Mail, it's a shame you came over here!

Emma: Hear, hear! (she and Phil clap)

Glenn: Do you know what? I hate you both: Tweedle-twat and Tweedle-prick! You contribute absolutely nothing to the world, so thank fucking God you have no power!

Fergus: Er, we do actually, it's –

Glenn: No you don't. And Peter: it's been dreadful. I hope your cock falls off. Phil, do you know what you are? You're like an eight-year-old trapped in a twelve-year-old's body.

Phil: (gleefully) This is great! Why isn't anyone filming this?

Glenn: And Emma.

Phil: Yeah yeah, do Emma, do Emma!

Glenn: Yeah, Emma, I'm sorry, you're just a standard-issue insipid posh bitch. That's it! Terri? (takes a pair of scissors)

Phil: Oh, whoa, whoa.

Glenn: I don't think I've ever met anyone quite so proud, and yet quite so useless. But I do have to thank you, (takes his pass and cuts it up) because I have managed to stay in shape, purely though the energy I spend in pitying you every day!

Terri: Glenn, you're just embarrassing yourself.

Glenn: Fuck you all up the wrong 'un! Ta ta! Bye bye! (leaves)

Phil: That was better than IMAX Inception.

Emma: Poor, poor Glenn!

Peter: Should we try and get him back?

Emma: Fuck, no. He's gone completely mental!

Adam: He's gone Glenn-tal.

(Malcolm's last line)

Malcolm: I want to say something. I want to say something! (long silence) Doesn't matter.

Stewart: You know, I've spent ten years detoxifying this party. It's been a bit like renovating an old, old house, yeah? You can take out a sexist beam here, a callous window there, replace the odd homophobic roof tile. But after a while you realise that this renovation is doomed. Because the foundations are built on what I can only describe as a solid bed of cunts.

(show's closing line)

Peter: What a shit day!

Cast

The Government

• Peter Capaldi — Malcolm Tucker
• Paul Higgins — Jamie McDonald
• Alex MacQueen — Julius Nicholson
• Rebecca Front — Nicola Murray
• Eve Matheson — Clare Ballentine
• Justin Edwards — Ben Swain
• Rory Kinnear — Ed
• Tony Gardner — Dan Miller
• James Smith — Glenn Cullen
• Chris Addison — Oliver "Ollie" Reeder
• Rob Edwards — Geoff Holhurst

Her Majesty's Civil Service

• Joanna Scanlan — Terri Coverley
• Polly Kemp — Robyn Murdoch

The Opposition

• Vincent Franklin — Stewart Pearson
• Roger Allam — Peter Mannion
• Olivia Poulet — Emma Messinger
• Will Smith — Phil Smith

The Media

• Ben Willbond — Adam Kenyon
• Lucinda Raikes — Angela Heaney

Former Characters

• Chris Langham — Hugh Abbot
• Tim Bentinck — Cliff Lawton
• Martin Savage — Nick Hanway

External links

• The Thick Of It quotes at the Internet Movie Database