Malcolm Tucker quotes from The Thick Of It

Malcolm

This is the gift that's gonna go on giving, believe you me. So you'd better keep your head down. And I don't mean just when you're frequenting your favorite glory holes.

Ollie

(sarcastically) Yeah, well...Whereas your closet is completely free of skeletons, isn't it, Malcolm? 'Cause you've buried them in a landfill in Essex.

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?

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.

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.

Adam

(to Terri) Okay. Terri, ThinkSocially. Did I sign off on this? Because I hadn't heard of ThinkSocially until I said it just then.

Terri

Okay, uh...

Adam

So what is it?

Terri

Simple explanation.

Adam

Love to hear it.

Peter

(moaning) Oh, God. Here-Here's Mary. Bunch up, everyone, so she doesn't see the corpses.

Emma

Look, synchronize lies, all right? (Emma approaches Mary and shakes her hand.) Mary, hi. Hi, Emma, we met at the away day. I so enjoyed our, our mood play.

Yes, you actually did, didn't you? (to Terri) Oh, you must be the legendary Terri. (Mary shakes Terri's hand) I've heard a great deal about you.

Terri

Oh, oh, please, don't, uh, don't believe everything that you hear.

(sharply) I fully intend not to. (to Stewart) Stewart. Chakras balanced?

Fergus

Uh, sorry. Tiny bit of, uh, housekeeping. (to Terri) Terri, um, uh, ThinkSocially? Uh, just checking in on that.

Terri

Yes. Yes, it's a go thing. Double-stamped, yes.

Peter

Mary! Great to see you again.

(flatly) I'm here in an angry capacity.

Peter

Ah! The cream in our coffee, Mary.

(to all) The message from the Home Office is this: Move away from the backlog. There's nothing to see. Let the police do their jobs, let us do ours.

Fergus

Sorry to be, uh, contrary, Mary, but Peter and I have just been discussing this very issue.

Shut up! 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

(to Terri) 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-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!

Malcolm

'Scuse me, is there another way out of here?

You could hang yourself.

Malcolm

Fuck off!