Glenn Cullen quotes from The Thick Of It

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?" (beat) Oh, that's very rude, that, isn't it? I was always taught never to make personal remarks about people.

Ollie

He's impressive, Malcolm, in an evil way. Like those women at Crufts who make dogs dance on their hind legs.

Glenn

Okay, listen up everybody. That was Gavin over at Number 10. He reckons that Steve Fleming has just joined the cabal.

OOH!

Glenn

Yeah, mate.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Glenn

There's a bit of a farce going on here with your Mr. Tickle. They've turned up to evict him and he's not there.

Phil

Good. Self-evicted. Gone. Problem solved. Anyway, what's going on with Fergus and Adam and the "Sexy Stranger?" She's some kind of economist, apparently.

Glenn

Oh, don't be ridiculous, she's far too attractive.

Phil

You can get sexy economists. What about Stephanie Flanders on Newsnight?

Glenn

Yeah, that's true. I quite like Emily Maitlis.

Phil

Really? Well, I'm sure she'd love a grey pounding.

Phil

Here, uh, "Tara Strachan, LSE, Harvard, author of Strapped: Why We're in Debt to Each Other, Small is Bountiful, Expert in micro-financing and community credit guilds." God, that sounds dreary.

Glenn

Bloody hell, that's all Fourth Sector stuff! I mean, why have they kept me out here like a stray dog?

Phil

And why are they keeping Mannion out of it? This is-this is government business!

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

Er, listen, is there a problem with me being here?

Fergus

Not at all.

Phil

Yes, you're not supposed to be here, the minister is unaware that you're here, so I'm gonna 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.

Glenn

(offscreen) FUCK! TICKLE'S DEAD!

Phil

Oh shit...!

Adam

Jesus...!

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!

Adam

It's like there's a little twelve-year-old boy, in a suit, with a fucking light saber in his desk - don't think I don't know it's there - running this department when Mannion's away...

Phil

Yeah, so what?

Adam

It's a fucking joke!

Phil

No it's not! 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. You know, I'm in charge, because I'm a Jedi and you're a fucking Ewok!

Glenn

Right. What is the Ewok position on this, then?

Phil

The line from Stewart via Emma was that I do nothing. That was the one clear instruction they gave me, okay? We ignore him and he goes away.

Fergus

He is dead.

Phil

Which makes him easier to ignore.

Fergus

As a minister, I should at least express condolences.

Phil

(stammering) That-that-that should come from Peter.

Fergus

But he's not here. I am.

Terri

Has anyone seen my Bluetooth headset?

Phil

Look, I speak for Peter and I say that we look guilty if we say we're sorry he died.

Terri

I'll take that as a no.

Adam

Listen, Phil. I was a journalist, okay? Now if you don't respond, you create a vacuum that sucks in speculation, and then you can't respond. You get sucked fucking inside-out!

Phil

Look, Tickle wasn't the Queen of People's Hearts, he was a twat in a tent.

Glenn

TICK-EL! HE WAS CALLED TICK-EL! WE DROVE A MAN TO HIS DEATH! WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS!

Fergus

Great stuff, Tara. We're gonna go ahead with the bank.

Adam

Yeah, meeting's over.

Tara

(surprised) Don't you need to talk to the Treasury?

Fergus

We've done that.

Tara

Okay, Well, um, let's talk details. When it comes to interest rates, obviously you've got...

Adam

(jokingly) Well, hey, you know, don't talk us out of it. You don't wanna do that.

Tara

(smiling) So, is-is this the green light?

Fergus

Uh-huh! Yep! £2 billion!

Tara

Oh my God!

Tara

We'll be in touch!

Thank you.

Tara

Thank you.

Fergus

(to Tara, walking her to the elevator) Lovely to meet you, great.

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?

Glenn

This is just great. This is just fucking great. I hang around this moral abattoir to do something exactly like this and you shut me out?

Terri

So, I'm spending my bank holiday founding a bank? I thought the point about bank holidays is that they're supposed to be shut.

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!

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!

Free apples! [throws ball]

Yes and ho!

Uh, free coffins. [throws ball]

Yes and ho!

Peter

Reduce the deficit with spending cuts.

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.

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 hippie 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 away from 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.

Glenn

Well, anyway, um, Mannion has surely got to freeze housing disposals now.

Fergus

Yeah. And on that point, Glenn, I wonder if it might be at all helpful if we collated every single statement Mannion's made about Tickle and the sell-off policy?

Adam

Yeah, as a sort of favor to selected hacks. Put a bit of air between us and the policy. A lot of air.

Glenn

Adam, this is not the time for party political point-scoring. At least let the body get cold.

Fergus

Of course, understood. What was it? What was it Peter said to those Welsh chartered surveyors?

Adam

The health service should be for care, not subsidized housing. I mean, that is...

Glenn

Jesus, is this what we came into politics for?

Adam

Yeah. That and the pussy.

Phil

Here you go, I managed to wrestle your tie back off Terri. I think there's still some of her fingernails in it, though.

Glenn

Well, in the grand scheme of things, that's not such a big deal.

Phil

You're not going to come and watch your guy give the statement?

Glenn

No. He's not my guy, Phil. I'm on my own here, there's no one quite like me. Not here, not any more.

Phil

Yeah. You're the last VHS in Oxfam. They won't take them anymore, I've tried. Seasons 1 to 5 of The X-Files, nothing, can't give them away.