(In this scene, Peter Mannion, the Leader of the Opposition, is having a chat with his adviser, Phil Smith. As they're entering Opposition Headquarters, Peter and Phil are discussing Emma's relationship with Ollie...and Phil just happens to be Emma's roommate.)
Are they actually sleeping together?
Phil SmithYes, yeah. In the flat.
Do you think she's on top or, what-what do you hear?
Phil
Well, I hear her say, "How do you like it?" And he'll say, "I've got to page Tucker."
Oh, God. (beat) Have I shaved properly? It's just we're-we're having the bathroom done and I was in the kitchen this morning using the kettle as a mirror.
Phil
No, you're very smooth. So it's a chrome kettle, then?
You've been watching CSI again, haven't you?
(As Peter and Phil are walking up the stairs, they are joined by Emma, who is also Peter's advisor.)
Phil
(to Emma) Oh, hello. How was sleeping with the enemy?
(sarcastically) Oh, hilarious. I forgot how funny you were.
(The three of them are nearing the office...)
(to Emma) What time are you seeing Stewart?
It'll be in about half an hour. What about you?
(groaning) Oh, I'll be last in. He's punishing me for standing against JB in the leadership contest by putting me in the Ryanair queue.
Come on, he got you that terrific photo op with the, uh, wind turbine thing on your house, remember?
Yes, and it cost me 12 grand. And I have to pay for the electricity bill to keep the bugger turning because, of course, there's no wind in the valley, I have to plug it in. But my next door neighbor has an England flag that just hangs there limply while my turbine mysteriously whizzes around.
Phil
Could turn the turbine round so it blows his flag.
(Peter, Emma and Phil finally sit down.)
Phil
Right. What's up first, then, Peter?
While we're here, we could bat a few ideas around.
He wants something fluffy for the speech, does he? Environment? Tax breaks for aromatherapists? SatNav for asylum seekers?
Phil
Well, I was thinking about a departmental blog.
(groaning again) Oh, God. Really?
Phil
I could actually do the..the writing bit of it, because you wouldn't have time.
Well, I mean, I might as well, I've knack all else to do. (Peter turns to Phil) Though, um...to be honest, you-you sort it out.
Phil
I thought we could have like a guest book so that, kind of, you know, readers can kind of leave their comments.
(to Emma) Are you sure? Have you ever Googled your own name? It's like opening a door to a room where everyone tells you how shit you are.
(As Peter is waiting to meet with Stewart -- still -- he has a conversation with Phil about his upcoming holiday.)
(coughing) Oh, I can't get rid of this.
Phil
I bet you're looking forward to your holiday.
Well, yeah. I mean, obviously, I'm not flying abroad anywhere, because...
Phil
Carbon.
No, bathroom. I'm supervising the doing up of my bathroom.
Phil
(looking at two lamps) What is that?
Phil
Is that raffia?
He's discovered IKEA, hasn't he?
Phil
It's all for show. They want to look modern, like they appeal to the kind of people who go to IKEA.
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
I know.
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
(confused) You've still got a video?
(And now, it's time to meet Stewart Pearson, the Director of Communications for the Opposition. Stewart and Emma are sharing a laugh as she's leaving his office. Now, Stewart is ready to see Peter.)
(smiling) Ah, Peter. Dr. Stewart will see you now, hey? I could hear you coughing in there. Is that your contribution to the meeting?
(to Peter) You all right?
Yes, okay. You know, it's just hanging around.
Yeah, I'm sorry to keep you hanging about, but you know, right now all the...all the big priority stuff is the big party stuff.
I was talking about the cold hanging around.
Oh, right. (Stewart heads back into his office.) Thanks very much, Em.
(As Peter goes into Stewart's office for a chat, Phil asks Emma about her meeting.)
Phil
Was that fun there?
Phil
Playing with the big boys?
Yeah. Now I'm back with the little boys, huh?
Phil
No.
(Phil and Emma are home in their flat -- discussing Ollie.)
Phil
Why the fuck do you have to keep inviting him round here?
Oh, are you a bit jealous?
Phil
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.
I tell you what, I'll put a sex grid on the fridge.
Phil
Oh, yeah.
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
Yeah. Have to write really small, though, I've slept with three women in –
(returning from the toilet) Your life?
Phil
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.)
What's he doing with his eyes?
Oh my God. He's got a nervous blink.
That's a mega blink! It's not just a blink.
He looks like what happens when you punch a cow. (impersonates a cow mooing in pain)
Phil
Oh my God, this is like watching a lion rape a sheep, but in a bad way.
The cameramen are laughing.
He spelled "just" with four Js!
He's like a chicken, he's like an enormous chicken!
Phil
It's just one word he's been saying, which is basically (gibberish).
Well, what about the coalface?
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)
Well he certainly looked like a Nutter.
He looked like that little guy on the green that shouts 'You're an Arab' at everyone.
Phil
It's a tough day tomorrow, picking bits of Ben out of Malcolm's car.
He didn't mention the coalface idea.
How is my blog? My own personal blog, personally written by me?
(they all go to the computer)
Phil
There we go.
Phil
Yesterday you liked the leader's speech, it was bold and courageous and sent out the right signals, and you had a fruit lunch.
Oh, I write very well. What's the feedback like?
Phil
Pretty good. Let's see on this page here. Here we go.
"I don't trust you, you Cypriot crook."
Phil
What?
Cypriot? This is the shit room. You've opened the shit room door.
Oh come on, that's not too bad.
"How are the maintenance payments going on your bastard?" Christ, that was twelve years ago!
Phil
I hadn't seen that one.
Phil
Or that one.
That's actually I think the same one.
This is the trouble with the public, they're fucking horrible.
Peter, you really – you can't say the public are fucking horrible.
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.
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
What the fuck was that all about? You know, nicking the other lot's ideas?
You jumped straight on the bandwagon, you hypocrite.
Phil
You started it. You know, at least I'm not nicking my boyfriend's ideas.
You sanctimonious twat! Jesus, you're not my dad, Phil, even if you do dress like him.
(knocking from behind glass) What's going on?
Phil
Swain was supposed to flag up the coalface idea last night but he didn't. So Emma nicked it.
(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.
(to Phil) Thanks a lot, Supergrass.
(to Phil) Oh, sorry! Do you know what, maybe you should dump Peter and go out with Ollie.
Well, it wouldn't be any more disastrous than our relationship, would it, hey?
Christ, Ollie, well if it's been such a fucking disaster, why didn't you break up with me sooner?
Well, if it had been up to me I would have broken up with you sooner!
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
(laughing) That's funny.
OEOllie and Emma
Fuck you, Phil!
Phil
Oh, suddenly I'm the bad guy again.
Go and read your blog, nerd boy! I'm going. This is the point where I go.
Phil
Wow. That point actually exists. Incredible.
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)
Fuck you, Ollie, and put your keys on the side!
Phil
He's got keys?
(deleted scene)
(while watching Ben Swain on Newsnight)
Still, at least Hugh will be pleased.
Phil
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.
Shouldn't you be online pretending to be a Hobbit, eh? Trying to get a date with a lady Hobbit, but failing?
Phil
Shitfinger.
What's happened to Terri? She looks like a female impersonator!
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'.
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!'
Phil
I need to know what Glenn Cullen looks like.
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?
Our tanks on their lawn at last, fuck-a-doodle-doo!
Phil
Talking of which, may I present the DoSAC Implementation Matrix!
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?
Well I'm very keen to use Stewart's mouth as an ashtray, but it doesn't mean I'd do it.
(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.
(receiving an alert on her phone) That's Stewart. I'm just gonna have to show him up.
Great, Mr. Blue Sky; we're not gonna practise fist bumps again, are we?
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)
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.
She was only the minister's daughter, but she knew how to take the collection.
Phil
She's 12.
Oh, shit, strike that last remark, it's actually a little poem that... gets much worse.
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.
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?
Yeah, who are you meeting?
Phil
Got a couple of meetings with two top people, you know, the big swinging dicks.
Yeah, OK, well don't forget the tiny static dicks.
Phil
Yeah, we're not allowed to talk to her boyfriend, though.
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!
Phil
I mean, I can draw you a diagram if you like! it's like a fucking swine flu pandemic!
I've clearly made an error, which I have to take up with Emma...
Phil
Exactly!
... 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!
(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!
(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.
(quietly) Yeah, Malcolm, um...?
The Nicola thing, I think, is getting a bit worse. It looks like her daughter's about to be excluded for bullying.
Yeah, I know, Glenn told me that.
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?
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?
(to Malcolm) What are you doing?
Phil
No, what...
(to Ollie) Don't worry. (to Phil) Did you not know that?
Phil
No, why would I... No...
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)
(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.
Now...get out of my fucking sight!
Phil
Yeah. (wanders off, visibly terrified)
Listen, Nicky, this - it's a war, right? It's a fucking war. Now, you can't change a thing unless you win the war, and you cannot win the war unless you're prepared to fight.
That's what this all about for you, isn't it? It's just about fighting and fucking... power. Does it never occur to you that your poisonous male obsession with conflict, which is making people despise politics? And by the way, don't ever fucking call me Nicky!
Spare me your fucking psycho-fanny, right? What do you think fucking Mannion's doing right now? Michael Aspel's cooler, fucking younger brother? I'll tell you what he's doing. He's sitting around with his pals, you know what they're doing? They're telling very fucking nasty jokes about your family! They're playing fucking pin the cock on the fucking donkey's face with your face there, 'cause you're the fucking donkey, right? So you should just fucking count your blessings! Ella's not been excluded. That's what you wanted, right? Yes?
Yeah, I really wanted Ella to be able to stay at a shit school, the only redeeming feature of which was the headmaster who, thanks to me, has now been forced out.
Yeah, well... maybe... maybe in a term or so, you know, we might understand if you... very quietly decided to move her.
(composing herself) Good. Good. 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?
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?
Do you fancy a cup of tea?
Er, yes, you got anything herbal?
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.
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.
Phil
I think I was following the river, I wanted to get to the sea.(deleted scene)
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.
(Nicola, Terri, Glenn, Phil and Peter are all waiting in the green room. Terri continues to smile and stare at Peter.)
(quietly) The stupid one keeps staring at me; could you block the view, or something?
Phil
OK. (Phil sits on the table, between Terri and Peter.)
Phil
(to Terri) Sorry.
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.
(Meanwhile, Peter is discussing what he's going to talk about on the show with Phil.)
"We call it the Common Sense Checklist, Richard. We need to cut red tape. We were talking about that at the Oval the other day, weren't we, Richard?"
Phil
(loving it) That's just the sound of wickets falling.
(But then, Phil's cell phone rings.)
Phil
Stewart.
(sarcastically) Stewart? Oh, good. I wonder what Mr. Political Correctness Gone Boring wants...
Phil
(answering his cell phone) Hi, Stewart.
Look, a little note for Peter, yeah? Tell him to dump the common sense checklist. Yeah, it's an ex-list. The new world order is this: Hit the city hard, yeah? It's "Reverse Gekko." Greed is bad, money is awful. "I Heart Tracy Chapman," yeah?
(Phil leans over to Peter to quietly tell him the bad news...)
Phil
(to Peter) He wants you to scrap the common sense checklist and hit the city hard over the bonuses, call them all money-grabbing wankers.
(A BBC employee lets everyone know that Nicola and Peter are on, but Peter still has something to say to Phil.)
Phil. (Peter quietly pulls Phil aside.) Some of my best friends are money-grabbing wankers. And I've got to give a speech to a roomful of them tomorrow at the CBI lunch. I'm not gonna say, "Hello, chums, I've just taken a slash in the soup." So, no, the answer's no.
(As Peter makes his way to the studio, Phil gets back on his cell phone to talk to Stewart.)
Phil
Stewart, um, Peter's not going to want to do that.
No, I don't want him to want to do it, Phil. I just want him to do it.
Phil
(to Peter) Stewart says it's a JB diktat, you have to do it.
Tell him to stick a goose up his arse.
The Thick Of It · 395 quotes
