(Peter and Stewart share an unexpected bonding moment over their mutual dislike of Fergus while watching him on TV.)
(talking to the reporters) ...for a fairer NHS, for a fairer public housing program.
He's exactly why people hate politicians. He's making me hate politicians -- him in particular.
StewartAny second now, he's gonna do the imaginary tits.
(Fergus does the "imaginary tits...")
There they are. (Both Peter and Stewart let out sarcastic chuckles.)
Thank you. (Fergus heads back inside.)
Look at him. (beat) Moments like this make you realize why Elvis shot so many TVs.
(In this scene, Peter, Phil and Emma are walking their way upstairs to their office. The news of Nicola Murray's resignation as Leader of the Opposition is being broadcast on TV.)
There she goes, a tiebreaker in the making. "Who was Nicola Murray? I'll have to hurry you, teams."
Farewell, our shit and useless servant.
Yeah, at least Miller's a step up from Murray. He doesn't have to write Left and Right on his wellies.
(Meanwhile, Stewart is leading his team downstairs at their desks.)
Stewart
I need your attention for 30 of your earth seconds. This is what will happen.
(looking downstairs) What the fuck is Stewart doing?
Stewart
You will go to the Z drive. You find a file entitled, "Miller Ascension, Whitehall Arab Spring." Open, ingest, implement. And after that...(While Stewart is talking to the team, he sees Peter, Phil and Emma upstairs and makes an "I see you" gesture towards them.) I expect both of you, you two...
Stewart
...to get together...
The man made of space hopper is coming this way.
(Peter, Phil and Emma continue walking.)
This is gonna be about the inquiry.
(to Phil and Emma) I'm thinking I should resign now.
(Emma and Phil are stunned.)
No, you can't do that! You're Aslan! No one shaves your mane!
I'm not a fucking lion, Phil. There's going to be an inquiry into the death of a man who died because of a policy I signed off on. We all know how this is going to end. I, I, I should take the dignified way out.
No, you've missed the dignified exit. That was straight away, basically.
(slumping his shoulders) Yeah.
(Stewart is now upstairs talking to more of the DoSAC personnel.)
Stewart
If you get any channel problems, just swing them past the purple Power Ranger over here. (pointing to Terri)
(As Peter leaves his office, he sees the carers again.)
(to the carers) Hello again. Vital, vital work, so proud of you. (Then Peter walks over to Terri.) Terri, I've got a job for you.
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 –
(to Stewart) Shut the fuck up, you prancing shit. (to Terri) Uh, we need to widen the inquiry into Mr. Tickle's death to include the issue of PFI contracts.
Great. Okay, I'm just working on Fergus's Carers Pass press release...
Aw, good. Could you fuck that to one side for the moment and concentrate on this? Yeah.
Stewart
Let's slip it into neutral for a moment here, Peter. We haven't got a green light from the PM yet, so let's not hit the accelerator.
Here's another way of looking at it: Let's. Goodbye.
(In this scene, Peter, Phil and Emma arrive at Stewart's office at Number 10. Stewart is preparing a "whiteboard session"...much to Peter's annoyance.)
Stewart
Ah, Team Peter. Come on, guys, let's take a little imagination stroll through a virtual inquiry, yeah?
(groaning) Oh, dear God, not another whiteboard session. I've-I've got a note from my mother, I have a verruca.
Stewart
Just wanna get an overview, Peter, yeah? A helicopter shot of where we currently are. Who's most to blame in the blame garden. Okay, the onion is PFI. Let's peel back some layers. Murray resignation, how do we feel about that?
What's "Tickle's M Records"?
Stewart
Medical, it's his leaked medical records.
Leaked? I-I-I thought they were common knowledge.
Stewart
Well, they are now, because they have been leaked.
(to Emma) Did you know about this?
Well, yeah, Number 10 knew, so I-I knew, yeah.
(to Phil) What about you?
Yeah, I-I thought Tickle leaked them himself.
Stewart
Who would voluntarily leak their own medical records? You'd have to be mad to do that.
He was mad, that's precisely what his records said.
Exactly. You know, he was a male nurse. That's not just mad, that's mental.
(taken aback) Oh, Phil! Did the last 30 years only happen to other people?
Why didn't I know about this? Leaking medical records is illegal. Well, I-I -- Now I look guilty and incompetent.
Stewart
(writing on the whiteboard) Ah! Peter, incompetent.
Look! Don't write that down! I'm not on your sodding onion!
Stewart
(continuing writing) What is GFU? Good for us. Mmm?
Emma (looking at her phone): Oh, shit with a capital SHIT! We've got to go.
Stewart
Hey, no no no no no no no, sit.
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.
Oh God, not-not the one where we all piled in with the Mr. Men jokes?
Yes, yes. That one, Phil.
Stewart
Oh, you kid me!
(They all run back to DoSAC while reading the emails on their phones.)
They've leaked all the bloody emails: 'Mr. Tickle sounds like a gropey clown at a kids' party'.
I can't see! Can I make it bigger?
Go to Settings. 'Poor ickle Mr. Tickle, perhaps he's mentally sickle.' Must be Fergus.
Is this Settings? Oh, I think I've just taken a picture of my feet!
(Stewart and Malcolm are having a not-so-friendly chat on their cell phones.)
Stewart
Yeah, Malcolm, can this wait? Hmm?
Word is the PM's considering an inquiry into the culture of leaking.
Stewart
No, no. Do you really think he's going to invite everyone into our complex network of secret little burrows? Open up the whole of Watership Down?
(sarcastically) Okay, Bright Eyes. I'm massively fucking reassured.
Stewart
Look, you may as well have an inquiry into gravity. Now I have to go, Malcolm, because I've got like a whole country to govern, yeah?
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!
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!
But every-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!
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.
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)
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!
(restraining Fergus) All right, Fergus. (calmly) What the fuck is going on?
The Ark has been opened, and your face is gonna melt!
There's gonna be an inquiry.
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.
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?
Mary Drake is in the building, she's on her way up.
Stewart
OK...Shields up, guys; Centurions, we're forming a tortoise.
(Adam approaches Terri, and he's holding a ThinkSocially pamphlet in his hand.)
(to Terri) Okay. Terri, ThinkSocially. Did I sign off on this? Because I hadn't heard of ThinkSocially until I said it just then.
(But as Terri gets ready to explain, Mary Drake from the Home Office has arrived at DoSAC...and she's not happy.)
(moaning) Oh, God. Here-Here's Mary. Bunch up, everyone, so she doesn't see the corpses.
(Peter then hides in his office.)
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.
Oh, oh, please, don't, uh, don't believe everything that you hear.
(sharply) I fully intend not to. (to Stewart) Stewart. Chakras balanced?
Uh, sorry. Tiny bit of, uh, housekeeping. (to Terri) Terri, um, uh, ThinkSocially? Uh, just checking in on that.
Yes. Yes, it's a go thing. Double-stamped, yes.
(Peter emerges from his office and greets Mary with an uneasy smile.)
Mary! Great to see you again.
(flatly) I'm here in an angry capacity.
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.
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)
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)
Subtitles, you need subtitles!
(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?
It's not my fault, it's the-it's the double-stamping nonsense, that's the reason.
Oh, really? Because right now, I want to double-stamp on your fucking throat.
I'm gonna take that seriously as a physical threat!
You know, one of the many many things that baffles me about you is you remain unmurdered!
(As the Team DoSAC Coalition is celebrating Malcolm's arrest -- with some booze, no less -- Mary Drake returns with some big news.)
(to Peter) Drinking on the job, Peter? Why not? You've already got the efficiency of a man who's half cut.
Oh, then I must have dreamt that, uh, my idea had successfully reduced the arrest backlog?
DoSAC did do rather well today, uh, actually.
But there's a conspicuous blockage that will lead to a personnel change.
(Mary then turns to Stewart, who's sitting on the floor.)
(to Stewart) Stewart. You're out. You're gonna be pickled in a think tank.
Stewart
(scoffing) Of course I am, Mary. And whose authority is this coming from, hmm?
The PM, whilst acknowledging the need for thoughts, is keener on actions these days. I'm gonna be providing those. Stewart, there's no need for you to clear your desk, because you're a walking thought pod, aren't you?
Stewart
(calm, but clearly unhappy) Absolutely. Thank you very much...Thanks, um...
(But then, Stewart launches one last razor sharp parting shot.)
Stewart
You know, I've spent ten years detoxifying this party, hmmm? 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. (finally gets up) 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.
The Thick Of It · 395 quotes
