[Malcolm Tucker's first line.]
[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. All right. Got to go. Minister's just walked in.
“Series 1, Episode 1”
In this episode: Glenn Cullen (7), Hugh Abbot (7), Malcolm Tucker (6), Ollie Reeder (4), Terri Coverley (1), Angela Heaney (1), Cliff Lawton (1)
[Malcolm Tucker has just told Cliff Lawton, the head of the Department of Social Affairs, that he has to resign as Minister.]
Malcolm, look, um – if you do this, it's the bollocks of the jungle out there, you know? They're like wolves. Pissed wolves.
I've made the announcement: I've told the Lobby you're going, Cliff.
You've told the Lobby I'm going?
Yeah. Sorry Cliff.
Minister.
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.
Um...Look, tell you what. You don't need to do all of this. What about Tom? Everybody knows he's fucking up Transport.
We can't sack Tom at Transport. We can't lose anyone at Transport, they're important.
What? And Social Affairs isn't?
OK, the Department of Social for Commercial Affairs is very important, but it's not Transport. Transport's cars, buses, trucks.
I KNOW WHAT TRANSPORT FUCKING ENTAILS!
[Malcolm gives Cliff his infamous "bollocking stare."]
Look, look...Look. I'll look at it.
[Cliff looks at the resignation note.]
Personal reasons.
Yeah. I thought that would give you adequate scope.
Scope. What, like, um...shooting up in the Cabinet Office or something? Stuffing a cat up my arse and having a wank? What do you mean, scope?
You know, this could be a great deal worse. You have had a good innings. You have been here for 18 months. And you know, I have written some very nice things about you in the PM's reply to your resignation. Some very nice fucking things indeed. I had a lump in my throat. And you know why? Because no one who matters thinks any less of you over this -- so far. OK? [beat] Right. One more thing: the Daily Mail. David Topham has got it into his head that we are gonna sack you because of press pressure.
I wonder why.
Look. You're in no position to dish out fucking sarcasm. That's over. You no longer have purchase in the sarcasm world. Get on the phone. Tell him you're jumping before you're pushed -- although we were gonna push you, but not because of press pressure, but because of your deeply held fucking personal issues, whatever they were.
You want me to write my own obituary.
Get on the fucking phone. Do it now.
[Hugh and Glenn are in the car listening to The World at One. They're celebrating Hugh's "Snooper Force" policy being given the green light.]
NCNick Clarke
[on the radio] The World at One. This is Nick Clarke with 30 minutes of news...
Well, you can fuck off for a start.
NCNick Clarke
The Social Affairs Secretary Hugh Abbot...
[quite proudly] Evening!
First story up.
Top of the bill.
NCNick Clarke
...a uniformed, so-called Snooper Force. The announcement suggests the DSA has pushed the Treasury into releasing more funds, so we'll ask, is the Treasury losing its...
Yes it is, and not before time!
NCNick Clarke
...Social Affairs spokesman Mark Davis Nathenson...
If you can get him out of the bath!
NCNick Clarke
But first, the estimates of fatalities from yesterday's train disaster in Bangalore have risen precipitously overnight...
Well, that's marvelous.
[But then, Hugh's cell phone rings.]
Oh, Tucker. [Happily answering the call] Malcolm.
What the fuck was that? Was this whole Snooper Force thing from you?
Malcolm, I talked to the PM and this is completely kosher as far as he's concerned. You know, he gave the go-ahead and he said, you know, bounce the Treasury.
Don't you realise? We have got 17 different issues we are fighting with the Treasury about.
I can hear that you are, as usual, upset.
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!
Mal– Malcolm –
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?
He actually said, 'This is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing.'
What did he actually say?
He said, 'This is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing.'
'Should' be doing. 'Should' does not mean 'yes'. Now, there's only one thing to do here, and it's what I'm going to tell you to do. Kill it.
I can't -- I can't kill it! I'm on my way to make the announcement! There's gonna be television cameras there and everything!
Well, fuck the television cameras! Think of something else to say! But just don't mention the bloody New Avengers or the Snooper Force, or whatever the fuck you call it.
Scam Busters?
Get rid of it. I don't wanna hear about it again. Bye.
[Glenn is on the phone with Terri, telling her about a change in the Snooper Force story.]
So the line is -- and call every news desk -- that the Snooper Force story is that it was led out by, quote, "a disgruntled civil servant," unquote. OK?
[privately annoyed] OK, great.
And Terri?
Hmmm?
You can drop that tone, all right?
What tone?
The "I knew better all along" tone, yeah? It isn't fucking appreciated right now!
[Ollie is in the car with Glenn & Hugh. The hree of them are discussing policy ideas while traveling.]
All right. So...what the hell am I gonna say is the reason for me summoning all the nation's major news organisations to a school in Wiltshire?
So you want something sexy and eye-catching, and that is free and universally popular and instantly applicable, no one can possibly object to it.
Yep.
Right.
Yes.
[to Glenn] Well, really, you should've said something before, Glenn, because I've got a file about that fucking thick of that back in the office. Absolutely huge. Those sorts of policies are ten a penny.
[getting mad] Ollie!
Our entire manifesto is more or less made up of...
[settling down] You know, it really doesn't help when you get cynical. You should think of this as an opportunity.
It's not that easy to come up with Das Kapital in the back of a cab, Glenn.
[intervening] Ollie.
[to Hugh, handing him an electric razor] Here, shave.
[As Hugh shaves his face, everybody settles down and gets back to the task at hand.]
What we need is something that the public want, is incredibly popular and is free.
Return of capital punishment.
[unimpressed] That's a joke, right? You are joking, yes, obviously? Come on, Ollie, come up with something.
National spare room database.
[Nobody has any ideas yet -- UNTIL...]
What about zoos? My kids went to a zoo, you know, the other day and they said-they said it was fucking disgusting. You know, the state of it. [beat] That's shit, isn't it?
[nodding] No...but there is an idea there, because in the middle of the city, you've got wild animals.
Pet ASBOs? Do you remember that? ASBOs for pets?
Well, you see, that sounds potentially ludicrous. But then pet passports, I mean, that was a...that was a goer.
What if everybody had to carry a plastic bag? By law? You know, the identification cards are coming in...
[appalled] You've fucking cracked! Are you mad?
What if the announcement is...there's no big announcement.
Oh, for goodness...
No, no, wait. Right? We say, "The Department of Social Affairs has been doing amazing work, bread-and-butter work, belt-and-braces work, the kind of work that you people aren't interested in 'cos it's not shiny, shiny, media-friendly stuff. You are so obsessed with how things play in the media, you sickos, that every time we try and do, you know, just carry on with our day, you don't show up. So we have to call a big, you know, thing like this."
On target, under budget.
Coalface politics.
Absolutely. Yes, I like that.
Not wasting resources.
Good. Let's do that.
Let's go for that.
We trick them. We trick them. Tinselly thing and they come along and then we say, "Ah-ha, that's what we've been doing, we've been doing our fucking jobs!" [beat] Yes, they never print that stuff, do they?
Yeah, yeah, and you've come all this way, we've got you two hours out of London to come and cover this.
You mugs! You mugs!
But you know what? You've got a bigger story here than you have chasing your tinsel.
Yeah, which is you live in a country which is properly -- There's not many countries can say that.
And we've probably got 10,000,000 we can throw at it.
Yes. That's good, that, because it sounds like a lot, doesn't it?
[Hugh, Glenn and Ollie are at the school, preparing for Hugh's big speech.]
I've got a thing here that says "springy concrete." I don't know, I think that's about the playground thing, but I don't...
Springy concrete?
[practicing his speech] Good afternoon...Should I say "Hello, boys and girls?"
Yes, very nice.
Like a fucking panto dame.
He's gonna look ridiculous on the six o'clock news saying, "Hello, boys and girls."
He's talking to the audience in front of him.
[practicing] Real money for real families. [asking Glenn and Ollie] Real families or real people?
Families.
People. Real people.
You see? Don't -- Families.
Families sounds exclusive. It sounds kinda back to basics, it sounds John Major.
People sounds Communist.
It doesn't sound Communist.
I'll say families.
Thank you, Hugh.
Say families of people.
[A schools-woman approaches the room.]
SWSchools-woman
Mr. Abbot.
Great. You're on. Here we go.
Thank you.
It's what you do best, mate.
Yep. [to the schools-woman] This is lovely. Very nice indeed.
[Surprisingly, Hugh's press conference was so boring that it was a success! Hugh and Glenn are celebrating at the office.]
Well, you really pulled it round, mate.
I took the flak, you supplied the flak jacket.
Yeah, and the bullets bounced off.
This is what it's all about, Glenn.
Yeah.
This is what it's -- All those years at the coalface, hanging in there, taking all the shit, all the bullshit.
When you are Senior Cabinet Minister, then we'll show them.
Yeah, and Snooper Force? Bollocks, we'll get rid of that.
Aw, for fuck's sake, yeah. Fiddling while Rome burns.
Fucking right. We'll kick some arse. We'll kick some butt! Kick some butt!
That's what we're in it for, mate! Tell them all the shit that we do.
[Glenn sees Malcolm standing behind Hugh, but Hugh is blissfully unaware.]
It's a means to an end, mate.
[Hugh then sees Malcolm right behind him.]
Fuck me, Malcolm. How do you do that?
Can I have a word with you?
[Glenn, who had earlier slammed doors in Ollie's and Terri's faces, finds a door being slammed in his face.]
[Malcolm wants to discuss Hugh's speech at the school.]
[sighing heavily] I'm hacked off, mate.
[stuttering] But we-we-we killed-we killed it. It's-it's-it's-it's killed.
Yeah, but once you start the fire...And we didn't start the fire. It was always burning since the world's been turning, et cetera, et cetera.
S-Sorry, Malcolm, you're not making any sense.
Prime Minister, obviously, he's, uh, on the plane in Stockholm, and somebody hits him with The World At One. He thinks it's the Treasury trying to stiff him one, so he, um... [Malcolm takes a long pause] He stuck with the story.
He liked it?
Yeah, he's backing the Snooper Force.
[smiling] Oh, right. [beat] We shouldn't really then have, I mean, you shouldn't really have, uh, told us to, uh...Should you? [chuckles]
[unamused] Don't should me, Hugh. 'Cos I'll should you right back. I'll should you right through that window. None of this should be happening, SHOULD it? SHOULD IT? SHOULD IT?
Is that should in the...sense of yes, or...?
It's should in the sense of "You should do as you're fucking told."
What, um...What are we gonna do now?
You're gonna completely reverse your position.
Hang on-hang on-hang on a second. Hang-Malcolm, it's-it's not actually that, um – I mean, that's gonna be quite hard, really.
Yes, well the announcement that you didn't make today, you did.
No, no, I didn't, and there were television cameras there while I was not doing it.
Fuck them.
I'm not quite sure h– what level of reality I'm supposed to be operating on.
Look, this is what they run with. I tell them that you said it, they believe that you said it. They don't really believe you said it, they know that you never said it.
Right.
But it's in their interests to say that you said it. Because if they don't say that you said it, they're not gonna get what you say tomorrow or the next day, when I decide to tell them what it is you're saying.
Yeah, I-I am following this. I just...
I had a friend who used to indulge in extramarital affairs, OK? He would go off and he'd have some dalliance, and every Monday he'd come back and he'd meet his wife. And he told me that all he did was inside his head turn a little switch. The affair never happened. OK?
Right.
There's not a prob -- I don't -- What is the problem with this?
The problem with it...First of all, I -- I didn't get much dalliance.
Get it into your head. Rewind today into your head.
OK, stop explaining it to me!
I have to fucking explain it to you, man. You haven't been here long enough.
[Ollie is in an office arguing with his ex-girlfriend, Angela Heaney...who's also a news journalist.]
I'm really glad you came in, Angela.
Well, I could lose my job, Ollie.
Yeah...
Because I went all hot and heavy to the news desk with three directly contradictory stories in one day.
I know,
They gave me flip-flops. You know? Someone actually went out and bought me flip-flops to give me.
Yeah. You've gotta give them credit for that, that is quite funny.
Yeah. And they pasted onto them...a fucking porn picture of a girl sucking a big cock and they wrote, "Angela Heaney swallows anything."
That is less funny. Obviously, that's actually quite offensive.
Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn't do a big story on the, you know, the day of spin?
Wh-Why? What sort of story? [Ollie starts stammering and struggling to defend himself...]
Inside story of a government department out of control. With diagrams and maybe a flow chart with your face and name on it. And Glenn's and Hugh's and big arrows showing who spoke to who and how you all fucked it up! Yeah, I think I could write that one up myself, Ollie. I think I could do the punctuation on that one!
Yeah, I-I'm sorry. Okay, I was patronis...
[Suddenly, Malcolm comes into the office.]
Hey. Hi, Angela. Oh, I like the hair, nice little corkscrews. How's it going?
Yeah, er, fine. Um, we were just, er, 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...
[to Ollie] Oh, I don't know. [to Angela] Maybe you should! Good idea.
[Malcolm leaves -- then comes back.]
Oh, wait a minute, 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 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. [to Ollie] But maybe you should do it. See you later.
Yeah. [to Angela] He's actually...He can be really nice. It's been a very long day.
I want a new driver. Get me a new driver. I don't want to see this guy ever again.
On what grounds?
Smiling. Inappropriate smiling. And smirking. Smiling and smirking. I don't want to see that smile or smirk ever again. OK? Thank you. [Hugh turns to the driver] OK, thank you very much.
DDriver
Which way do you want to go?
I don't care, you're the boss.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The Thick Of It pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.