“Series 3, Episode 5” quotes from The Thick Of It

Malcolm

Here's the fucking thing. Nobody talks about fucking dodgy donors, okay? Because it makes everybody look bad.

Stewart

Okay, I'll go with a different angle, then. How do you think it would land with your female voters if they were to find out that Tom Rudd forced his secretary into having an abortion?

Malcolm

That was her own personal choice, and by the way, it wasn't his. (whispers) Over here.

Stewart

Wow! So him paying for a private clinic, then, was just because he's such a nice man?

Malcolm

He IS a nice man. What about your nice man at Central Planning, eh? The one who got a bit carried away and fucking slapped his kids about a little bit too much? Fucking broke the skin! But he wasn't such a nice man, was he? But I suppose that's just part of your "common sense checklist," yeah. All they need is a good slap and do please remember to leave your fucking rings on!

Stewart

You go check your facts, Malcolm. That was a domestic accident and nothing more.

Malcolm

Domestic accident, yeah, 'cause he's got fucking hands the size of fucking doors!

Stewart

Oh, you want to talk about hardmen, Malcolm, yeah? Now I know you've got to be hard to be a chief whip, but really, coke dealing at university?

Malcolm

Oh! Please, please!

Stewart

Hey, am I right in thinking he's now godfather to one of the PM's kids, yeah?

Malcolm

Listen, you know what I have got at the back of my fucking filing cabinet? I've got a fucking photograph that I've been waiting for a fucking rainy day to show everyone, which is a photograph of your fucking Shadow Chancellor, at one of his fucking parties, dressed up in fucking bra, suspenders, and fucking blackface! What's his defence gonna be, hey, when I email that to the fucking Sun? "Oh, well I am just de Shadow Chancellor"?

Stewart

Malcolm, he won't have a defense, because you haven't got that picture...

Malcolm

I have!

Stewart

Because that didn't happen! However, I do have a statement from a rent boy...

Malcolm

Oh, that's very useful for you. You can claim that against your expenses, can't you?

Stewart

Oh, yeah, funny, very funny.

Malcolm

And you'll get that for free. Is that one of the perks of your fucking job?

Stewart

No, listen. His statement says...he will swear that one of your prominent back-bench MPs paid him to shit on his chest!

Malcolm

DON'T!

Malcolm

Right, look, this is out of order, okay?

Stewart

Here's the deal. We both, both make statements saying that our guys in there, they were not in possession of all the facts. Hmm? But we're looking into it.

Malcolm

You'd do that? Hang your own guy out to fucking dry?

Stewart

What? Peter Mannion, MP? Yeah! Old guard? We're not sending him to DoSac to fatten him up. We're putting him out to pasture, Malcolm.

Malcolm

We should just go home.

Stewart

We can do that. We can just seal this in. Contain the toxicity. Chernobyl FM.

Malcolm

I mean, you carry on like this and I might not find you utterly fucking contemptible.

Stewart

That's an incentive. I'll get my bag.

Richard

Andrew in Suffolk writes, 'The body is a temple. Temples aren't made of metal. Case closed.'

Malcolm

(to Nicola's driver) You couldn't turn that to Magic FM, could you mate? Otherwise I'm gonna have to tear my eyelids off and scrunch them up into fucking earplugs.

Phil

You just start off about how great the City used to be, then how it's not so great now, and then end with a joke. It's the classic shit sandwich, you know: bread, shit, bread!

Peter

Phil, if anyone bites into a shit sandwich, they don't say, 'Mmm, bread!', they say, 'Oh fuck, I've got a mouthful of shit! (Janice the producer shoves him into the studio) You mental bastard! Why have you filled my sandwich with shi–'