(In this scene, the phone in Peter's office keeps running, and he keeps picking up the phone -- only to hang up without really answering. While he's doing this, Phil enters Peter's office.)
Look, Phil. Every petty criminal in the country is in a holding pattern, because that barrel of cocks at the Home Office can't process their arrests quick enough. (Peter disconnects his phone.) So why am I the one who has to gimp himself out all day to Martha Kearney and Eddie Mair?
Because since the inquiry, DoSAC looks toxic and weak, and they're just trying to pile all the government's ills on top of us.
Who's fault's that, Phil?
I've said I'm sorry about the inquiry, okay? I started writing you a letter but it just seemed pretentious. Look, if it's any consolation, I haven't felt that humiliated since my trunks fell down at the school swimming gala.
It's of absolutely no consolation to think of you naked in front of 500 boys.
(walking in, on her phone) Yeah, absolutely, Trevor. OK, yeah, drinks soon. Yeah, you too. OK, bye. (hangs up) Oh, God! I just felt my ovaries cringe. I'm trying to flirt our way out of this police backlog.
I thought we weren't talking to The Proclaimers.
We have to play happy families for Mary, pretend I don't actually want to strangle Fergus's bollocks so they look like glacé cherries.
Meanwhile, an unarrested feral underclass has gone Mad Max, and police station waiting rooms are heaving like the hedgehog carvery at a gypsy wedding.
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.
OK people, could we briefly form a coherent group?
Mary Drake is in the building, she's on her way up.
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?
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!
(Nicola has discovered that Declan, the journalist due to interview her, is the man behind 'Mr Chop'!)
I am, uh...ever so close to being on the verge of bawling my fucking eyes out' disappointed about this. I mean, this was it, was it? What was the alternative, going on Strictly Come Dancing and doing a fucking hooky waltz with Abu Hamza? This is pretty low. This is lower than my mother's pelvic floor, Helen.
I had to virtually go on the game to get you this. So, frankly, I don't care whether he wants to roll around in applesauce with you. Get in there and do as you're told.
(taking a breath) Right. I will go, because I'm choosing to go in. But I just need you to know for the record...
Just get in there before I push you in.
Come out, everyone! Tally-ho, yoo-hoo! Come on, bring out your fucking dead! Right, everybody listen, I've got an announcement to make, erm...
What is it, you got an erection?
No. I would like to tell you all that I'm resigning!
No, you closeted Regency homosexual, that is not it. Morally, this department is in the gutter!
Thanks for the speech, Glenn, but we have work –
(grabs a desktop lamp) YOU STAY AND TAKE YOUR PUNISHMENT! I will lamp you, with a lamp!
Glenn, you've gone a tiny bit psychotic, my love.
(puts down the lamp) You, Fergus, when you asked me to join you, all you had was your principles, but over the last two years, you've bent like a human fucking palm tree, swaying to the guff of these six-toed born-to-rule pony-fuckers.
If you're gonna go, just go. Spare us this Peter Finch bullshit.
Oh! Adam, you're waiting for your turn! Oh no! I remember, it's your turn right now!
You are simply the most loathsome human being I have ever met.
You were so well-suited at the Mail, it's a shame you came over here!
Hear, hear! (she and Phil clap)
Do you know what? I hate you both: Tweedle-twat and Tweedle-prick! You contribute absolutely nothing to the world, so thank fucking God you have no power!
Er, we do actually, it's –
No, you don't. And Peter: it's been dreadful. I hope your cock falls off. Phil, do you know what you are? You're like an eight-year-old trapped in a twelve-year-old's body.
(gleefully) This is great! Why isn't anyone filming this?
Yeah, yeah, do Emma, do Emma!
Yeah, Emma, I'm sorry, you're just a standard-issue insipid posh bitch. That's it! (Emma smiles and shrugs slightly) Terri? (takes a pair of scissors)
I don't think I've ever met anyone quite so proud, and yet quite so useless. But I do have to thank you, (takes his pass and cuts it up) because I have managed to stay in shape, purely though the energy I spend in pitying you every day!
Glenn, you're just embarrassing yourself.
Fuck you all up the wrong 'un! Ta ta! Bye bye! (leaves)
That was better than IMAX Inception.
Should we try and get him back?
Fuck, no. He's gone completely mental!
(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.
(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?
(calm, but clearly unhappy) Absolutely. Thank you very much...Thanks, um...
(But then, Stewart launches one last razor sharp parting shot.)
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.
