(At the start of this episode, Hugh is talking on his cell phone to someone about the impending "Cabinet Reshuffle.")
(on his cell phone) No, Derek. I'm not presuming anything. It's entirely up to the PM. I'll just go wherever he wants me to go. I'm gonna have to go. Bye-bye.
(Next, Hugh and Ollie, who's right behind him, both meet up with Robyn and congratulate her on getting a place at Malcolm's 8:30 press meeting.)
(cheekily smiling) Morning, Minister.
Are you just off to your 8:30 with Malcolm?
Into the Lion's Den, Viper's Pit.
"The Belly of the Beast, the Lair of the White Worm."
Not all the departments get asked to the 8:30, so...
A great honor that we are in there with the big hitters. Always best to be inside the tent, pissing out.
Absolutely. If you were, you know, doing this over at Environment and Rural Affairs, you'd be, uh, at 8:30 you'd be very much outside the tent, wouldn't you? Probably at Coffee Republic.
Covered in piss. Good luck. You'll be fine. You don't need good luck. Yeah.
(reassuring Robyn) No no no, it's just a figure of speech.
(looking at his cell phone) I'm sure there's a way of...
(chasing after Robyn) Robyn!
(Hugh just remembered to ask Robyn a question.)
(whispering to Robyn) Robyn, sorry. Could you try and pick up any signals you can from Malcolm about -- about the, um...about the reshuffle?
I've really got to go now, because I don't want to be late.
Yeah, God, don't be late!
Apparently, they shout things at the last one in.
(entering the scene) If anyone shouts at you, they'll have to answer to me. I'll box his ears.
(Robyn leaves)
(to Glenn) Box his ears? If that was flirting, that was absolutely crap.
Box his ears? How long is it since you've had sex?
That is between me and my internet service provider. Anyway, about this morning's –
(chuckling) You've actually gone red, Glenn. Look at you.
Yeah, you have. Look, you've gone red.
I have not gone red. (points to his folder) That's red.
Look, he can hardly walk properly.
(Malcolm Tucker is having his 8:30 meeting with all the reporters and press officers from various government departments.)
(entering the room) Morning morning morning morning!
OK, I want to have a little bit of a think about, um, some of our presentational issues with regard to yesterday. There seems to have been a bit of a problem last night with, uh, Liam on Newsnight. I would like to know why did we have a Minister on last night who did not appear to know their lines.
R1Reporter #1
It's not all his fault, Malcolm. We-we grilled him beforehand.
R1Reporter #1
He's got a new baby. He's not getting enough sleep.
I don't care if he's got a new baby. I don't care whether he's tired. He looked like he didn't know what he was fucking talking about. Now I know he doesn't know what he's fucking talking about, but he's got to appear as if he does, right? (Malcolm starts pointing at all the reporters.) And that is your job and your job. (He continues pointing.) And yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours. With all due respect of ministers, give them the lines. Right?
Give them all the lines to say?
(Malcolm introduces the other reporters to Robyn.)
This is the delightful Robyn. She's just with us today. She's standing in for, eh, Terri Coverley at the Department of, uh, Social Affairs. So let's be gentle with her, please. No remarks about the Department of Stuffed Anuses, or the Department of Stupid Announcements, or the Department of Sod All. (Laughter emanates from the room.) Right, next.
(to Robyn, smiling) Yes, there is, uh, a pending reshuffle, I can see we're not gonna get anything past you! "There was a young girl from DOSA, who helped herself to a samosa." (Malcolm jokingly makes a karate chop.) Argh! Next time I'll come up with something. Just a bit of fun. Um...Yes, the reshuffle. No, yes, well, definitely, we-we don't know anything. I don't know anything. So, um, we can't say anything. But you know, even if we did, we wouldn't. But we don't, so we both can't and won't.
(asked for a line about Julius Nicholson at his 8.30 meeting) 'Julius Nicholson is a hugely respected adviser. He now has a wide-ranging brief, and his blue-sky vision and helicopter thinking will enable this Government to go, in his own phrase, "beyond delivery, and beyond that".' That's the line, OK? And if he does stick his baldy head round your door and comes up with some stupid idea about 'policemen's helmets should be yellow', or 'let's set up a department to count the moon', just treat him like someone with Alzheimer's disease, you know? Just say to him, "Oh, yeah, that's lovely, that's good. We must talk about that later." OK?
Robyn, can you send these back to archives, 'cause they're not even highlighted, I'm not going to plough through all that myself. While you're talking to them, I need the last four months of the European Digest. I'm going to be moving –
Is it 'cause you fancy me, is that what this is all about?
Why are you so bloody rude to me? I mean, that's got to be the reason. Other people, when they come in here, they knock on the door and they say "hello", "good morning", "thank you" and "nice top" sometimes.
Right, um, well, no. I mean, for a start, I don't fancy you. I don't know where you got that in your head, but it's probably best to get it out. If I'm slightly polite to you on a semi-regular basis, will that in any way bypass it?
I think that would definitely do it.
Right, fantastic. Well, thank you very much for the work you do; hi, by the way, how are you?
I'm really well, actually.
Great, that's great; you look lovely; can I have the fucking Digest, please? That would be terrific.
All you had to do was ask me.
Yeah, well, all I did do is ask. (Robyn bends down to get something) Phwoar! (She gets up and stares at Ollie) It was a joke.
(Hugh and Ollie are discussing the latest Cabinet meeting.)
I did mention your great quiet carriages thing and he just – (pulls a slightly disgusted face)
Well what does that mean?
Fuck knows what it means, but I don't think it means, "Oh, Hugh, you're fantastic. Here, become Home Secretary". And even if it did mean that, when he's in bed tonight with Mrs PM, flossing, then she'll say, "What do you mean, Hugh Abbot as Home Secretary? The man is a social spastic and very probably a registered nonce, darling."
(Discussing Julius Nicholson)
Can't we just kill him, shoot him?
What about we just fire him at a wall from a cannon. Just a wall two feet away.
I know, we force feed him with a mixture of garlic and Dettol in Cup-a-Soup.
What about the old red-hot poker up the arse? Edward II?
(Julius walks in)
I'd like to nail him to a tree through the head and watch lice slowly crawl over his body, eating off the flesh in a slow and painful death, (having already noticed Julius) but that rather bitter anomaly aside, most of the responses to the Warwick report press cuttings were pretty positive.
Glenn (entering): Oh, God, here we go again. Yeah, like Glenn, what?
Well, I was just saying, the last time you saw a snatch was...
You see, that's good. That's the kind of repartee I need with the PM's wife. It's that final k-tsssss! you see, that's the bit I'm missing.
Yeah, well, I think you could drop the snatch material with the PM's wife, don't you?
Well, OK, between the snatch and the Euro there's some sort of happy medium.Malcolm (on the phone): He is not getting anywhere near my fucking pantry, I tell you that. That door is staying as open as a fat whore's bonehole.Hugh: Sorry I'm late, traffic was an absolute bitch. No offence, Robyn.
It's Paul Webster, US Economics Secretary of State. He's unexpectedly coming over, and the Treasury are hosting a bash for him this evening. Don't tell me you've not been invited.
Yes, no, I have. It's just that I'm actually bashing myself tonight.
So you – you've got your own bash here?
Ah! Back up, everybody, put the brakes on! We've got a bash happening here tonight and at the Treasury?
Yeah. It sounds complicated but I like to, um, maximise my face.
Right, guys, thanks very much for staying on. Julius Nicholson, right?
Blue sky thinker? Ex-business guru? Dog rapist?
He's being a nuisance to me; he also has got plans to squeeze your department so hard you'll be lucky if you're left with one bollock between the three of you. So all I am doing here is asking you, formally, if you will join me in a little bit of a circle jerk.
It's when a lot of guys in a circle all, you know. (to Malcolm) Well, I assume you don't mean literally, do you? Presumably?
(A few moments ago, Hugh said that he does not want to close down schools for kids with special needs. He is now in his office discussing the Special Needs Bill with Glenn.)
Glenn, the Special Needs Bill. With your, you know, particular interest, I can't do this.
You know my views, you know. Inclusion is an illusion. It doesn't work.
But you-you don't mind if I -- if I go ahead with it?
Of course not. You know, look...you're only following orders.
Oh, thanks. So you won't make me feel bad except by comparing me to a concentration camp guard?
Now, tomorrow. Select Committee, that's Ballantine, isn't it?
(But before Hugh and Glenn can continue discussing the Special Needs Bill, Ollie barges in and interrupts.)
(to Hugh and Glenn) Sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt. Who wants to go and watch Bollockvision?
Mr. Malcolm Tucker, turning it all the way up to eleven, down in the lobby. Come and have a look.
(They all go out onto the balcony. On the other side of the atrium, on their floor, Malcolm is shouting at another Minister.)
Oh, poor Keith. Malcolm must fucking love this place: Four ministers in one building. It's his dream, a one-stop bollock-shop.
Trouble is, we're gonna be getting some of that in about an hour.
Yeah. I don't know which is worse, watching him slowly rumble towards you like prostate cancer, or him appearing suddenly out of nowhere like a severe stroke.
(Terri, whose father died after a stroke, turns towards Hugh.)
Oh. How's your sister coping?
(The Department of Social Affairs has been renamed "The Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship" -- DoSAC for short.)
So, Hugh, this -- this new word, 'Citizenship.' Did the PM actually outline what it entails?
Well, to be honest, I think he was making the reshuffle up as he-as he went along, and I think we were very lucky that 'Citizenship' was the first word that sprang to mind. Otherwise we could be the Department for Social Affairs and Woodland Folk.
See, the problem is, though, Hugh, that there's been a bit of a rush with you not in place. Uh, you know, every department trying to unload all the stuff that they didn't want. But it's been like somebody driving a lorry down Whitehall, shouting "Bring out your shit." And they have and it's ended up at our door.
Citizenship basically involves, uh, cutting pensions to the Ghurkhas, rejigging the protocols for a rabies outbreak, some crap from Health about long-term care for the elderly that neither they nor we have any real idea about.
And what to do with the Isle of Man.
(annoyed) Just what I fucking need. Five new ways to lose my job.
(Hugh then starts eyeing a plant that he's just noticed is right next to his desk.)
Where did that come from?
It's far too big. Why-why did he send it?
Uh, office warming present.
So why did he send us a present?
Has Security checked this?
What for? Tiny little terrorists?
(annoyed) It's a plant! Yes?!
(moving on) Okay, so...citizenshit. What we need to do is knock together some nice, touchy-feely, fondley, sneaky, hand-in-the-bra sort of policies.
New bicycles for special constables, that sort of thing?
Making special needs kids clean up graffiti?
(displeased) Yeah, that's just very mean.
Well, yes. Not, of course, as mean as making them spell "graffiti." That genuinely is very mean.
(to Hugh, calmly but not happily) I'll go and have a word with Malcolm.
(After Glenn leaves the office, Hugh tries to reprimand Ollie for making a joke about special needs kids.)
You just took a shit with your clothes on, Ollie.
Glenn's boy, Peter. He went to a special needs school.
God, you're such a prick, Ollie.
There's more to life, you know, than drinks parties at the Foreign Office and having Nick Robinson's mobile number on your fucking BlackBerry!
Yes. All right, all right, fine. Sorry, Hugh. I feel for the guy. I had a girlfriend with special needs once, so I know. (smiles smugly) Luckily, I was able to fulfill them.
(Malcolm joins Glenn and Hugh in the office.)
So did you enjoy the show?
(to Malcolm, jokingly) You were magnificent, darling.
(to Malcolm) Yeah, should I phone Keith so that I can get his team to watch you bollock me now?
(to Hugh) No no no no. Have I got my bollocking face on?
No. This is my bollocking face?
(Malcolm shows Hugh his infamous "bollocking stare.")
Oh, crikey, yes. Thanks for the pot plant, by the way.
As an office warming present.
Christ, she's a great P.A., isn't she, Sam?
She always remembers the little people. (looking at the plant) Look at the size of that. Fuck, you could fucking crucify somebody on that. (back to Glenn and Hugh) So what do you think of the new building, eh?
Yeah, I can't wait to move upstairs, actually, because I don't really like the glass walls on-on, on this floor. I just feel a bit exposed.
Like a whore in a Reeperbahn window.
(on the phone, calling out to Glenn) Glenn, it's Ollie. He wants you to go through and clarify the Citizenship brief.
(to Terri) How much, love?
(to Glenn) I'll catch you later.
(to Hugh, smiling) I like your tan, by the way.
Have you declared it? Staying at the villa of an influential friend?
I-I haven't got any influential friends, Malcolm. You are my only influential friend.
Oh yeah. And I'm not really your friend.
You're not really my friend.
So this, uh, Super Schools Bill...
You don't think it's so super, do you?
(Malcolm gives Hugh the "bollocking stare." Again.)
That's your bollocking face.
(Malcolm and Hugh are now discussing -- or is it arguing over? -- the Super Schools Bill.)
You know, it's great that you get all misty-eyed over Glenn's kid. But no one's trying to fuck over special needs kids.
R-Really? Really? Before I went away, I consulted an expert, Mark-Mark Ryan, and he...
The LSE education guy? And what did that sandal-wearing nonce have to say?
What he said was that closing down special needs schools and putting needy kids into mainstream education is a lousy idea!
Yeah, but I've got an expert who will deny that.
And SEN parents want the special schools kept open.
Yeah, well, my-my expert would totally oppose that.
I have no idea, but I can get one by this afternoon. You see, the thing is you have spoken to the wrong expert. You've got to ask the right expert. And you've got to know what an expert's going to advise you before he advises you. Hugh, whether you like this or not, you are gonna have to promote this bill. So what I'm gonna do is -- I'm gonna get you another expert, yeah?
