Malcolm is starting to confide,
you know, "You've no idea what it's like at Number 10.
"You've no idea what I have to deal with."
So, you know, the pressure of the job is getting to him.
He had that long sequence when he confides in Terri.
- Yeah. - And we've never seen that before.
1 I think you're wrong, Malcolm.
You're like a sultana in a salad.
Terri, can we have a word?
That sequence where Malcolm has his semi-breakdown in front of Terri,
our job as characters was to sort of stand and look
amazed, really, outside the glass.
And I can remember
watching that happen, watching Peter take Jo into that room,
and for the first 30 seconds thinking, "I need to look amazed."
And then I just stopped acting after that
because it's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life.
He did it in a take, basically, he had to do two little pick-ups for lines,
but he did that thing in a take.
I used to be the fucking pharaoh, Terri. I used to be the fucking pharaoh.
Mmm.
Now I'm fucking floundering in a fucking Nile of shit.
And I was saying to Rebecca afterwards, we just stood there going...
So when you see us going...
We're just kind of astounded by the power of this man's performance.
He's amazing. Don't tell him we said that.
- No, cut that bit. - He gets terribly, terribly big-headed.
- Yeah. - But it was incredible.
The Prime Minister is absolutely the right man for the moment.
- Not for the moment. - For the moment?
That's the worst possible thing that you could say.
Terri, get the dozy giblet back in here.
These are people digging their own hole
and then shitting in the hole and then rolling around in the shit.
And saying, "Oh, no! Look, I'm covered in shit."
Um, so... so...
That's why the lockdown works, I think, as another example of one of those
problems that would be a lot better dealt with
with a little less action.
Daily politics and the in-fighting, if you can put it that way,
is very, very quick and ferocious,
but I spend probably about 90% of my time
on medium, longer-term stuff.
The exciting stuff is what you see in The Thick Of It, though.
The BBC have put it on the website.
You saying that the PM's the best man for the job.
- Shit. - Yeah. And they're saying
that you fired the starter pistol on a new leadership bid.
- OLLY: I've got it on here. - I mean, yes. Absolutely.
At some point, I would love there to be a female leader.
I can't imagine what she'd be like leading the party.
And she'd certainly be a very, very long shot.
I mean, she's not terrifically bright.
And she's not very consistent. And she's given to panic.
And so, in many ways she is a liability.
Well, these days they do say, don't they, that brightness is actually
against you in terms of being
- the leader of a party. - Oh, really?
Oh, well. In that case, yeah. I'll go for it. Yeah.
It's pretty inconceivable but in a period of opposition flux,
it's not totally unimaginable that she might be a kind of
head of the politburo for three weeks
kind of like, "Oh, did she slip in here? We all voted for her that week.
"It all went a bit mental."
So I think she would be a surprising choice
but there might be a political climate in which everyone decided she was,
she was the lain Duncan Smith of the day
and that she was going to be a safe pair of hands,
which she definitely wouldn't be.
I don't think she would be a very good leader.
She's too emotive and she's got too many mad ideas.
My aim is to bake a cake that actually can consume itself,
'cause that, in a sense, is what the Fourth Sector is doing.
We're baking a self-eating cake.
I mean, I think she talks at one point about Fourth Sector pathfinders,
which is marvellous.
And it's funny because you could imagine someone saying it.
I wouldn't be surprised if some New Labour minister at some point
has actually said it.
I remember one minister describing this great voluntary sector
as the third leg of the stool.
And I'm not quite sure what anybody was meant to make of that,
so sometimes phrases that
are a bit too complicated, a bit too buzzy,
and they sound like they've come either from a think tank
or from a management consultant,
sometimes they end up in a speech or being used on the floor
of the House Of Commons.
And you can see sometimes even MPs in there
scratching their heads and thinking, "What is he on about?"
If she were leading the party,
she'd probably have slightly better advice.
Or maybe not.
But arguably, she might have a better team around her.
With a better team, she'd actually be a more successful politician
than she is at the moment.
I am going to stand in the election.
Fucking hell.
Sort of hard to take on board.
It's like being told your dad's gay or something.
I am strangely really proud of you.
I think it's nice, the fact that you find out
that Glenn is standing as a prospective parliamentary candidate.
In the world of politics, amongst researchers and advisors,
it's a bit like "Have you ever thought of acting?"
To people in the media world. "Oh, no! I never would."
But you sort of suspect that they wouldn't have gone into that world
if basically they didn't want to be Prime Minister.
I think that special advisors have grown in importance
under the current government.
They've been given authority to really, in effect, overrule civil servants,
which was never the case before 1997.
But they've always been influential and powerful.
And yes, I don't think that The Thick Of It
overstates their influence and importance, either.
Yeah, I think the same hierarchy exists within spads
as it does within politicians. You want to be top dog.
I'm sure the Treasury spads strut their stuff over everybody else.
You're also, I think, very loyal to your particular minister,
so your fortunes rise and fall with him or her.
I'm afraid my chances of becoming an MP have been torpedoed
by the U-boat that was you.
He's quite moral, isn't he, Glenn? He's the closest...
He's the closest to actually steadily moral
in the whole thing, and he's just as blown by the winds
as everybody else in some respects,
but he kind of feels it more, I always think.
I think Glenn is an old-fashioned idealist.
And I think Glenn and Olly compete not to be the whipping boy of DoSAC.
I think that's essentially what their relationship is.
They're constantly attacking one another.
Glenn mentioning his seniority and calling Olly inconsequential.
And Olly mocking Glenn's age as though he's somehow
old-fashioned and no good and should be put out to pasture.
That's what they're doing. They're competing all the time
not to be at the bottom.
If anything, Glenn, I am hung under.
First DoSAC party under the new regime,
you lasted till, I'd say, seven?
Yeah, well, I do have a life, Ollie.
Yes. But only in the way that, you know, jellyfish or athlete's foot have a life.
What was it last night, then? Candlelit anniversary dinner for one?
I think, actually, Glenn's private life is probably more pleasant
than everyone else in the show makes out.
There's a great deal of play made of the fact that he's like some
octogenarian kind of...
pervert.
I mean, that seems to me that he's just sort of
over 50 and isn't reading Nuts magazine,
so I think I'd stick up for Glenn
and say he probably goes home and has a nice glass of red wine
and watches Newsnight and does the crossword
and is having a perfectly nice time.
Whatever he does, he does it cleanly.
- I'm fairly confident of that. - Well, I was going to say
that I thought there might be a few dirty handkerchiefs.
- Oh, do you think? - But who knows? I mean...
I think there's a slight tendency towards OCD with Glenn.
- Do you? - Mmm. I suspect everything's...
- He cleans up afterwards? - Oh, yeah.
- After what? - Mmm.
How are you feeling about things?
Well, you know, I'm just trying to do my best and,
you know, make sure I can still get home by 6:00.
Terri can see certain things going wrong but is missing a lot of others.
She's such a B+ kind of woman, really.
- And um, you know... - That's great.
...you need a bit more in that job, I suspect.
It would be too much effort to be an A-, wouldn't it?
- It'd just mean coming in earlier. - Yeah. Why should she?
It would mean coming in earlier, staying later,
spending your weekend reading sort of management books.
And she probably could be more, that's what's frustrating about her.
She could probably be extremely good and she just cannot be arsed.