Steve Fleming is a bullshitter.
I mean, he's a total bullshitter.
- And he's fake, isn't he? - Mmm.
You can tell from the moment he sort of smarms up,
sort of kissy-kissy and shaking your hand,
that there's something inauthentic there.
- Morning, campers. - Ah!
- Steve Fleming. - Ha-ha.
- Oh, no. - Hello... Oh, okay.
- Mmm, hello, Nicola. - Hi.
You look like you've lost some weight.
- Do I? Don't think so but... - Yeah.
Ah, I think so, yes. No, your face looks quite gaunt.
Muscly.
I suppose if you're in that high-pressure environment,
the one thing you need if you're being, you know,
constantly barracked by somebody, is at least do it honestly.
- At least tell me... - Be honest, yeah.
...that you're bollocking me. At least swear at me, you know.
But if you're doing it in a kind of smarmy, kissy-kissy way,
then that must be absolutely infuriating.
He is unctuous, and, um, peculiar.
And he's got a filthy temper on him, hasn't he?
We know that Malcolm is aggressive but can be charming,
whereas Steve Fleming is the opposite.
He would like to think that he is essentially charming,
although it's a pretty autistic form of charm.
But if he's confronted,
he's... It's like... He's very passive aggressive,
you know, he will turn and snap at some point.
- What have you both got so far? - Well, actually,
now we've been trying to think of a replacement for Andy Murray.
- (SIGHS) Ah, yeah. - Some of the women footballers,
- uh, Jessica Clarke or Sue Smith... - But we don't think they're...
...or Faye White. - I cannot believe
the energy going into Andy Murray!
He has a sort of presentational flair which Malcolm clearly doesn't have.
But actually, that's one thing that makes him utterly despicable.
I think he's just a worse James Bond kind of...
you know, he feels like he's 008.
And just feels like, "I want 007 back."
So, I think the portrayal is brilliant,
the acting is brilliant, but I think he serves to make you go,
"Oh, I didn't mind it so much when Malcolm was around."
Olly and Glenn have always been in awe of Malcolm.
They've always felt a slight fear and a slight admiration for him.
But as he gets more unhinged,
there is the real sense of, "We can't afford this.
"We can't afford..." I mean, I think it's this disbelief
that Malcolm, the great Malcolm Tucker, could possibly not be a wizard.
He's really on holiday?
Malcolm hasn't been on holiday for 10 years.
Malcolm's got to keep moving or he's dead.
He's like a shark, or Bob Dylan.
Seeing Malcolm at home,
throwing a party for his journalist friends,
is quite a scary thing, because it's sort of, on one level,
it kind of suggests that he is out of power.
I'm still running the show, right?
If you're still running the show, why do you need to tell us?
Geoffrey, all I'm saying is this.
It would be very much fucking appreciated
if you could emphasise the fact
that I'm at the heart of government, because it's fucking true.
You know, you're finally beginning to see the man behind the curtains,
and that's terrifying to them, I think, in a way,
because it means, "We're not safe. We could lose."
I had no idea, no idea, that it was Malcolm
who drafted Fleming's resignation letter in 2003.
I forgot your political memory only goes back
- two issues of The Economist. - Hey!
PR gurus always say, don't they, that once you become the story
you've stopped doing your job,
and I think it is very important
for these people to be in the background.
They then become the lightning conductor.
We saw it with Mrs Thatcher's advisor Bernard Ingham.
We've seen it with others working for chancellors and prime ministers.
And of course, politicians get very jealous
of the coverage and of the influence that they have.
But in their defence, you cannot run government without them,
because there is such a huge amount on a modern prime minister's plate
that he or she needs people around them
who can carry out their instructions and their policies.
So I've got some sympathy for them, some jealousy for them,
but, yeah, they've got a shelf life.
It's very hard for their tricks not to become very obvious
to the people who they're dealing with, so they just run out of road, really.
People have heard it too many times from them.
They lose credibility if they've said things that weren't true,
or were economical with the truth.
Yeah, and once the spin doctor becomes the story,
that's the end, as we found out with Charlie Whelan and Alastair Campbell.
So they don't live forever, but Malcolm Tucker's lived long enough
to amuse a lot of us for quite some time.
In the dying days of an administration,
you don't really want somebody spinning all the time.
What you really want is somebody who's able to keep a lid on stuff.
And I think what we've seen in Episode 6,
and again in 7, is that Malcolm isn't very good at doing that.
He doesn't shut stuff down.
I mean, they cheer, don't they? When Malcolm resigns, they cheer.
- And I was slightly surprised by that. - And find a bottle of champagne.
They find a bottle of champagne. "Hooray, he's gone."
(OLLY CHEERING)
- Happy days! - Oh, I just want to hug someone.
Is this good? I mean, it feels good, but...
That always felt slightly strange to me. It always felt like
something... That's a really big seismic shift.
It's not like an enemy's gone.
They seem to be celebrating the end of an enemy,
but Malcolm going, it's the end of an era,
it's the end of their protection,
they're totally on their own from that point.
As we went through the series, I started to have more and more respect
for the sense that, yes, of course he's Machiavellian
and he's evil from time to time,
but actually, there is a real core of kind of decency
and good in Malcolm in a very odd way.
- Mmm. - Very odd way.
But there is something there that he absolutely believes in it,
and he will do whatever it takes, because he knows it's right.
You know that thing where people retire,
they've got a long time beforehand to prepare.
If they don't prepare for what they're going to do,
they kind of go nuts a bit,
because having been something, they're then nothing.
- Yes. - And the thing about Malcolm is
- it's like that. - Yes.
He doesn't even really have time to prepare.
Because the time he could be spending preparing for that
is energy he has to put into preventing it from happening,
or attempting to prevent it from happening.
And then eventually, suddenly, especially at the end of Episode 7,
he doesn't see it, until right at the end,
he doesn't see that he's been set up.
- Shall I go first? - Warm them up.
Tell him Olivier's on his way, but in the meantime
he has an audience with Peter fucking Bowles.
So, Malcolm's 50. All right? Malcolm's 50,
and then he resigns at the end of Episode 7.
What does he think he's going to do with the next...
- Twenty years. - Yeah.
Scrabble. I reckon Scrabble. I think he does sweary Scrabble at home.
Maybe it's time he went off and wrote a novel or something,
or started campaigning for a charity outside of politics.
He probably dabbles in the private sector,
who harbour all sorts of delusions about how applicable
and transferable his skills are to the way things are done there.
Malcolm Tucker would be a millionaire in the real world
if he were to go into it with his own consultancy,
because it's amazing just how much kudos they actually have.
What should Malcolm do?
Well, he should go and present a television programme, shouldn't he?
Because he would be very quick at presenting.
He'll be able to react to the gallery, react to events,
and he'll be able to be his own person and not his master's voice,
and that's what happens to them.
It's curtains. No curtain call.
Everyone loved the show,
but it just wasn't buttering any parsnips any more, brother!
Yeah, you don't have the fucking balls
apart from that fucking great, inflated fucking ball
on the fucking end of your fucking neck.
Oh, look!
STEVE: Ohh!
(STEVE WHISPERING) "Malcolm Tucker resigns."
Instantly, his life is changed, devastated.
- What will happen? - Mmm-hmm.
Tune in next week.
I know. Actually, it's all right.
He's fine, he goes into baking.
- Does he? - Mmm.
- They wouldn't show me that script. - That he goes into baking?
- Yeah. Bastards. - Yeah, yeah.
- Were you not in Episode 9? - No.
(MUTTERING) Bastards.