The Thick of It s03e04 Episode Script

1 No, we've got them all coming over today.
Yeah, the dishy opposition.
Do you know, Robyn, she calls Peter Mannion Peter Man-Yum.
Nowadays, I think twat and prat are pretty interchangeable, really.
Anyway, semantics aside, she shouldn't be saying anything like that to you and I take your point, Mum, and I will have a word.
The opposition have to let us senior civil servants, I mean, people like me, know exactly what they're hoping to achieve, so that when they're handed the reins of power Um Well, I think they are going to be.
I mean, this lot are looking quite toasted.
Right, Ella has thrown a massive hissy fit again at my Mum.
Like you care.
I need you to do a bit of proper parenting for once.
Um, can you give me a call? If you don't, I will have you thrown in Belmarsh.
I've just been trying to find out where Olly is 'cause as usual, he's not in yet.
Okay, meeting room.
Olly, good afternoon.
- GLENN: Good afternoon, Olly.
- I haven't missed it, have I? Olly, have you seen my strategy file? No, I don't know, Terri.
What's happened to Terri? She looks like a female impersonator.
Yeah, I know.
I thought you only got made over like that at a gay undertakers.
Phil, look, I'm trying to prep for implementation day here and you're just cutting out more weird japanese cartoons, or whatever it is.
It's for the matrix.
When we infiltrate DoSAC, I want to prioritise targets, okay? Hey, look.
That's Terri Coverley, DoSAC Head of Press Civil Service.
And who exactly is that? Well, it's Uhura, but you know, she's head of comms on the Enterprise, so it kind of makes sense.
Oh! Hey, do you know what, I wonder if we'll get to sneak up on Olly and catch him not working? Better still, I'd like to see him getting bollocked by Malcolm.
(EMMA LAUGHS) "I'm going to rip out your bladder and wear it as a bandana.
" EMMA: Okay, um PHIL: I need to know what Glenn Cullen looks like? Oh, Glenn Cullen, uh 50s, kind of depressed looking.
I always think of him like a bloodhound.
Okay, I'll get a picture of Mick Hucknall.
Morning, comrades! How goes the revolution? PHIL: Morning.
EMMA: Morning, Peter.
Our tanks on their lawn at last, fuck-a-doodle-doo.
Talking of which, may I present - the DoSAC implementation matrix.
- EMMA: Don't ask.
Look, this is a very straightforward set of meetings with the senior civil servants.
"Where's the stopcock?" "Where can I get a decent cup of coffee?" "Here's our legislative agenda for the next three years.
" Yeah, I know.
But Stewart's very keen for us to use a visit DoSAC as a scouting exercise.
Well, I'm very keen to use Stewart's mouth as an ashtray but that doesn't mean I do it.
Social mobility, what does that actually mean? Well, it's just a It's just a personal observation, but every time I hear the words "social mobility", I keep thinking about one of those shopping trolleys that go down the pavement, the electric things that NICOLA: What does it mean to normal people? It means, really, uh (MOBILE RINGING) lifting people out of a world of disadvantage and into a world of opportunity.
Sorry, just one sec, I've just got to switch that to voicemail.
Okay, fourth sector.
Mean anything? Nothing.
Great! Because we're about to create it.
- (MOBILE RINGING) - The fourth sector is It's basically real people, ordinary people just give me one second.
Hello? Yes, it's Nicola Murray.
What's going on at the school, anyway? Things are a little bit shitty at home, the daughter's gone all Raging Bull.
She put on a lot of weight? No.
No, I mean she's kicking off at school.
Basically, ever since Malcolm made Nicola put her in the fucking comp, she's heading for what Mr Neil Diamond I believe would have called a "Sweet Columbine" incident.
MALCOLM: Oh, I don't give two shits of a lamb's tail.
Eileen will just have to postpone her fucking throat surgery.
I want her steam-cleaned and on The Daily Politics, smiling and nodding at Andrew Neil's sneery, fucking haemorrhoid face and telling him to lay off the fucking fish suppers and the poppers, right.
Do it.
Okay, ahoy there, DoSAC.
Where's Dame Ellen MacArseache? Uh, she's on a call.
All right, okay.
Wakey, wakey, wakey.
- Yes, yes.
- Opposition drill, yeah? Come on.
Yes.
Tell James he will go up to the school and if he doesn't, then he will find himself - Hurry up! sleeping in the spare room of his fucking sister's house.
Lovely.
Thank you.
- Yeah, opposition drill, right? - Yeah.
When the opposition are here, you tell them nothing except where the toilets are, but you lie about that, right? And Terri, keep your tits in.
(OLLY LAUGHING) Yeah, you are looking very air hostess today, is that all for Mannion? All I said was that I think he's a very charming man.
Should we be formally dressed for DoSAC? It does feel a bit like paying our respects to some mad, dying aunt.
No, you look fine.
It's all pretty shambolic there at the moment.
Nicola Murray's quite distracted with that whole daughter thing.
Oh, what's that? - Really interesting But private.
- No.
(MOBILE RINGS) That's Stewart.
I'm just gonna have to show him up.
Great, Mr Blue Sky.
We're not going to practise fist bumps again, are we? Phil, if you mention anything out of turn while I'm gone, I will send your Mum that picture of you dressed up as Cher, okay? One button.
- Cher? - Celine Dion, karaoke night.
It was totally harmless.
Okay, Olly told Emma that there's a shitstorm brewing about the minister's daughter.
She was only the minister's daughter, but she knew how to take the collection.
She's 12.
Oh Shit.
Strike that last remark, it's actually a little poem that gets much worse.
Okay, well let's just put a photo of her up, just so we know what we're steering clear of.
You've got her photograph? No, Phil! Okay, Nicola Murray's daughter, actually that's not Nicola Murray's daughter, that's Tracy Beaker, right, she was down here on the intake list for an independent girls' school but now she's going here, local comprehensive.
A playground full of first trimester pregnancies and Croydon facelifts.
So what are you saying? It's wrong to send your child to a comprehensive? Yeah, wrong.
Or at least very, very careless.
So, one of the initiatives that we've got is a national register of really extraordinary ordinary people, who we're going to call the fourth sector pathfinders.
What I want to try and bring to mind is that amazing JFK speech, you know (MOBILE RINGS) - Hey, come on, come on.
- Yeah, yeah.
Ask not what your country can do, but what you What your country can do to help you do to help you help yourself.
(SOFTLY) Nicola, it's Martin Stone, your daughter's headmaster.
- Yes.
- James can't come in to about the meeting for your daughter's, um, problem Yes, okay, thank you.
For fuck's sake, Terri! Mr Stone, hi.
It's the whole deserving and undeserving poor argument again, though, isn't it? - It's the chavs and chav-nots.
- GLENN: Yeah.
Right.
Pinky and fucking Perky, listen, this fourth sector thing, right? It's fucking mad.
She's mad.
She's like Tom Cruise's favourite fucking brush, right? But the great thing about it is, it's free.
So you two, I want you to rub your dicks together and get some fucking energy going in here.
I don't care whether you inject yourself with stem cells or put cocaine in your fucking Fruit Corners, just get on with something.
Can I have a word? My husband has bailed on me, so I'm going to have to get to Ella's school this afternoon.
Look, Nicola, the taxpayer is not bankrolling you to do this sort of thing, you know? I mean, if I wanted personal errands done, I could get fucking the unbaked gingerbread man there to pop out and get me a fucking cattle gun.
See me after school.
Okay, so What? Okay, just you, then, so Can you work up this whole fourth sector thing? I can see you hate the idea so you'll be able to find the snags, okay? Stewart.
Ah, Peter, I'm glad we could hook up.
Just wanted to take a couple of turns with you on the ideas carousel, yeah? Think of ways we can turn your team into a little cluster of excellence.
Oh, you mean you wanted to have a chat Hey, what's this? Oh, that's just Phil's Klingon horoscope.
It's an implementation matrix.
Yeah, well, clearly.
Two axes dissecting the midpoint to create four diametrically opposed quadrants.
I like the plasmic nature of your data modelling.
Nice.
A child's photograph.
What is that doing up there? PHIL: There, happy now? PETER: Now I'm confused.
Who is that? No one, it's a Cylon Centurion.
Phil, help me out here.
Look, what are these vectors, Posh and Shit? They refer to schools.
You see, Murray's daughter was down to go here, some teeny, Sloanie, independent girls' school, but she's been moved to here, which is a comprehensive, bang in the middle of a poor catchment area.
First, she opts out of the state education system, - which is bad.
- PHIL: Yeah.
Then, presumably under pressure from the party machine, she says, "Actually, sod your life chances, Cylon, darling, "Mummy's going to send you here to save her political career.
" Badissimo! So, how are we going to deploy this? We're not.
The point of departure is this.
"Knowledge is porridge.
" Oh, Jesus, Stewart, that doesn't even fucking rhyme.
Look, let me have a go, all right? Look.
Suppose we're saying that Nicola Murray should have stuck to her guns and sent her daughter here: Posh.
You see, Stewart? I can do this stuff.
Well, then we look elitist, out of touch with ordinary parents.
Or do we say, "No, posh is wrongissimo.
" Okay, look, look, look.
Hmm? Hmm? Let's pause, yeah? Let's switch off the SatNav, pull over, electric soft top back on, switch off the engine.
I'm not getting in the back seat with you, Stewart, if this where this sinister mind game is going.
Let's imagineer a narrative.
- Oh, goody.
- So, let's imagineer the narrative that Peter here may know something about this but he refuses to tell you.
"It's beneath his dignity", say.
I hate to be a spoil-sport, but can we briefly refocus on our visit to DoSAC? - STEWART: Yeah.
Who are you meeting? - Got a couple of meetings with two top people, you know, the big, swinging dicks.
Yeah, okay, well, don't forget the tiny, static dicks.
Yeah, we're not allowed to talk to her boyfriend, though.
Very funny.
What about Terri Coverley? Olly says she's utter shit.
Let's make an appointment for Peter here to take her out for a nice skinny latte, yeah? - See if she spills the coffee beans.
- Great.
- Thank you.
- Hello, Mrs Murray, - thanks for coming in.
- Mr Stone, thank you so much.
Thank you, Christina.
Sorry, is your husband not with you? - No, I'm sorry.
- Okay, well that's disappointing, 'cause I really was hoping to speak to both of you about this.
Yeah, I did actually want to come and see you anyway - on a separate issue.
- Oh! All right.
I wondered if you'd be interested in becoming one of our first fourth sector pathfinders? Right.
Well, I don't know what that actually means, but (LAUGHING) I do look fantastic in a safari suit.
Oh, right.
I'm sure you do.
- Let's just put that to one side.
- Yes, obviously.
As we know, Ella's, well, let's say "challenging behaviour" has reached a critical point.
There was an instant yesterday.
Ella and some accomplices attacked another Year 7 girl with a pair of hair straighteners.
Pinned her down, this girl who has quite curly hair, and Ella set about ironing it.
Oh, my God.
Right.
They're here.
Has anyone seen my implementation file? Is that it over there? Yeah, thanks, Glenn.
(SIGHS) Is this you, Glenn? GLENN: No, it's Olly, you know what he's like.
(SIGHS) Well, it's puerile.
I've had to call bloody IT.
Olly's put some kind of awful screensaver on.
How do you disable it? It's not funny, Glenn.
I know.
I'm not laughing.
Have you met Mr Darcy yet, then? Has he swung in through the window in a little top hat and smoking jacket? This feedback is really, really so encouraging.
Having trouble with the old fourth sector ring-around, are you? No, not really.
I just ring people up and say, "Do you think this is shite?" They say yes, I agree, that's it.
Job done.
What have you actually been doing, then? I've actually been making some Peter Mannion face masks.
(LAUGHING) Excellent! (SEDUCTIVE VOICE) "Oh, Terri, me beauty, I like the heft of your jib.
"Oh, dear, I'm going all boogie-woogie downstairs.
" (MOBILE RINGING) (AS MANNION) Hello? Hi, Olly, I've got a bit of news for you.
Right.
You're pregnant, are you? No, I'm not fucking pregnant! So what's your What is your news? It's the Nicola Murray daughter thing, you know the switching from private to state? They know about it here.
Thank you, Emma! How? How? - Phil.
- Right, okay, well, you tell Phil, I'm going to take his stupid fucking light saber collection and shove it slowly through his eye sockets, right? How has Ella been behaving at home? Let's say, over the last week or so.
Well, not fantastically good, apparently.
Sorry, "apparently"? Because the fourth sector pathfinder initiative is taking up very much all of my time.
I haven't seen Ella.
And your husband's been around? (CHUCKLES) Meet my husband.
He's never really there.
Let me put my cards on the table.
This incident with the hair straighteners was so severe, okay, that I have no option but to exclude Ella from this school with immediate effect.
(MOBILE RINGING) You'll be taking her home with you.
No, well, I can't do that, you see, I can't have her with me today Oh, look, Mrs Murray, please answer that phone.
I'm so sorry, I will be back.
Olly, what is it? This had better be important.
Mannion's team know about the school switch.
(SIGHS) You shouldn't worry because there's no way the press will run with this, it's a personal thing.
Ella's been bullying other kids and, um, they're threatening to exclude her.
- What? - GLENN: What's going on? OLLY: Hey, at least they're not going to expel her.
No, it's the same fucking thing! That's what they say to make it sound better.
It's still the same old shit.
No.
Oh, right.
Oh, right.
(CRYING) This is just so awful and Oh, Olly, I'm such a crap mom! I'm such a crap mum! No, no, you're not No, you're really good, you're a pathfinder mum.
That's what you are.
Yeah, well, I made my daughter come to this fucking school away from all her friends and she just turned into a total fucking droog! Yeah, but You know That's it, is it? Thanks, Olly, good to know you're there for me.
What is this wheelie bin of misery? Do I gather Ella is bullying? You have to keep this to yourself.
It's okay.
The press can't use it.
This is something that you and I just keep between ourselves.
Okay.
- There's no need to tell Terri.
- Okay.
Good.
Good.
Unbelievable! ã6.
50 booking fee for every single person I'm taking in my party of 10.
- Sounds serious, Terri.
- Any news from Nicola? - GLENN: No.
- Nothing.
We're in.
Philip, you're not in Mission Impossible.
Some guy just made contact.
Uh, looks like an Ewok, small patch of white hair on left temple.
Ah, that would be Robert King, civil servant, used to work with BERR.
Olly says he's a bit of a druid.
Who's that bloke staring at us? - That That's actually a woman.
- Oh, Christ.
I'm not losing my touch, I just haven't got my distance glasses with me.
(CHUCKLING) The old Bangkok exoneration.
Route one excuse for accidentally having a go on a transsexual.
Christ, Phil, she's actually a bit creepy.
Looks as if she's gonna launch herself at us at any second.
Emma, I've got a woman staring at us from a balcony, sort of dark hair, like in a bob? She looks like she's in her own world and she's got lost there? Oh, that's Terri.
That'll be Terri Coverley.
That's the shit one, isn't it? Yeah, she's the shit one.
Oh, right.
Well, she might be worth a chat-up.
Let's see if she's due a binning when the inevitable occurs.
Everything all right with the pathpeople? Pathfinders.
So, exclusion is massive, isn't it? Well, I'm very sorry, but the guidelines on this, guidelines which your government introduced, remember, with quite a splash of publicity, are perfectly clear.
Zero tolerance on bullying.
Zero.
It's just the press would have a field day with this, you know? "Government minister who bangs on about protecting the vulnerable "from the brutalising effects of injustice.
"Ha ha ha, her daughter's a bully "and ha ha ha, she's a completely shit mum" Sorry, I don't swear at home, actually.
You're not a bad mother, I'm sure.
Just maybe not entirely present all the time.
Yeah.
Are you all right, Mrs Murray? Hmm, yeah, yeah, I'm fine.
I'm just resting my face.
Now, hang on, there's a complete fucking penis in my building who I need to have a word with.
All right, I'll speak to you later.
Oi, oi! James fucking May! It was you sprayed the private information about the school, wasn't it? Like Jenson Button shaking up a magnum of piss.
Oh, just listen to yourself! Okay, at first it was private information between you and your boss.
Then it was private information between you and your girlfriend, then it was private information between your girlfriend and her colleagues.
- Yeah.
- I mean, I can draw you a diagram if you like, it's like a fucking swine flu pandemic.
I've clearly made an error, which I have to take up with Emma.
- You shouldn't be fucking using it - Exactly.
This is your fault.
for political No, no.
- It's not my fault.
You're like the man who fucked the monkey that gave us AIDS, that's who you are.
I'm like the man who did what? Who fucked the monkey that gave us AIDS? I'll tell you something and you'll say, "It wasn't me, it wasn't me.
" There's monkey shit on your balls, not mine.
I love it, I love it.
It's the pre-match sparring for the big super gayweight title fight, eh? Okay, Oliver, wipe away the pre-come.
You've got some work to get on with.
- Yeah, Malcolm - What? The Nicola thing, I think, is getting a bit worse.
It looks like her daughter's about to be excluded for bullying.
Yeah, I know.
Glenn told me that.
What? When did Yeah.
The thing is, all we've got to do is if we try and keep this info very, very closely contained, we'll be all right, yeah? - Okay.
- Okay? - Okay.
- On you go.
Okay, Shitehead Revisited, did you know that Nicola Murray's daughter is about to be expelled from school for fucking bullying? - What are you doing? - No.
- Don't worry.
Did you not know that? - No.
Why would I Of course, you wouldn't know that now because the only people who know that right now are Mrs Murray, her daughter, Olly and me, yeah.
If this gets into the press, I would know that it came from you.
Clever.
(CHUCKLING) And I would rain down upon you so hard that you'd have to be reassembled by fucking air crash investigators.
- No - Do not fucking interrupt me, son, ever.
Now, get this into the noggin, right? You breathe a word of this to anyone, you mincing fucking cunt, and I will tear your fucking skin off, I will wear it to your mother's birthday party and I will rub your nuts up and down her leg whilst whistling Bohemian fucking Rhapsody, right? - Yeah.
- Now, get out of my fucking sight! Yeah.
I've been kind of a target for the press and, uh, I just I don't want Ella suffering on my account, really.
Look, it's possible, theoretically possible I could park the exclusion, temporarily, maybe.
That would That would just be so great.
But we would need to draw up a pupil behavioural contract.
- You and your husband, together - Absolutely.
and Ella.
- Obviously, yeah.
Thank you so much, thank you, Mr Stone.
Really, I owe you one.
And I'll talk to you on a separate occasion about the thing.
- Yeah, streetwalkers thing.
- Uh, pathfinders thing.
It was a joke.
(LAUGHING) It was good, wasn't it? Very good.
PETER: All right, thanks for your help.
- Where are you going? - Going through a thing with Malcolm about Nicola's daughter.
She's being excluded from school, but don't tell anyone or I'm dead, okay? Everyone knows that, it's all over the building.
A senior civil servant told me.
Oh, shit! I'm straight to DVD, I'm the night shift.
Malcolm's gonna kill me.
His bark's worse than his bite.
MALCOLM: Ah, Peter! Speaking of rabies injections, here he is.
I didn't know you were still alive.
How's the old '80s tribute band going? Still doing the Robert Palmer look-alikey thing, huh? (CHUCKLING) Malcolm, you're looking well for someone twice your age.
Any news on the aneurysm? (BOTH LAUGHING) Funny man, funny, funny man.
See you later.
Why don't you find out how their data back-up works, I've got a meeting with leaky Terri.
Oh, that sounded wrong.
I want to talk about the social networking that the daughter uses.
Is she on Facebook or Bebo, does she Twitter? Are any of her victims on Facebook or Twitter? Here on the left, we've got the Guardian.
What's the weather like over the Guardian? How do we counter-massage, yeah? To be completely honest, Stewart, I'm just curious as to what the press is going to make of this.
That's all Yeah.
Yeah, of course you are.
Which is the entire purpose of the matrix to begin with.
Look.
What I want to do is just, kind of, graphicise and three-dimensionalise our response.
- Stage one, story leaks, our response.
- Uh-huh.
- We move forward to stage two.
- Mmm-hmm.
What's our re-response when the press come back to us? And then, we move forward again to stage three.
What's our response to their response to our response? We've gotta think multi-dimensional.
It's fractal retaliation.
Mmm-hmm.
Do you fancy a cup of tea? - Yeah, you got anything herbal? - Okay, yeah.
Oh, sorry, do you smoke? - Oh! Are they low-tar? - Mmm-hmm.
That's my favourite.
(CHUCKLES) We're a dying breed, eh? Oh, yes.
We've met before, when you were a Defra as a junior minister.
Oh, sorry, I don't remember.
Were you at the department? No, no, no.
I was at Sainsbury's.
Press, not on the tills.
And I set up the photo shoot for you with the sustainable sea bass.
- Uh-huh.
- And I remember you made some kind of quip about, uh, something to do with fishnets.
'Cause there was a girl who was wearing stockings, you see.
Well, that certainly dates it.
You wouldn't be able to make that kind of comment now.
(BOTH LAUGHING) More's the pity.
How's Nicola coping? Some trouble with her daughter, bullying or something? Her daughter being bullied? The poor little thing.
I mean, just because she's put on a bit of weight.
(MOBILE RINGING) Ah, Stewart, what flavour of nut brown piss are you going to pour into my ear? How's the info pump firing? Oh, you mean Terri Coverley? She's useless, she knows nothing.
You two would get on.
Well, she may not know the story, Peter, but just about everybody else does.
So, according to the matrix here, we're looking at an 83 to 90% chance of this story making it.
And if it does, well, someone's gonna use it.
And if someone is, then that someone should be us, yeah? No way, we're not gonna do this.
Peter, listen to me, no one is more shocked than I am at the chain of events here, okay? How about you getting back here so we can have a little debrief? Fuck that, Stewart! We are not going to use this story.
I'd love to natter, unfortunately I think I've got another call coming through.
Peter? Hello.
Did you want another fag? Can I see Nicola? TERRl: Well, that's a bit of a protocoly thing, so, um It's a personal matter, I'll just What the fuck is he doing here? Have you locked the building so he can't get out? Could I have a word about your school situation? It's no big deal, really.
It's just that old perennial, isn't it? Should I send my kids to public school? I meant about the bullying.
Uh, right.
Can you Come in.
Sit down, Peter.
How do you know about that? Well, everyone here knows, and some of our lot know.
Some of your lot know? There's quite a lot of pressure on me from above to use it, but I just wanted you to know that I won't.
Thank you.
Um, I'd like to think I'd do the same for you, I think I would.
Well, it's only DoSAC, sock of shit.
Sorry, it's what we call DoSAC over there in the enemy camp.
Social Affairs Citizenship, Soc-Af-Cit, sock of shit, no disrespect.
You've got time on your hands over on the dark side.
I'll leave you to get on with it.
Thank you for doing the honourable thing.
What? Have you just googled that? Is that What is that? Olly did that.
Nothing to do with me, I don't want to fellate you.
Well, I know I'm planning big changes around here, but nothing along those lines.
Get in my office now, and you, Glenn.
Mannion knows about Ella, and I want to know how? - Who did you tell? - I only told Glenn.
- I only mentioned it to Glenn - I only told Malcolm.
You told Malcolm what? Ella has been excluded for - Nearly! - Nearly excluded for bullying other children.
- Oh, she's the bully? - Yes.
Yes.
- Oh! Oh, that's nasty.
- Well, that's helpful.
Could you keep your fucking opinions to yourself, please? Well, you can't use it, can you? So who told you? Coverley, Comms.
Sorry, Nicola, just got to take this.
Olly Reeder.
So what you're saying is you do know about it TERRl: She's looking a bit upset.
Right, right.
But you're not going to use it? Oh, well, thanks for telling us.
Yeah Yes, obviously you can't use it, that's Oh, you know about it, do you? I'm going home.
I'm going to see my daughter, I'm going to give her a big kiss and the bollocking of her life.
Nicola, just got a text from Malcolm.
He's says he knows Mannion was here.
Text reads, "I know about your fucking meeting with that ageing flamenco guitarist.
"You are NOT" Big letters.
"to go home.
"There's been an escalation.
" - Shit.
- He says he wants you at Number 10, ASAFP.
- F meaning - "Feasibly", I should imagine.
Stewart, you're still here? To what do I owe this pain? It's called politics, Peter.
We're trying to do it from your office.
I've told Nicola Murray I'm not capitalising on that story.
I'm speechless! Do you want to get booted out of the shadow cabinet? You're wanting to spend more time hiding from your wife in the greenhouse? Yes, if it came to it! If you have to wade through all this shit to win the election, then I'm happy to lose it, all right? Malcolm? Hi, Nicola, thanks very much for coming over.
Uh, can I get you something? Actually, you haven't got any whisky, have you? Whisky? Yeah.
Hasn't been touched for a while.
Still got Anthony Eden's lipstick on the bottle.
Hey, do you remember when you started, I said I didn't have much of a folder on you? You should see it now.
Looks like a fucking butcher's slab, just as graphic.
Right.
So, can we I need to get home.
You said there'd been an escalation.
The good news is that even though everybody's got this bullying story, no one can use it.
Good.
But I'm sensing there is a "but", probably the size of a fucking house.
The bad news is that they will run with "Headteacher bends the rules "and gives preferential treatment to cabinet minister.
" It's unacceptable.
The Board of Governors have no choice, he'll have to resign.
No, no, no.
No.
Yeah, I'm afraid it's fuck off, Mr Chips.
No! It should be me who resigns.
You resign now, you'll be up there with the fucking shaggers and expenses fiddlers and the guys who asphyxiate themselves having a wank in a Travelodge.
And your daughter, your Ella, she will be publicly and very, very fucking horribly humiliated.
Now, that is not something that helps anybody.
It doesn't Hey, hey, hey, come on, look.
That is not Look, it doesn't That's not a plan, is it, Stan? Come on, that's not an agenda, Brenda.
Come on.
And I'm staying here to do what, exactly? Because I don't feel like I'm Sorry.
(SNIFFLES) I don't feel like I'm really making things better.
Listen, Nicky, this, it's a war, right? It's a fucking war.
Now, you can't change a thing unless you win the war.
And you cannot win the war unless you are prepared to fight.
That's what this all about for you, isn't it? It's just about fighting and fucking power.
Does it never occur to you that your poisonous male obsession with conflict, which is making people despise politics? And by the way, don't ever fucking call me Nicky! Spare me your fucking psycho-fanny, right? What do you think fucking Mannion's doing right now? Michael Aspel's cooler, fucking younger brother? I'll tell you what he's doing.
He's sitting around with his pals.
You know what they're doing? They're telling very fucking nasty jokes about your family.
They're playing fucking pin the cock on the fucking donkey's face with your face there, 'cause you're the fucking donkey, right? So you should just fucking count your blessings! Ella's not been excluded! That's what you wanted, right? - Yes? - Yeah, I really wanted Ella to be able to stay at a shit school, the only redeeming feature of which was the headmaster, who thanks to me has now been forced out.
Yeah, well, um Maybe Maybe in a term or so, you know, we might understand if you very quietly decided to move her.
Really? Yeah.
Good.
Good.
Okay, so it's Mannion.
What do we do? I mean, do we go after him with one of your, you know, things that you say, like a big bum dildo of vengeance or something? There you go, that's my girl, yeah.
Indiana Murray and the Bum Dildo of Vengeance.
I like it.
Hey, do you want his mobile number? That was Nicola Murray.
She says from now on, nothing in my private life is off limits.
Has she got anything she could use? No, I don't think so.
PHIL: He took a piss against Big Ben on his stag night.
I don't reckon they'll use that.
And the lovechild, - that's been and gone, hasn't it? - Yeah.
We could have had shots of her scuttling into her house, scurrying out again to make some humiliating public statement, surrounded by members of her family, all grinning like Alsatians.
Do you remember that, Peter, when the pregnant mistress story broke, eh? You and Mrs Mannion standing on your doorstep, her never going to touch little Peter again? The press talking about Cheater Mannion.
Everyone reading about how you like to make love to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds.
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