Press Office

David Topham has got it into his head that we are going to sack you because of Press pressure.

We can clear the press conference and... Excuse me.

We're going to have to do a number of things... Like? ..almost immediately.

It's not media-friendly stuff. You're obsessed with how things play in the media, you sickos. Sickos!

He's created a press conference so boring that none of the Press will even touch it.

So now you have to tell all the media in case they missed it.

I announced at a press conference this new Benefit Fraud Inspection Unit,

and, um, at that press conference

because many of the journalists didn't pick up on the announcement.

Good. I have cancelled that press interview

I told you about Waitrose, when I was head of press,

just to get back at some journalist.

and you are the innocent victim of a nasty media stitch-up.

OK, right. Right, I'm fixing you up with a main man media piece with your ex Angela Heaney but...

and a precis of the press packs,

Art is all about expression isn't it?

Get a press release in the oven, fuck off the lot of you.

but sorting out the press is what you do for a living.

What we've done is we've given the story to a tame journalist,

Because tomorrow you are going to find the press all over you...

and there's like millions of journalists and flash bulbs are going off.

What do you mean? We can get you a nice journalist, yeah?

Yes. We can get you a nice young journalist,

The journalist that you told your story to.

I didn't, I didn't talk to any journalist.

to the press...unnecessarily...

Then it got fucked in the Lords. It was more amendment than Bill, in the end. We're doing a press release?

Oh, that's...very impressive. No, it isn't, it's just what we do.

The whole deal was to put the flat on the market so if the press asked,

What? We're too late. What?! All the papers have got hold of it. What?! The Express has been making offers -

"He was hounded out by the fucking Press!" How about THAT, huh?

a directive from some think-tank thinks press secretaries

You're so fucking repressed... I was just playing squash!

I need to give the impression that I'm not budging, I'm staying exactly where I am,

to the Warwick report press cuttings were pretty, pretty positive.

I, I'm not a journalist, I'm just one of Ollie's mates.

from the fucking press that every morning at 8.30 I'm being fisted up to the gall bladder by a bald man?

You'd be paralysed for life and you'd still be depressed

about the thing that was depressing you in the first place.

HUSHED VOICE: I thought I was a professional press officer.

Right, Terri, you're gonna give a press conference in 90 minutes.

I organise the press conferences, I don't give them, normally.

At a press conference, a bunch of press people appear,

I wasn't suggesting... it was your chief press officer.

We have got some clothes for you to look at for a press photograph later.

Your fruit salad. Oh, I've just had a couple of press calls.

Don't worry. That was just me. That's the sort of thing the press will throw at you.

So who on earth in the press is going to either know or care?

PM texted me. He was very impressed.

in case the press get to do something like this.

If the press run with both stories, you're fucking dead.

You make a big noise to impress Nicola,

I'm going to give her the pre-briefing and I'll blind her with bad press and bumf.

It's a fucking newspaper office.

This man, right, this man is the press.

I can do it in reverse order like the pop charts. How was meet the press?

No, I was ambushed by a not-off-the-record journalist.

absolutely fine to leave your minister alone with a hostile journalist

if you just can't be arsed to walk down the stairs? I'd already pressed the button.

You took the data loss media strategy and you ate it with a lump of E-coli.

But that was before, when your only problem was a shit pun in a newspaper

This is the bit that relates to media management.

I'm your press officer at conference.

You're going to push that for the press for me, yeah?

Amalfi. So could you make a few phone calls, see if you can get it some press traction?

John Duggan, press officer.

I don't want to give the press another opportunity to see me as

No... I'm gonna try and stick his balls in his fucking trouser press.

You really are. Very impressive. And I'm not the only one who's impressed but the PM,

he finds you very impressive. That's good. Great.

We need a cold press, or is there ice? Oh... What about the mini-bar?

I'm under pressure, trying to plug a lot of leaks.

Look, Terri Coverley. Head of Press, Civil Service. And who exactly is that?

Oh, Glen Cullen. Er, '50s, kind of depressed-looking. I always think of a bloodhound.

then, presumably under pressure from the party machine, she says, "Sod your life-chances, Cylon, darling,

OK, that I have no option but to exclude Ella from this school, with immediate effect.

You shouldn't worry because there's no way the press will run with this. It's a personal thing.

OK, this is...Press can't use it.

It's just the press would have a field day...

If this gets into the press, I would know that it came from you!

I've been kind of a target for the press and I just...

To be honest, I'm just curious as to what the press is going to make of this.

What's our re-response when the press come back to us and then we move forward to stage three.

Press, not on the tills and I set up the photo shoot for you with the sustainable sea bass...

Quite a lot of pressure on me from above to use it but I just wanted you to know that I won't.

The press talking about "Cheater Mannion"!

The problem is, if you say to a journalist,

Right, look, see this here? You do it and I will press this fucking button.

I don't want to do it to some Newsround press packer.

You don't want to give the impression you'd like a female leader?

It means there are going to be hysterical journalists watching every fucking move we make.

There's a few journalists out there already.

NOISE OF MEDIA SCRUM CONTINUES

First-class media work, there.

Nicola, I'm going to take off my media hat.

be outside with a big News 24 cup pressed against the wall.

There is a launch party tonight, a load of press are coming and I

Have you any idea of the amount of pressure

I mean, they crumble at the first sign of pressure,

Well, I know these are hard times for print journalists, yeah?

Sorry I can't do espressos but I've made this so thick and black it will be like fucking drinking plimsolls.

What line? Press 2.

I'll make sure Kate liaises with my press whiz kid, Terri Coverley.

Andy Murray's Henman fisting us in the press.

You're all over the newspapers like a pissing puppy, Malcolm.

good press attention for your fucking healthy choices nonsense.

He's very impressive, isn't he?

actually quite impressive. That's the thing about the evil, isn't it?

No, Tom isn't immediately available to you. Fuck off.

I told the press pack, would I?

You take them off every time you come in here, it's not impressive.

Meanwhile, back in Gotham City, the Express is running the idea

And Steve Fleming wants you to do some local media.

He's impressive, Malcolm, in an evil way. Like those women at Crufts who make dogs dance on their hind legs.

All right? And we just need you to pop a press pack in the

They want you to come in and draft a press release. And by draft I mean

Big shit, granola, check the e-mail, shower and a shave, Nespresso...

Pravda! Soviet newspaper.

that the press can take pictures of them! How was I to know?

has been picking on a man with a history of depression.

Peter Mannion has been picking on a man with a history of depression.

As a minister I should at least express condolences.

Listen, Phil, I was a journalist, OK?

Emma, it's Phil, same message as before. Tickle's topped himself, the press want me to respond,

All aboard the Hogwarts express

I come bearing broadcast journalists.

and Cuntface to culture media and sport.

Sky lady, you need to go now, get her immediately.

The press have been hoofing an email about that proves

I'm just working on Fergus's Carer's Pass press release...

Yeah, well. Two years doing press for npower, it never leaves you.

stony face with no expression. But that'll be easy for you.

between political parties and the public media.

Erm, and would you like to express any remorse for Mr Tickel's death?

How can we make the government and the media inclusive without being intrusive? Yeah...

being communicated to journalists?

Er, I'm a media strategist.

Yes, The Guardian, the newspaper that hates newspapers.

So, you accept leaking as part and parcel of the political media machinery?

the newspapers would just be full of long-lense bikini shots,

They get media shrapnel right in the face.

Sorry, can I just say... We are very pressed for time.

apparently, tonally, I have a very depressing voice.

Erm, sort of, media strategies, political strategies...

who is Head of Press, in name only.

I like to think that dealing with the press

and releasing them to the press.

Yes, er, the press have been unkind to you over

this flurry of press reports in order to divert attention from the, er,

A story involving me in the newspapers is not the subject

You feel under pressure, am I right? Is that because of something that you know?

Yes, no, er, general pressure, I feel under a, a sort of,

did you then leak them to the media?

When I was a journalist, OK, when I, when I was a journalist at the Mail, I used leaks.

He carved his press releases into stone tablets.

in case the press show up.

But make sure you get as many press there as possible. Yeah. OK.

Malcolm's solicitor phoned the police, who phones journalists, and they tell me.

All the press will focus on, right, is Malcolm's arrest,

Fucking press!

Oliver Reeder. 'Olly, some press turned up at Brentford.'

Olly, will you please keep the rest of the press there,

No, the press were there, it was taking too long.