OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE - FOR INTERNAL USE - RESTRICTED ACCESSRESTRICTED ACCESS
Support|GSI: 020 7276 1234
Department for Social Affairs & CitizenshipCivil Service Digital
Beta
Terri CDepartment for Social Affairs & CitizenshipTerri C
A scheduled departmental review by Shadow Minister Peter Mannion coincided with Secretary Nicola Murray addressing urgent matters regarding her daughter's education.
Select captions to compare or share
This programme contains very strong language and adult humour
Nowadays, I think twat and prat are pretty interchangeable.
Anyway, semantic society shouldn't be saying anything like that to you
and I take your point, Mum. I will have a word.
The opposition have to let senior civil servants
and 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. This lot are looking quite toasted.
Right. Emma 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.
Can you give me a call?
If you don't, I will have you thrown in Belmarsh.
We've been trying to find out where Ollie is. As usual, he's not in yet.
OK. Meeting room. Ollie, good afternoon.
I haven't missed it, have I? Ollie, have you seen my strategy file?
I don't know, Terri. What's happened to Terri?
She looks like a female impersonator!
Looks like she's come from a gay undertaker's.
Phil, I'm trying to prep for Implementation Day,
and you're just cutting out more weird Japanese cartoons.
It's for the matrix! When we infiltrate DoSAC, I want to prioritise targets.
Look, Terri Coverley. Head of Press, Civil Service. And who exactly is that?
Well, it's Ahura, but she's head of comms on the Enterprise, so it makes sense!
on Ollie and catch him not working!
Better still, I'd like to see him getting bollocked by Malcolm!
I'm going to rip out your bladder and wear it as a bandana!
I need to know what Glen Cullen looks like.
Oh, Glen Cullen. Er, '50s, kind of depressed-looking. I always think of a bloodhound.
OK, I'll get a picture of Mick Hucknell.
Morning, comrades! How goes the revolution?
Morning! Morning, Peter.
Our tanks on their lawn, at last!
Fuck-a-doodle-do!
Talking of which, may I present the DoSAC implementation matrix! 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 agenda for the next three years."
Yeah, but Stuart's very keen for us to use the visit to DoSAC as a scouting exercise.
I'm keen to use Stuart's mouth as an ashtray. Doesn't mean I'd do it!
Social mobility. What does that actually mean?
Well, it's just a personal observation, but every time I hear the words "social mobility"
about one of those shopping trolleys
that go down the pavement, the electric things...
What does it mean to normal people? It means really
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.
OK, fourth sector, mean anything?
Nothing? Great! Because we're about to create it.
The fourth sector is, basically, real people, ordinary people...
just give me one sec. Hello, Nicola Murray.
What's going on at the school, anyway?
Things are a bit shitty at home and the daughter's gone all Raging Bull.
Has she put on a lot of weight?
No, no, I mean she's kicking off at school, basically ever since
in the fucking comp. Headed for what
Mr Neil Diamond, would have called a Sweet Columbine incident.
Oh, I don't give two shits of a lamb's tail. Eileen will have to postpone her fuckin' throat surgery.
I want her steam-cleaned and on the Daily Politics, smiling and nodding at Andrew Neil's sneery fucking
haemorrhoid face and tell him to lay off the fucking fish suppers and poppers.
Hi, there. Where's Dame Ellen McArse-ache?
She's on her...
All right, OK, wakey, wakey, wakey! Yes, yes!
Opposition drill, yeah, come on! Tell James he will go to school
and if he doesn't, then he will find himself sleeping in the spare room of his fucking sister's house!
Lovely, thank you. Yeah, opposition drill, right? Yeah.
When the opposition are here, tell them nothing, except where
the toilets are, but lie. Terri, keep your tits in!
Very 'air-hostess' today! For Mannion?
All I said was that I think he's charming.
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 is distracted with the daughter.
Oh, what's that? Really interesting?
No! Private. That's Stuart. I'm just gonna have to show him up.
Great. Mr Blue Sky. We're not gonna practice 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, OK? One button.
Cher? Celine Dion, karaoke, harmless.
Ollie told Emma that there's a shit storm brewing about minister's daughter.
She was only the minister's daughter, but she knew how to take the collection! She's 12! Ah.
Shit, strike that last remark, it's actually a little poem that gets much worse.
Let's put a photo of her up, so we know what we're steering clear of.
You've got a photo? No, Phil!
Nicola Murray's daughter, actually that's not her, that's Tracy Beaker.
She was down for an independent school, but is now going here,
and Croydon facelifts!
What are you saying? It's wrong to send your child to a comprehensive?
Yeah, wrong. Or very careless!
So one of the initiatives that we've got is a national register
of really extraordinary, ordinary people, who we're gonna call the "fourth sector pathfinders".
What I want to try and bring to mind is that amazing JFK speech, you know that they can help you...
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."
Nicola, it's Martin Stone, your daughter's headmaster.
James can't come to the meeting for your daughter's, er, problems.
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. Right, Pinky and fucking Perky, listen.
This fourth sector? Fucking mad!
She's mad, she's like Tom Cruise's favourite fucking brush, but the great thing is
it's free, so you two, I want you to rub your dicks together and get some fucking energy going in here!
Inject yourself with stem cells
or coke in your Fruit Corners, just get on with something!
Can I have a word?
My husband has bailed on me, so I'm gonna have to get to Ella's school this afternoon.
Nicola, the taxpayer is not bankrolling you
to do this sort of thing. And if I want to get things done I could get fucking
big gingerbread man there to pop out and get me a fucking gun.
See me after school.
OK, OK, just you, then.
So, can you work out this whole fourth sector thing?
I can see you hate the idea, so you'll be able to find the snags.
Stuart. Aah, 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.
You wanted to have a chat? What's this?
That's just Phil's Klingon horoscope!
It's an implementation matrix. Well, clearly two axis lead
to the mid-point 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?
There, happy now?
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.
independent girls' school,
but she's been moved here - a comprehensive in the middle of a poor area.
First, she opts out of the state education system, which is bad,
then, presumably under pressure from the party machine, she says, "Sod your life-chances, Cylon, darling,
"Mummy's going to send you here" - to save her political career. Badissimo!
We're not!
The point of departure is this... "Knowledge is porridge"!
Oh, Jesus, Stuart, that doesn't even fucking rhyme!
Let me have a go! All right.
Look, suppose we are saying that Nicola Murray should have stuck to her guns and sent her daughter here,
Posh, you see, Stuart, I can do this stuff. Then we look...
elitist, out of touch with ordinary parents,
or do we say, "No, Posh is wrongissimo"?
OK, look, look, look, let's pause, yeah, let's switch off the sat nav,
pull over, electric soft-top back on, switch off the engine.
I'm not getting in the back seat with you, if this is where this game is going!
Let's imagine the narrative. Oh, goody!
So let's imagine in the narrative that Peter here may know something
about this, but refuses to tell you. "It's beneath his dignity", say.
I hate to be a spoilsport, but can we refocus on our visit to DoSAC Yeah, who you meeting?
I've got a couple of meetings with the two top people - the big swinging dicks.
Don't forget the tiny static dicks.
We're not allowed to talk to her boyfriend.
Ollie said she's utter shit.
to take her out for a latte.
Great(!)
Thank you. Mrs Murray, thanks for coming. Mr Stone, thank you.
Sorry, is your husband not with you?
No, sorry. That's disappointing, cos I was hoping to speak to both of you about this. Yeah.
I did actually want to come and see you anyway. Oh? On a separate issue.
I wondered if you'd be interested in becoming a Fourth Sector Pathfinder?
I don't know what that actually means, but I do look fantastic in a safari suit! Oh, right!
I'm sure you do! Put that to one side!
has reached a critical point.
There was an incident yesterday.
Ella and some accomplices attacked another year seven girl
with a pair of hair straighteners, pinned her down...
this girl 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, Glen.
Is this you, Glen? No, it's Ollie! You know what he's like!
Well, it's puerile!
I've had to call bloody IT.
Ollie's put some kind of awful screensaver on!
How do you disable it? It's not funny, Glen!
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 four sector ring-around?
No, I just ring people up and say "Do you think this is shite?"
They say "yes". I agree, that's it.
What have you been doing?
I've actually been making some Peter Mannion face masks.
Ha-ha! Excellent!
Oh, Terri, me beauty, I like the heft of your jib!
Oh, dear, I'm going all boogie-woogie downstairs!
Hello! Hi, Ollie, I've got a bit of news for you.
Right, you're pregnant are you?
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?
Phil! 'Tell Phil I'm gonna take his'
stupid fucking lightsaver 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 pathfinder initiative
is taking up very much all of my time. I haven't seen Ella.
And has your husband been round?
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,
OK, that I have no option but to exclude Ella from this school, with immediate effect.
I can't have her with me.
Answer that phone, it's driving me...
I'm so sorry! I will be back.
Ollie, what is it? This had better be important!
Mannion's team know about the school switch.
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?
What's going on? Hey, at least they're not going to expel her.
It's the same fucking thing. That's what they say to make it sound better.
'It's the same old shit!'
No, oh, right, oh, right.
'This is just so awful and Ollie'
I'm such a crap mum, I'm such a crap mum.
No, no, you're not, 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's turned into a total fucking droog!
Yeah, but...
You know...
That's it? Thanks, Ollie, good to know you're there for me(!)
What is this wheelie bin of misery?
Do I, do I gather Ella is bullying?
You have to keep this to yourself.
OK, this is...Press can't use it.
You and I just keep it between ourselves. OK. No need to tell Terri.
OK. Good, good.
Unbelievable!
of ten. It sounds serious, Terri.
Any news from Nicola? No! Nothing.
We're in! Philip, you're not in Mission Impossible.
Some guy just made contact.
Looks like an Ewok,
small patch of white hair on left temple.
'That's Robert King, the civil servant who used to work with Bert.'
Ollie said he's a bit of a druid. Who is that bloke staring at us?
That's actually a woman!
Oh, Christ! I'm not losing my touch, I just haven't got my distance glasses with me.
The old Bangkok exoneration! Route one excuse for accidentally having a go on a transsexual.
Christ, she's a bit creepy.
looks like she's going to launch herself at us!
Emma, we've got a woman staring at us from a balcony.
Dark hair, like in a bob, looks like she's in her own world and has got lost there.
Oh, that's Terri...that will be Terri Coverley. The shit one? Yeah, she's a shit one.
All right. Well, she might be worth a chat-up.
See if she's due a binning when the inevitable occurs!
Everything all right with the path people? Pathfinders!
So, exclusion is massive, isn't it?
Well, I'm sorry but the guidelines - the guidelines which your government introduced, remember -
with quite a splash of publicity, 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 effect of injustice, ha-ha-ha, her daughter's a bully and
ha-ha-ha, she's a completely shit mum and...
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?
Um 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.
about the school,
like Jenson Button shaking up a magnum of piss!
Listen to yourself! At first it was private information between you and your boss,
then between you and your girlfriend,
then it was private information between your girlfriend and her colleagues.
I could draw you a diagram if you like. It's like a fucking swine 'flu pandemic!
I've made an error, I'll talk to Emma but you should...
It's your fault! ..fucking use if for political... No, no!
You're like the man who fucked the monkey that gave us AIDS!
I'm like the man who did what? Who fucked the monkey that gave us AIDS?
I tell you something and you're saying, it wasn't me,
and there's monkey shit on your balls, not mine!
I love it, I love it, it's the pre-match spy for the big super gay weight title fight, eh!
OK, Oliver, wipe away the pre-come.
Have you 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 is about to be excluded for bullying. Yeah, well Glen told me that.
What? When did...
Yeah, the thing is all we've gotta do is to try and keep this info very very closely contained,
we'll be all right, yeah? OK. OK? OK! Way to go!
OK, Shitehead Revisited,
Did you know Nicola Murray's daughter is about to be expelled for fucking bullying!
What are you doing? No... what?
Don't worry. Did you not know that? No, why would I?
Because you wouldn't know that, because the only people who know are Mrs Murray,
her daughter, Ollie and me, yeah.
If this gets into the press, I would know that it came from you!
Clever!
And I would rain down upon you so hard
that you would have to be reassembled by fucking air-crash investigators.
What... 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
while whistling Bohemian fucking Rhapsody, right?
Yeah. Now...
get out of my fucking sight!
I've been kind of a target for the press and 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... Obviously.
And Ella. 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 other thing.
Streetwalkers thing? Pathfinders thing, yeah. That was a joke! Very good!
All right, thanks for your help.
Where are you going? I'm going through a thing with Malcolm about Nicola's daughter.
She's being excluded from school. Don't tell anyone.
Everyone knows that. It's all over! A 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!
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 lookalikey thing, huh?
Malcolm, you're looking well for someone twice your age!
Any news on the aneurism?
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!
Let's talk about the daughter's social networking.
Is she on Facebook or Bebo, does she Twitter, are any of her victims on Facebook or Twitter?
On the left we've got guardian. What's the weather like over the guardian? How do we counter-massage?
To be honest, I'm just curious as to what the press is going to make of this.
Of course you are, which is the entire purpose of the matrix to begin with.
our response.
Stage one, story leaks.
Our response, we move forward to stage two.
What's our re-response when the press come back to us and then we move forward to stage three.
What's our response to their response to our response?
We've gotta think multi-dimensionally. It's fractal retaliation!
Mm-hm. Do you fancy a cup of tea?
Yeah. Have you got anything herbal? OK, yeah.
I'm sorry, do you smoke?
Hmm. They low tar?
Mm-hm. That's my favourite!
We're a dying breed, eh? Oh, yes, er...
We've met before, when you were at 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...
and I remember you made some kind of quip about something to do with fishnets...
..cos there was a girl who was wearing stockings. Well, that certainly dates it.
You wouldn't be able to make that kind of comment now!
More's the pity!
How's Nicola coping, some trouble with her daughter, bullying or something?
Is her daughter being bullied?
The poor little thing!
Just because she's put on a bit of weight!
PHONE RINGS
Ah Stuart, what flavour of nut-brown piss are you gonna pour into my ear?
How's the info pump firing?
What you mean Terri Coverley? She's useless, she knows nothing, but you'd 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. 'Peter, listen.'
No-one is more shocked than I am at the chain of events here, OK?
How about you getting back here so we can have a little de-brief? Fuck that, Stuart!
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? Well, that's a bit of a protocol-ly thing, so...
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...should I send my kids to public school?
I meant about the bullying.
Er, 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?
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. I'd like to think I'd do the same for you. I think I would.
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 sit,
sock of shit, no disrespect!
A bit of time on your hands over in...
on the dark side! I'll leave you to get on with it.
Thank you for doing the honourable thing.
Shit!
Have you just Googled that? What is that?
Ollie 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, Glen.
Mannion knows about Ella and I want to know how. Who did you tell?
I only told Glen, I only mentioned to Glen...
I only told Malcolm! You told Malcolm what?
Ella has been excluded for...
Nearly! Nearly excluded for bullying other children. What, she's the bully? Yes, yes.
Ooh, ooh, 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. Ollie Reader.
You're saying you do know about it?
She's looking a bit upset, yeah. Right, but you're not gonna use it? Thanks for telling us, yeah, sure.
You know about it, do you?
I'm going home. I'm gonna see my daughter, I'm gonna give her a big kiss and the bollocking of her life!
Nicola, just got a text from Malcolm. He says he knows Mannion was here.
Text reads, "I know about your fucking meeting with that aging flamenco guitarist.
"You are not... letters... to go home, there's been an escalation".
Shit. He wants you at Number 10, ASAFP. Come on, let's go!
"F" meaning...
Feasibly, I should imagine!
Stuart, 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. 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! It's like a fucking butcher's slab and just as graphic!
Right, so, can we...
You said there'd been an escalation?
The good news is that even though everybody's got this brilliant story, no-one can use it. Good.
But? I'm sensing there is a "but", probably be the size of a fucking house.
The bad news is that they will run with
"head teacher 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.
If you resign now, you'll be up there with the fucking shaggers and the expenses fiddlers
and the guys who asphyxiate themselves having a wank in the Travelodge and your daughter,
your Ella, she would be publicly, and very, very fucking horribly, humiliated.
Now, that is not something that helps anybody. It does... 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.
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're prepared to fight.
That's what this is 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 a fucking psycho-fanny, right?
What do you think fucking Mannion is 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.
D'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 cos 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?
Yeah! Yes! I really wanted Ella to be able to stay at a shit school, the only redeeming feature of which
was a headmaster who, thanks to me, has now been forced out.
Yeah well er...
maybe...
Maybe in a term or so, you know...
we might understand if you...
very quietly decide to move her.
Really? Yeah!
Good, good, OK, so it's Mannion.
What do we do? I mean do we...
go after him with one of your things that you say,
like a big bum dildo of vengeance sort of something?
As you go, that's my girl, yeah!
Indiana Murray and the Bum Dildo of Vengeance! I like you!
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. He took a piss against Big Ben on his stag night.
I won't use that and the love child's been and gone. Yeah.
We could have had shots of her scuttling into her house, scurrying out again to make
all grinning like Alsatians.
Do you remember that, Peter, when the pregnant mistress story broke?
You and Mrs Mannion standing on your doorstep, her never gonna touch little Peter again?
The press talking about "Cheater Mannion"!
Everyone reading about how you like to make love to Geoff Wayne's "War of the Worlds".