Series 4 – Episode 3

I'm finding Mr Tickel's tent-based twattery even more annoying.

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

..I call app Britain. App. I call app Britain. I call app Britain.

Silicone playgrounds are, is, go.

I just hope Mannion can keep his baccy stained fingers out of it.

I call you up, app...

I couldn't have looked more of a twat unless I'd announced it dressed as a mermaid with scallops on my tits!

I was picked up at 7. Of course I haven't walked the dog.

I barely had time to take myself for a shit.

Phil, I'm sure you have Peter withdrawal symptoms

but I need you to keep an eye on the Tickel issue.

Thought camp ETA 13 minutes, OK? You're taking the bridge, Kieran.

You can start by not referring to him as gypo or gypsy, Phil.

It's not the abbreviation that's the problem.

If he has a thorn in his paw it must be from when you took him for a walk yesterday.

What do you mean, you're in charge? You are not in fucking charge.

You've got to keep me informed.

I want the full crunch on all the feeds as usual, everything below the equator.

Take him to the dog hospital.

No, I'm not being sarcastic. There is one.

The number will be in the folder. Try and keep an eye on things, right? Bile... Mm, what?

Where are you taking us, Stewart? This mind Kampf is in the middle of nowhere.

Thought camp, Peter, and isolation is the mother of renewal. We shall retreat to go forward.

Terrible signal. Phil sounded like he was phoning in a report on an African coup.

Why's he even gone in today? I put him on Tickel oversight. Oh, the eviction.

Well, cutting the guy ropes on his tent is hardly the siege of Troy.

Bailiffs thought it would be easier today, quicker or quieter.

I want Phil sealed off, right? He makes no statement today, not even off the record.

He wanted to feel useful. Then he should sell his organs.

Glenn. What? What the fuck are you doing here?

Oh, God, you're not living here, are you?

Oh, no. I've just go some stuff I've got to catch up on.

Plus one of my neighbours is having a rooftop barbecue

and I didn't fancy being bombarded with chicken bones and Radio 1.

Anyway, why aren't you on Stewart's away day?

Drinking herbal tea and playing leapfrog? I told Stewart where to get off.

Yeah, well, we've got the whole palace to ourselves, eh? Rosencratz and Guildenstern.

But very much alive. Well, one of us.

I'll put the kettle on. Sure.

Easy on the milk, Shaky Hands.

OK, people, abandon phones all ye who enter here.

And watches, too. Time is a leash on the dog of ideas

This is like some weird inverted Dodge City.

Presumably we're allowed to keep our six shooters. I might want to blow my brains out.

Stewart, my son's coming back from a school trip

and I'm gonna need to find out what time the coaches are arriving.

Sorry, Mary, same rules for everyone.

Reception will take a message, yeah,

but I mean we all have children, yeah? I don't literally but...

OK, lovely people. Let's go truffling in the forest of knowledge.

Come on, quick. Quick. Fuck, fuck, it's hot.

Jesus Christ. What's happened?

Is this the start of some zombie apocalypse?

What are you guys doing in?

Well, work comes first with me, Adam. You know that.

Protestant ethic. Not that I'm at all anti-Catholic.

You're in for...? A meeting with Fergus.

Heads up. Lady and the Tramp are in, too.

Yeah, I know. Cheers. Just make sure you copy me in on any minutes. OK.

How about you copy that, yeah?

Cos it's party business. It's not ministerial.

The meeting is in the department.

While Peter is absent, I'm his surrogate - the king's hand.

Yeah. Finish him off with that hand as well, do you?

Prick.

I may... I may be needed. I've been needed in the past.

OK, people. I'd like to start this session with a question.

When is a party not a party?

When it's at your house? Peter!

A party is not a party when it is plural.

There she is, the party, singular.

She thinks like you, she votes like you, she is not you

and yet of course she is you.

HE SIGHS I feel like I've joined the Scientologists.

Some of these people want a federal Britain, others don't,

and as long as we continue to do nothing we can call that consensus.

Why am I the only senior minister here? Is JB punishing me?

Look, Mary Drake's here, Home Office.

And yes, JB is punishing you.

OK, let's, let's MacIntyre this. Stand up.

MacIntyre? In fact, chairs to the side, please.

Great, vague prancing about.

Isn't that one of the fundamental principles of democracy?

Oh, I'm sorry, Peter, do you want to share your thoughts? Hmm?

No, we just hoped we were going to do some dancing, er, Stewart.

What, Merce Cunningham, something like that?

OK, maybe later you can share it with us. Fabulous.

But first, let me share something with you.

Silicone Playgrounds, yeah?

What caused this slow motion pile up? Shall we sit down and chew over hash tag epic fail

or shall we try and get some solutions on their feet?

That's it just put it at the side, Peter.

I was hoping to catch the snooker after I've finished collating those healthy workplace stats.

Just down there. Glenn, you're a marvel.

You're like a modern day Jeeves. Only not modern... day.

You're like Jeeves but only not as good.

This meeting, is it something I should be in on?

Well, it's not really a meeting, it's more sort of faces with lips making noise.

Uh-huh. Sounds like a meeting.

Yeah, well you know, Fergus just called someone in

for a... for an exploratory chat. Right.

Stop Slytherin getting wind of it.

Oh, hang on. I've got to go.

You need to get back to your telly? It takes a while to warm up, doesn't it?

Here we are at the coal face.

Ah, Adam, this is Tara Strachan.

Hello, lovely to meet you. Hi there. Really lovely, lovely.

Shall we...? Just... Thank you. She's an economist and a lady.

Yes, obviously. Lovely. Ahem. What's going on? Who's the skirt?

I'd love to bring you up to speed, Phil, I really would,

but I'm not going to live long enough.

So tell you what? Why don't you go and help Glenn watch his telly?

I think the dancing's on in a minute.

I really like your coat, by the way. Thank you.

It's like a leopard. It is a little bit. Or a cheetah.

Am I supply-side economics? No. Oh, bugger.

OK, Mary, you've got to help Peter work out what political concept he is. You have one guess left.

Keep the energy up, guys. Chins up, yeah.

Am I a solid, sensible concept? No.

The beauty of this model... Yeah. ..is that micro banking can happen anywhere, OK?

Great. Small, low interest loans, that's the way forward.

This is terrific, I mean, it's so fucking us it's brilliant.

Adam! Adam!

Oh, don't worry, I don't mind swearing. Shows passion.

I've done some community enterprise case studies.

Sisters who want to set up a pop-up bakers in a disused travel agents.

The boiler guy who wants to take on an apprentice.

Yeah. The helping hand for hands-on people.

Yeah. I like that, that's great, that's really good.

Making sure the can-doers don't get canned.

Terrific, yeah, really good.

Would I be comfortable or uncomfortable...?

Yes or no questions only, please, Peter.

Would I be uncomfortable talking to Andrew Marr about this concept on the television?

Yes.

Am I diversity? No.

You're out of questions, Peter.

Oh, for fuck's sake. Inclusivity's practically the same as diversity.

No, it's not. No, it isn't, Peter.

I could be at home watching the snooker with a bottle of unpronounceable scotch.

Can I sit down now?

I'm sitting down, I don't care.

Actually we can all sit down now. Thanks, Peter.

So take a chair because Emma's going to co-steer module 4 with me.

We're gonna do a kind of Top Trumps stats check on the PM's future enemies, yeah?

Strengths, weaknesses, blocking moves and take downs.

Em. Great, thank you, Stewart.

You've turned into the wrong Mitford sister.

Basically, we'd set up a network of micro-credit lenders at neighbourhood level.

This is great. So what would it be called? Like the Citizens' Bank or...?

The People's Bank. Erm, community... The credit fund.

No, no, credit's a bad word. Negative.

Something with advance. The We Bank.

The We Bank? I like that.

Although it does sound a bit like a sperm bank but for wee.

Bit of a farce going on here with your Mr Tickle.

They've turned up to evict him and he's not there.

Good, self-evicted. Gone. Problem solved.

Anyway, what's going on with Fergus and Adam and the sexy stranger?

She's an economist, apparently.

Oh, don't be ridiculous, she's far too attractive.

You can get sexy economists. What about Stephanie Flanders?

Yeah, that's true. I quite like Emily Maitlis.

Really? Oh, I'm sure she'd love a grey pounding.

Do you want to have an idea-gasm? Yes, please.

Ask me how we'd initially fund this? How would we initially fund this? How would we initially fund this?

A one-off Robin Hood tax.

Steal from the fat cats,

raise enough seed capital for hundreds of start-up funds for fledgling businesses.

You know what? This could work really well for us.

This... This is... Yeah.

Yeah? I mean, let's just talk figures.

What sort of start-up capital are we talking here? Erm...

Not very much. I think we're looking at about 2 billion.

2 billion. 2 billion.

Good. I erm... Well, obviously, I'd have to ring the Treasury.

Sure. And twist a few arms. You know, it'll take a couple of weeks to work out

but we are extremely keen to set that process in motion.

Nicola Murray. We're assuming she's on her way out.

That's a given. She's a political accident nobody can quite remember how it happened.

Contender one - Ben Swain.

Now, ABC1's over-thirties consider him shifty and unfocused.

Can't think why that is.

Geoff Holhurst. Tiny head. Yeah, an Achilles head.

Ah, Dan Miller, definitely our anti-fave.

Charming, charismatic, clever, dedicated and phwoar, God, he's hot.

Yes, thanks, Em.

OK, let's architecturalise this, yeah? Oh, don't bother.

If it's Ben Swain, we all shout "sweaty Swain" as he dehydrates himself through PMQs.

Holhurst looks like a shepherd dressed up to meet the Queen

and if it's Dan Miller we're fucked.

I should tell you I do also have a meeting with Dan Miller booked in.

What? I would just knock that right on the head, don't do it.

Well, he's in opposition, we rule.

We're the rulers, we're the governors.

And in the end, this is so fucking us. Fuck, yeah. Yeah.

Here, Tara Strachan, LSE, Harvard,

author of Strapped: Why We're In Debt To Each Other,

Small Is Bountiful, expert in micro financing

and community credit guilds.

God, that sounds dreary. Bloody hell, that's all 4th sector stuff.

I mean, why have they kept me out here like a stray dog?

And why are they keeping Mannion out of it?

This is government business.

Right, that's enough, stop, stop, stop. I demand an explanation.

Sorry, Phil, we're busy.

Maybe come back in, I don't know, 2017?

As Peter's representative, it's as though you lied to him. That's probably illegal.

If you want to see something probably illegal, pass me that fucking stapler over there.

Er, listen is there a problem with me being here?

You're not supposed to be here.

The minister is unaware that you're here, so you have to leave.

So she's a security risk? Oh, no - I'd forgotten. You're not allowed within 50 feet of a woman.

How d'you explain this, then? I'm within 50 feet of you. You're a woman.

Oh, brilliant. That is really good. Fuck! Tickle's dead!

Oh, shit. Jesus.

Oh, God, he's killed himself. Suicide.

He used a car exhaust.

Hey, classic. The Bohemian Rhapsody of suicides.

Oh, Phil, for fuck's sake. I'm sorry, I just, you know...

I mean it's, it's... It's good, in a way.

He was drawing attention to an issue

and now he's not drawing attention to it because...

Can you just turn it down, all right, because we have somebody in?

I'm gonna ring Terri.

God, I was just ringing you. I got a heads-up from Reuters

whilst I was planting the dwarf irises.

This is gonna take a lot of managing.

Who's that? No-one. Ah, Minister, sorry.

Yes, I'm halfway through a draft. Any minute. Thank you, Terri.

Is this the homeless nurse? That's awful.

Er, yes, this is Mr Tickel, it's a tragedy.

Homeless out of choice, right, Fergus?

Er, now is really not the time to...

This is a tragedy and it's complicated.

Not complicated enough for you to voice any public opposition.

Do you think we could not wash our dirty linen in public?

I'm not the one who shat the bed.

Tara, could you give us two minutes? Yeah.

This situation calls for a black coffee and my Bluetooth headset.

Do not touch that phone, Glenn. That is a comms phone.

Erm... No filters, Emma. First thoughts. We're policy jamming here.

OK, erm, 24/7 parliament.

Oh, sorry, a little bit of mental housekeeping.

There is only positivity in the circle.

When someone makes a suggestion, we say, "yes and".

Yes and what?

We could, we could make a noise.

What noise would you suggest, Mary?

Yes and

ho. Great. Let's run with that. Yes and ho.

Thanks, Emma. 24/7 parliament.