The Thick of It is a British comedy television series, which satirises the inner workings of modern British government. It was broadcast on BBC Four in 2005, and has so far completed six half-hour episodes and two special hour-long episodes to coincide with Christmas and Gordon Brown's appointment as Prime Minister. To date, the series has earned Best New Comedy and Best Comedy Performer for Chris Langham at the 2005 British Comedy Awards , and won Best Situation Comedy and Best Comedy Performance, also for Langham (although Peter Capaldi was also nominated), at the 2006 BAFTAs.

nock on door] lcolm Tucker: Come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off.

enn Cullen: This is a bucket of shit. If someone throws shit at us, we throw shit back at them. We start a shit fight. We throw so much shit back at them so they can't pick up shit, they can't throw shit, they can't DO shit.

lcolm Tucker: It IS possible to have a good resignation, you know! gh Abbott: "A good resignation"? Oh, I'm looking forward to how you're gonna sell THIS to me! lcolm Tucker: Look, people really like it when you go just a bit early! You know, steely jawed, faraway look in your eyes! Before they get to the point when they sitting round in pubs and say "Oh, that fucker's got to go!", you surprise them! "Blimey, he's gone! I didn't expect that! Resigned! You don't see THAT much anymore! Old school! Respect! I rather liked the guy! He was hounded out by the fucking press!" How about that, ah? What a way to go! Yeah!

lcolm Tucker: What did the Prime Minister ACTUALLY said to you? gh Abbott: He actually said this is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing. lcolm Tucker: "SHOULD" be doing. "Should" does not mean "yes".

gh Abbott: I want a new driver. Get me a new driver. I don't wanna see this guy ever again. enn Cullen: On what grounds? gh Abbott: Smiling! Innapropriate smiling! And smirking! Smiling and smirking! I don't wanna see that smile or smirk ever again, ok?

gh Abbott: All I do: I work, I eat, I shower, that's it. Occasionally I take a dump, just as a sort of treat. I mean that really IS my treat. I sit there and I think - no, I'm not gonna read the New Statesman, this time is just for me. This is quality time just for me. Is it normal?

lcolm Tucker: Ok, this is what we're doing: I'm putting about through a number of cronies that Hewitt's piece was a packet of bollocks, he did it as a favor to Cliff. iver Reeder: Cliff being... enn Cullen: Cliff Lawton... lcolm Tucker: Hugh's predesessor. He and Hewitt are as tight as arse cheeks. gh Abbott: Are they now? lcolm Tucker: Fuck knows, but that's what we're saying, ok? It's personal, it's backslapping, it's borderline homoerotic, and you are an innocent victim of a nasty media stitch-up.

lcolm Tucker: All right, listen up, this is what we're gonna do: I'm bringing forward Hugh's interview with Angela Heaney to this afternoon. It goes out as a spoiler tomorrow morning. That way we can get our side of the story across and also piss all over Simon Hewitt's cornflecks, sadly only metaphorically, yeah? Allright, Ollie, call Heaney. Terry, get on to her editor. Glenn, book a room. Bodie, Doyle, you go round the back!... At times of stress, I make jokes!

her: I'm sorry, could you stop swearing, please? lcolm Tucker: I'm really sorry, you won't hear any more swearing from us, YOU MASSIVE GAY SHITE! Fuck off!

lcolm Tucker: Right. How're you doing, in sorting out whether he lied or not, you doing ok? iver Reeder: Pretty well, yeah. lcolm Tucker: Is that a lie? iver Reeder: Yeah. lcolm Tucker: That is not fucking funny, you retard!... I'm sorry about that, Glenn, the situation's just...

rri Coverley: Did you send an e-mail this morning, about me, calling me a cunt? iver Reeder: No! No, I never use that word, let alone about you, no, absolutely, I won't use it until, you know, it's been fully normalized and has no further assosiation with the... female twat.

gh Abbott: Is Tucker in the building? iver Reeder: "Malcolm in the Middle". gh Abbott: Hm? iver Reeder: It's what we call him, 'cause he can stand in the middle of the atrium, just shout all around. gh Abbott: I don't wanna see him, not at the moment, I can't take one of his scenes from "The Exorsist" just now.

ankie: Shagging your way to the top, then, is it? iver Reeder: Well, I'm not Scottish, so I got to get there somehow.

mie: Have you seen the Whip's numbers? lcolm Tucker: NOMFuP. mie: Eh? lcolm Tucker: NOMFuP. N-O-M-F-P. Not My Fucking Problem. I quite like that. Did you like that? I'll use that quite a lot today.

lcolm Tucker: How much fucking shit is there on the menu and what fucking flavor is it?

lcolm Tucker: Sam? Can you get me Terri Coverley and Glenn Cullen? Make them an appointment to come over? I think I got to shout at somebody, you know? Oh, actually, get me John at Culture on the phone, I think I'll have a bit of a shout now.

mie: Are you a horse? iff Lawton: Sorry? mie: Are you a fucking horse?

mie: Oh, Trinny and Susanna! I'm sorry to burst into your little fucking boutique, but you've got a fight on your hands! That's all I'm saying, I'm backing a rival candidate, so [to Tucker] fuck you and [to Nick] fuck you and your Nutter coronation 'cause it ain't happening! ck Hanway: You're backing Dan Miller, are you? mie: No, I'm not backing Dan Miller, don't you never fucking ask me a question again!

lcolm Tucker: Hey, it's Nutter Nick!

gela Heaney: Ollie! Are you pissing? iver Reeder: Ah, no, that's the flush of the automatic uranals in the gentelman's lavatory. gela Heaney: I don't wanna talk to you while you're holding your penis! iver Reeder: Well, that's not what you used to say... gela Heaney: Yes it is. iver Reeder: No, well, that's precicely what you used to say.

byn Murdoch: You said "cold cocks"!

lcolm Tucker: Has anybody seen Jamie? enn Cullen: Why? Have you lost him?

mie: [to Julius] Eat the cheese! Eat the fucking cheese!

byn Murdoch: It's just Jamie, I find him just a little bit frightening... lcolm Tucker: Relax, he has never hit anyone! Or at least anyone he hit has never had the balls to take it to a superior! It's a fucking joke, it's a joke, ok? The man is a professional, you will be fine!

enn Cullen: Actually, Malcolm, we still have no word on Dan Miller, he's gone dark, he's not answering his phone... lcolm Tucker: Maybe he's in a hotel with his own huddle! Ring around, try and find him. enn Cullen: What, ring every hotel in London and ask if Dan Miller's booked in? lcolm Tucker: Yeah! Although he could be using an assumed name... enn Cullen: So, you want me to ring round every hotel in London and ask if anyone of any name has booked in? lcolm Tucker: Keep you busy! You know, you have to keep the mind active at your age.

lcolm Tucker: [to Nick] You know what I call "semantics"? Wank!

ck Hanway: Tom's not sure about you... lcolm Tucker: Tom is enourmosly mental in the head, that's what we've just been discussing.

mie: Have you been talking to Malcolm? byn Murdoch: No, should I have? mie: Who did you mention Cliff Lawton to, then? byn Murdoch: Only Terri. mie: For fuck's sake woman! What is your fucking problem? No no no, don't answer that, we'll be here all fucking night!

mie: Malcolm, what's the fuck happening? lcolm Tucker: Tom's in trouble. mie: Good. lcolm Tucker: His numbers are falling. mie: Good. lcolm Tucker: So I sujested that they take a look at another runner. mie: Claire Ballantine? Ok... I'm not hating that... That's not total shit. lcolm Tucker: Are you in on this? mie: I'm not leaving it to you, you couldn't organize a bum rape in the barracs. lcolm Tucker: Au contraire.

am Kenyon: [to Angela] You know how Geoff Holhurst photographs - it's like his body's in the foreground and his head is really really far away.

ck Hanway: Tom's announcing his team in the morning and I've got to to stop Dan Miller from announcing his team two hours before we announce ours, so if you wanna get on the bus... lcolm Tucker: That is my mission. You, mister Nutty-Bar, have given me a task. Jesus Christ! Who the fuck does Tom think he is? ck Hanway: The next Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Malcolm.

lcolm Tucker: Tomorrow - from broadsheets to wank rags - I want pages one, two and three to be a profile of Tom looking like a fucking political colossus, you know - Tom meeting the Pope, Tom in a NHS hospital chatting to little, baldie kiddies. I want pages four and five to be a timeline of British politics with ME at the center, looking fucking indispensable and fucking benign, and I want page six to be fucking Israel or some bullshit, not a fucking DoSAC deepshit legacy-distracting COCKUP!

am Kenyon: We better run with something, otherwise we'll have to reprint Hitler's fucking diaries. Again.

lcolm Tucker: Nick, I've just had the Mail on the phone. They're running with the Tom story. ck Hanway: This is not good... lcolm Tucker: No, it's not good, I'm sorry, it's everywhere, spreading faster than a rent-boy's cheeks. We're gonna need a Plan B here. ck Hanway: What about... Geoff Holhurst? lcolm Tucker: His head photographs quite badly, so...

lcolm Tucker: I'll get the Press to stop calling him Blinky-Ben.

lcolm Tucker: [to Ollie] If you don't go get me some cheese, I'll rip your head off, and give you a spinedectomy.

n Swain: Where does it leave me? lcolm Tucker: I guess it leaves you standing in a chamber in the House of Commons with your big flaccid dick hanging out, with a "vote for me" sticking on the end.

mie: You, Julius Nicholson, being of a sound mind, with a body that looks like a giant sex toy, did knowingly do us up the shithole by passing confidential information to the enemy! And I am gonna have your guts as a skipping rope, then rip yor lungs out, sun-dry them and wear them as a waist-coat!

enn Cullen: [to Terri] It's not the same. You're on the last chopper out of Saigon, I'm having it up the ass with Ho Chi Minh!

mie: Enough with the plesensies, let's just oil up and get fucking, yeah?

enn Cullen: I've been leaking for 27 years, I know how it's done. I leaked! iver Reeder: You don't leak! Well, not from the mouth, anyway. lcolm Tucker: Just fucking shut up. At least this is Hugh's Glenn. All you are, mate, is fucking Ben's Glenn. iver Reeder: "Ben's Glenn"? That's all I am, I'm Ben's Glenn. n Swain: What's wrong with that? It's not like it's a disease! iver Reeder: It's not the "Ben" bit, it's the "Glenn" bit.

enn Cullen: They only want him to make Cappucinos. gh Abbott: He does it very well. I think it's the way you waggle your finger so hard in the milk. iver Reeder: Yeah, you think it's my finger, bitch.

lcolm Tucker: Is this dodgy? mie: I dunno. The kid's firm was the second lowest bid, he says they never talked, what does it matter? lcolm Tucker: No, well, you know me, I'm a man of principle, I like to know whether I'm lying to save the skin of a tosser or a moron. mie: Probably a moron...

lcolm Tucker: Hey Jamie! This is Ollie! mie: THE Ollie? The stuck-one-up-the-Opposition-for-us Ollie? Good fucking man! Good to meet you!

lcolm Tucker: It's make-your-mind-up time, Ollie! I mean, what do you want to be? Do you want to be a prick that works here for a year, then goes away and joins a think-tank to write "oh, on one hand this and on the other hand that", or do you want to be a soldier? mie: Have you got your eyes on the prize? iver Reeder: I've got my eyes on the prize. lcolm Tucker: Good. iver Reeder: What is the prize? lcolm Tucker: I don't know, you need to ask the brain guys... I'll settle for just keeping us in government instead of the wankers you're shagging!

rk Davies: Malcolm, this is a traditional oldfashioned news story called "Minister looks a tit". lcolm Tucker: Hey, everybody looks a tit, you know? Take two of this shots of him looking moronic out, leave a couple in of him looking a little bit dim, put one of him composed, drop it down in the running order, and we've got a deal. rk Davies: What deal, Malcolm? He looks a tit, that's it! I'm sorry. lcolm Tucker: But there is a difference between allowing someone's natural tittishness to come through and just exploiting it through camera work here! You're sticking one tit moment on top of another tit moment! That wouldn't happen in real life!

mie: Well, go for fuck's sake, you big fucking prick! Or I'll cut your ears off! We need it done! iver Reeder: When I met you this morning I thought you were the nice Scot.

gh Abbott: Have you, though? Ever cleaned up your own mother's piss? enn Cullen: No, I never knew my mother, as you know... gh Abbott: Sorry. Have you ever cleaned up your step-mother's piss? enn Cullen: No, I never cleaned her piss, it wasn't that kind of relationship. gh Abbott: I've done Alicia's piss... And then Charlie's piss, loads and loads of it. You know, it's only piss. She was going on like it's toxic waist or something... What's a bit of piss?

lcolm Tucker: [to Jamie, on the phone] There's a glacier of shit at DoSAC. I need you over here with a fucking blow torch right now!

lcolm Tucker: Right, hi Geoff, don't stand. [Holhurst sits back down] No no, I mean don't stand against Tom. Now you see how I did that? I was both being funny and also deadly seroius. off Holhurst: Now where did you hear that, Malcolm? lcolm Tucker: Never mind where I heard that. The thing is Geoff, you're gonna waist everybody's time... off Holhurst: I'm not standing, Malcolm, I'm just trying to start a debate. You know, a policy debate, future direction of the party. lcolm Tucker: ...because, first, you've got no credentials. You're so back-bench, you've actually fucking fallen off. You're out there by the bins. Secondly, I'm gonna tell the Mirror about all the drinking, and thirdly, I'm gonna tell the Mail about the affair and fourthly, you've got tiny head. off Holhurst: No I haven't! lcolm Tucker: Yes you have, it's out of proportions, everybody mentions that! Now, you see, you're shaking it and I can hardly see it move! Are you shaking it now? I can't tell! off Holhurst: I'm not standing, ok! My head is the right size! lcolm Tucker: It's very petite. So you're not standing? You will not stand against Tom? off Holhurst: I've said, I've bloody said. lcolm Tucker: OK. Thank you Geoff. Let's have lunch sometime, yeah? Have a tete-a-tiny-tete. off Holhurst: Jesus!

mie: [to Terri and Robyn] Hey, Desperate Houswifes! You found out who's leaking yet? enn Cullen: I have! It's Julius! He's just told me. mie: Julius? Nicholson? That-baldie-pussy? If you think he's leaking now, wait till you see when I'm finished with him! He'll look like fucking Mel Gibson's Jesus! Fuck!

mie: [to Nick] It's the sound of you flying out of the loop head first into a huge mount of shite.

lcolm Tucker: [on the phone] Jamie... What's that sort of droning noise in the background there? What, kind of boring, kind of low, sort of droning, boring, kind of miserable, whining, kind of, sort of boring noise going on? mie: Yeah, well you've got it wrong! lcolm Tucker: Cliff fucking Lawton. Hey, nice. Was the Cillit Bang guy not availabe? mie: Fuck you.

lcolm Tucker: [to a fellow Communications guy] Hey, well done on Fatty's profile! Very very good! I nearly liked the enormous fucker reading it!

mie: [to Ollie, about Malcolm] Just nod when the big fucker talks, do whatever I say. lcolm Tucker: Actually it's the other way around.

mie: [about Ollie] Not much of a fucking soldier, is he? lcolm Tucker: He's a lover, not a fighter.