What do you reckon to Malcolm Tucker?

[Twed]

To me that whole thing is pretty much "I'm not actually homophobic, I just hate you and I know how to push you buttons..." Same with: "That's an incredibly homophobic headline, you massive poof".

Maybe I'm projecting because I do this sometimes, but rather than hate I think he's making a point (in an oblique way) that the words and anger contradict the underlying cause. I think that in Tucker's mind he's able to reconcile making a joking about "stroking fags behind the bike shed" part of his defense against being called homophobic. It makes the point that the vitriol and his morals are independent things.

[ToneLa]

Yeah I can see him genuinely believing one excuses the other, rather than he's a double hypocrite.

Though his morals seem to vanish by the end with Baroness Sureka

[Twed]

Yeah, his twisted morality doesn't seem convincing in cold blood. It only flies when he's bollocking a room.

[Blue Jam]

Who is Stuart a parallel of again? Sad thing is that character is aging well!

Steve Hilton:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/20/catherine-bennett-steve-hilton-shabby-dresser

[ToneLa]

Steve Hilton:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/20/catherine-bennett-steve-hilton-shabby-dresser

Ah that's the one. Sorry, TMSDTS (temporary mind slip due to Staropramen)

Still don't see the show as an allegory though. Sympathise way too much with the fact they could look around and notice:" Inspiration!

Still hunger for a current British politics satire but. Thick Of It is once a generation good.

[BritishHobo]

I love the glimpse we get of the Americans in In The Loop. Linton is a brilliant character, a proper confident steamroller of a man who talks for so long despite saying absolutely fuck-all. It's like he barely knows what words are even coming out of his mouth. Such a fun performance.

Chad is great as well, which is a given, given Zach Woods. I love when Toby's taking the piss out of him, suggesting that for the poster he's printinghe uses the font the SS used, and Chad just takes it completely straight. "Uh... well that obviously, uh, has bad connotations." "Heavy metal?" "No, the SS."

It's such a good film. It's the perfect film to make of the series. The way it escalates into America, and you get this great sense of how the political situation The Thick of It explores is totally fucking unprepared for such enormous things. I think it's perfect.

[Sebastian Cobb]

My favourite bit is Glenn and Gina McKee sniggering like actual children at Ollie claiming perhaps he was unfaithful to stop the war.

[BritishHobo]

I've never properly appreciated McKee in it before, but I found this time I love how she gets on everyone's tits simply by, like Terri, just doing her job, while everyone around her blames her for their own fuck-ups. Her contempt for Toby is great fun, as is Olivia Poulet's. The bit where Toby is throwing a tantrum while moving out, and she just keeps slaughtering him every time. James Smith coming in at the end of the film and moving his bag as well. I wonder if they ever tried to find room for Roger Allam, as he's the one other person you'd expect to get a cameo (apart from maybe Stewart and Robyn).

There's also a great bit that I think really sums up Malcolm. When Simon is really pushing that the war totally goes against his convictions, and that it's not what he went into politics for, and that he really feels he has to resign because it's such an enormous moral quandary, Malcolm goes straight into this little speech that's really convincing, where he tells Simon that he admires Simon's conviction, but that you need to stay in politics, even if it means the occasional horrible compromise, because it means you're able to contribute a critical voice who can help change things, which you lose if you resign. You really believe it - despite everything I've written in this thread, I believed it a bit. Then he references another politician who took a stand on mental health and resigned, losing any authority she had. Simon points out she lost any authority because The Sun published a horrible story calling her a mad cow, and Malcolm says 'I happened to find that a particularly powerful story'. He doesn't give a shit about compromising in order to help make things better - he'd happily use a hateful tabloid to perpetuate a nasty, misogynistic hate campaign against one of his own politicians, because her opinions clash with that of the party leaders.

[Mister Six]

I never thought Malcolm was being nice to the cleaner out of any sense of decency or respect - I thought it was just that he was terrified of the bad press that might come from the civil servants and MPs treating less fortunate staff poorly. Unlike those on the inside, they're not used to this shit, and actually might make a fuss out of it.

[imitationleather]

I never thought Malcolm was being nice to the cleaner out of any sense of decency or respect - I thought it was just that he was terrified of the bad press that might come from the civil servants and MPs treating less fortunate staff poorly. Unlike those on the inside, they're not used to this shit, and actually might make a fuss out of it.

This is definitely how it came across to me. Jamie's apology to the other cleaner did seem to be suggesting that he was only angry and abusive to people in politics, whereas Malcolm's felt far more contrived. Him taking the cleaner aside and trying to convince her not to let the story get out makes it pretty clear what it was all about.