12 MP3 Audio clips from Season 1 of The Thick of It (2005)

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What better way to introduce Malcolm Tucker than to hear him describing someone as a "marzipan dildo"?

Malcolm Tucker

[On the phone]

No, he's useless. He's absolutely useless. He is, he's useless. He's as useless as a marzipan dildo. All right. Sorry, got to go. Minister's just walked in.

Cliff Lawton is going. He has no choice. He's no longer Secretary of State for Social Affairs. Malcolm Tucker has seen to that.

Secretary

[Knocks on CLIFF LAWTON'S office door]

Would you like some coffee?

Malcolm Tucker

Fu*k off.

Secretary

Tea?

Malcolm Tucker

You fu*k off, darling.

Cliff Lawton

Malcolm, look, erm... if you do this, it's the bollocks of the jungle out there, you know? They're like wolves. P*ssed wolves.

Malcolm Tucker

I've made the announcement. I've told the lobby you're going, Cliff.

Cliff Lawton

You've told the lobby I'm going?

Malcolm Tucker

Yeah. Sorry, Cliff.

Cliff Lawton

Minister.

Malcolm Tucker

Yeah. Get used to "Cliff." I've booked you in for the usual soapy tit wa*k farewell at Number Ten.

Cliff Lawton has a suggestion. Rather than his head being on the block, perhaps Malcolm should consider sacking Tom from the Department for Transport?

Cliff Lawton

Erm... Look, tell you what, you don't need to... you don't need to do all this. What about Tom? You know? Everybody knows he's fu*king up Transport.

Malcolm Tucker

We can't sack Tom at Transport. We can't lose anyone at Transport, they're important.

Cliff Lawton

What, and Social Affairs isn't?

Malcolm Tucker

Okay, the Department of Social Affairs is very important but it's not Transport. Transport's cars, buses, trucks...

Cliff Lawton

I know what transport fu*king entails!

Ollie Reader's ex-girlfriend is Angela Heaney, Junior Political Correspondent for the Daily Mail and thanks to him, she's in danger of losing her job. She's not happy about it, to be honest.

Ollie Reader

I'm really glad you came in, Angela.

Angela Heaney

Well, I could lose my job, Ollie.

Ollie Reader

Yeah...

Angela Heaney

Because I went all hot and heavy to the news desk with three directly contradictory stories in one day.

Ollie Reader

I know.

Angela Heaney

They gave me flip-flops. You know? Someone actually went out and bought flip-flops to give me.

Ollie Reader

Yeah. You've gotta give them credit for that, though. That is quite funny.

Angela Heaney

Yeah, and they pasted onto them... a fu*king porn picture of a girl sucking a big c*ck and they wrote "Angela Heaney swallows anything."

Ollie Reader

That is less funny. Obviously that's actually quite offensive.

Hugh Abbot is about to discover that a journalist called Simon Hewitt has annihilated him in an article in The Times newspaper. And he's about to make that discovery in the worst way imaginable.

Terri Coverley

Can you just...? It's the Times. Could you just have a quick... look at that?

Hugh Abbot

Is it about me?

Terri Coverley

Have a read of it first, erm...

Hugh Abbot

I find this job quite exciting enough without having to inject artificial elements of suspense.

[TERRI'S mobile phone rings and she answers it]

You're c*ck-teasing, Terri, tell me what it is.

Terri Coverley

[On her phone to MALCOLM TUCKER]

Hello, Malcolm. No, he hasn't yet. No.

Hugh Abbot

What?

Terri Coverley

He is, isn't he? He's a pr**k. He is a pr**k.

Hugh Abbot

Who's a pr**k? Am I a pr**k?

Terri Coverley

Yep, rip the ball sack off.

Hugh Abbot

Whose ball sack? Whose ball sack? Whose balls?

[TERRI hands HUGH her mobile phone]

Hello, Malcolm.

Malcolm Tucker

Have you got Simon Hewitt's piece in front of you?

Hugh Abbot

I haven't quite been through it, er, yet.

Malcolm Tucker

Have you got to the bit where he calls you out of your depth?

Hugh Abbot

No, at the moment he's calling me... "the political equivalent of the house wine at a suburban Indian restaurant." That's not very good, is it? Hang on a second. Ooh, "insipid", yeah.

[Mumbles]

"Uninspiring"...

Ollie Reader

Christ, that's bad, look at that!

Hugh Abbot

Ooh, "disconnected to the point of autism."

Malcolm Tucker

We're gonna get this tosser, Hugh, don't you worry. He'll be at the Sport, Photoshopping the tits of Hollyoaks extras by the end of the month.

Hugh Abbot

Can I just... Hello? No, he's gone.

So, just how does Hugh Abbot deal with the negative piece Simon Hewitt has written about him in The Times? Well, Terri knows how they won't be dealing with it.

Hugh Abbot

So, how do we respond to this?

Terri Coverley

Right, we don't exchange insults with bloody Simon arse-pipes titty-twat.

Ollie Reader

Is that honestly the best swearing you can come up with?

Glenn Cullen

This is a bucket of sh*t. If someone throws sh*t, we throw sh*t at them. We start a sh*t fight. We throw so much sh*t back at them that they can't pick up sh*t, throw sh*t, or do sh*t.

Terri Coverley

Mm.

Hugh Abbot

That's top swearing, Glenn, well done.

Ollie Reader

Watch and learn.

Glenn Cullen has an opinion about a policy to provide wayward youths with music lessons to divert them from crime and violence. He thinks it's "double wa*k and sh*t chips."

Malcolm Tucker

And you're against it?

Glenn Cullen

It'll die on its arse.
"My Grandma was mugged by some ferret-faced teenager with a neck tattoo. What are you gonna do about it?"
"Teach him the bassoon."
It is, as my dear old mother would have said, double wa*k and sh*t chips.

Malcolm Tucker doesn't suffer fools gladly. And that includes journalists who write negative stories about politicians in his beloved government. They can expect very short thrift indeed.

[MALCOLM TUCKER'S phone rings as he sits at this desk devouring satsumas]

Malcolm Tucker

Tucker.

Simon Hewitt

Malcolm, er... hope I didn't wake you up.

Malcolm Tucker

[Spits out a mouthful of fruit]

Hewitt.

Simon Hewitt

Yeah, I'm doing a piece this Sunday, a big piece on focus groups, it's sort of inspired by your latest policy disaster. I'm gonna be concentrating on how your man Abbot can't do a single thing without focus groups.

Malcolm Tucker

I'm shaking with fear.

Simon Hewitt

Yeah, well, that's sexual jealousy.

Malcolm Tucker

You're so very, very witty. Pity none of it ever makes it into your columns.

Simon Hewitt

Listen, I'd love to spend the evening listening to you but, uh... I've got better things to do.

Malcolm Tucker

Fu*k off back to your match reports, you twat!

Hugh has discovered that a member of his focus group, Mary, is actually an actress. And the sh*t is about to hit the fan.

Mary

I haven't got two children, but apart from that it was essentially...

Ollie Reader

Most... Yes, of course... I mean, most of this is...

Hugh Abbot

You invented the kids?

Ollie Reader

... to protect you.

Mary

I... Yeah, I was...

Hugh Abbot

You made up small children?

Mary

I know small children.

Hugh Abbot

That's sick. Jesus Christ!

Mary

I know small children. I was just being representative.

Hugh Abbot

You invented children. Small children that don't exist.

Mary

I was giving you what you wanted.

Hugh Abbot

And so, eventually you lose track of what you're saying, the lies compound themselves and you end up all over the place like a crazy woman's sh*t.

Malcolm Tucker commands respect. He expects everyone to respect him... and his furniture. And he doesn't like Oxbridge twats. That much is clear.

Malcolm Tucker

Department of Social Affairs. Department of fu*king, shocking, sh*tty, charlatan sh*ts. That's what...

[TUCKER notices OLLIE READER lounging in his leather wing-back armchair]

...feet off the furniture, you Oxbridge twat. You're not in a punt now.

Ollie should learn to read the room. There's a time and a place for double entendres. And Malcolm's office during a crisis is not the time or the place, Ollie.

Malcolm Tucker

The line is that we don't throw a good man out to the wolves over one single little fu*k-up.

Glenn Cullen

So Hugh's staying?

Malcolm Tucker

Yeah.

Ollie Reader

We tell the wolves to fu*k off.

Malcolm Tucker

Not exactly.

Glenn Cullen

They need a blood sacrifice.

Hugh Abbot

Indeed they do, they want a head on a plate.

Ollie Reader

We've got to give them head, as they say?

Malcolm Tucker

You're clever aren't you? Very, very clever.

The axe is about to fall on the Department for Social Affairs and Ollie, Glenn and Terri are all in the firing line. It's a dog eat dog world and one of them has to do the decent thing...

Terri Coverley

One of you's got to decide.

Ollie Reader

Jesus Christ.

Terri Coverley

Which of you are going to do the decent thing?

Glenn Cullen

Look, we've been through all this, you know? Apparently I'm Ronald fu*king McDonald.

Ollie Reader

Hey, hang on, why are you not included in this? Why is it one of us two?

Terri Coverley

Well, if I've got to resign, then you've got to resign.

Glenn Cullen

"If I've got to resign..."

Terri Coverley

I answer to you on the matters of policy.

Ollie Reader

Yeah, well, in which case, he's got to go, hasn't he? Because I answer to him.

Glenn Cullen

Oh, so we've all got to go now, eh?

Terri Coverley

Well, I am going nowhere. I didn't do anything, I did nothing. I am as clean as a whistle.

Glenn Cullen

Oh, Terri, grow up. Don't give me that pile of fu*king bollocks. Just because you're a civil servant, don't think your sh*t doesn't smell. I know things about you.

Terri Coverley

What? What do you know?

Ollie Reader

Yeah, we know things.

Glenn Cullen

Oh, knob off. You know bugger all.

Terri Coverley

What do you...

Glenn Cullen

All you know is how to suck up to the new kid on the block. "Oooh, what a lovely backhand."

Ollie Reader

Fu*k off.

Glenn Cullen

"Oooh, my stroke is so hard."

Ollie Reader

You... You are so fu*king repressed! I was just playing squash.