The Thick Of It

Peter Mannion, the Secretary of State for Social Affairs gets told to launch his Coalition partner Fergus's new "Networked Nation" policy at a school. Peter doesn't even know how to right-click a mouse and would rather be celebrating his wedding anniversary, but Stewart Pearson won't hear otherwise. So Fergus gets left in charge of drawing up a list of staff redundancies, and Terri Coverley is pretty sure she can make Fergus's hit list if she works hard at under-performing, and finds help from an unexpected direction. Peter's policy launch is a disaster, and the disaster-recovery plan is even more of a disaster.

With Glenn gone, Nicola Murray is busy breaking in her new policy advisor, Helen Hatley. When Helen is accidentally photographed holding notes from an ideas meeting, Nicola is understandably angry. But then Nicola is already stressed by having an eight foot pork chop following her about, whilst simultaneously being attacked by the rest of her party for endorsing an unpopular policy. And - even worse - her rival Dan Miller seems to be getting on very well with Malcolm Tucker.

Stewart Pearson is running "Thought Camp" at a remote country house hotel, as the perfect way to re-engage the party with the creative cloudscape. No phones, no iPads. Peter Mannion can definitely think of better ways of spending the Easter weekend than 'imagineering' with Stewart, Emma and a bunch of back-benchers and party workers. Meanwhile, Phil is surprised to find the ministerial offices less than deserted. Glenn is there, working on the Fourth Sector backlog; Fergus and his advisor Adam are meeting with a young, attractive economist who wants to start a bank. Then all political hell is let loose when an unexpected and tragic news story breaks.

With Nicola safely on a train to attend the party's Here 2 Hear in farflung Bradford, Malcolm is free to launch his latest plot. But how is Olly going to be able to help, given that he's in St Thomas' Hospital with a burst appendix? And what will Ben Swain's price be, for playing along with the scheme? More than a bar of chocolate, that's for sure. And when Nicola finds out what's going on, can she control the situation from a seat in standard class right under the watchful eye of Sky News? Or is she sitting on the fast train to Nowheresville, West Yorkshire?

With Nicola Murray and Peter Mannion both on the back foot after the unravelling of the key-worker housing sell-off policy there's inevitably going to be a scramble for the moral high-ground while the smelly floodwater of scandal is lapping round their toes. In fact, several people are calling for some sort of enquiry. Everyone wants to spin the story, and everyone wants their own version of the story out there, by fair means or foul. But as more and more fingers get pointed the bigger the scandal becomes, finally threatening to implicate everybody. And in amongst it all, the department is trying to launch the new Carers Pass.

Everyone has a lot of questions to answer about the suicide of a keyworker after his flat was sold off. Government, Opposition and Civil Service alike. Lord Goolding is reputedly a fair man, but he isn't going to stand for any nonsense. And neither is his team of expert inquisitors. Surely now, the truth will come out. Unless someone lies, or creates a diversion of some kind, or simply pretends not to remember anything. They wouldn't do that, would they?

The final reckoning. Every dog has its day, but as the fallout from the inquiry starts to take its toll, the everyday problems of government continue unabated. Despite the fact that no-one is actually talking to each other any more. The Home Office have cut police numbers, created a huge backlog of arrest paperwork, and managed to blame DoSAC for the enormous queues at police stations. At Malcolm's suggestion, Dan Miller gets sent on a fact-finding mission to the local cop-shop to press the flesh, in the belief that it will make the Government look unresponsive. Or does he have another motive?