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The Characters

Hugh Abbot - Minister for Social Affairs (Chris Langham)

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Recently parachuted in by the PM when the previous Minister was abruptly sacked.

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Confused about his role in his new job. Constantly trying to figure out, with the help of his team, the conflicting messages/agendas.

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Policy Co-ordinator Malcolm Tucker tells him he has carte blanche, a fresh slate, the chance to take the department by the scruff of the neck and take it in a new direction. But also that he must put every single idea he is even considering through him. He wants to know everything.

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Abbot owes his position to being a malleable flack-catching yes-man. But his vanity lets him believe he has been

ear-marked for greater things.

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Malcolm Tucker - Policy Co-ordinator (Enforcer) from Number Ten (Peter Capaldi)

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Scares the hell out of the Minister.

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Thinks the PM's appointment of Abbot is probably a huge mistake.

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Split up from his partner - and now lives for his work. Angry and frustrated.

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His scorned partner is a time-bomb - preparing her deadly diary for Channel Four's J'accuse programme.

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Glenn Cullen - Senior Special Advisor (James Smith)

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The Minister regards him as 'my guy'. They go back a long way and are even slightly homoerotic in the degree to which their careers and lives are bound together.

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Has the feeling that they're living on borrowed time - is insecure.

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Contemptuous of Oliver Reeder and his easy path to power - has never seen opposition. Never worked anywhere else. Thinks he's shit hot, but isn't.

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Sees himself as the source of all good common sense. Believes he instinctively knows how 'the man on the street' thinks. He doesn't.

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Oliver Reeder - Junior Policy Advisor (Chris Addison)

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Came straight out of Cambridge and into a think tank and into Government. Never had a 'real' job.

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Thinks he knows what's going on but doesn't. Too theoretical to ever really understand the workings of PR and spin.

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Thinks he's cynical when he's not - thinks he knows the game but isn't very good at it.

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The most reckless/ideas-driven/enthusiastic of the group. 'Who cares what they print?'

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Terri Coverley - Civil Service Press Secretary (Jo Scanlan)

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Was appointed by Number Ten in a new drive to make Government operate more like a business. But now Tucker has decided she's shit - and she's on borrowed time.

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Has authority and nous but has to cave in to the Minister. 'If that's what you want to do, who am I to stop you?'.

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She was the 'anti-spin' appointment. Part of a 'new' thrust from Tucker for transparency and trust. Her brief was to 'think the unthinkable.' In media terms, now: 'She's thinking the unthinkable - stop her!'. They ask her to break difficult stories to the papers: 'They'll believe you.'

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Ex-press officer from Waitrose. People defer to her sometimes because of this business background. (Even though maybe she oversaw a PR disaster?)

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Angela Heaney - Sympathetic Journalist (Lucinda Raikes)

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Career relies upon her good relationship with the party and the Department.

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Has sold out any interest in digging beyond 'the line' she is fed from the Department

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Has had/is having romantic relationship with junior policy advisor?