TRASHFUTURE - *PREVIEW* Britainology 87: The Thick of It

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

We've heard that any political issue in the United Kingdom is 'just like The Thick of It' and as such we've sought to verify. By watching the 2000s BBC sitcom, or at least one episode of the show, and addressing what it says about British politics? To be honest, it definitely says a lot about Armando Iannucci and the liberal conception of the world. But also: swearing. Get the whole episode on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/108791736 KJB LIVE ALERT Kill James Bond are doing three nights at Conway Hall in Central London on 9th, 10th, and 11th August, and there’s also livestream tickets available if you can’t make it! Details are available here: https://www.killjamesbond.com/live MILO ALERT  Milo’s special ‘Voicemail’ is premiering on YouTube on July 10th - check it out here: https://youtu.be/x4oTP3M6ppo Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and November (@postoctobrist)

I think stuff like, yeah, like, like Brexit and the asylum stuff and all of this is like good examples of like the Tories basically butting up against the limits of possibility. And so like, but they're so ideologically committed to doing things that won't work, not even that won't work in terms of like making this country a better place to live, but also in terms of just like being literally possible, like the way in which it's like, oh yeah, well, we'll just stop asylum seekers coming to this country. It's like, oh yeah, well we'll just stop a side of Seegas coming to this country. And it's like, well fucking good luck with that because they're gonna come.

Also like I think a great example of what you've just described of like, there is a point at which reality intervenes. Yeah. And that is quasi-quartang endless trust and their budget and the stupid shit they pulled. And then that like basically downrating Britain's creditworthiness

in international markets. And it's like, what do you think is going to happen guys? That had to be the most thick of it. I mean, I was thinking, I hate saying it, but yeah, I can only imagine those kinds of conversations taking place. And someone as dumb as Liz Truss's office about basically like our sovereign debt is going to be downgraded in terms of its credit worthiness. Yeah, that could be... That's an issue. That's a bit of a thing we're going to have to deal with. And to think of it as such a product of the new labor administration, you can very much

see a kind of like... It's very much like satirizing a kind of new labor ideology more than it is a Tory one, although you do get, I think the Tories get in in the final season, so you get this kind of where like labor and opposition, you get the Tories. And I think you see a bit of the Tories as the series goes on, like the shadow ministers and stuff. But despite that, it still does capture this kind of like fundamental thing about British politics, which is I think the sort of like the humiliation

aspect of all British politics. I think an extremely thick of it moment would be fucking Matt Hancock being interrogated by Piers Morgan about his caramel waffle. Yeah, he's the health minister, but he's having a stroop waffle and it's like, that's not... Yeah. He's like, well, how can you be the health minister and set this example for children that it's okay to eat sweets? And it's like, well, how can you be the health minister and set this example for children that it's okay to eat sweets? And it's like, well...

Can you imagine a member of the US cabinet being interrogated by Anderson Cooper about a snack that he was eating off camera? It would be insane. I think you're doing Anderson Cooper dirty by comparing him with Piers Morgan. I don't know. I was like, who's an American news host I can think of? Wolf Blitzer. There are others. Wolf Blitzer, who's an American news host I can think of? Wolf Blitzer. Wolf

Blitzer, the guy who invented blending a wolf. Wolf Blitzer has to be educated on what the concept... He's like, no, I'm so man on the street. I refuse to know what a candy bar is. Hey, you have to explain to me what the concept of a sweet treat is before I can even think about it. Wolf Blitzer's famous approach is that he's like, I want to be like the man on the street and that's why I refuse to do any research or read anything about the stuff. And so he just asked the dumbest questions on earth because he's, yeah, that's his whole thing. What is a Butterfinger? Explain it to me from first principles.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. I haven't had Butterfinger in a really long time. I forgot about those. They're good. I can't remember the last one. I'm not really a big candy person myself, but yeah, Butterfingers, good American snacks there, you know what I mean? Yeah, they are quite tasty. So we're trying to think, watching this, how I felt and it was just like, I do think that there's a degree to which the thick of it, I think captures the sort of synopsis, the

sort of scenarios they're in. There's a way in which translating this into VEEP makes sense in the kind of synopsis, the sort of scenarios they're in, there's a way in which like translating this into VEEP makes sense in the kind of dumb American scandals and dumb American sort of like media gaffes and things along those lines. But I think like, for example, what he's just describing that like someone in their department, you know, wiped a hard drive

and that hard drive had all of the immigration arrivals data for the last six months or seven months. So they have no idea who's arrived in the country. That to me is something that that strikes me as such a very plausible British thing. Yeah, might as well be a documentary at that point. It basically did have. I mean, with Windrush, it's different because with Windrush that was it. They love giving themselves plausible deniability that it was unintentional, but it's so obviously fucking intentional. It's like, oh, we decided for austerity,

budget cutting reasons, we have to decommission some archives and we happened to these archives, we decommissioned, happened to be the ones holding all of the landing cards, the paper landing card records of immigration arrivals from the United Kingdom from about 1945 to about 1975. It's like just in the time when you would have had, you know, people who were British citizens or British subjects back in the era when, you know,

there was mass migration to this country. And basically it ends right around the time when, between the rivers of blood speech and then stuff that Ted Heath and fucking Jim Callahan and God, what's his name? I'm losing my mind here, but Harold Wilson, those governments basically enacted laws that made it a lot harder. Like that was sort of the initial tightening and then post thatcher, they literally got

rid of birthright citizenship. So the people who would be targeted, who would be vulnerable in terms of like their status not being regularized because it was easier to come here. Yeah. It's an amazing coincidence, isn't it? Weird, weird. I mean, I think I was told this story before but it bears repeating that I remember.

And like, I'm not saying this in praise because I don't really, I hate, I appreciate that the Windrush was made a thing that they publicized it and they took these people's side because what happened to them was horrific. I'm not a particular big fan of the idea that we sell Amelia Gentleman as this fucking intrepid reporter when it's like,

yeah, you're also married to Boris Johnson's brother, so why don't you just fucking ask him? Maybe he can solve it. The level of in the corridor of power already, but I'm holding power to account somehow. And also, somehow, I'm getting married to a gentleman. Things are not, the compensation scheme is fucked, and it's very little money,

and people are constantly having to fight for it like it's a lot of it is it's it's it's it's annoying but one thing that I did appreciate from this and I believe it was her reporting but it might have been someone else like like following stories was that in 2018 2019 or so when like the peak of the reporting was happening it was determined that they had found exactly one white person that this had applied to who had gotten caught in Windrush. Yeah, the one. One single. She was Canadian and she didn't have her passport from 1967 that had a leave to remain stamp in it

because when she came in on a, I believe a British subject or yeah, it was either a Commonwealth passport for Canada or whatever the fuck kind of document it was. So she actually, she lived in like, I think the North or in the Mid kind of document it was so she actually she lived in like I think the north or the Midlands and she spoke with a Asylum rights charity and they helped her and they were actually able to to query because her passport hadn't been destroyed Like when it had been turned over or whatever because back in those days I guess you didn't get your passports back or they had a record of that passport

They had some record of the passport and it had they found the stamp and so she was actually able to remain in the country But that was the only white person caught in that and it's like hmm fucking coincidence once again. It's like wow Alistair Campbell What do you think makes politics makes people cynical about policies in the United Kingdom? Yeah, well is it this is a show being a little bit rude Yeah, or is it no one went to jail for this no one lost their job for this But people were deported to countries they hadn't been to since they were infants Or they were deported to you know Like they were on holiday or visiting family or like literally attending funerals of family members and had their passports cancelled They were murdered in like petty crime shit in fucking you know places where they didn't have any family support

No, we're gonna have any money because because everything about their life was in Britain. Oh yeah, there were people who were denied medical treatment and all kinds of stuff. People who died of cancer because they weren't able to get fucking cancer treatment from the NHS because they decided, I have never, ever been asked to present ID or proof of immigration status for NHS treatment ever. And like, listen to me fucking talk. Is it just assumed, oh yeah, this guy must be a British citizen, he must be entitled to it. Come on, never, not once. You know what I mean?

And it's like that whole thing happened, and then it's like, oh yeah. So in that regard, bringing it back to the topic of this episode, the idea of this sort of thing happening for either nefarious or also, in this case, low rent reasons is believable. Yeah, believable.

And I think that yeah, the thick of it is kind of like, you know, in terms of a satire, it has its own style, which is the sense that it kind of, it's about like incompetence and panic. And it's heavily about sort of media management and that kind of stuff. And I think a lot of British politics is media management. So that resonates quite well because I mean, there's that bit, I can't remember if it was in the episode that we watched, because I went on to watch a bunch of others because I went on a thick of it kick. I think it's from another episode that I watched, but there's a bit where he's asking the government minister to resign.

He's like, well, we think you're doing a good job, but it's just bad headlines about you every day. He's like, oh, also you need to call the papers and say that you're resigning for personal reasons because the papers want to run a story about how the prime minister is going to sack you because of press pressure. He's like, well, I wonder how they got that impression. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because this will happen that even if you're encountering something that's like politically, you find it not your style or you find it cloying or irritating,

you can have moments where the dialogue, the writing, the pacing are just really good. Like I think with Armando Iannucci stuff in general, I find that to be the case that even if I find it annoying, oftentimes there are bits of the writing that are great and typically the actors are excellent. In this, Peter Capaldi is great. In The Loop, James Gandolfini and Peter Capaldi are great. In Death of Stalin, basically the whole cast, great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, giving Zhukov a Yorkshire accent, what a vibe. I mean, it's just a fun movie,

but politically it's got some issues. I would say historically got some issues. I will mention this though, because I'll even give credit to the fucking, the dark prince of annoying lib shit in America fucking Sorkin yeah Remember years ago. We watched the movie where the the ending credits have a plane noise to suggest 9-eleven is going to happen We watched Charlie Wilson's war

But that's a fun a fun movie in terms of pacing. It's funny It's it's it's politically fucking brain dead But it is it's got some of those kind of things that make it entertaining, you know There's the man from Texas who hates communism. I just love cocaine hookers. Yeah, that's Bill Clinton Um, I don't think they'll well it can do cocaine anymore because it's quadruple bypass surgery I say anymore because libel laws different in America. Okay What I would say though is you get sucked off and have getting a stand