The Thick of It

Peter Mannion, the Secretary of State for Social Affairs is told to launch his Coalition partner Fergus's new "Networked Nation" policy at a school. Problem is, Peter doesn't even know how to right-click a mouse and would rather be celebrating his wedding anniversary. Fergus gets left in charge of drawing up a list of staff redundancies.

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 Nicola is already stressed and all the while being simultaneously attacked by the rest of her party for endorsing an unpopular policy.

Stewart Pearson is running "Thought Camp" at a remote hotel, as the perfect way to re-engage the party. Peter Mannion can definitely think of better ways of spending the Easter weekend. Meanwhile, Phil is surprised to find the ministerial offices less than deserted. 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 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? And when Nicola finds out what's going on, can she control the situation?

With Nicola Murray and Peter Mannion both on the back foot after the unraveling of the new policy there's inevitably going to be a scramble for the moral high-ground. Everyone wants to spin the story, and everyone wants their own version of the story out there, by fair means or foul.

Everyone has a lot of questions to answer about the suicide of a key-worker after his flat was sold off. Lord Goolding is reputedly a fair man, but he isn't going to stand for any nonsense. 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 enquiry starts to take its toll, the everyday problems of government continue unabated. The Home Office have cut police numbers, created a huge backlog of arrest paperwork, and managed to blame DoSAC for everything. Dan Miller gets sent on a fact-finding mission to the local cop-shop.