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.

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.

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.

With Nicola safely on a train to attend the party's Here 2 Hear in far-flung 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?

With Nicola Murray and Peter Mannion both on the back foot after the unraveling 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. 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. 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.

The final reckoning. 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.