The Thick of It, Armando Iannucci’s definitive, hyper-profane satire of British politics, is one of those shows that’s become a sort of byword. Just as any vaguely dystopian technological development is compared to an episode of Black Mirror, people can’t help but wonder what Malcolm Tucker would have to say whenever someone in Whitehall makes a fool of themselves, which, in recent years, is more or less on a daily basis. As the scandal-plagued premiership of Boris Johnson comes to a close, social media is giddy with schadenfreude, pointing out the most Iannuccian elements of BoJo’s downfall. The fact that the straw that broke the camel’s back was a sex scandal involving a man named Chris Pincher? (“Pincher by name, pincher by practice,” Johnson allegedly said.) The fact that, among the deluge of resigning cabinet ministers, Johnson still found the time to fire Michael Gove? The fact that, in his resignation speech, Johnson said “them’s the breaks"? Talk about omnishambles.

The Thick of It remains so applicable that it’s easy to forget how, when it started in 2005, it was responding to a very different political environment. The show’s unnamed ruling party is clearly supposed to be Labour under the leadership of Tony Blair, whose “New Labour” rebranding pulled the party toward the political center and placed a premium on messaging and public relations. Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), the show’s ill-tempered spin doctor who puts out fires and enforces the party line, is generally believed to be based on New Labour’s controversial media guru Alastair Campbell. It was a time when both major parties, Labour and the Conservatives (aka Tories), were trying to modernize themselves; a time when social media was still in its infancy and Twitter hadn’t been invented yet; a time when the idea of the UK leaving the European Union was confined to the fringe.

Since the end of the series in 2012, the United Kingdom has dealt with 10 years of uninterrupted Tory rule. Backlash against New Labour would cause the party to swing hard to the left, to the delight of some and the horror of others. David Cameron set a referendum on leaving the European Union to satisfy the far-right part of the Tory coalition, not believing that “Leave” would actually win; when it did, he resigned in embarrassment. His successor, Theresa May, spent the next three years dithering about, calling a snap election to strengthen her Brexit negotiating power before very nearly losing her sizable majority thanks to a disastrous campaign. Any one of those events could take up a whole series of The Thick of It — and that’s even before Boris Johnson took office.

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The creators of The Thick of It have said that they ended the show after its third series because British politics had become impossible to parody. Even when the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship (or DoSAC) was at its most dysfunctional, they at least pretended to be competent, something that is not remotely guaranteed today — the gaffes that Malcolm and company panicked over aren’t as embarrassing as what the average Brexiteer says on purpose. As fun as it might have been to see the show take on Brexit, or Boris Johnson, or the Jeremy Corbyn era in Labour, they may be right. Veep, another Iannucci creation and the American equivalent of The Thick of It, jumped the shark when it tried to engage with the lunacy of the Trump era, throwing in ludicrous plot developments while still being disappointingly predictable. There’s something to be said for leaving well enough alone.

The Thick of It

However, if The Thick of It was only good for taking the piss out of Tony Blair, it wouldn’t resonate 15 years after he left office. The strength of the show doesn’t just come from its colorful cast of characters, or its cynicism, or even its intricate tapestry of profanity (Malcolm’s first line is “he’s as useless as a marzipan dildo,” and that’s one of the milder insults in the series). It’s the fact that it understands politics — not just British politics, but politics in general — better than any other comparable show. The Thick of It’s Whitehall is not like The West Wing, filled with likable, photogenic idealists who just want what’s best for the country. Almost every character is venal and self-serving, with personalities ranging from “generally decent, if smarmy” (Julius Nicholson) to “feral bulldog” (Jamie McDonald).

But it’s not like House of Cards, either. This is not a world of grandiose Machiavellian schemers, deviously pulling the strings to bring themselves power and glory. There are plenty of schemes, but most of them go catastrophically wrong, and even the ones that work achieve short-term goals: less “this will help me become Prime Minister,” more “this will keep me from being sacked for another week.” There isn’t much power, at least not in a backwater department like DoSAC, which gets the work the rest of the government doesn’t want. And at no point is there even a hint of glory: not for Malcolm, not for the revolving door of DoSAC ministers throughout the show, and not for anyone else the audience meets.

Two men in an office are talking to each other

The world of The Thick of It is a world of gray offices and anonymous boardrooms, stale coffee and cheap takeaway. If there’s a hotel, it’s a bland, corporate affair; if the episode is set by the sea, it’s overcast and windy. Politicians and operatives give up any semblance of a personal life to work long hours at a hideously stressful job, putting out a dozen different fires for the sake of an unappeasable public and a media that wants nothing more than to humiliate them. To vent their frustration, to make themselves feel powerful, or even just to amuse themselves, these people abuse each other with bullying and invective. In a despairing monologue delivered to civil servant Terri (Joanna Scanlan), Malcolm compares his psyche to a crushed bag of potato crisps and speaks darkly about what happens at the never-seen Prime Minister’s office at 10 Downing Street. “There are people there fucking screaming at each other: ‘You gave me this fucking disease! You gave me this fucking disease!’” It’s a bleak, borderline apocalyptic vision of the inner workings of politics.

The Thick of It explores what kind of people would willingly subject themselves to this crucible, and why. Some people believe in things despite their hard exterior: Malcolm is a vicious, ruthless man, but he’s fiercely devoted to his party, and is willing to throw anyone under the bus (including himself) in order to serve it. Others, like Ollie Reader (Chris Addison), think they can beat the system, scheming and dealing and conniving until their luck runs out; the day may not come for Ollie by the end of the series, but it’s only a matter of time. Some characters are so poisoned with rage they look like they’re on the verge of an aneurysm; others just try to get through the day with their dignity intact, or failing that, their sanity. Essentially, they’re all human beings who work in an environment that rewards inhumanity.

The Thick of It

And why does it reward inhumanity? Because someone has to take the blame when things go sideways; because the public is fickle and the press is easily manipulated; because no one really wants an honest politician; because there’s pleasure in schadenfreude; because familiarity breeds contempt; because, fundamentally, most people don’t want that much to change. In short, it rewards inhumanity because that’s what we’ve come to accept, now more than ever.

In an early episode, DoSAC minister Hugh Abbot (Chris Langham) disgustedly regards regular people, with “beady eyes and mean mouths,” as a “different species.” “Why do they wear clothes with writing on them?” he asks. “And why are they so fucking fat?” One could imagine that a regular person would wonder if the oily, soulless Hugh Abbot was a different species from themselves, as well. But the core of The Thick of It is that they would both be wrong. Politicians are people, and people can be kind, generous, brave, honest, and clever. But they can also be cruel, stingy, cowardly, duplicitous, and stupid. That’s as true now as it was in 2005; the difference is that, in 2005, the ugliness was seen as something to hide.