Return of The House of Cards?
A BROKEN UK, a broken, blatantly corrupt and inept government lurching from one crisis to another as their leader clings on to power by his fingernails as his aides form a not-so-orderly queue to flee Downing Street.
You really couldn’t make it up – or could you?
It got me thinking about how the original Spitting Image caused something of a stir and much merriment when it lampooned the leading politicians of the day – and before that the success of Yes Minister and its successor Yes Prime Minister.
The original saw James Hacker, played by Paul Eddington, propelled through the corridors of power to the post of Cabinet Minister for the Department of Administration, where his overwhelming desire to reform it was frustrated by his civil servants Bernard Wooley (the late Derek Fowlds) and his boss Sir Humphrey Appleby (Sir Nigel Hawthorne).
Despite them, Hacker found himself thrust even further along those corridors to No 10 Downing Street in 1986 in Yes Prime Minister – which I thought was even better than the original.
It was a hilarious series which is still one of my favourites, and while very much a comedy it did shine a light into the secretive (and influential) workings of the civil service.
Fast-forward a few years and an altogether different drama, the magnificent House of Cards and its sequels, To Play the King and The Final Cut, from the Michael Dobbs novel. 
In this we were introduced to the Tories’ chief whip Francis Urquhart (note his initials FU), brilliantly played by the late Ian Richardson – a Machiavellian character whose darkly-delivered catchphrase “You might think that; I couldn’t possibly comment” even went on to be used in the House of Commons.
His asides, direct to the audience, were masterful and gave viewers an insight into the workings of his character’s ruthless mind.
The mini-series premiered against the backdrop of Margaret Thatcher’s final weeks, and it took little imagination to think that similar events were happening behind the scenes at Westminster as she was dumped as PM and John Major installed.
In the drama, Urquhart sets out to destroy everyone in his path to No 10’s top job after he is passed over for a Cabinet post when his candidate for PM wins the job.
There’s a lot more to it, but suffice to say it remains as pertinent today as it did more than 20 years ago.
These two mini-series were followed by The Thick of It, which premiered in 2005 and went on to run for four brilliant seasons, taking us through the everyday lives of incompetent politicians being guided by advisers, including Malcolm Tucker – played by the superb Peter Capaldi.
I have known political party media advisers who tried (unsuccessfully) to emulate Tucker, constantly butting into conversations where their presence wasn’t required, raising their voices, punctuating their sentences with swearwords and castigating everyone around them. It did them no good whatsoever.
Which brings me back to the broken UK and the desperate scrambling of Boris Johnson trying to save his own skin (because he cares about nobody else).
His latest Cabinet mini-shuffle sees Jacob Rees-Mogg – yes, the one who lives in another century – today ends his tenure as Leader of the Commons and is given a new post as minister for Brexit opportunities and responsibility for government efficiency in the Cabinet Office.
Former chief whip Mark Spencer becomes Lord President and replaces Rees-Mogg as Commons leader, while Chris Heaton-Harris leaves the Foreign Office to take up Spencer’s old job and former deputy chief whip Stuart Andrew becomes a housing minister – all of which is reminiscent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I’m laughing at the pathetic sight of them (and other expected later) wandering around, befuddled – not knowing exactly where they’re going or what their actual jobs will be, other than to shore up what remaining support their PM has.
Anybody sense a new parliamentary comedy coming on?