In praise of….Malcolm Tucker

Armando Iannucci’s The Thick of It is back to its brilliant best. True, last night’s episode probably made uncomfortable viewing for Labour supporters as it bit close to the bone of the Party’s drift. However, it also illustrated the desolation and emptiness of the wasteland of political opposition. Meanwhile, the Coalition emerged far from unscathed from the first episode last week. The brilliance of The Thick of It is precisely that, it bites close to the bone and takes the real and make it look as ridiculous as it often is.

Malcolm Tucker is still the anti-hero who gets the most laughs (although, Peter Mannion and Stewart are fast catching-up). He is an anti-hero with a heart though. We have seen flashes of Malcolm, the Party-loyalist before, in his rallying speech at the end of the third series and it becomes most apparent when he talks in hostile tones about the opposition who are only ever described in a trademark volley of sweary invective. However, in last nights episode, his simple proclamation that he wants to depose the useless Nicola Murray to get back into power to help people is heartfelt. Sure, he misses the overload of missed calls on his mobile, but there is more too it than that.

Malcolm loves his Party and he is a Labour man through and through. This doesnt mean loyalty to the fictional Murray and her feeble attempts to court ‘quiet batpeople’, but loyalty to a set of values and principles. It seems odd to use those two words in the same sentance of the Malcyivellian Tucker but that moral underpinning is definatly there and in that sense, he represents the two contradictory sides to this Party, the best and the worst, the craving for power to do good, but also its strong ethical core.

I, for one, hope we see more of this Malcolm Tucker as the series progresses and indeed more of Malcolm’s kind-of Labour Party, in the best possible sense.