Gillian Keegan's sweary mishap has been given 'The Thick of It' treatment

It seems like every week in British politics can be compared to Armando Iannucci’s beloved sitcom The Thick of It about sweary spin doctor Malcolm Tucker, but as Education Secretary Gillian Keegan continues to suffer a backlash from Monday’s hot mic blunder, one scene from series three has been pulled up online.

To recap, the cabinet minister is in hot water after concluding an ITV News interview where her mic was still very much live by asking the reporter if anyone ever says “you know what, you’ve done a f***ing good job because everyone else has sat on their a**e and done nothing”.

“No signs of that, no,” she added.

Ms Keegan later attempted to backpedal on the “choice language” and “off-the-cuff remark” by blaming interviewer Daniel Hewitt, who was “making out it was all my fault”.

The Tory MP continued: “That’s what I was saying. Do you ever go into these interviews where anyone ever says anything but ‘you’ve just done a terrible job?’”

It’s kind of the role of a journalist to hold people in power to account, though, Gillian!

Rightly so, Ms Keegan has become an instant meme for her outburst, but one particular video that has done the rounds online in response to the blunder is a rather specific rant from Peter Capaldi’s Tucker in the aforementioned show.

Moments after government minister Nicola Murray (played by Rebecca Front) makes a remark about immigration and “haemorrhaging citizenship data” inside The Guardian’s headquarters – a comment she thought was off-the-record when it certainly wasn’t – Tucker is seen throwing a strop in the back of a taxi.

Apologies in advance for all the censored swearing…

He fumes: “F***’s sake! Jesus Christ! Now we’ve got another f***ing adjective to add to f***ing smug and glum, haven’t we? F***ing r****ded? Jesus!

“Do you not think it would be germane to check who you’re talking to? It’s a f***ing newspaper office.

“It’s not a f***ing sanatorium for the f***ing deaf, is it? Are you so dense? I’m now going to have to run around slapping badges on people. I’ll put a big tick on some and a big cross on others, so you know when to shut your gob and when to open it!

“Jesus Christ! That would probably confuse you as well, won’t it? That’d be too confusing.

“You’ll see the cross and think, ‘X marks the spot’, better tell this person about the prime minister’s catastrophic erectile dysfunction.”

And so, Twitter/X users have been pretty stunned by yet another parallel from the BBC comedy:

Where’s Malcolm Tucker when you need him?

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