The Thick of It’s Malcolm Tucker swearing at Ben Swain

Whenever I see MPs buckling under pressure I think of The Thick Of It, which was effectively a series of sketches of life in a Westminster where everyone lived in fear of spindoctor Malcolm Tucker.

His finest volley of abuse came in 2007 after Ben Swain’s disastrous appearance on Newsnight when he yelled: “I’ve never seen anyone look so f***ing ugly with just one head.

“Who was it that did your media training, Myra Hindley? It was terrible. All these hands all over the place. You were like a sweaty octopus trying to unhook a bra. It was like watching John Leslie at work.” Genius.