INSIGHTS
Two decades on, The Thick of It is still the most accurate guide to communications crisis management
Last week saw the second major tranche of the ‘Mandelson files‘ released. Amid the chaos, a particular email exchange between Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney made the headlines.
Sent during a heated tangle over procuring an official, ministerial-style red box as a gift for Donald Trump, Mandelson wrote:
“The saga goes on. See Olly email. This is like something out of The Thick of It.”
Peter Mandelson
Having written my master’s dissertation on The Thick of It‘s relationship with political reality, and now advising senior communications leaders on corporate communications strategy, I find myself returning to Armando Iannucci’s satire not as a guilty pleasure but as a working text.
Why The Thick of It never stopped being relevant
The show’s enduring relevance is a compelling example of life imitating art, so much so that it is bizarrely welcomed, and even quoted, by the very people it seeks to satirise. It even gifted us a new lexicon: “omnishambles”, a neologism borrowed by Ed Miliband to describe a Budget and later named Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Year in 2012.
Though produced at the height of Tony Blair’s New Labour, the BBC mockumentary still holds an iron grip on our contemporary discourse. The multi-BAFTA award-winning series has entertained audiences with its acerbic observations of the Westminster machine, and its easily quotable scenes and farcical gaffes continue to litter our social media feeds. Replete with shaky cameras and part-improvised dialogue, the fly-on-the-wall aesthetic makes us feel like we really are in the corridors of power. Except we really do not want to be.
When I wrote my master’s dissertation on this topic, I argued the show was not simply satire. It accurately mirrors and often anticipates British politics, exposing the increasingly blurred line between fiction and reality.
In light of this week’s headlines, I find myself reflecting on it from a different angle.
What The Thick of It gets right about reactive media management
While it is tempting to assume the show panders to our worst prejudices about politicians, its real genius lies elsewhere: exposing an institutional obsession with the medium over the message.
It is the antithesis of good communications crisis management for any organisation. It is a masterclass in what not to do, and a reminder of why message discipline and trust between communications professionals and their audience matter more than ever.
Though the names on the doors change, the fictional government is perpetually in a PR crisis, unable to articulate any clear policy objectives and driven by a constantly revolving door of incompetent leaders, lurching from one self-inflicted crisis to another.
Beneath the comedic performance, what the show uncovers is rather bleak. It exposes the chaos of reactive media management and how language is used to obscure rather than to clarify.
Communications in this institution is anything but strategic, and we are there to watch its complete systemic collapse. In Tucker’s defence, he is not bad at his job. But there is nothing left to communicate except the communication itself.
The show’s real centre of power, Malcolm Tucker (played brilliantly by Peter Capaldi), is not a director of communications at all. He is a firefighter who has totally lost grip on what the government is actually trying to say.
The communications crisis management lessons that still apply
The world has changed considerably in 20 years. The BBC made The Thick of It in the era of 24-hour news, the advent of the internet and New Labour spin. But what Iannucci also captures is a timeless institutional fixation on how something ‘lands’ rather than what it actually means.
That has only worsened.
WhatsApp leaks, the always-on news cycle, social media pile-ons: the pressure to react instantly and manage the optics has never been greater. When organisations become fixated on managing daily headlines at the expense of long-term thinking, spin inevitably becomes the story.
As corporate communicators, we should take as much as we can from this political case study.
The show is timeless because the problems do not end. When we become obsessed with short-term optics, we mirror that same institutional panic: nothing left to communicate except the management of perception itself. It should prompt us to think about how we move from defensive positioning to meaningfully protecting brand equity.
crisis communications prFrom ‘omnishambles’ to strategic communications: what this means for your firm
So why are we still reaching for The Thick of It comparisons and why do I think this should be essential viewing? Mandelson’s email serves as a reminder that the show is culturally relevant because it is still so recognisable. Omnishambles didn’t get into the dictionary by accident but is a word to fill a gap for something we’ve not been able to describe ourselves (and arguably still haven’t). Until the message is no longer the medium – Armando Ianucci will remain uncomfortably clairvoyant.
The challenge for senior communications leaders in financial services, professional services and legal firms operating in these challenging and transformative times is to maintain a steely focus on the business purpose behind the corporate messaging.
GT’s corporate communicationsReputation management for complex organisations
When the communication becomes the story, the damage is rarely confined to a single news cycle.
GT works with senior communications leaders in financial services, professional services and legal to build the strategic foundations that prevent that from happening — and to respond when it does.
GET IN TOUCH TODAY
