- I play a character called Peter Laurence, a Tory Cabinet Minister, who begins the story at a sort of mid-cabinet level.
He's a transport secretary and he has ambitions to move up the greasy pole.
A lot of allegations and no proof.
- Keep out of it minister, play the long game.
- And the story's about the price that he's prepared to pay, to get to that top position and the price that he forces everyone else to pay.
I need to be sure you can stick to the story.
- Do I have any value to you except as a liar?
- We're all stuck in this broken down lift called Peter Laurence.
- He's free of guilt and forward movement is his moto.
- Don't you know there's something called justice and it always wins in the end.
- What's the one thing that you and I have learnt?
You can get away with anything if you just braced it out.
And he has just taken a vow to himself that the way to live life is to almost put blinkers on and say forwards, always forwards.
There's always a solution to every problem.
- Do you ever remember anything quite like this?
- Look there are no villains here Mick, it's in the past.
One of the tools of the modern politician's trade, is talk radio.
It's an incredibly efficient and powerful way of communicating with a large number of people and Peter Laurence takes full advantage of it and he's really good at it.
He does care about his constituents, he does care about the country.
He may care about it in a way that you don't agree with, or that I don't agree with.
- I'm worried that you may be working on emotion.
- Is that such a bad thing?
But he is sincere, he sincerely enjoys the company of people, he enjoys persuading people to his point of view and he's good at it.
(dramatic music)
