If you stand in the middle of the road, you get hit by traffic going both directions.

Watched A Very British Coup again, on DVD -- saw it on Masterpiece Theatre when it was first shown in '88.

The British do political drama better than North Americans do, that's for sure. Even as the plot becomes increasingly implausible and eventually ridiculous, it's still impeccably written (at least in terms of dialogue) and acted, particularly by Ray MacInally in the central role of sharp-tongued and strong-willed steelworker-turned-PM Harry Perkins. Just as the current BBC spy drama Spooks (Mi5 in North America, on those rare occasions when A&E gets its shit together and airs the damn thing) frequently overreaches itself, but always with more eloquence, wit, and style than its American equivalent 24.

And I'd forgotten the humour in it, perhaps contrasting it in my mind with the black comedy House of Cards, where Ian Richardson portrays the ambitious and devious backroom political fixer Francis Urquhart as an antihero worthy of Shakespeare's Richard III. But A Very British Coup is quite funny in its own right, in the same sense that a Shakespearean tragedy like Hamlet is funny.

An interesting side note is that the author of the book A Very British Coup has since gone on to serve briefly as a cabinet minister to Tony Blair. "Briefly" being the operative word, as he's been a backbencher for most of the Blair reign, and was one of the 49 Labour rebels who defeated a government bill about detention of terrorist suspects last year, which paved the way for this year's "coup" of sorts where Blair was forced to set a timetable for his resignation within a year. The spirit of Harry Perkins lives on in Britain. Even if it feels like Francis Urquhart is still in charge.