Alan Clarke is the member of parliament for Plymouth Sutton, where he longs for a "proper" role as a Minister in Thatcher's government. When he gets the call he joins government but is totally unprepared for the commitment involved and is totally unable (and unwilling) to manage the rigours of bill reading and committees. Despite this he rises up the ranks, still proving his apparent penchant for controversy and evasion.

Alan Clark:
There's no point in dodging it, when you're out, you're out.

Anachronisms: In episode three, Clark's ministerial globetrotting is charted on an animated map. Unfortunately the map used for this sequence is a present-day one and very obviously wrong for the 1980s setting (the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia should each be shown as a single country). This is especially conspicuous because Clark travels to Sarajevo, and Bosnia-Hercegovinia was a republic within Yugoslavia, not an independent country.