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Was actually thinking about this myself yesterday. What the show was really communicating was about the difference between Malcolm, a true-believer first-wave New Labour ideologue, and Olly, the real villain of the piece. https://twitter.com/GRANNYMUGGER/status/1021175365451034626
Malcolm, it's hinted at, conceives of himself as a socialist/ social democrat and is a veteran of the Thatcher Years. He's fundamentally idealistic about what the Third Way can achieve. The enda justify the means for him; for Olly, there are only means.
Malcolm would never go to a Shed Seven reunion gig, whereas that's about as cultural as Olly could be.
Also, the key episode is the one where Malcolm invites the journalists round for lunch and it turns out he's really nice and a brilliant cook, a sort of evangelist for a life well-lived. He's neither a hack nor an opportunist.
It stands in contrast to the scene where Olly and his Tory girlfriend are miserably chopping veg to make some awful student stir-fry in their Young Professionals In Clapham flat. They're emissaries for the dimished life of privatised ambition.
'Diminished', sorry. I need to stop typing while parenting.
Anyway, Ollt's stir-fry is basically what I imagine Helen Lewis eats every night.
