- [first lines]
- Helen Cooper: Could be a big week next week. They're talking in Westminster of Major getting the boot and Heseltine and Portillo forming a balanced ticket.
- Joy Merryweather: First time those two have been described as balanced. Two nutters with sad hair.
- Gus Hedges: I'm setting you free. Free to roam the high seas of enterprise as the buccaneers of our broadcasting future.
- Gus Hedges: D'you know who I'm basing my tactics on? Isn't it obvious? John Major. The Iron Man, banishing those rebels to the wilderness.
- [the news team discovers that the Senior Staff's shares in Merchant Communications have substantially increased in value, just before Gus walks in]
- Gus Hedges: Morning newsbusters. Have we struck gold?
- Henry Davenport: I don't know. You tell us.
- Damien Day: Slight hitch with the autocue.
- Gus Hedges: What sort of hitch?
- Damien Day: The script's in English, the operator's Russian and the newsreader's a moron.
- Damien Day: Have you seen the cricket score? There must be an entire generation of kids growing up who think 'England Test Collapse' is all one word.