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**JHyde** · 20-11-2009, 07:03 PM

Your advertising worked, I finally bothered to get my damn copy!

Yeah, I wondered if it was something like that, in how he was promoted. Informal in the 90s? Maybe after saving John Major, it was felt a promotion was worthwhile!

almh · 20-11-2009, 09:06 PM

Good that you bought it. Well, his promotion was backed by 2 PMs...

**JHyde** · 22-11-2009, 02:53 AM

So I guess politicians have sense after all sometimes!

It may well be that the Home Secretaries we've seen in the show have faith in Harry for the same reasons the fans do: his integrity, his straight talking, his inability to turn a blind eye when he disagrees - all qualities many politicians wish they had in the same spades.

almh · 22-11-2009, 08:17 AM

Yeah, I agree JHyde. Maybe they're intelligent enough to see what an amazing person he is Wink

**Silktie** · 22-11-2009, 12:36 PM

Or, you know, they're afraid of him because he knows where all the bodies are buried...

almh · 22-11-2009, 12:40 PM

No one knows where the last home secretary mysteriously disappeared off to, his body was never found...

**JHyde** · 22-11-2009, 01:17 PM

You mean the old revolutionary from season 4.1/2? The implication was that he resigned/was sacked over the bombings of the same episodes. We didn't meet another until Nicholas Blake in 5.1/2.

They do seem to run through foreign secretaries though.

Anyhoo, back the man we know and love. I think that point about knowing where the bodies are buried is probably true, as with Harry threatening a coup to Mr Yalta when he was still AG. But it's more than that. I think they look at Harry and see everything they should be as politicians, and everything they wanted to be before the ugly realities of politics set in.

I've spoken about this previously, but I love that scene in 7.4 when Harry says, in response to Blake's blusterings, "with all due respect, Home Secretary, we're not in the House now". Classic Peter Firth delivery. And then hits home the closest to truth the show has ever come: "We cannot win the war on terror. Ever."

almh · 22-11-2009, 01:21 PM

I think that the quote should have gone "We cannot win the war on terror. Ever. Or else Spooks'll be cancelled because we'll have no terrorists to defeat. We have to keep losing in order to keep Spooks alive." Tongue

**Silktie** · 22-11-2009, 01:34 PM

(22-11-2009 01:17 PM)JHyde Wrote: You mean the old revolutionary from season 4.1/2? The implication was that he resigned/was sacked over the bombings of the same episodes. We didn't meet another until Nicholas Blake in 5.1/2.

They do seem to run through foreign secretaries though.

Anyhoo, back the man we know and love. I think that point about knowing where the bodies are buried is probably true, as with Harry threatening a coup to Mr Yalta when he was still AG. But it's more than that. I think they look at Harry and see everything they should be as politicians, and everything they wanted to be before the ugly realities of politics set in.

I've spoken about this previously, but I love that scene in 7.4 when Harry says, in response to Blake's blusterings, "with all due respect, Home Secretary, we're not in the House now". Classic Peter Firth delivery. And then hits home the closest to truth the show has ever come: "We cannot win the war on terror. Ever."

That's a good point, although, I don't think as a politician you necessarily look for the most moral man you can find to lead your security services. You're looking for the person who'll do the job - and the dirty work - and won't parade the resultant dirty laundry in public. With Harry, I think, the fact that he'd shown that he can be ruthless when necessary played a large part in him getting the job.

Or that could just be my own low opinion of politicians colouring my perception.

**JHyde** · 22-11-2009, 01:44 PM

Yeah, I understand. I love that although Harry has such a genuine contempt for politicians, he actually values democracy in a very idealistic way. But I already waxed poetic about this weeks ago, so I won't be a broken record.

I almost wish we could see that ruthless side of Harry a bit more. The closest they've come to doing so was with Kachimov -

Spoiler: show

They've been other glimpses of it, maybe with Jez in Season 2, or more recently with BiBi - but the really tragic decisions Harry has made have generally been spoken about in the past.