Getting to The Thick of It

 The Thick Of It” is a mutant strain of British comedy. British comedy, particularly the kind that emerges out of Monty python-esque satire, has always had a kind of non-nationalistic pride within it. That is not to say anti-nationalist pride, but an inverted nationalism where the very ability to criticise the state becomes a point of reverence towards the state: we are “so proud of our nation, because we can call our ministers dickheads if we want to”. It is an inverted nationalism because despite its intent to scrutinise the state, it propagates all the tenets of nationalism and nurtures the quintessential British Exceptionalism that has dominated the Isles for so long; here, we can criticise our governors, everywhere else is barbarism.