Don't be angry about Malcolm Tucker being angry '“ leader comment

Spin doctor Malcolm Tucker was known for his large and inventive vocabulary of swear words in the BBC show The Thick of It

In The Thick of It – which, okay, was quite amusing, we admit – spin doctor Malcolm Tucker was a ranting, foul-mouthed thug. And then along came No 10 press officer Jamie McDonald. He was Scottish and was almost exactly the same.

Do you see? This is all clear evidence of an anti-Scottish plot by the London-centric media to deny the fact that we can be as gentle, poetic and thoughtful as anyone else.

Right, fair enough, the show was created by a Scot, Armando Iannucci, but he must have been nobbled.

Tucker was probably originally a calm, thoughtful type, whose words of wisdom – not shouty swearing – helped persuade Cabinet ministers of the error of their ways. Fair enough, that maybe wouldn’t have been quite so funny, we suppose...

Comic stereotypes can be racist and reinforce prejudice, but – if they avoid this – they can be funny. It is a fine line. If anti-Scottish prejudice was a serious issue, Tucker’s character may have been inappropriate. But it’s not, so it wasn’t.