Episode list

Whilst prime minister Charles Flyte is in America attending a conference at the headquarters of oil giant Petroflex there is a massive explosion at their refinery in the North East village of Scarrow with huge numbers of casualties. Then Flyte is killed when his plane crashes on the journey home. Deputy prime minister Tom Dawkins,a decent moderate,asks for party unity but foreign secretary Ros Yelland and home secretary Felix Durrell have no shame in declaring their ambitions to be leader. Tom is given evidence by journalist Ellis Kane,a woman of whom MI5 are suspicious as a whistle-blower, that Flyte was negotiating a huge compensation pay-out with Petroflex whilst Mark Ashcroft,the Scarrow pathologist,is alarmed by the high toxic content in the blast victims bodies and tells Tom before his body is found hanged. Tom asks drunken old buddy Tony Fossett, a former MI5 agent, if he can uncover any conspiracy,unaware that Agnes Evans at MI5 has tapped his phone and is listening to their conversation. She also has evidence that a bomber blew up Charles Flyte's plane.

Tom is elected prime minister to the annoyance of his rivals. He tells Ellis he is determined to get the evidence from PetroFex denied Ashcroft though he believes his death was suicide. Tony Fossett tells Tom that Dermot Matthews,one of the blast victim's body was contaminated with a substance called PFX-44. In the meantime a link with the blowing up of the plane is made with Al-Quaeda chief Tamin Al-Ghamdi and Tom watches as an air strike kills Al-Ghamdi in Afghanistan. Agnes is unhappy with her spying role,believing Laura has it in for Tony,and tells Piers Jupp,who recruited her,but he tells her she has no cause for doubt. Tom decides to go after Petro-Fex boss Paul Clark and demand what PFX-44 is. He is told that it is a lightweight drone fuel though it turns out it was used in the plane that killed Al-Ghamdi,causing Tom to believe it was a ploy to involve him in conspiracy. Then he is told that the air strike actually took place in Iran,whose government is not happy.

With the situation regarding Iran still on a knife edge Tom learns that PetroFex are considering a move to Poland. He has their assets frozen at the Royal Caledonian bank,in the process falling fall of the bank's chairman Michael Rix,who counters by having the bank refuse to sanction Oyster card payments on public transport,causing huge chaos at the rush hour. Tom responds by having the government take over the bank with assurances from the Indian government as back-up. Agnes sends Tony documents,warning him that his flat is bugged,as well as a photograph of Iranian Sami Sharour. He was head of research at PetroFex and was on the fatal flight,though not on the manifest. Tony finds evidence of how the bomb was taken onto the plane but is attacked and left for dead by an intruder before he can tell the prime minister. Ellis has a meeting with Paul Clark,as a result of which she discovers that,when serving as an army officer in Bosnia twenty years earlier,Tom was party to a cover-up of the massacre of civilians.

Tom's stance on the Royal Caledonian bank is seen as a personal triumph though Tony's death is a personal tragedy. Ellis goes ahead with the story of how he inadvertently caused civilian deaths in Bosnia but this pales beside the news that the Iranians have arrested supposed British spies and are spoiling for aggression. Agnes wipes her files and comes to meet Tom with evidence of MI6 complicity in Tony's murder. She is arrested but Tom orders her release. He then learns from Paul Clark and Ellis that Samir Sharour was not a saboteur but a Petro-Fex employee and that the plane blew up by accident when drone fuel being carried on board leaked and caused an explosion,just as it had in Scarrow. Armed with this news he gives a rousing Commons speech,damning the greedy capitalists - and implicitly,members of his Cabinet - who would benefit from a war with Iran and invites a vote of No Confidence in his party,stressing that he wishes to put popular interest first. Will this pay off or is he committing political suicide?