I was a fan of this when it first aired on BBC2. It is a drama set against the backdrop of politics, focussing on young Labour and Tory members. The central characters are brothers Danny and Scott Foster. Danny is an idealist, working for Jo Porter Labour junior minister at the Home Office. Scott worked for the party, but left to join Templeton Carter, a lobbying firm, and is cynical about politics. Their late father was a labour MP for the Northern Constituency of Sedley. Ashika Chandiramani is special advisor to James Northcote, tory shadow minister. She is smart, ambitious, and future tory candidate. When Scott is urged by his boss to build up some tory contacts, he arranges a meeting with James Northcote. James sends Ashika in his place, and the attraction between Scott and Ashika is obvious from the start. When the sitting Labour MP for Sedley dies, and a bye-election is called, Ashika gets the tory nomination, and Scott is drafted in by the labour party to run their campaign.
This drama is funny, sexy, well written, and beautifully acted by established stars such as Patrick Baladi (The Office) and Raquel Cassidy (teachers) Peter Wight and new talents, Shelley Conn, Matt Smith, Andrew Buchan, Andrea Riseborough & Clemency Burton Hill Andrea, Pip Carter. It's a shame that BBC didn't decide to go with a second series, but this series can stand alone. I've deducted one star from my rating, because the music, which was such an integral part of the series as broadcast (Razorlight, The Guillemots, Aha amongst others) has been changed on the DVD version. Disappointing, but I presume a rights problem...even still drama doesn't get much better than this.