The Thick of It creator reveals scene which cabinet ministers say happened in real life
Armando Iannucci told Sky News' live event with that the writers would make up scenarios to be "as stupid as they can" - only to be asked later by Whitehall officials how they had found out about it.
One episode in particular that was close to the bone involves the fictional mouthy communications director of Number 10, telling a cabinet minister the policy he is due to announce to the media is being cancelled because it is too expensive - and he will have to come up with another one on the spot.
Mr Iannucci said: "Sometimes we would come up with stories that were like, we had to invent them, you know, and we thought, let's push it as stupidly as we can.
"And then a couple of weeks later, someone from Whitehall would say, 'how did you find out exactly? We thought we'd kept that very quiet'.
"And you know, the opening episode has them in the back of a car trying to come up with a policy. Malcolm's rung up and said the policy you've called the press to hear, you cannot go ahead, It's too expensive.
"So they've got to come up with a policy that sounds great but will cost nothing. And I've had various former cabinet members say to me quietly, 'I've been in the back of that car'."
The Thick of It aired 20 years ago this month, when New Labour was in government.
It satirised the inner workings of modern British government, with the focus on the fictitious Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship.
Harriet Harman, one of the few senior female figures at the time and now a peer and co-host of Electoral Dysfunction, asked Mr Iannucci if anyone inspired the character Nicola Murray, who was the focus of series three.
"I'm asking for a friend, because basically it's like she was so ineffective, but she was so hard working and a nice person. Yes, but she was utterly destroyed by Number 10 and her ministerial colleagues putting the boot in.
"I just wondered if she was based on anyone in particular?".
Mr Iannucci said everyone in The Thick Of It was "based either on a composite of different things we've heard in different people or on a kind of guesstimate of what this person might be".
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