This award-winning adaptation of Chris Mullin's provocative novel does for British politics what The Wes Wing does for the White House: goes behind the scens for a warts-and-all view of the exercise, and abuse, of political power at the highest level. When Harry Perkins, a plain-spoken steelworker and third-generation socialist, becomes prime minister in a landslide Labour Party victory, the entrenched ruling class goes to work in a very British way to bring him down. With help from a smarmy media mogul and a like-minded U.S. government, Perkins' enemies wage a brutal but bloodless battle for control.