Jim Hacker

There's trouble afoot for Jim Hacker, the fraught Prime Minister of the UK.

European economies are going down the toilet, there's a 'too good to be true' energy deal on the table from an unusual source, a leadership crisis with his coalition partners, the threat of a Scottish independence referendum and the greatest moral dilemma he has ever faced.

To make matters worse, there are questions about how much longer Hacker will have the support of his party, and his main source of information is Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, a man who is not known for always sharing the full facts or even necessarily the truth.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

Sir Humphrey Appleby is the government's Cabinet Secretary, and unofficially acts as Jim Hacker's impenetrably loquacious advisor.

Sir Humphrey knows everything that is going on, but unfortunately for the Prime Minister he doesn't always share this knowledge. For example, Sir Humphrey tries to hide from Jim that a huge loan from Kumranistan is only going to be granted if the UK joins the Euro.

Hacker is technically Sir Humphrey's boss, and every now and again the civil servant does have to follow orders... it's clearly not something he likes doing though.

Bernard Woolley

Principal Private Secretary Bernard Woolley is in charge of looking after the Prime Minister in his governmental role.

Poor Bernard faithfully tries to please both Hacker and his boss Sir Humphrey - two people he has equal loyalty to - but that's a hard thing to do when the two men both want completely different things. In fact, not just completely different things, but completely opposing things.

Woolley will follow whatever orders are given to him - blindly sometimes, like reading out statements on the phone without actually reading the words.

Other times he does a great job of re-wording what the Prime Minister has said so it is suitable for public consumption.

Claire Sutton

Claire Sutton is the Prime Minister's personal political advisor and the head of his Policy Unit inside Number 10.

Jim turns to Claire whenever he needs help forming an idea or opinion. So she's someone he relies on pretty constantly.

Sutton is cool, calm and collected and can be relied on in a crisis. Every bit the equal of Sir Humphrey, she seems to be able to find the smallest of possible loopholes and alternatives in any given situation, helping Hacker out of more than a few tight spots.