The civil servants at DoSAC are preparing for a visit from the DoSAC shadow minister Peter Mannion. For Mannion and his team, this informal pre-election briefing is a good opportunity to measure up for new curtains. For Terri Coverley, this principally means putting on a bit more make-up. For Nicola Murray, it is simply another distraction on a day when nothing seems to be going right. All she really wants to do is get Glenn and Olly to kick-start the Fourth Sector Pathfinder Initiative. And then she gets a call.

After weeks of trading bitter blows in the press, DoSAC minister Nicola Murray MP and her shadow Peter Mannion MP are invited onto BBC Radio 5Live for a debate on Richard Bacon's late-night phone-in programme. Director of communications Malcolm Tucker and opposition PR guru Stewart Pearson decide to listen in the comfort of their respective offices, but when some breaking news threatens to make things difficult for the politicians, the programme quickly turns into a phone-in like no other. Malcolm and Stewart are left no choice but to start getting their people over to the studios.

As the election looms and the Opposition eye the prize, the word around the Westminster Village is that Malcolm Tucker is running out of both options and friends. He may have bitten off more than he can chew with Steve Fleming, but when an offer of help appears from an unlikely direction, Malcolm starts to set his finest trap yet.

Peter Mannion, the Secretary of State for Social Affairs, gets told to launch his Coalition partner Fergus's new 'Networked Nation' policy at a school.

Stewart Pearson is running 'Thought Camp' at a remote country house hotel, as the perfect way to re-engage the party with the creative cloudscape.

With Nicola Murray and Peter Mannion both on the back foot after the unravelling of the key-worker housing sell-off policy there's inevitably going to be a scramble for the moral high-ground.

The government, opposition and civil service are called before Lord Goolding's inquiry.

Dan Miller gets sent on a fact-finding mission to the local cop-shop to press the flesh.