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With the foul-mouthed spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker as its central character, the TV satire series, The Thick of It, scooped up awards by the bucket-load.
But six weeks ago its creator, Armando Iannucci, confirmed the programme would not return to our screens. Why? Partly because the outlandish plots - often involving politicians stumbling over farcical publicity stunts and hapless ministers tripping themselves up - seem mundane given recent events in Westminster.
As the parliamentary term comes to an end, and our elected representatives swap their green benches for deckchairs, we are left to reflect on a political year unlike any other.
Brexit. The London mayoral election. Challenges to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of Labour. The small matter of a new Prime Minister. Where does it all leave Jewish voters? Are we likely to find ourselves, at the end of 2016, better off than we were last December?
The agony felt by so many mainstream Labour supporters is understandable. It is impossible to deny that Mr Corbyn has made the party anything other than repellent to the vast majority of Jews.
I have noticed that David Miliband's name now repeatedly crops up in left-leaning Jewish circles. Many pray he will return from America as a saviour riding in to rescue his party. Yet there seems to me no guarantee whatsoever that he would prove substantially more popular - or electorally successful - than his brother was just 15 months ago.
And while Labour burns, Theresa May has quietly settled in to Number 10, appointing her new ministers with calculation and precision that evades her political opponents.
The Brexit negotiations will be drawn out and arduous, but at home, Mrs May can be expected to open up clear ground between the Conservatives and Labour. The 16 per cent lead one polling company calculated for the Tories this week would represent a landslide at the ballot box.
I predict the Jewish community will come to see tough nut Theresa as an ally of almost equal standing to her predecessor David Cameron.
We may regard it as a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Feuding Labourites should take note. In this hot summer, it will be those who keep the coolest heads who can look forward to prospering when Parliament returns in September.
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