Yes Minister influenced The Thick of It

Armando Iannucci has positioned The Thick of It against Yes Minister explicitly, and the comparison was in every review it got. The form is inherited whole: a minister who is out of his depth, a permanent civil service that outlasts him, and comedy built from procedure rather than from jokes. What changed is who holds the power. In Yes Minister it is Sir Humphrey and the machine; in The Thick of It it is the party's communications enforcer, and the department exists to service the news cycle. The map already records Yes Minister reaching Veep directly; this is the step in between, and it is where the swearing, the handheld camera and the improvisation enter the tradition.