Indeed, there is a scene on the last page of the novel In the Red, in which the newly appointed director general of the BBC gives them the sack.
McCabe's ambitions include retiring and drinking claret, and he spends his life in a state of cynicism, lack of energy and boredom.
Prentiss and McCabe often find themselves working on behalf of two rival clients, one of whom is often the shadier side of the Labour government, often called their "Downing Street Retainer".
This is usually something of an inconvenience as Prentiss is met by Archie Hilditch (Tony Gardner, Alex Lowe), a faceless member of the government, in a deserted location (such as Frank Dobson's campaign headquarters), and told he needs to ruin the popularity of the organisation that he has spent half the programme building up.
The third member of the company is Sandy (Siobhan Hayes), who is there as the office trainee, getting work experience for her NVQ level 2.
She usually does all the work that the partners in the firm cannot be bothered to do, such as filling out thousands of public opinion polls in different handwritings, though she will only agree to do something if it can be twisted into one of the 'nine levels of competence' of her NVQ.
Another member of the office is the useless Clive (Tom George) or as Martin calls him, 'young, er, thing', who often turns publicity stunts into bloodbaths.
Gayle was a former employee of Prentiss McCabe and Charles's former girlfriend, with whom she had a heavily sexual relationship (they often made love whilst listening to classical music).
For example, whilst Charles and Martin work for the PM via Archie, Gayle is the spin doctor for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Prentiss McCabe always come up with a plan to keep Archie on their side, despite Gayle's attempts to stop them, even trying to make Charles a partner in her firm.
Archie, who has left New Labour, then blackmails Charles into giving him a job to prevent any more embarrassing information getting out about the company.
After Charles finds proof, Archie goes to jail and Martin gets released, but as he has been moved to an open prison, he does not feel like leaving too soon.
In the radio episode where McCabe works with a Big Brother contestant, this is shown as an exceptional event, but would be normal behaviour in the TV series.
Contrariwise, in the TV episode "The House of Lords", Charles is mildly surprised to be contacted by a government spin doctor.
The idea of Mark Thatcher is tossed about in this corner, while the notion of Dennis Waterman is examined in another [...] I suppose it is a credit to all involved in the programme that I didn't like it at all.