Several situations in the novel are drawn from Archer's own early political career in the British House of Commons.
While the novel depicts the fictional characters interacting with actual political figures from the UK and elsewhere (including Winston Churchill, Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, Douglas Hurd, Colonel Gaddafi, Gary Hart and Queen Elizabeth II), this adaptation uses different names for the real-life politicians.
The series starred: The serial used different names for real-life politicians: Sequences set in the fictional Northumbrian constituency of Redfern were actually filmed much closer to Granada studios in Lancashire at Entwistle railway station, and at the Barlow Institute, Edgworth.
Granada constructed a full-scale replica set of the House of Commons chamber for the production, which for many years formed a central part of their Granada Studios Tour attraction, where visitors could see mock debates being performed on the set by actors.
Abbott, himself a former Granada Television staff writer, bought it personally as the set would otherwise have been destroyed and he feared it would take too long to get the necessary money from the BBC.