YMMV / The New Statesman

• Aluminium Christmas Trees: Think an MP named "Bastard" is unlikely? There was actually a small political dynasty by that name.
• Fair for Its Day: As was typical (heck, best case) for the time, everything to do with Norma's status as a trans woman is Played for Laughs. Despite this, Norma is still one of the more comparatively moral characters in the first season, being frequently shown as uncomfortable going along with Alan's schemes, and outright refusing to have anything to do with his trying to store radioactive waste in an abandoned mineshaft near a school.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Alan's seat for the first three series was Haltemprice, at the time a fictional constituency (though a real place). There now actually is such a constituency as Haltemprice and Howden, represented by former Sec. of State for Brexit David Davis MP (Con).
• Misaimed Fandom: The show went one better and actually inverted the trope. The writers received a great deal of assistance with their research from Michael Portillo, despite being a rather vicious parody of Thatcher's Conservative Party and Britain in the 1980s. To what extent Alan B'Stard was inspired by Portillo himself is unclear, though the man himself is on record as saying he chose to take "a very long holiday" around the time the media started to wonder who the real B'stard was.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • An interpreter from "Who Shot Alan B'Stard?" is played by Janine Duvitski, who would later be best known for playing Jane Edwards in Waiting for God and Pippa Trench in One Foot in the Grave.
  • Cher Titley from "Natural Selection" is played by Joanne Heywood, who would later be best known for playing Jessica Lovelock in Grace & Favour.
• Spiritual Adaptation: This is as close as a Live-Action Adaptation of Viz's Baxter Basics MP as we'll get.

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