When a British warship is destroyed in a mysterious drone attack, the Prime Minister seizes on a scandal inside the Civil Service to deflect blame, igniting a ruthless power struggle between ministers, mandarins and media that threatens to tear the government apart.

SYNOPSIS:

The Unaccountable opens on a British frigate in the eastern Mediterranean, obliterated by a swarm of autonomous drones. Forty-two sailors die in minutes. The nation reels. In Downing Street, Prime Minister David Kellerman watches the footage in silence, haunted by the knowledge that the failed defence system was signed off under his watch. Facing ruin, he distracts the public by leaking a story about a secret immigration backlog and blaming his own civil servants for sabotaging policy.

The plan works too well. His special adviser leaks his private messages to the press and the scandal explodes. The headlines scream of collapse, corruption and conspiracy. Into this storm steps Julia Mortlake, the Home Secretary, calm, ambitious and calculating. She sees Kellerman’s weakness as her chance to climb. Across Whitehall, the unflappable Cabinet Secretary, Sir Alastair Rivington, moves to protect the Civil Service and the old order. He believes ministers come and go, but the machine endures. The battle lines are drawn between elected and unelected power, each convinced the other is the true threat to the country.

As the media frenzy intensifies, leaks and counter-leaks fly. A newspaper editor senses blood and plays both sides. Civil servants scramble to cover their tracks. A whistleblower surfaces. The Home Secretary manoeuvres to become Deputy Prime Minister by blackmailing Kellerman with evidence linking him to the warship’s defective procurement. He agrees, cornered and humiliated, while Rivington works behind the scenes to stall the legislation that would put his own office under ministerial control.

Harcourt, a Permanent Secretary tainted by a contracting scandal, is sacrificed to save others higher up the chain. The press devours her. Mortlake and Kellerman push their Accountability Bill through Parliament while the opposition howls about dictatorship. Rivington counters with quiet sabotage, feeding lines to sympathetic judges and journalists. The tension builds as the Prime Minister forces the vote, defying warnings that the system itself might collapse.

In the final act, Kellerman and Rivington confront each other in the Cabinet Office basement, both holding files that could destroy the other. Their duel is fought with words, not weapons, and neither wins outright. The machinery of state swallows them both. By the end, the same faces remain behind the desks, calm and expressionless, while the headlines move on. The message is clear. Governments fall. The system endures