Scenes set in the House of Commons chamber and committee rooms use the actual words as recorded in Hansard. In other scenes Morgan utilised dramatic licence, conceding that there was no evidence to suggest that any of the lines spoken elsewhere in the film were ever said in real life. The relationship between Brown and Blair received many thematic analogies; Morgan likened Brown's story to a "tragedy of an over-qualified Scot, who the Labour Party probably rightly felt at the time that it could not have as its leader."; Despite the quote at the head of the film referring to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Frears wryly likened Brown and Blair to Beavis and Butt-head. Producer Christine Langan alluded to both Shakespearean and Biblical themes, painting Brown and Blair as Cain and Abel.