Series 1 A massive
solar flare strikes Europe, blowing the electric grid and navigational systems, leaving much of Great Britain without power and creating social and political chaos. As a result, Prime Minister Robert Sutherland must decide how and where to distribute a limited number of relief
generators to provide power. Meanwhile, his daughter Ellie's best friend dies after consuming
cocaine and
fentanyl Ellie provided. In order to avoid scandal and potentially prison, Ellie is encouraged to lie by Press Secretary Peter Mott and her mother, Rachel Sutherland, to say the dead friend brought the drugs. The outage continues in
Northumberland, leading to a vigilante force blockading access to the region, hijacking trucks of fuel and water, and calling for an overthrow of the government. Anna Marshall, Sutherland's Chief of Staff, is unexpectedly visited by an old flame from her days as a war correspondent and finds the passion still exists. Upon finding that he could be associated with a Bosnian mobster, Marshall confides her liaison to Eleanor James, Head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, whose loyalties lie more with the
Home Secretary than with the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Home Secretary Archie Glover-Morgan works to unseat Sutherland by exploiting every possible angle, including the death of Ellie's friend and Marshall's indiscretion, to embarrass and discredit him. Sutherland uses the
British Army to break the Northumberland blockade by any means necessary, including the controversial decision to authorise deadly force, and a young photojournalist is killed. Condemning the handling of the crisis, Glover-Morgan orchestrates a vote of no confidence, then tries to bribe Sutherland into manoeuvring staff into his favour in return for his support during the vote. But after delivering on a promise and successfully restoring power to a beleaguered hospital, Sutherland calls for a general election, confident he will win.
Series 2: Cyberwar An explosion on
a sunken World War II ammunition ship devastates the north Kent coastline, causing hundreds of deaths including that of the area's local MP. Rescue attempts are blocked by a cyber attack that brings mobile communications down, which the government believes may have been orchestrated by
Russia in retaliation for Britain's arrest of two people believed to be responsible for the killing of a Ukrainian oligarch that also killed a local rugby coach. As more cyber attacks continue, targeting Border Security at
Dover and the
Kent water supply, Sutherland and his government (with a narrow majority of nine votes) must find out who is responsible while dealing with chaos and panic in the streets. Sutherland must also deal with political threats from both a reinvigorated
Labour Party and Glover-Morgan, to whom he reluctantly returns the whip in order to bolster the Tory majority.
Series 3: Rebellion The Prime Minister, Robert Sutherland, discovers his daughter is involved with the environmental protest group 'Planet Resistance' who are disrupting the construction of the Metro Ultraline fast-speed railway network by occupying a tunnel under the small village of Godley Common. Meanwhile, with an upcoming visit from Shirasia royals, a (fictional) Gulf State, several cabinet ministers are trying to control dissent regarding this energy and military ally's arrival. ==Cast and characters==