Rory Bremner and his team of researchers trawl through papers and events of the week/month and condense it into an hour of satirical comedy that can cut through the spin of the Blair spin machine. His Opposition to the Iraq War, and the hypocrisy involved seems to have more effect than either the Tory Opposition (who voted for the War) and the Liberal Democrats (who, unlike other critics suggest, didn't). Hypocrisy like Saddam being evil all along, now, yet before the Kuwait invasion, he was OK to arm, and do business with. Now, he was bad to attack his own people, then, no criticism.. Not forgetting who put him there in the first place.. (Thank you CIA!) Early series were usually more varied in topics they lampooned. Bird/Fortune now tend to cover those areas in their two-header conversations, whilst Bremner does the Blair/Bush stuff.
Bremner still places some of his earlier impressions within the confines of the current show, but with a more pointed meaning than just doing the impressions to get a laugh.