Line of Duty fans believe they have unearthed the inspiration for "bent copper" Detective Superintendent Ian Buckells, played by Nigel Boyle.
The sixth season of the acclaimed police drama came to a conclusion on Sunday, with the "fourth man", who was also known as "H" was finally revealed.
The character was the senior police officer who was in cahoots with organised criminal gangs and had been the main target for Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) and the anti-corruption unit, AC-12.
The creator of the BBC drama, Jed Mercurio, is a vocal critic of Boris Johnson and the the Conservative government and fans think there were references in the finale that pointed towards him basing Buckells on Boris.
In the dramatic interview on the show, Hastings says that Buckells rising up the ranks in the police had been due to him being able to "fall upwards" as he was accused of incompetence as well as being corrupt.
Mercurio had recently wrote on Twitter that the PM was "bent", which is a phrase that has been used throughout the six seasons.
The link between Boris and Buckells was not dampened down by World Productions, which is the company who produces Line Of Duty.
After the finale, the production company's official Twitter account retweeted a number of posts in which fans had pointed out the similarities between 'blundering' Buckells and the PM.
One tweet that they shared was written by former Labour communications director Alastair Campbell, who wrote: “’How some people can fail upwards beggars belief’ - the best @jed_mercurio troll of @BorisJohnson yet #LineOfDuty”
The company also shared a tweet that had pictures of Buckells and Boris which also had the quote: “Your corruption has been mistaken for incompetence.”
Another fan had posted a GIF of Johnson, with the quote: “I wonder if the reason so many people are angry, is because they don’t want to acknowledge that this guy is basically Buckells?”
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