The Complete Yes Minister

by Jonathan Lynn

  Bernard reminded me of all my appointments for today. An office Christmas party, some meetings — nothing of any consequence. I spent the day dodging the press. I wanted to discuss the situation with Sir Humphrey, but apparently he was unavailable all day.

  Annie and I were invited to the French Embassy’s Christmas party, at 8 p.m. I asked Bernard to get me my car — and then realised, as I spoke, that there were no drivers. I told him to call Annie, to get her to bring our car in to collect me.

  Bernard had already thought of that, but apparently our car had been giving trouble all day and Annie wanted to take it to the garage. I got hold of her and told her the garage would wait — the car would get us from Whitehall to Kensington okay.

  Annie came for me, we set off in our evening clothes.

  Yet again I was wrong and the bloody car broke down in Knightsbridge. In the rush hour. In the pouring rain. I tried to fix it. I was wearing my dinner jacket. I asked Annie for the umbrella, she said I had it. I knew she had it. We shouted at each other, she got out and slammed her door and walked away, and I was left with the car blocking all of Harrods’ Christmas rush hour traffic with horns blaring and drivers yelling abuse at me.

  I got to the French Embassy an hour and a half late, soaked to the skin and covered in oil. I had three or four glasses of champagne right away — well, who wouldn’t in the circumstances? I needed them!

  When I left, not drunk exactly, but a bit the worse for wear, I must admit, I dropped my keys in the gutter beside the car. Then they fell down a grating, so I had to lie down to try and reach them, and some bastard from the press was there.

  This morning I had a frightful hangover. I felt tired and sick. The press had really gone to town over my alleged drunkenness. They really are unbelievably irresponsible nowadays.

  Another paper’s headline was HACKER TIRED AND EMOTIONAL AFTER EMBASSY RECEPTION.

  Sir Humphrey read it aloud, and remarked that it was slightly better, perhaps, than the first.

  ‘Better?’ I asked.

  ‘Well… different, anyway,’ said Sir Humphrey.

  I asked if anyone had said anything beyond ‘tired and emotional’. Bernard informed me that William Hickey said I was ‘overwrought’. I didn’t mind that quite so much, until Sir Humphrey added — for clarification — ‘overwrought as a newt, actually’.

  By now I felt that it could not get any worse. But I was wrong. Bernard produced today’s lead story from the Daily Telegraph, which, astonishingly and horrifyingly, claimed that I was recruiting extra staff to the DAA.

  I demanded an explanation from Sir Humphrey. And he had one ready, of course.

  ‘Minister, you asked for these extra people. You demanded a complete study, a survey, facts and figures. These measures cannot be taken by non-people. If you create more work, more people have to be employed to do it. It’s common sense.’

  While I was taking this on the chin, he came in with another right hook to the head. ‘And if you persist with your Bureaucratic Watchdog Office, there’ll be at least another four hundred new jobs there as well.’

  I was shattered. My head was aching, I felt sick, my career seemed to be in ruins, I was being pilloried in the press and the only idea of mine that I’ve managed to push through since I’ve been here had now to be abandoned.

  Yet, throughout, from my first day here, all the permanent officials appear to have been doing their best to help me in every possible way. So are they completely inept? Or am I? Are they pretending to help while secretly obstructing my every move? Or are they incapable of understanding a new approach to the Department’s work? Do they try to help me by pushing me towards the Ministry’s policy? Is there a difference between the Minister’s policy and the Ministry’s policy? Why am I asking so many questions to which there is no known answer? How deep is the ocean, how high is the sky? [Irving Berlin — Ed.]

  There was silence in the office. I didn’t know what we were going to do about the four hundred new people supervising our economy drive or the four hundred new people for the Bureaucratic Watchdog Office, or anything! I simply sat and waited and hoped that my head would stop thumping and that some idea would be suggested by someone sometime soon.

  Sir Humphrey obliged. ‘Minister… if we were to end the economy drive and close the Bureaucratic Watchdog Office we could issue an immediate press announcement that you had axed eight hundred jobs.’ He had obviously thought this out carefully in advance, for at this moment he produced a slim folder from under his arm. ‘If you’d like to approve this draft….’

  I couldn’t believe the impertinence of the suggestion. Axed eight hundred jobs? ‘But no one was ever doing these jobs,’ I pointed out incredulously. ‘No one’s been appointed yet.’

  ‘Even greater economy,’ he replied instantly. ‘We’ve saved eight hundred redundancy payments as well.’

  ‘But…’ I attempted to explain ‘… that’s just phony. It’s dishonest, it’s juggling with figures, it’s pulling the wool over people’s eyes.’

  ‘A government press release, in fact,’ said Humphrey. I’ve met some cynical politicians in my time, but this remark from my Permanent Secretary was a real eye-opener.

  I nodded weakly. Clearly if I was to avoid the calamity of four hundred new people employed to make economies, I had to give up the four hundred new people in my cherished Watchdog Office. An inevitable quid pro quo. After all, politics is the art of the possible. [A saying generally attributed to R. A. Butler, but actually said by Bismarck (1815–98) in 1867, in conversation with Meyer von Waldeck: ‘Die Politik ist die Lehre von Möglichen’ — Ed.]

  However, one vital central question, the question that was at the root of this whole débâcle, remained completely unanswered. ‘But Humphrey,’ I said. ‘How are we actually going to slim down the Civil Service?’

  There was a pause. Then he said: ‘Well… I suppose we could lose one or two of the tea ladies.’

  4 Big Brother

  January 4th

  Nothing of interest happened over Christmas. I spent the week in the constituency. I went to the usual Christmas parties for the constituency party, the old people’s home, the general hospital, and assorted other gatherings and it all went off quite well — I got my photo in the local rag four or five times, and avoided saying anything that committed me to anything.

  I sensed a sort of resentment, though, and have become aware that I’m in a double-bind situation. The local party, the constituency, my family, all of them are proud of me for getting into the Cabinet — yet they are all resentful that I have less time to spend on them and are keen to remind me that I’m nothing special, just their local MP, and that I mustn’t get ‘too big for my boots’. They manage both to grovel and patronise me simultaneously. It’s hard to know how to handle it.

  If only I could tell them what life is really like in Whitehall, they would know that there’s absolutely no danger of my getting too big for my boots. Sir Humphrey Appleby will see to that.

  Back to London today for a TV interview on Topic, with Robert McKenzie. He asked me lots of awkward questions about the National Data Base.

  We met in the Hospitality Room before the programme was recorded, and I tried to find out what angle he was taking. We were a little tense with each other, of course. [McKenzie used to call the Hospitality Room the Hostility Room — Ed.]

  ‘We are going to talk about cutting government extravagance and that sort of thing, aren’t we?’ I asked, and immediately realised that I had phrased that rather badly.

  Bob McKenzie was amused. ‘You want to talk about the government’s extravagance?’ he said with a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘About the ways in which I’m cutting it down, I mean,’ I said firmly.

  ‘We’ll get to that if we have time after the National Data Base,’ he said.

  I tried to persuade him that people weren’t interested in the Data Base, that it was too trivial. He said he thought people were very interested in it, and were worried
about Big Brother. This annoyed me, and I told him he couldn’t trivialise the National Data Base with that sort of sensationalistic approach. Bob replied that as I’d just said it was trivial already, why not?

  We left the Hospitality Room. In the studio, waiting for the programme to begin, a girl with a powder-puff kept flitting about and dabbing at my face and preventing me from thinking straight. She said I was getting a bit pink. ‘We can’t have that,’ said Bob jovially, ‘what would the Daily Telegraph say?’

  Just before we started recording I remarked that I could well do without all those old chestnut questions like, ‘Are we creating a Police State?’

  In retrospect, perhaps this was a mistake.

  [We have found, in the BBC Archives, a complete transcript of Robert McKenzie’s interview with James Hacker. It is printed below — Ed.]

  I thought I’d waffled a bit, but Bob told me I’d stonewalled beautifully. We went back to Hospitality for another New Year’s drink. I congratulated him on finding that old article of mine — a crafty move. He said that one of his research girls had found it, and asked if I wanted to meet her. I declined — and said I’d just go back to my office and have a look at her dossier!

  I watched the programme in the evening. I think it was okay. I hope Sir Humphrey is pleased, anyway.

  January 7th

  There was divided opinion in the office this afternoon about my TV appearance three days ago. The matter came up at a 4 p.m. meeting with Sir Humphrey, Bernard and Frank Weisel.

  Humphrey and Bernard thought I’d been splendid. Dignified and suitable. But Frank’s voice was particularly notable by its silence, during this chorus of praise. When I asked him what he thought, he just snorted like a horse. I asked him to translate.

  He didn’t answer me, but turned to Sir Humphrey. ‘I congratulate you,’ he began, his manner even a little less charming than usual. ‘Jim is now perfectly house-trained.’ Humphrey attempted to excuse himself and leave the room.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr Weasel…’

  ‘Weisel!’ snapped Frank. He turned on me. ‘Do you realise you just say everything the Civil Service programmes you to say. What are you, a man or a mouth?’

  Nobody laughed at his little pun.

  ‘It may be very hard for a political adviser to understand,’ said Sir Humphrey, in his most patronising manner, ‘but I am merely a civil servant and I just do as I am instructed by my master.’

  Frank fumed away, muttering, ‘your master, typical stupid bloody phrase, public school nonsense,’ and so forth. I must say, the phrase interested me too.

  ‘What happens,’ I asked, ‘if the Minister is a woman? What do you call her?’

  Humphrey was immediately in his element. He loves answering questions about good form and protocol. ‘Yes, that’s most interesting. We sought an answer to the point when I was a Principal Private Secretary and Dr Edith Summerskill was appointed Minister in 1947. I didn’t quite like to refer to her as my mistress.’

  He paused. For effect, I thought at first, but then he appeared to have more to say on the subject.

  ‘What was the answer?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re still waiting for it,’ he explained.

  Frank chipped in with a little of his heavy-duty irony. ‘It’s under review is it? Rome wasn’t built in a day, eh Sir Humphrey? These things take time, do they?’

  Frank is actually beginning to get on my nerves. The chip on his shoulder about the Civil Service is getting larger every day. I don’t know why, because they have given him an office, he has free access to me, and they tell me that they give him all possible papers that would be of use to him. Now he’s started to take out his aggressions on me. He’s like a bear with a sore head. Perhaps he’s still getting over his New Year’s hangover.

  Humphrey wanted to leave, so did I, but Bernard started to give me my diary appointments — and that started another wrangle. Bernard told me I was to meet him at Paddington at 8 a.m. tomorrow, because I was to speak at the Luncheon of the Conference of Municipal Treasurers at the Vehicle Licensing Centre in Swansea. Frank then reminded me that I was due in Newcastle tomorrow night to address the by-election meeting. Bernard pointed out to me that I couldn’t do both and I explained this to Frank. Frank pointed out that the by-election was important to us, whereas the Swansea trip was just a Civil Service junket, and I explained this to Bernard. Bernard then reminded me that the Conference had been in my diary for some time and that they all expected me to go to Swansea, and I explained this to Frank and then Frank reminded me that Central House [the party headquarters — Ed.] expected me to go to Newcastle, but I didn’t explain this to Bernard because by this time I was tired of explaining and I said so. So Frank asked Bernard to explain why I was double booked, Bernard said no one had told him about Newcastle, I asked Frank why he hadn’t told Bernard, Frank asked me why I hadn’t told Bernard, and I pointed out that I couldn’t remember everything.

  ‘I shall go to Swansea,’ I said.

  ‘Is that a decision, Minister?’ asked Bernard.

  ‘That’s final,’ I said.

  Frank then played his trump card. ‘The PM expects you to go to Newcastle,’ he said. Why hadn’t he said this till now, stupid man? I asked if he was sure. He nodded.

  ‘Bernard, I think I’d better go to Newcastle,’ I said.

  ‘Is that a decision?’ asked Frank.

  ‘Yes, that’s final,’ I said. ‘And now I’m going home.’

  ‘Is that a decision?’ asked Sir Humphrey. I wasn’t sure whether or not he was asking for clarification or sending me up. I still find him completely baffling. Anyway, he continued: ‘Minister, I think you’ve made the wrong decision, if I may say so. Your visit to Swansea is in the programme, it’s been announced, you can’t really get out of it.’

  This was becoming impossible. They all seem to expect me to be in two places at once. I told them to find some way of getting me from Swansea to Newcastle — train, car, helicopter, I didn’t care how — and I would fulfil both engagements. ‘And now,’ I announced, ‘I’m going home — that’s final!’

  ‘Finally final?’ asked Bernard.

  His intentions are equally obscure.

  As I left, Bernard gave Roy, my driver, four red boxes and asked me to be sure to do them tonight because of all the Committee papers for tomorrow and letters that have to go off before the weekend.

  ‘And if you’re a good boy,’ said Frank in a rather poor imitation of Bernard’s accent, ‘your nanny will give you a sweetie.’

  I really don’t have to put up with all this aggravation from Frank. I’m stuck with these damn permanent officials, but Frank is only there at my express invitation. I may have to remind him of this, very soon.

  When I got home Annie was packing. ‘Leaving me at last?’ I enquired jovially. She reminded me that it is our anniversary tomorrow and we have arranged to go to Paris.

  I was appalled!

  I tried to explain to her about the trips to Swansea and Newcastle. She feels that she doesn’t want to spend her anniversary in Swansea and Newcastle, particularly not at a lunch for Municipal Treasurers at the Vehicle Licensing Centre. I can see her point. She told me to cancel my meetings, I said I couldn’t, so she said she’d go to Paris without me.

  So I phoned Bernard. I told him it was my wife’s wedding anniversary — Annie said, ‘yours too’ — and mine too. Bernard made some silly joke about a coincidence. I told him I was going to Paris tomorrow, instead, and that it was final and that I knew I’d said it was final before but now this was really final — I told him he’d have to sort everything out. Then he talked for three minutes and when I rang off I was still going to Swansea and Newcastle tomorrow.

  Those civil servants can talk you in or out of anything. I just don’t seem to know my own mind any more.

  Annie and I fumed in silence for a while, and finally I asked her the really important question of the day: had she seen me on my TV interview — (I’d been in London,
she’d been down in the constituency).

  ‘I saw someone who looked like you.’

  I asked her what that was supposed to mean. She didn’t answer.

  ‘Frank said that I’m just a Civil Service mouthpiece,’ I muttered resentfully.

  Annie said, ‘Yes.’

  I was shocked. ‘You mean… you agree?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You could have hired an actor to say it all for you. He’d have said it better. And while you’re at it, why not just sign your letters with a rubber stamp or get an Assistant Secretary to sign them — they write them anyway.’

  I tried to remain dignified. ‘Assistant Secretaries do not write my letters,’ I said. ‘Under-Secretaries write them.’

  ‘I rest my case, m’lud,’ she said.

  ‘You think I’ve become a puppet too?’

  ‘I do. Maybe they should get Miss Piggy to do your job. At least she’s prettier.’

  I must say I was feeling pretty hurt and defeated. I sighed and sat on the bed. I honestly felt near to tears. Is this how a Cabinet Minister usually feels, I wondered, or am I just an abysmal failure? I couldn’t see what was wrong, but something certainly was.

  ‘I don’t know what to do about it,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m just swamped by the volume of work. I’m so depressed.’

  Annie suggested that, as we weren’t going to Paris after all, we might at least go for a quiet little candlelit dinner on the corner. I told her that I couldn’t, because Bernard had told me to work through three red boxes tonight.

  Annie said something which changed my whole perception of my situation. She said, ‘What do you mean, “Bernard’s told me!”? When you edited Reform you were quite different — you went in, you told people what to do, demanded what you wanted, and you got it! What’s changed? You’re the same man — you’re just allowing them to walk all over you.’

  And, suddenly, I saw that it was true. She’s right. That’s why Frank has been getting at me too. Either I get them by the throat or they’ll get me by the throat! It’s the law of the jungle, just like in the Cabinet.