The Complete Yes Minister

by Jonathan Lynn

  This concern with the avoidance of error leads inexorably to the need to commit everything to paper — civil servants copy everything, and send copies to all their colleagues. (This is also because ‘chaps don’t like to leave other chaps out’, as Bernard once explained to me.) The Treasury was rather more competent before the invention of Xerox than it is now, because its officials had so much less to read (and therefore less to confuse them).

  The civil servants’ hunger for paper is insatiable. They want all possible information sent to them, and they send all possible information to their colleagues. It amazes me that they find the time to do anything other than catch up with other people’s paperwork. If indeed they do.

  It is also astonishing that so little of this vast mass of typescript ever becomes public knowledge — a very real tribute to Whitehall’s talent for secrecy. For it is axiomatic with civil servants that information should only be revealed to their political ‘masters’ when absolutely necessary, and to the public when absolutely unavoidable.

  But I now see that I can learn some useful lessons from their methods. For a start, I must pay more attention to Bernard and Roy. I resolve today that I will not let false pride come between Roy and me — in other words, I shall no longer pretend that I know more than my driver does. Tomorrow, when he collects me at Euston, I shall ask him to tell me anything that he has picked up, and I shall tell him that he mustn’t assume that Ministers know more secrets than drivers.

  On second thoughts, I don’t need to tell him that — he knows already!

  As to the Private Secretaries’ grapevine, it was most interesting to learn last week that Sir Humphrey had had a wigging from Sir Arnold. This will have profoundly upset Humphrey, who above all values the opinions of his colleagues.

  For there is one grapevine with even more knowledge and influence than the Private Secretaries’ or the drivers’ — and that is the Permanent Secretaries’ grapevine. (Cabinet colleagues, of course, have a hopeless grapevine because they are not personal friends, don’t know each other all that well, and hardly ever see each other except in Cabinet or in the Division Lobby.)

  This wigging could also, I gather, affect his chances of becoming Secretary to the Cabinet on Arnold’s retirement, or screw up the possibility of his finding a cushy job in Brussels.

  Happily, this is not my problem — and, when I mentioned it to my spies, both Bernard and Roy agreed (independently) that Sir Humphrey would not be left destitute. Apart from his massive indexlinked pension, a former Permanent Secretary is always fixed up with a job if he wants it — Canals and Waterways, or something.

  As for Bernard, I have recently been impressed with his loyalty to me. He seems to be giving me all the help he possibly can without putting his own career at risk. In fact, I am almost becoming concerned about the amount of rapport, decency and goodwill that exists between us — if he exhibits a great deal more of these qualities he will almost certainly be moved elsewhere. There may come a time when the Department feels that the more use he is to me the less use he is to them.

  March 29th

  I was sitting at my desk this afternoon going through some letters when Bernard sidled in holding something behind his back.

  ‘Excuse me, Minister,’ he said. ‘There’s something in the press about you that I think you ought to see.’

  I was pleased. ‘About me? That’s nice.’

  Bernard looked bleak. ‘Well…’ he swallowed, ‘I’m afraid it’s in Private Eye.’

  Trembling, I took the offending rag and held it away from me with my forefinger and thumb. I didn’t have the courage to open it. Normally the press officer brings you your own press cuttings. If he’d given his job to Bernard, it meant terrible news. No prizes for guessing which, in the case of Private Eye.

  ‘They’re… um… exposing something,’ said Bernard.

  Panic thoughts flashed through my mind. In that instant my whole life passed before me. Was it that IOS Consultancy, I wondered? Or that character reference I wrote for Dr Savundra? Or that wretched party at John Poulson’s?

  I didn’t even dare mention them to Bernard. So I put a good face on it. ‘Well,’ I said, chin up, ‘what have they made up about me to put in their squalid little rag?’

  ‘Perhaps you’d better read it yourself,’ he said.

  So I did.

  It was acutely embarrassing.

  I sent for Humphrey at once. I had to establish whether or not this lie was true.

  One aspect of this squalid little story puzzled me in particular — ‘What does egregious mean?’ I asked Bernard.

  ‘I think it means “outstanding”… in one way or another,’ he explained.

  That’s okay, if that’s what it means, but it seems a little too generous for Private Eye. I must remember to look it up sometime.

  Humphrey arrived, was shown the piece, and actually had the temerity to laugh at the bugger joke.

  ‘Is this true?’ I demanded.

  ‘Oh absolutely not, Minister,’ he replied firmly. I was relieved for a moment, until he went on, ‘It’s only one of their little jokes. I don’t think that anyone actually supposes that you are a bu… I mean… that is…’

  I exploded. ‘Humphrey, I’m not talking about that tasteless little joke. I’m asking you if the gist of this story is true — was I once under surveillance and am I now responsible for the bugging equipment?’

  ‘Surely…’ said Humphrey evasively, and how well I recognise the tactics by now! ‘Surely you don’t believe what you read in that squalid little rag?’

  [‘Squalid little rag’ was clearly Whitehall general slang usage for Private Eye at about this time — Ed.]

  I asked him again. Was it accurate?

  Sir Humphrey again declined to give a straight answer. ‘I don’t think we should take it too seriously, Minister,’ he replied suavely.

  I saw red. I told him that I regard this as an outrageous and intolerable intrusion into my privacy. If he didn’t see anything wrong with it, I certainly did. And I propose to take it very seriously indeed. I reminded Humphrey that the article stated that I, a free citizen, and furthermore an MP, have been under total surveillance. Surveillance is an attack on democracy. I asked Humphrey if he was aware that it contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights.

  He remained calm. ‘Surveillance,’ he said, ‘is an indispensable weapon in the battle against organised crime.’

  I was incredulous. That’s no reason for bugging me, a politician. ‘Humphrey,’ I asked, ‘are you describing politicians as organised crime?’

  He smiled. ‘Well… disorganised crime too,’ he joked. I was not amused. He realised that he was going too far, and hastily started to repair the damage. ‘No, seriously, Minister…’

  I cut him short. I reminded Humphrey of my own track record, one which made this situation particularly awkward for me.

  ‘While I was editor of Reform I wrote a leader criticising this kind of intrusion. Furthermore, I started a nationwide petition against bureaucratic busybodies snooping and phone-tapping. And now I learn,’ I continued angrily, ‘— from Private Eye, please note, and not from you — that I, of all people, am in charge of the whole technical side of it.’ It was all profoundly embarrassing.

  Sir Humphrey merely nodded.

  I asked the inevitable question.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’

  ‘Because,’ came the inevitable answer, ‘you didn’t ask.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘thank God for the free press. Thank God for at least one brave, open and fearless journal in this country.’

  Bernard started to remind me that I had previously described it differently, but I stopped him. However, I took the opportunity to explain to him that he really must sharpen up his political antennae. He needs to learn to adjust more flexibly to a developing situation.

  He took my point, I think — I hope!

  The next question inevitably raised by these revelations concerns
the tapes and/or transcripts that must have been made of my bugged conversations. Where are they?

  ‘I imagine,’ said Humphrey carelessly, as if it didn’t really matter all that much, ‘that they must have been put into a report.’

  ‘And who got those reports?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘I imagine that the Home Secretary gets… got them.’ He corrected himself quickly. But not quickly enough.

  ‘Gets them?’ I shrieked. ‘You mean it’s still going on?’

  He tried to pacify me, but without success. ‘No, Minister, not you, not now. Now he will be getting reports on current members of Her Majesty’s Opposition.’

  The mechanics were still unclear to me. ‘Who gives these reports to the Home Secretary?’ I demanded.

  He shrugged. ‘MI5, presumably.’

  ‘You seem very calm about all this.’

  He smiled. He was really getting right up my nose, the complacent… [expletive deleted — Ed.]

  I certainly wasn’t calm about it. I threw one of my real fits. I denounced the whole business. ‘It is horrifying,’ I insisted. ‘A British citizen — in my case, a distinguished British citizen — one who has dedicated his life to the service of his fellow countrymen… and all the time those gloating, faceless bureaucrats are listening to his every word. All his private calls. His rows with his wife. His shouting matches with his daughter. His private arrangements with his accountant.’ Perhaps I’d gone too far — maybe the room was bugged! ‘Not that I have anything I’d be ashamed to reveal, my life is an open book.’

  ‘Quite, quite,’ agreed both Humphrey and Bernard.

  ‘But it’s the principle of the thing!’

  I stopped. I waited. The ball was in his court. Surely Sir Humphrey would have something to say. But no explanation or justification was forthcoming.

  Sir Humphrey just sat there, head sympathetically inclined to one side, listening, for all the world like a Freudian psychoanalyst who has been sitting at the head of a couch listening to the rantings and ravings of a neurotic patient.

  After he’d said nothing for quite a long time, I realised that he didn’t realise that the ball was in his court.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  Sir Humphrey jumped, and focused his eyes in my direction. ‘Why what?’ he replied. ‘Why surveillance, or why you?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘In any case,’ he smiled blandly, ‘it’s the same answer.’

  My blood boiled. ‘Then why,’ I snapped, ‘did you split it into two questions?’

  There was no reply to that.

  [Sir Humphrey could hardly explain to Hacker that he did not want to risk answering a question that Hacker had not asked — Ed.]

  Then Humphrey began his general explanation. ‘I should have thought it was perfectly obvious. Before the election it was rumoured that you might be appointed Secretary of State for Defence. If the PM were to consider giving you Defence, you can surely see that it would be in the national interest for MI5 to satisfy itself that you were not a security risk?’

  ‘But my privacy was invaded,’ I pointed out.

  He smiled his smuggest smile. ‘Better than your country being invaded, Minister.’

  I must say, I could see that point. There was a valid argument there.

  But I was sure that Humphrey had never experienced the feeling that I was feeling. And democracy is about the feelings and rights of the individual — that’s what distinguishes a democracy from a dictatorship.

  I said to him: ‘Have you ever been under surveillance, Humphrey?’

  He was astounded. ‘Me?’

  ‘You. You, Humphrey.’

  He got on to his highest horse. ‘I am a civil servant,’ he said, as if that absolutely closed the discussion.

  ‘So were Burgess and Maclean, and Philby,’ I observed.

  He was rattled, but he swiftly produced a counter-argument. ‘They were not Permanent Secretaries! One becomes a Permanent Secretary only after a lifetime of personal responsibility, reliability and integrity. The most rigorous selection procedures winnow out all but the most upright, honourable and discreet of public servants.’

  I noted the emphasis on ‘discreet’. The secrecy thing again, here openly acknowledged. I also noted that in giving this glowing description of Permanent Secretaries he thought that he was, in fact, describing himself. And I also noted that he had begged the question: even if Permanent Secretaries are never security risks, Humphrey said that he had never been bugged. But he hasn’t been a Permanent Secretary all his life, has he?

  As Humphrey had described the qualities of Permanent Secretaries in a way that argued that they need not be subject to surveillance, I inquired how he felt about Ministers. It was as I expected.

  ‘Ministers,’ he said, ‘have a whole range of dazzling qualities including… um… well, including an enviable intellectual suppleness and moral manoeuvrability.’

  I invited him to explain himself.

  ‘You can’t trust Ministers,’ he said bluntly. I was appalled at his rudeness. ‘I’m being quite candid now,’ he added unnecessarily. Bloody insolent, I’d call it. ‘I don’t mean, by the way, that we can’t trust you, Minister — of course we can. But in general terms Ministers, unlike civil servants, are selected completely at random — by Prime Ministerial whim, in recognition of doubtful favours received, or to avoid appointing someone of real ability who might become a threat — not you, of course, Minister. You can certainly be trusted. You might almost be a civil servant yourself.’

  [Sir Humphrey almost certainly meant this as a compliment. Indeed, the ultimate compliment. However, Hacker should certainly have taken this as a hint that he might be house-trained. Regrettably, he allowed the flattery to get the better of him — Ed.]

  I was mollified. I didn’t think he was bullshitting.

  I let him continue. ‘Minister, would you trust every one of your Cabinet colleagues never to betray a confidence?’

  I couldn’t really give an answer to that, without appearing somewhat disloyal to my Cabinet colleagues.

  ‘And what about all the Opposition Front Bench?’ he asked.

  That was an easy one. ‘You certainly can’t trust that lot,’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Quite so,’ he said, checkmating me neatly, ‘and you were on the Opposition Front Bench at the time.’

  It has always been hard to win this kind of argument with Humphrey. But he’s into winning arguments — whereas I’m into getting things done!

  So I cut the discussion short. I made my decision. Which is to stop all surveillance. It’s a matter of principle.

  He countered by informing me that this is a Home Office matter, and in many cases not within our purview.

  This didn’t bother me. I can certainly make it much more difficult in future. If I’m responsible for the apparatus, I intend to make myself responsible for some proper democratic safeguards for us all (before the apparatus can be used).

  ‘Are you perhaps going to suggest,’ he enquired sarcastically, ‘that people will not be able to be put under secret surveillance until they’ve signed a form saying that they agree to it?’

  I rose above it. ‘No,’ I said gently but firmly, ‘I propose that we shall have a Select Committee of both Houses chaired by a Law Lord to decide on every application. And no surveillance will be allowed to go on for more than two weeks without reapplying.’

  Then I told him to set the wheels in motion.

  He argued no further, but took his leave of me in a very frosty manner.

  I was full of ideas today. After Humphrey had stalked out I told Bernard to send a minute to each member of the Cabinet.

  I also thought of planting a question from one of our backbenchers to the Home Secretary. Something like: Will the Home Secretary assure the House that none of his Cabinet colleagues has ever been placed under government surveillance? That will shake him. And it will bring the matter out into the open. We’ll see if it’s just a Home Office matter! I think not!r />
  Finally, I asked Bernard to make an appointment for me to meet Walter Fowler of the Express for a quick drink in Annie’s Bar at the House, later this week.

  ‘What for?’ Bernard wanted to know.

  ‘First law of political indiscretion,’ I replied. ‘You always have a drink before you leak.’

  [Walter Fowler was the Lobby Correspondent of the Express. This meant that he would probably have been their political editor or head of the paper’s political staff. The Lobby was a uniquely British system, the best way yet devised in any democracy for taming and muzzling the press.

  This is because it is hard to censor the press when it wants to be free, but easy if it gives up its freedom voluntarily.

  There were in the 1980s 150 Lobby Correspondents, who had the special privilege of being able to mingle with MPs and Ministers in the Lobby behind both chambers of Parliament. As journalists, however, they were — quite properly — not allowed to sit down on the leather-covered benches. Neither were they allowed to report anything they saw — e.g. MPs hitting one another — nor anything they overheard.

  You may ask: who stipulated what they were not allowed to do? Who made all these restrictions? Answer: The lobby correspondents themselves!

  In return for the freedom of access to Ministers and MPs, they exercised the most surprising and elaborate self-censorship.

  The Lobby received daily briefings from the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary at Number Ten Downing Street, and weekly briefings from the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. All these briefings were unattributable.

  The Lobby correspondents argued that, in return for their self-censorship, they would learn infinitely more about the government, its motives, and its plans. The politicians loved the Lobby system because they could leak any old rubbish, which the Lobby would generally swallow whole. As they had heard it in confidence, they believed it must be true.

  We believe, with the advantage of hindsight, that the Lobby was merely one example of the way in which the British establishment dealt with potential danger or criticism — it would embrace the danger, and thus suffocate it.