The Complete Yes Minister

by Jonathan Lynn

  I told him to shred it. ‘Bernard,’ I said, ‘we must make certain that no one ever finds it again.’

  ‘In that case,’ replied Bernard, ‘I’m sure it would be best to file it.’

  [This situation was not without precedent.

  In April 1965 the Home Secretary told the House of Commons that ‘no useful purpose’ would be served by reopening the enquiry into the Timothy Evans case. This was despite a passionate appeal from a leading member of the Opposition front bench, Sir Frank Soskice, who said: ‘My appeal to the Home Secretary is most earnest. I believe that if ever there was a debt due to justice and to the reputation both of our own judicial system and to the public conscience… that debt is one the Home Secretary should now repay.’

  Interestingly enough, a general election had occurred between the launching and the presenting of the petition. Consequently the Home Secretary who rejected Sir Frank Soskice’s impassioned appeal — and petition — for an enquiry was Sir Frank Soskice — Ed.]

  April 11th

  I’ve just had the most awful Easter weekend of my life.

  Annie and I went off on our quiet little weekend together just like we used to.

  Well — almost like we used to. Unfortunately, half the Special Branch came with us.

  When we went for a quiet afternoon stroll through the woods, the whole place was swarming with rozzers.

  They kept nice and close to us — very protective, but impossible for Annie and me to discuss anything but the weather. They all look the other way — not, I hasten to add, out of courtesy or respect for our privacy, but to see if they could spot any potential attacker leaping towards me over the primroses.

  We went to a charming restaurant for lunch. It seemed as though the whole of Scotland Yard came too.

  ‘How many for lunch?’ asked the head waiter as we came in.

  ‘Nine,’ said Annie acidly. The weekend was not working out as she’d expected.

  The head waiter offered us a nice table for two by the window, but it was vetoed by a sergeant. ‘No, that’s not safe,’ he muttered to me, and turned to a colleague, ‘we’ve chosen that table over there for the target.’

  Target!

  So Annie and I were escorted to a cramped little table in a poky little corner next to the kitchen doors. They banged open and shut right beside us, throughout our meal.

  As we sat down I was briefed by one of the detectives. ‘You sit here. Constable Ross will sit over there, watching the kitchen door — that’s your escape route. We don’t expect any assassins to be among the kitchen staff as we only booked in here late morning. I’ll sit by the window. And if you do hear any gunshots, just dive under the table and I’ll take care of it.’

  I’m sure he meant to be reassuring.

  I informed him that I wasn’t a bit worried. Then I heard a loud report close to my head, and I crashed under the table.

  An utterly humiliating experience — some seconds later I stuck my head out and realised that a champagne bottle had just been opened for the next table. I had to pretend that I’d just been practising.

  By this time, with all this talk of escape routes, assassins in the kitchen and so forth, I’d gone right off my food. So had Annie. And our appetites weren’t helped by overhearing one of the detectives at the next table order a spaghetti Bolognese followed by a T-bone steak with beans, peas, cauliflower and chips — and a bottle of Château Baron Philippe Rothschild 1961, no less!

  He saw us staring at him, beamed, and explained that his job really took it out of him.

  We stuck it for nearly two days. We went to the cinema on Saturday evening, but that made Annie even more furious. She’d wanted to see La Cage aux Folles but in the end we went to a James Bond film — I knew that none of the detectives liked foreign films, and it didn’t seem fair to drag them along to a French film with subtitles.

  Annie was black with rage because I’d put their choice first. When she put it like that, I saw what she meant. I hated the Bond film anyway — it was all about assassination attempts, and I couldn’t stand it.

  The detectives were very fed up with us when we walked out halfway through it.

  Finally, back in our hotel, lying in the bed, rigid with tension, unable to go to the loo without being observed, followed and overheard, we heard the following murmured conversation outside the bedroom door.

  ‘Are they going out again?’

  ‘No, they’ve turned in for the night.’

  ‘Is the target in there now?’

  ‘Yeah — target’s in bed with his wife.’

  ‘They don’t seem to be enjoying their holiday, do they?’

  ‘No. Wonder why.’

  We decided to get up and go home then and there.

  But did we find peace and quiet? You bet we didn’t. When we got to Birmingham at 1.45 a.m. on Sunday morning, the front garden was knee-deep in the local bluebottles, all wanting to show that they were doing their bit. The flowerbeds were trampled underfoot, searchlights playing constantly on all sides of the house, Alsatians baring their teeth and growling… Bedlam!

  So now we lay in our own beds, still rigid with tension, still unable to go to the loo without some flat-foot examining it first, still with detectives knocking on the bedroom door and barging straight in while saying, ‘May I just check your windows sir,’ but with the additional pleasures of dogs barking and searchlights lighting up the whole room at intervals of twenty-nine seconds.

  I told Annie, pathetically trying to make the best of it all, that she’d soon get used to being a famous man’s wife. She didn’t say anything. I think she’d almost rather be a famous man’s widow.

  Thank God we still weren’t subject to surveillance at home.

  Secret photo (released by the Special Branch at New Scotland Yard after the passing of the Freedom of Information Act, 1994) showing Mr and Mrs Hacker in bed at their home on 12 April.

  April 13th

  Easter Monday I slept all day, since it’s impossible to sleep at night.

  Today I was back in the office and trying to handle a difficult interview with the dreadful Walter Fowler, who had somehow got wind of the petition. He seemed to find it extraordinary that I had now suppressed the petition that I started the year before last. Of course, he didn’t know that my changed circumstances had made me see the whole matter of surveillance in a fresher and clearer way.

  ‘I don’t follow,’ he complained. ‘You say you’re out to stop bugging and phone tapping. And now you get this petition. Two and a quarter million signatures. A terrific boost to your case. And you won’t even give me a quote saying you welcome it?’

  I made an unshakeable resolve to stay silent. Anything I said was liable to be quoted. You can’t ever trust the press.

  ‘What about making a promise to implement its main recommendations?’

  I realised that I had to break my unshakeable resolve. ‘Well you see Walter,’ I began in most condescending manner, ‘things aren’t that simple.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  ‘Security considerations,’ I said.

  ‘There always were,’ he said. ‘But you said yourself that “security” is the last excuse of a desperate bureaucrat.’

  Irritating bastard. I resolved to stay silent again.

  Then Walter said: ‘Okay. I think I’ll make it an even bigger story. MINISTER REJECTS HIS OWN PETITION.’

  My resolve shook again. ‘Steady on, Walter,’ I blurted out, ‘don’t be silly.’

  ‘Are you accepting the petition or rejecting it?’ he asked, giving me a simple choice.

  ‘No,’ I replied carefully.

  Then it transpired that he did know all my circumstances. ‘My Editor wants me to ask if being on the Freedom Army death list has altered your views in any way.’

  Of course it has! Obviously! I’d be a complete fool if it hadn’t.

  ‘Certainly not,’ I said. ‘What an absurd idea! Never have occurred to me till you mentioned it just now.’
>
  He didn’t believe me but he couldn’t prove anything. ‘But how else am I to explain this sudden change of tune?’

  I was getting a bit desperate by then, but thank God Bernard knocked on the door and appeared. Saved by the bell. He told me Humphrey wanted a word with me.

  Humphrey came in. Walter didn’t leave till I asked him if he minded. And he didn’t leave the building — he just said he’d wait outside till we’d finished.

  Humphrey asked me if I’d had a good weekend. Sadistic bastard. He must have known what my weekend would be like, with half the Special Branch present — all those romantic rozzers with Smith and Wessons under their armpits.

  He nodded sympathetically. ‘The burdens of office,’ he said.

  ‘This can’t go on!’ I said. Why can’t I keep my big mouth shut?

  ‘I’m glad you said that,’ he replied smoothly, ‘because it isn’t going to.’ My jaw dropped open. ‘We’ve just heard from the Special Branch that your protection is being withdrawn.’

  Withdrawn? I was appalled. I thought he’d misunderstood me. I asked why?

  ‘The police have suffered an acute personnel establishment short-fall.’

  I was about to ask if anybody was hurt, when I realised what he meant. Short-staffed. He meant short-staffed! And because the police were short-staffed they were going to allow me to be killed? I was horrified.

  ‘There is a much more real and dangerous threat to the Soviet Premier at the Chequers meeting tomorrow,’ he continued.

  Much more real and dangerous? More real and dangerous to him, maybe. I searched desperately for an argument for them to protect me rather than him. ‘He’s Russian,’ I said. ‘I’m British!’

  Then Sir Humphrey revealed further reasons why my protection was to be withdrawn.

  ‘In fact, Minister, the Special Branch are confident that the threat to your life has diminished.’

  Naturally I was anxious to know how they could be so bloody confident.

  ‘Surveillance, Minister. They overheard a conversation.’ Humphrey seemed reluctant to tell me. I told him to spit it out, that I had a right to know, and that I wanted a straight answer!

  He nodded, and then went into his normal mumbo-jumbo. God knows what he said, I couldn’t unravel it.

  SIR BERNARD WOOLLEY RECALLS:[19]

  I recall what Sir Humphrey said because I minuted it at the time. He explained that in view of the somewhat nebulous and inexplicit nature of Hacker’s remit and the arguably marginal and peripheral nature of Hacker’s influence on the central deliberations and decisions within the political process, there would be a case for restructuring their action priorities in such a way as to eliminate Hacker’s liquidation from their immediate agenda.

  [Hacker’s diary continues — Ed.]

  So I asked him to put it into English. He then said that the Freedom Army had apparently decided that I wasn’t really important enough for it to be worth assassinating me.

  He put it as gently as he could, I could see that. Even so, it was a bit of a blow. Not that they’d decided not to assassinate me, of course, but a bit of a blow to my pride nonetheless.

  I asked Humphrey what he thought of this new situation. ‘I don’t agree with them, of course,’ he said.

  ‘You mean,’ I asked, ‘you think I should be assassinated?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘You mean, I’m not important enough?’

  ‘Yes. No! I mean you are important enough but they shouldn’t assassinate you anyway.’ He breathed a sigh of relief.

  Anyway, it seemed I was off the hook, and perhaps that’s all to the good. I mean, there’s no point in being important but dead, is there? But, if even terrorist loonies doubt my value to the government, there’s clearly some image-building to be done right away.

  Bernard then asked me if I’d finish my interview with Walter Fowler. Of course, I was delighted to.

  He was ushered in, and I opened up right away. I told Bernard to bring the petition along on the trolley, so that Walter could see how big it was.

  Bernard said, ‘The petition? But I thought you said…’

  ‘Yes I did,’ I interrupted hastily. ‘Could you get it, Bernard?’ He still looked blank. ‘Antennae, Bernard,’ I explained.

  The penny dropped. ‘Ah. Yes. Indeed, Minister,’ he said quickly. ‘You mean, I’m to get the petition that you said you were so pleased with?’

  The boy’s learning.

  Walter demanded an answer to his various questions. I told him to sit down. Then I told him that I welcomed the petition, warmly. That it is not just something you sweep under the carpet.

  Bernard Woolley receiving the petition and wondering how to sweep it under the carpet (DAA Archives)

  ‘And as for death lists,’ I concluded. ‘Well — Ministers are dispensable, but freedom is indivisible. Isn’t that so, Humphrey?’

  ‘Yes Minister,’ replied my smiling Permanent Secretary, dead on cue.

  10 Doing the Honours

  April 23rd

  I had a very unsatisfactory meeting today, with assorted secretaries — Deputy Secretaries, Under-Secretaries, and Assistant Secretaries.

  I asked about economies in accommodation, in stationery acquisition, in parks and forestry commission administration, in data processing equipment, in the further education budget.

  As always I was met with the usual vague and regretful murmurs of ‘No Minister,’ ‘Afraid not Minister,’ ‘Doesn’t seem possible, Minister,’ ‘Sadly it cannot be, Minister,’ ‘We have done the utmost possible, Minister,’ ‘Pared to the bone, Minister, alas!’ and so forth.

  I reflected aloud that at least the Universities are not going to cost us quite so much, now that overseas students are to pay fees that cover the full cost of their education here.

  ‘Unless,’ someone said, ‘you make the exceptions which have been proposed to you.’

  Nobody else at the meeting had been prepared to make exceptions. I couldn’t see why I should. I remarked that as it seemed the only available saving at the moment we had no choice but to hang on to it.

  As the meeting broke up Bernard reminded me again that the Honours Secretary at Number Ten had been asking if I had approved our Department’s recommendations for the Honours List.

  Curiously this was about the eighth time Bernard had asked me. I enquired sarcastically if honours were really the most important subject in the whole of the DAA.

  Bernard replied, without any apparent awareness of my sarcasm, that they were indeed the most important subject for the people on the list. ‘They’re never off the phone,’ he said pathetically. ‘Some of them don’t seem to have slept for about three nights.’

  I was mildly surprised. I thought it was all a formality. ‘Ministers never veto Civil Service honours, do they?’ I asked.

  ‘Hardly ever. But it’s theoretically possible. And they’re all getting worried by the delay.’

  I suddenly realised that Bernard had just told me that people knew they were on the list. How? The file is marked strictly confidential.

  He shook his head sadly at me when I mentioned it. ‘Oh Minister,’ he replied, and smiled at me in a kindly fashion.

  I was amused and embarrassed at my naïveté. But all that energy that goes into worrying about honours… If only they’d put a quarter of it into cutting expenditure. I asked Bernard how I could get this Department to want economies in the way they wanted OBEs and KCBs and so on.

  A gleam came into Bernard’s eye. ‘Well,’ he said, with a slightly mischievous air that I’d never noticed before. ‘I’ve been thinking…’ Then he hesitated.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘No, no, no.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘No. Nothing, Minister.’

  I was on tenterhooks. I knew he had something up his sleeve. ‘Come on Bernard,’ I ordered, ‘spit it out.’ Bernard did not spit it out. Instead, he tentatively explained that it was not his place, and he wouldn’t suggest this, and he co
uldn’t possibly recommend it, but ‘… well… suppose you were to refuse to recommend any honours for Civil Servants who haven’t cut their budgets by five per cent per annum?’

  ‘Bernard!’

  He retreated immediately.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, do forgive me, Minister, I knew I shouldn’t have…’

  ‘No, no,’ I said, hastily reassuring him. Bernard has great ideas but he needs much more confidence. ‘It’s brilliant!’

  And indeed it is a brilliant idea. I was cock-a-hoop. It’s our only hold over the civil servants. Ministers can’t stop their pay rises, or their promotion. Ministers don’t write their reports. Ministers have no real disciplinary authority. But Bernard is right — I can withhold honours! It’s brilliant!

  I congratulated him and thanked him profusely.

  ‘You thought of it, Minister!’

  I didn’t get the point at first. ‘No, you did,’ I told him generously.

  ‘No, you did,’ he said meaningfully. ‘Please!’

  I understood. I nodded, and smiled reassuringly.

  He looked even more anxious.

  [Some days later Sir Humphrey Appleby was invited to dine at the High Table of his alma mater, Baillie College, Oxford. He refers to the dinner and subsequent discussion in his private diary — Ed.]

  Had an excellent high table dinner at Baillie, followed by a private chat over the port and walnuts, with the Master and the Bursar. Clearly they were worried about the cuts. Sir William [Sir William Guthrie, the Master — Ed.] was looking somewhat the worse for wear — and the worse for port. His face was red, his hair is now quite white but his eyes were still the same clear penetrating blue. Rather patriotic, really. Christopher [Christopher Venables, the Bursar — Ed.] still looked like the precise ex-RAF officer that he had been in the days before he became a don — tall, neat, and meticulous in manner and speech.

  I asked the Master how he was feeling. He replied that he was feeling very old. But he smiled. ‘I’m already an anomaly, I shall soon be an anachronism, and I have every intention of dying an abuse.’ Very droll!