The Complete Yes Minister

by Jonathan Lynn

  ‘So,’ said Sir Mark, ‘the PM has decided to appoint a Supremo to develop and implement a national transport policy.’

  A Supremo. I asked if I were the PM’s choice. The knights nodded. I must admit I felt excited and proud and really rather overwhelmed by this extraordinary good piece of news. And there were more compliments to come.

  ‘It was decided,’ said Sir Mark, ‘that you had the most open mind of all.’

  ‘And the most uncluttered,’ added Sir Arnold. They really were grovelling.

  I naturally responded cautiously. Firstly because I simply couldn’t imagine what the job entailed, and secondly it’s always good to play hard to get when you’re in demand. So I thanked them for the honour, agreed that it was a pretty vital and responsible job, and asked what it entailed.

  ‘It’s to help the consumer,’ said Sir Mark. Though when Sir Arnold laboriously pointed out that helping the consumer was always a vote-winner, I reminded him firmly that I was interested purely because I saw it as my duty to help. My sense of public duty.

  During the conversation it gradually became clear what they had in mind. All kinds of idiocies have occurred in the past, due to a lack of a natural integrated policy. Roughly summarising now, Sir Mark and Sir Arnold were concerned about:

  Motorway planning: Our motorways were planned without reference to railways, so that now there are great stretches of motorway running alongside already existing railways.

  As a result, some parts of the country are not properly served at all.

  The through-ticket problem: If, for instance, you want to commute from Henley to the City, you have to buy a British Rail ticket to Paddington and then buy an underground ticket to the Bank.

  Timetables: The complete absence of combined bus and railway timetables.

  Airport Links: Very few. For instance, there’s a British Rail Western Region line that runs less than a mile north of Heathrow — but no link line.

  Connections: Bus and train services don’t connect up, all over London.

  Sir A. and Sir M. outlined these problems briefly. They added that there are probably problems outside London too, although understandably they didn’t know about them.

  The possibilities are obviously great, and it’s all very exciting. I suggested having a word with Humphrey before I accepted responsibility, but they made it plain that they wanted my opinion and approval. Not his. Rather flattering, really. Also, it shows that they have finally realised that I’m not a straw man — I really run my Department, not like some Ministers.

  Furthermore it transpired that the PM was due to leave for the airport in thirty minutes on the long trip involving the Ottawa Conference, and the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York, and then on to the meeting in Washington.

  Jokingly I asked, ‘Who’s going to run the country for the next week?’ but Sir Arnold didn’t seem awfully amused.

  Sir Mark asked if he could give the PM the good news that I had taken on the job on the way to the airport.

  Graciously, I agreed.

  Hacker leaving Downing Street after the meeting (London Press Association)

  August 12th

  At an early morning meeting with Sir Humphrey, I told him I had good news. ‘I’ve got a new job,’ I began.

  ‘Oh dear, the Department will be awfully sorry to lose you,’ he responded pleasantly. A bit too pleasantly, perhaps.

  But I explained that it was merely an extra job, developing and implementing an integrated national transport policy. At the special request of the PM. My Permanent Secretary did not seem pleased. In fact, he seemed to flinch.

  ‘I see,’ he replied. ‘And what was the good news?’

  I thought he must have misheard, so I told him again.

  ‘So how,’ he enquired drily, ‘if I may be so bold as to enquire, would you define bad news?’

  I asked him to explain himself.

  ‘Minister,’ he said with a heavy sigh, ‘are you aware what this job would mean if you accepted it?’

  ‘I have accepted it.’

  His mouth dropped open. ‘You’ve what?’ he gasped.

  ‘I have accepted it.’ I went on to explain that it is an honour, and also that we need a transport policy.

  ‘If by “we” you mean Britain, that’s perfectly true,’ he acknowledged. ‘But if by “we” you mean you and me and this Department, we need a transport policy like an aperture in the cranial cavity.’[50]

  He went on to describe the job as a bed of nails, a crown of thorns, and a booby trap.

  At first I thought he was just being silly or lazy or something. I could see that it would cause him some extra administrative problems, but on the other hand it usually gave Humphrey pleasure to add to his empire — bigger budget, more staff, all that sort of thing.

  ‘No Minister, the point is that you are the one who is at risk. My job, as always, is merely to protect the seat of your trousers. The reason that there has never been an integrated transport policy is that such a policy is in everybody’s interest except the Minister who creates it.’

  I couldn’t see why.

  Humphrey paused for a minute, and gazed at the ceiling contemplatively. ‘How can I put it in a manner that is close to your heart?’ he asked himself. I waited. So did Bernard. ‘Ah, I have it,’ he murmured, turning to look at me straight in the eye. ‘It is the ultimate vote-loser.’

  I was stunned. Vote-loser?

  Sir Humphrey explained, ‘Why do you think the Transport Secretary isn’t doing this?’

  I was just about to reply that the Transport Secretary is apparently too close to it and can’t see the wood for the trees, when Sir Humphrey said: ‘He’s too close to it, I suppose? Can’t see the wood for the trees? Is that what they told you?’

  ‘You tell me another reason then,’ I challenged him.

  ‘Why do you think the Transport Secretary suggested the Lord Privy Seal? Why do you think the Lord Privy Seal suggested the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster? Why do you think he suggested the Lord President of the Council?’

  I had to confess I knew nothing of all this.

  Sir Humphrey continued relentlessly. ‘And why do you think they invited you to Number Ten behind my back?’ I must admit that this explanation never occurred to me. ‘Minister, this hideous appointment has been hurtling round Whitehall for the last three weeks like a grenade with the pin taken out.’

  He may be right, of course. He’s usually pretty well up on all the gossip. But I was not about to concede the point. I felt that Humphrey’s attitude was coloured by sour grapes — sour grapes that I had been honoured in this way, and sour grapes that he hadn’t been consulted, either by them or by me.

  ‘If I can pull it off,’ I said carefully, ‘it will be a feather in my cap.’

  ‘If you pull it off,’ said Bernard, ‘it won’t be in your cap any more.’ I scowled at him, and he went pink and studied his shoes.

  Sir Humphrey wasn’t impressed with my argument. He believes that if I do pull it off, no one will feel the benefits for ten years and long before that we will both have moved on. Or up. Or out.

  ‘In the meantime,’ he continued, ‘formulating policy means making choices. Once you make a choice you please the people you favour but you infuriate everyone else. This is liable to end up as one vote gained, ten lost. If you give a job to the road services, the Rail Board and unions will scream. If you give it to the railways, the road lobby will massacre you. If you cut British Airways’ investment plans they’ll hold a devastating press conference the same afternoon. And you can’t expand, because an overall saving is the Treasury’s fundamental requirement.’

  I voiced the small hope that, as I am to be the Transport Supremo, my views might carry some weight.

  Humphrey could not disguise the sneer on his face. ‘Transport Muggins is the Civil Service vernacular, I’m afraid. All the enemies you will make are experts in manipulating the media. PROs, trades unionists, MPs in affected constituencies. Th
ere’ll be someone on television every night vilifying Hacker’s Law, saying that you are a national disaster.’

  His attitude angered me. I reminded him that the PM has asked me to perform this task, this necessary duty for my country. I always do my duty. Furthermore, Sir Mark believes that there are votes in it and, if so, I certainly do not intend to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  ‘I put it to you,’ replied Sir Humphrey, ‘that you are looking a Trojan Horse in the mouth.’

  I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by this. ‘Do you mean,’ I asked, ‘that if we look closely at this gift horse we’ll find it’s full of Trojans?’

  Bernard tried to interrupt, but I silenced him with a look. Sir Humphrey insisted that he be given a chance to prove his point, and offered to arrange a meeting, a preliminary discussion, with Under-Secretaries from the Department of Transport — the Road Division, the Rail Division and the Air Transport Division. ‘I think it may illustrate the extent of some of the problems you will encounter.’

  ‘You can arrange it if you like,’ I told him. ‘But I intend to take this on. If I succeed this could be my Falkland Islands.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Sir Humphrey, ‘and you could be General Galtieri.’

  August 15th

  When I arrived in my office today I found the most curious memo from Bernard sitting on my desk.

  Aug. 12th

  CONFIDENTIAL, FOR THE MINISTER’S EYES ONLY

  With reference to your comment at today’s meeting with the Permanent Secretary at which you enquired, in connection with looking the Integrated Transport Policy gift horse in the mouth, whether, if the gift horse were a Trojan Horse (as suggested by the Permanent Secretary that so it might prove to be) it would be full of Trojans.

  May I respectfully draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that, if he had looked the Trojan Horse in the mouth, he would have found Greeks inside.

  The reason, of course, is that it was the Greeks who gave the Trojan Horse to the Trojans. Therefore, technically it was not a Trojan Horse at all. In fact, it was a Greek Horse. Hence the tag ‘Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes’, which, as the Minister will recall, is usually and somewhat inaccurately translated as Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts, or doubtless the Minister would recall had he not attended the LSE.

  B.W.

  I dictated a reply to Bernard, in which I said that Greek tags are all very interesting in their way, especially to classicists no doubt, but that they were not exactly central to government business.

  I added that presumably the modern EEC version of that tag would be Beware of Greeks Bearing An Olive Oil Surplus.

  (Rather good that. I must remember to use it next time I have to make an anti-EEC speech.)

  To my astonishment, I found yet another memo from Bernard in my red boxes tonight, shortly before writing this entry in my diary. He really is tireless in his pursuit of pointless pedantry.

  Aug. 15th

  With reference to your memorandum in reply to my memorandum on the subject of classical tags, your description of the tag Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts as a Greek tag is, of course, erroneous.

  Just as the Trojan Horse was Greek, the tag which you described as Greek was, in fact, Latin. In fact, this is obvious if you consider that the Greeks would hardly suggest bewaring of themselves — if one can use such a participle: bewaring, that is — and the tag can clearly be seen to be Latin rather than Greek not because ‘timeo’ ends in ‘o’ (because the Greek first person also ends in ‘o’) — actually, if I may digress, there is a Greek word ‘timao’ meaning ‘I honour’ — but because the ‘os’ ending is a nominative singular termination of the second declension in Greek and an accusative plural in Latin.

  Incidentally, as a fine point of interest, Danaos is not only the Greek for Greek but also the Latin for Greek.

  B.W.

  I shall preserve Bernard’s memos for posterity. They give a clear indication of how academic brilliance can mislead those who recruit administrative trainees into the Civil Service.

  [A few days later Hacker, Appleby and Bernard Woolley were present at the promised meeting with three Department of Transport Under-Secretaries — Ed.]

  August 17th

  We have had a most extraordinary meeting today, the one that Humphrey had promised to arrange with the Under-Secretaries from the Department of Transport.

  I can’t remember all their names, but each one was from a different division — one from Air, one from Road and one from Rail. It was extraordinarily acrimonious. The one thing that they were all agreed on was that, somehow, my proposals were deeply misguided.

  The man from Road Transport, Graham something or other, suggested that it should be government policy to designate road haulage as its own principal means of freight transport. He was promptly interrupted by Richard somebody with a rather irritable thin tired-looking creased face — not surprising when you consider he’s been trying to modernise the railways and battle with BR, the NUR and ASLEF for most of his career.

  ‘With the greatest possible respect, Minister, I think that such a policy would be, not to put too fine a point on it, unacceptably short-sighted. It is rail transport that must surely be the favoured carrier under any sane national policy.’

  Piers, a smooth fellow from Air, interrupted so fast that he scarcely gave himself time to utter his usual courteous but meaningless preamble. ‘If-I-might-crave-your-indulgence-for-a-moment-Minister, I have to say that both those proposals are formulae for disaster. Long-term considerations absolutely mandate the expansion of air freight to meet rising demand.’

  Graham (Roads) put down his pencil, with a sharp click as it hit my mahogany reproduction conference table. ‘Of course,’ he snapped, ‘if the Minister is prepared for a massive budget increase…’

  ‘If the Minister will accept a long and unbelievably bitter rail strike…’ interrupted Richard (Rail).

  And Piers butted in: ‘If the public can tolerate a massive rise in public discontent…’

  I interrupted them by holding up my hand. They then confined themselves to staring at each other with intense mutual hostility.

  ‘Hold on, hold on,’ I said. ‘We’re the government, aren’t we?’

  ‘Indeed you are, Minister,’ Sir Humphrey corrected me.

  ‘So,’ I continued, searching for agreement, ‘we’re all on the same side, aren’t we?’

  ‘Indeed we are/quite so/absolutely no question,’ replied Richard, Piers and Graham roughly in concert.

  ‘And,’ I went on patiently, ‘we are trying to find out what’s best for Britain.’

  Piers put up his hand. I nodded at him. ‘Through the chair,’ he said, ‘I hardly think the end of the national air freight business is best for Britain?’

  Our truce had lasted a mere twenty seconds. The war was on again. ‘I find it hard to see how Britain is saved by the destruction of the railways,’ Richard remarked bitterly.

  And Graham, not to be outdone, added with heavy sarcasm that it was not immediately apparent to him how Britain would benefit from a rapid deterioration of the road network.

  Again I took a lead. I explained that I was merely trying to examine a few policy options for the government’s own freight transport needs. And that therefore I had thought that a preliminary chat with a few friends, advisers, around the table, could lead to some positive, constructive suggestions.

  I should not have wasted my breath. The positive constructive suggestions were somewhat predictable. Richard promptly suggested a firm commitment to rail transport, Graham a significant investment in motorway construction, and Piers a meaningful expansion of air freight capacity!

  So at this point I explained that my overall brief is, among other things, to achieve an overall cut in expenditure.

  ‘In that case,’ said Richard grimly, ‘there is only one possible course.’

  ‘Indeed there is,’ snapped Graham.

  ‘And there can be no doubt what it is,’ Piers added in an icy tone.


  They all eyed each other, and me. I was stuck. Sir Humphrey came to the rescue.

  ‘Good,’ he said with a cheerful smile, ‘I always like to end a meeting on a note of agreement. Thank you, gentlemen.’

  And they filed out.

  The meeting is the sort that would be described in a communiqué as ‘frank’. Or even ‘frank, bordering on direct’, which means that the cleaners have to mop up the blood in the morning.

  SIR BERNARD WOOLLEY RECALLS:[51]

  The Minister found his meeting with the three Under-Secretaries confusing. This was because of his failure to understand the role of the Civil Service in making policy.

  The three Under-Secretaries whom we met that morning were, in effect, counsel briefed by the various transport interests to resist any aspects of government policy that might have been unfavourable to their clients.

  This is how the Civil Service in the 1980s actually worked in practice. In fact, all government departments — which in theory collectively represented the government to the outside world — in fact lobbied the government on behalf of their own client pressure group. In other words, each Department of State was actually controlled by the people whom it was supposed to be controlling.

  Why — for instance — had we got comprehensive education throughout the UK? Who wanted it? The pupils? The parents? Not particularly.

  The actual pressure came from the National Union of Teachers, who were the chief client of the DES.[52] So the DES went comprehensive.

  Every Department acted for the powerful sectional interest with whom it had a permanent relationship. The Department of Employment lobbied for the TUC, whereas the Department of Industry lobbied for the employers. It was actually rather a nice balance: Energy lobbied for the oil companies, Defence lobbied for the armed forces, the Home Office for the police, and so on.

  In effect, the system was designed to prevent the Cabinet from carrying out its policy. Well, somebody had to.

  Thus a national transport policy meant fighting the whole of the Civil Service, as well as the other vested interests.

  If I may just digress for a moment or two, this system of ‘checks and balances’, as the Americans would call it, makes nonsense of the oft-repeated criticism that the Civil Service was right wing. Or left wing. Or any other wing. The Department of Defence, whose clients were military, was — as you would expect — right wing. The DHSS, on the other hand, whose clients were the needy, the underprivileged and the social workers, was (predictably) left wing. Industry, looking after the Employers, was right wing — and Employment (looking after the unemployed, of course) was left wing. The Home Office was right wing, as its clients were the Police, the Prison Service and the Immigration chaps. And Education, as I’ve already remarked, was left wing.