Everyone was determined to make these final eight episodes as special as possible. This was not just a job. It was a precious part of their lives, something they all loved, something that made them proud, and, as collaborators, as friends, on both sides of the camera, they wanted to savour every moment together, right through to the very end.
The research and the preparation were as detailed and diligent as usual, but there was an extra little touch here and there as the team looked for ways to give the production one final polish. Jay and Lynn had packed the scripts with plenty of pertinent themes (including secrecy, censorship, diplomatic tensions, crises in education and the arts, political leaks, Cabinet infighting, local government issues and scandals in the City), and Sydney Lotterby had ensured that everything from the size and accuracy of the sets to the intensity and quality of the rehearsals was even better than the previous series (he even had the everyday sounds around Whitehall and Number Ten, including the chimes of Big Ben, recorded to provide a very faint ambient soundtrack for when the Cabinet Room was shown).
The new series began on Thursday, 3 December 1987 in its usual slot: 9 p.m. on BBC2. The front-page news that morning had included reports of a former Prime Minister (Edward Heath) criticising the current Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher).18 It seemed an apt sign. The time was just right for Yes, Prime Minister to make its return.
It would show Hacker to be a more frustrated and disillusioned figure than before, his dream of realising his ‘Grand Design’ long since dashed and his sense of purpose greatly diminished. Gone was the would-be ‘headmaster of the nation’; what was left was more of a glorified relief teacher, always wondering how, in the parlance of past PMs, ‘to make angles into curves’.19 Surrounded by order-paper-waving sycophants in the spotlight of the Commons (including ‘the ones hoping to be promoted’ and ‘the ones afraid of being sacked’20) and stalked by rivals in all kinds of shadowy places outside of the lower chamber, he now seems to have realised, belatedly, that he is playing a leading role that has been cruelly underwritten:
HACKER:
When I became Prime Minister I thought I was going to have power. And what have I got? I’ve got influence, that’s all. I’ve got no power over the police, the rates, EEC directives, the European courts, our courts, the judges, NATO … What have I got the power to do?21
His Cabinet Secretary’s answer to that question will be bleak: he should simply be grateful for what he already has, which is ‘responsibility without power – the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages’.22 His Party Chairman’s answer will, if anything, be even bleaker: ‘You have the power to lose us the next election’.23
He is the one goldfish in the goldfish bowl, swimming round in circles open-mouthed, occasionally bumping his head on the glass as he seeks an escape from the dull routine. His mind is no longer preoccupied with the pull of destiny; it is, from now on, consumed by the prosaic details that dog him from day to day.
Sir Humphrey, meanwhile, is his usual dominant and Delphic self, moving around Whitehall as he sees fit, as fluid as Hacker is fixed, making sure that he maintains a panoptic view of all that happens within the political system as a whole. ‘I need to know everything,’ he stresses. ‘How else can I judge whether or not I need to know it?’24
It is Bernard Woolley who will seem the most different in this series. He is still naive (HACKER: ‘Say that it’s a pack of lies.’ WOOLLEY: ‘Yes, but, the thing is, it is, sort of, true.’ HACKER: ‘Oh shut up!’25), still pointlessly picky (‘I’m sorry to be pedantic, but if you nail a leak you make another’26), still addicted to childish puns (SIR HUMPHREY: ‘It was nicked. By two of last year’s pupils.’ WOOLLEY: ‘A pair of nickers’27), and still woolly (WOOLLEY: ‘Do you know what my problem is?’ SIR HUMPHREY: ‘Your problem, Bernard, is that you don’t ever come to the point!’28), but, as he bosses around various underlings in the Prime Minister’s Office, he is also shown to be busier than ever, a little more confident, slightly more outspoken and even, when the occasion seems to warrant it, more likely to show some real initiative. While Hacker and Sir Humphrey are therefore merely trying to maintain their status at the top, Woolley, at last, is showing signs of being ready to shin further up the greasy pole.
The predicament of Hacker, however, remains the main focus of this series. Suspicious of Whitehall, suspicious of Westminster, he now belongs to no one and everyone, a solitary leader facing up to an uncertain future.
The first episode, called ‘Man Overboard’, captured this climate of chronic insecurity extremely well by showing Hacker sitting on his own inside the Cabinet Room, worrying about a possible challenge to his leadership. As usual, his anxiety has been artfully exacerbated by Sir Humphrey.
It all stems from a proposal by the Employment Secretary to relocate a proportion of Britain’s armed services personnel from the south to the north of England. Hacker thinks that it is a splendidly sensible idea. There is currently little or no logic, he notes, in the concentration of so much of the armed forces – about four hundred thousand personnel – in the south when there are only twenty thousand in the north. ‘The Admiralty Ships Division needs a deep-water port,’ he says sarcastically, ‘so that has to be at Bath – thirty miles inland! The job of the Marines is to defend Norway so we station them at Plymouth! Armoured vehicle trials take place in Scotland so the military engineering establishment clearly has to be in Surrey!’
Even Sir Humphrey, in private, considers it ‘a very reasonable plan’, but his colleagues at the Ministry of Defence are horrified by it. Besides bossing the Department around and ignoring its own inscrutable ‘strategy’, it will also, they moan, undermine morale among the top brass: the senior officers and their wives, stuck permanently ‘up north’, will be denied regular access to such staples of ‘civilisation’ as Wimbledon, Ascot, Henley, the Army & Navy Club and Harrods. It is all, they insist, quite intolerable.
Sir Humphrey sympathises with his metropolitan-minded associates, but he realises that it would be foolish to attack the plan, so he elects to attack the man instead. The Employment Secretary is the one responsible for the idea, so, if the paranoid Prime Minister was to have reason to question the motives behind it, he might well be inclined abruptly to withdraw his support.
Sir Humphrey duly sets to work. All he needs to do is stand patiently and silently as Hacker defends the plan against whatever objections he imagines Whitehall will make, and then, at the moment the Prime Minister praises the Employment Secretary for suggesting it, pull up a chair, sit down and agree wholeheartedly about what a ‘good chap’ the Minister is:
SIR HUMPHREY:
He’s absolutely brilliant. A superb intellect. Strong footwork. Excellent elbows. Oh, a major figure without a doubt.
HACKER:
[Sounding slightly jealous] He’s not that good!
SIR HUMPHREY:
But he is a good chap, wouldn’t you say?
HACKER:
Well, yes, I just said so.
SIR HUMPHREY:
Oh, yes, indeed. Very popular.
HACKER:
[Looking slightly concerned] Is he?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Oh, yes!
HACKER:
Not as popular as that, surely?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Oh, yes. In Whitehall. And with the Parliamentary Party, I understand.
HACKER:
Ah, with the Parliamentary Party, I suppose, yes.
SIR HUMPHREY:
And with the grass roots, so I’m told.
HACKER:
Are you?
SIR HUMPHREY:
And he has quite a following in Cabinet, too, doesn’t he?
HACKER:
[His expression growing grim] Does he?
SIR HUMPHREY:
In fact, people are beginning to talk about him as the next Prime Minister.
HACKER:
Wha-What do you mean??
SIR HUMPHREY:
Oh, I mean wh
en you decide to retire.
HACKER:
I’m not going to retire! I’ve only just got here!
Sir Humphrey, smiling brightly, rises to his feet and prepares to leave, but Hacker now is hooked:
HACKER:
Why should people be talking about the next Prime Minister?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Oh, I’m sure it’s just general speculation, Prime Minister.
HACKER:
Does he want to be Prime Minister?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Well, even if he does, surely you’ve got no reason to suspect his loyalty? I mean, he isn’t planning to build up a personal following or anything. Is he?
HACKER:
Isn’t he?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Is he?
Hacker is well and truly rattled. He studies the Employment Secretary’s most recent speeches and is angered when he cannot find any positive remarks about his leadership. This, and the amount of time he spends chatting up backbenchers in the tea room, and the number of them he invites to his home for cosy dinner parties, now strikes Hacker as ‘bloody suspicious’.
The seed that Sir Humphrey has planted then receives more than enough nourishment with which to grow when Hacker summons his Chief Whip. This supposedly omniscient official, unwilling to admit that he has absolutely no idea what his Prime Minister is talking about, is sucked into the speculation:
HACKER:
[Coldly] How are things going, Chief Whip?
CHIEF WHIP:
[Suspiciously] Er, quite well, really. Why?
HACKER:
You’ve noticed nothing?
CHIEF WHIP:
Well … It’s a difficult time … bit of unrest on the backbenches. But what, er, did you have in mind, er, precisely?
HACKER:
A plot! A leadership challenge!
CHIEF WHIP:
[Trying to hide his surprise] Ah. Yes. Well, actually, I have no real evidence of anything.
HACKER:
But you have suspicions?
CHIEF WHIP:
Oh, I always have suspicions!
HACKER:
How far has it gone?
CHIEF WHIP:
Only a very … um … ah … very … um … ah …
WOOLLEY:
Early stage?
CHIEF WHIP:
Early stage. As far as one can tell.
HACKER:
Do you think you ought to have a word with him? Tell him I know what’s going on? I don’t want to lose him from the Cabinet, I just want him under control.
CHIEF WHIP:
Perhaps, er, you should have a word with him yourself?
HACKER:
No, no, no, not at this stage. Who else is involved?
CHIEF WHIP:
Apart from …?
HACKER:
Apart from Dudley, obviously.
CHIEF WHIP:
[Startled] Dudley?? [Recovers composure] Yes, of course, apart from Dudley. Well … apart from Dudley, well, it’s, um, it’s a bit early to say. I-I mean, there may be nothing in it.
HACKER:
Geoffrey, I’m not taking any risks!
CHIEF WHIP:
No, absolutely not! Now I’ll go and make a few more enquiries!
Sir Humphrey now cranks up the intensity of the situation by leaking to the press certain ‘confidential disinformation’ which suggests that the Prime Minister is blocking his Employment Secretary’s plan. Upon seeing this on the front page of his newspaper, Hacker is convinced that it has been planted there by his supposed ‘rival’ to make him look bad, and he retaliates by leaking his own information (conveniently supplied by the MOD via Sir Humphrey) that outlines all of the possible problems with the plan.
The Employment Secretary, confused and angered by this apparent betrayal, promptly resigns from the Government in protest (accusing the Prime Minister of being ‘dictatorial’ and of running ‘a presidential-style Government’). Hacker is thus relieved to have defeated his rival (and rather flattered by the claims that he is ‘dictatorial’ and ‘presidential’), and Sir Humphrey is pleased to have thwarted his plan.
There is, however, one more twist in this tale. Sir Humphrey moves to ensure that Hacker harbours no doubts about his decision by revealing that, as far as he understands it, the Employment Secretary had already been planning to resign, on Budget Day, over a lack of sufficient funds for him to deal with the problem of unemployment. Hacker agrees that, in that case, it was quite right to force him out.
Feeling that his job is done, Sir Humphrey is happy to indulge the Prime Minister, congratulating him on his ‘brilliant’ and strong leadership. Hacker, however, once he has dictated a suitably triumphant-sounding press release, startles Sir Humphrey by suddenly swerving off-piste:
HACKER:
Hold on, I’ve got an idea!
SIR HUMPHREY:
Prime Minister!
HACKER:
Now that the Employment Secretary is gone, we could reinstate the plan!
SIR HUMPHREY:
[Stunned] But …
HACKER:
Don’t you see? I could press on with it now! And it won’t look like weakness, it’ll look like strength!
SIR HUMPHREY:
But the whole point was––
HACKER:
Was what? It wasn’t to stop the plan, surely?
SIR HUMPHREY:
No, no, no … It was to, um, establish your authority.
HACKER:
Exactly! And I’ve done that. So if we recreate the plan it will show that I wasn’t against it and that Dudley’s resignation was pointless! Right?
[Sir Humphrey is so angry and confused he is struggling to speak]
HACKER:
Put it top of the agenda for the next Cabinet. Okay?
SIR HUMPHREY:
… Yes, Prime Minister.
Having restored the familiar see-sawing struggle between Hacker and Sir Humphrey with this entertaining opening episode, the series could move on to resume its exploration of the system as a whole, keeping sight of the big picture as it delved into the most telling details. The spirit of Richard Crossman, in particular, would seem to haunt many of these episodes, almost as if the writers had returned to their original inspiration in order to refresh the clarity of their critique, cutting through all of the superficial issues to remind people of the most essential dynamics of power.
There was even an early nod and a wink as to how this classic source had first crept into the public consciousness. Just as the news of the plan to publish the first volume of Crossman’s diaries had caused consternation in the Cabinet Office during the mid-1970s (with the Cabinet Secretary of the time, Sir John Hunt, warning his colleagues that allowing it to reach the public domain ‘would bring the whole system into disrepute’, and the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, raging at the damning depiction of him as a master of tactics with no idea of strategy29), so the news (in episode two) that Hacker’s predecessor is preparing his own volume of memoirs prompts Sir Humphrey and Hacker to worry about its possible revelations. While the book featured in the sitcom fails to end up in print (thanks to the premature death of its author), many of the insights that did end up being published in Crossman’s three volumes are gleefully reprised in this set of storylines.
In both the first and the second episodes, for example, the old Crossman idea of the Civil Service in general, and the Cabinet Secretariat in particular, as the ‘keeper of the muniments’ was illustrated, more directly and in greater detail than ever before, via a compelling two-part masterclass from Sir Humphrey. Part one of the demonstration occurs during a Cabinet meeting when Hacker’s soon-to-be ousted Employment Secretary, furious about the fate of his plan, protests (quite rightly) that the Prime Minister had promised in the previous session that it would be given further discussion.
Sir Humphrey intervenes here to show how much control he has as the master of the minutes:
SIR HUMPHR
EY:
There was no such promise, and the Prime Minister did not support the proposal. If he had, it would appear in the minutes. And it doesn’t.
MINISTER:
Doesn’t it? Prime Minister, why was my request for a further discussion, and your reply, not minuted?
HACKER:
Er, I …
SIR HUMPHREY:
It is characteristic of all committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection of them and that every member’s recollection of them differs violently from every other member’s recollection. Consequently, we accept the convention that the official decisions are those, and only those, which have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials, from which it emerges with an elegant inevitability that any decision which has been officially reached will have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials, and any decision which is not recorded in the minutes has not been officially reached – even if one or more members believe they can recollect it. So, in this particular case, if the decision had been officially reached, it would have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials. And it isn’t, so it wasn’t.
A Very Courageous Decision Page 31