The Complete Yes Minister

This remark proved to be a tactical error. ‘Oh no?’ she enquired acidly. ‘Mr Rhodes says that he gave these figures and proposed this change when he was in your Department, and it was turned down on the grounds that people were used to the existing procedure. How’s that for a rigid bureaucracy?’

I’d led with my chin there. I really had no defence immediately available to me. Again I offered to have the matter looked into.

‘Looked into?’ she smiled at me contemptuously.

‘Looked into, yes,’ I asserted defiantly, but I was losing my nerve.

‘You did say in Washington last week that your Department conducted a ruthless war on waste and could teach the world a lesson?’ I nodded. She went for the kill. ‘How would you reconcile that with spending seventy-five thousand pounds on a roof garden on top of the supplementary benefits office in Kettering?’

I was speechless.

She asked me, with heavy sarcasm, if I proposed to have it looked into. Now I was on the ropes. I started to explain that my responsibility is for policy rather than for detailed administration (which isn’t true) and was saved by the bell in the form of Alan Hughes, a more friendly committee member [i.e. a committee member hoping for office in the government, or some other special favour – Ed.].

Alan intervened and said: ‘Mr Chairman, I think that the Permanent Secretary to the DAA is due to appear before us next week. Would he not be the appropriate person to answer these questions?’

The Chairman agreed, asked that Sir Humphrey be notified in advance. The wretched galley proofs were taken from Mrs Oldham to be shown to him.

October 6th

The headlines weren’t good today.

Humphrey and I met to discuss the matter. To my astonishment he attacked me. ‘Minister,’ he said, ‘you have placed me in a very difficult position.’

I was outraged. ‘And what about the position you put me in? Here’s the Prime Minister asking for economies right, left and centre, and I look as if I’m wasting everything that everyone else has saved.’

Humphrey looked at me as if I were mad. ‘Minister, no one else has saved anything! You should know that by now.’

I knew that, and he knew that, and he knew I knew that, but the public doesn’t know that. ‘They all look as if they have,’ I reminded him.

‘Couldn’t you have stalled a bit more effectively?’ he complained.

‘What do you mean, stalled?’ I was deeply indignant.

‘Blurred things a bit. You’re normally so good at blurring the issue.’

If this was meant to be a compliment it certainly didn’t sound like one. But apparently that’s how it was intended.

‘You have a considerable talent for making things unintelligible, Minister.’ My mouth must have dropped open, for he continued, ‘I mean it as a compliment, I assure you. Blurring issues is one of the basic ministerial skills.’

‘Pray tell me the others,’ I replied coldly.

Without hesitation he gave me a list. ‘Delaying decisions, dodging questions, juggling figures, bending facts and concealing errors.’

He’s quite right, as a matter of fact. But I didn’t see what else he could have expected me to do yesterday.

‘Couldn’t you have made it look as though you were doing something, and then done nothing? Like you usually do?’

I ignored that remark and tried to get at the facts. ‘Humphrey,’ I began, ‘if these revelations are true . . .’

He interrrupted rapidly. ‘If. Exactly! If! You could, for instance, have discussed the nature of truth.’

Now it was my turn to explain a thing or two. ‘The Select Committee couldn’t be less interested in the nature of truth – they’re all MPs.’

‘You should have said it was a security matter,’ said Humphrey, falling back on the usual first line of defence.

Completely idiotic! I asked him how HB pencils could be a security matter.

‘It depends what you write with them,’ he offered. Pathetic. He can’t really think I’d have got away with that.

‘And why on earth are we building roof gardens on offices?’ I asked.

‘We took over the office design from an American company that was going to occupy it. It just happened that nobody noticed the roof garden on the plans.’

I simply stared at him, incredulously.

‘A tiny mistake,’ he was defiant. ‘The sort anyone could make.’

‘Tiny?’ I could hardly believe my ears. ‘Tiny? Seventy-five thousand pounds. Give me an example of a big mistake.’

‘Letting people find out about it.’

Then I asked him why we are heating sheds full of wire.

‘Do you want the truth?’ he asked.

I was taken aback. It’s the first time he’s ever asked me that. ‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ I replied with magnificent condescension.

‘All the staff,’ he said, ‘use these sheds for growing mushrooms.’

I didn’t even know where to begin. So I kept it simple. ‘Stop them,’ I ordered.

He shook his head sadly, and sighed a heartfelt sigh. ‘But they’ve been doing it since 1945. It’s almost the only perk of a very boring job.’