The Complete Yes Minister

Her pencil was poised expectantly above her lined exercise book. I realised that some explanation was called for.

‘Well,’ I began, ‘you see, it’s difficult to know where to start. So much of government is collective decisions, all of us together, the best minds in the country hammering it out.’

She seemed dissatisfied with my explanation.

‘Yes,’ she said doubtfully, ‘but what is it you’ll look back on afterwards and say “I did that”? You know, like a writer can look at his books.’

Persistent little blighter.

I started to explain the facts of political life. ‘Yes, well, politics is a complex business, Cathy.’ I was careful to use her name again. ‘Lots of people have to have their say. Things take time. Rome wasn’t built in a day.’

As I looked at her face, I could see an air of disappointment written across it. [In view of the insight that Hacker’s frequently mixed metaphors give us into the clouded state of his mind, we have retained them unless clarity is threatened – Ed.] I began to feel slightly disappointed with myself. I realised that I could not give a proper answer to her question. I also began to feel more than a little irritated that this wretched child should have produced these feelings of inadequacy in me. Enough was enough. It was time to bring the interview to an end.

I pointed out that time was flying, and that I still had to do my boxes. I hustled her out, emphasising how much I’d enjoyed our little talk, and reminding her that she had agreed to let me approve the article before it was printed.

I returned and sat down heavily in my favourite fireside armchair. I was feeling very brought down.

‘Bright kid,’ commented Annie.

‘That’s the last time I ever give an interview to a school magazine,’ I responded. ‘She asked me some very difficult questions.’

‘They weren’t difficult,’ said Annie firmly. ‘Just innocent. She was assuming that there is some moral basis to your activities.’

I was puzzled. ‘But there is,’ I replied.

Annie laughed. ‘Oh Jim, don’t be silly.’

I wasn’t amused. I gazed gloomily into the carefully arranged embers of the artificial gas log fire.

‘What are you sighing for?’ Annie asked.

I tried to explain.

‘What have I achieved?’ I asked. ‘Cathy was right.’

Annie suggested that, since Cathy and I had agreed I had all that power, I should go and achieve something forthwith. She will persist in making these silly suggestions.

‘You know I’m only a Cabinet Minister,’ I snapped.

Annie smiled. ‘It really does make you humble.’

My humility is not in question, and never has been. The point is that I can’t change anything in the foreseeable future. Changing things means getting bills through Parliament, and all the time’s been taken up for the next two years.

Annie was unimpressed.

‘Why don’t you reform the Civil Service?’ she suggested.

She makes it sound like one simple little task instead of a lifetime of dedicated carnage. Which reforms in particular did she have in mind, I wondered? Anyway, any real reform of the Civil Service is impossible, as I explained to her.

‘Suppose I thought up fifty terrific reforms. Who will have to implement them?’

She saw the point at once. ‘The Civil Service,’ we said in unison, and she nodded sympathetically. But Annie doesn’t give up easily.

‘All right,’ she suggested, ‘not fifty reforms. Just one.’

‘One?’

‘If you achieve one important reform of the Civil Service – that would be something.’

Something? It would get into the Guinness Book of Records. I asked her what she was proposing.

‘Make them put more women in top civil servants’ jobs. Women are half the population. Why shouldn’t they be half the Permanent Secretaries? How many women are there at the top?’

I tried to think. Certainly not many. I’d hardly come across any.

‘Equal opportunities,’ I said. I liked the sound it made. It has a good ring to it, that phrase. ‘I’ll have a go,’ I said. ‘Why not? There’s a principle at stake.’

Annie was delighted. ‘You mean you’re going to do something out of pure principle?’

I nodded.

‘Oh Jim,’ she said, with real love and admiration in her voice.

‘Principles,’ I added, ‘are excellent vote-winners.’

Shortly afterwards, Annie developed a headache and went to bed unusually early. I wanted to pursue the conversation with her but she seemed to have lost interest. Odd, that!

October 25th

Today I learned a thing or two about equal opportunities, or the lack of them, in the Civil Service.

Quite coincidentally I had a meeting with Sarah Harrison, who is the only woman Under-Secretary in the DAA.

Sarah really is a splendid person. Very attractive, intelligent, and about thirty-nine or forty years old, which is pretty young for an Under-Sec. She has a brisk and – I suppose – slightly masculine approach to meetings and so forth, but seems to be jolly attractive and feminine in spite of all that.