The Complete Yes Minister

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.

You may ask: What were we at the DAA? In fact, we were neither right nor left. Our main client was the Civil Service itself, and therefore our real interest was in defending the Civil Service against the Government.

Strict constitutional theory holds that the Civil Service should be committed to carrying out the Government’s wishes. And so it was, as long as the Government’s wishes were practicable. By which we meant, as long as we thought they were practicable. After all, how else can you judge?

[Hacker’s diary continues – Ed.]

August 19th

Today Humphrey and I discussed Wednesday’s meeting.

And it was now clear to me that I had to get out of the commitment that I had made. Quite clearly, Transport Supremo is a title that’s not worth having.

I said to Humphrey that we had to find a way to force the PM’s hand.

‘Do you mean “we” plural – or do Supremos now use the royal pronoun?’

He was gloating. So I put the issue to him fair and square. I explained that I meant both of us, unless he wanted the DAA to be stuck with this problem.

As Humphrey clearly had no idea at all how to force the PM’s hand, I told him how it’s done. If you have to go for a politician’s jugular, go for his constituency.

I told Bernard to get me a map and the local municipal directory of the PM’s constituency.

Humphrey was looking puzzled. He couldn’t see what I was proposing to do. But I had to put it to him in acceptably euphemistic language. ‘Humphrey,’ I said, ‘I need your advice. Is it possible that implementing a national transport policy could have unfortunate local repercussions? Necessary, of course, in the wider national interest but painful to the borough affected!’

He caught on at once. ‘Ah. Yes indeed, Minister,’ he replied. ‘Inevitable, in fact.’ And he brightened up considerably.

‘And if the affected borough was represented in the House by a senior member of the government – a very senior member of the government – the most senior member of the government . . .?’

Humphrey nodded gravely. ‘Embarrassing,’ he murmured. ‘Deeply embarrasing.’ But his eyes were gleaming.

In due course Bernard obtained the street map of the PM’s constituency, and a street directory, and he found a relevant section in the business guide too. Once we studied the map, it was all plain sailing!

First we found a park. Humphrey noticed that it was near the railway station, and reminded me that one requirement of a national transport policy is to bring bus stations nearer to railway stations.

So, with deep regret, I made my first recommendation: Build a bus station on Queen Charlotte’s Park. Someone has to suffer in the national interest, alas!

Second, we found a reference to a big bus repair shop, in the street directory. It seemed to us that it would be more economical to integrate bus and train repairs. There would undoubtedly be a great saving. So our second recommendation was Close the bus repair shop.

Then it struck me that the PM’s constituency is in commuter country. And we know, of course, that commuter trains run at a loss. They are only really used at rush hours. This means that commuters are, in effect, subsidised.

‘Is this fair?’ I asked Humphrey. He agreed that this was indeed an injustice to non-commuters. So we made our third recommendation: Commuters to pay full economic fares.

Sadly this will double the price of commuter tickets, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.⁶