The Complete Yes Minister

[It seems, from Sir Humphrey’s account, that he even wrote his private diary in such a way as to prevent it being used as evidence against him. But Peter Martell’s subsequent publication of the full details of the confidential note, only one day later, suggests that Sir Humphrey had carelessly left his own copy lying around – Ed.]

August 22nd

Humphrey did his job well. The full disclosure of my seven-point plan for the Prime Minister’s constituency appeared in The Times on Saturday. I must say I had a jolly good laugh about it. By 10.30 a.m. I’d received the expected summons for a chat with Sir Mark Spencer at Number Ten. (The PM’s still abroad.)

I went this morning, and M.S. came straight to the point.

‘I thought I ought to tell you that the PM isn’t very pleased.’ He waved Saturday’s Times at me. ‘This story.’

I agreed with him heartily. ‘Yes, absolutely shocking. I wasn’t pleased either.’

‘There’s obviously been a leak,’ he murmured, eyeing me.

‘Terrible. Can’t trust any of my Cabinet colleagues nowadays.’

This wholehearted agreement threw him momentarily off guard, I think. ‘Who are you saying it was?’ he asked.

I lowered my voice and explained that I wouldn’t want to name names, but as for one or two of my Cabinet colleagues . . . well! I left it at that. Looks speak louder than words sometimes.

He didn’t want to leave it there. ‘But what are you suggesting?’

I immediately backtracked. I was enjoying myself hugely. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it may not have been one of them, of course. I did send the paper here to Number Ten – could there be a leak here somewhere, do you think?’

Sir M. was not amused. ‘The PM’s office does not leak.’

‘Of course not,’ I said quickly. ‘Perish the thought.’

We all leak of course. That’s what the lobby correspondents are there for. However, we all prefer to call it ‘flying a kite.’

Sir Mark continued. ‘It wasn’t only the fact of the leak that was disturbing. It was the implications of the proposals.’

I agreed that the implications were indeed disturbing, which was why I had written a special paper for the PM. National transport policies are bound to have disturbing implications. He disagreed. He insisted that the Transport Policy will not have such implications.

‘It will,’ I said.

‘It won’t,’ he said. Such is the intellectual cut and thrust to be found at the centre of government.

‘Didn’t you read what it said?’ I asked.

‘What it said is not what it will be,’ he replied very firmly. ‘I thought perhaps you’d like to see this.’ And he handed me a newspaper, one of the London suburban weeklies.

It was the local paper from the PM’s constituency.

This was certainly news to me.

‘I’ve had no directive from the PM,’ I said.

‘You have now.’ What a curious way to get a directive from the PM. ‘I’m afraid this leak, whoever it comes from, is a verbatim report of a confidential minute dictated by the Prime Minister in Ottawa. So it looks as though the national transport policy will need some rethinking, doesn’t it?’

This leak was a skilful counter-move by the PM. I started to explain to Sir Mark that rethinking the policy would be difficult, but he interrupted me unceremoniously.

‘I think the PM’s view is that Ministers are there to do difficult jobs. Assuming that they wish to remain as Ministers.’

Tough talk. I got the message.

I hastened to assure him that if the policy needed rethinking then I would rethink it until it was well and truly rethought.

Before I left I asked him how the leak had got into the paper. The PM’s own local paper. He assured me that he had no idea, but that the PM’s office does not leak.

‘Shocking, though, isn’t it?’ he added. ‘You can’t trust anyone nowadays.’

August 23rd

Another meeting with Humphrey. We appeared to be back to square one.

I was somewhat downcast, as I still appeared to be landed with this ghastly job. To my surprise Humphrey was in good spirits.

‘It’s all going excellently, Minister,’ he explained. ‘We shall now produce the other kind of non-proposal.’

I asked him what he had in mind.

‘The high-cost high-staff kind of proposal. We now suggest a British National Transport Authority, with a full structure of Regional Boards, Area Councils, local offices, liaison committees – the lot. Eighty thousand staff, and a billion pounds a year budget.’

‘The Treasury will have a fit,’ I said.

‘Precisely. And the whole matter will certainly be handed back to the Department of Transport.’

I was entranced. I asked him to do me a paper with full staff and costing details and a specimen annual budget.