The Complete Yes Minister

‘Good man,’ said Vic paternally. I don’t think he was being ironic, but you can never tell with Vic.

September 10th

Annie had spent the latter part of the week in the constituency, so I wasn’t able to get her advice on my meeting with Vic until this weekend.

Not that I really needed advice. By today it was quite clear to me what I had to do. I explained to Annie over a nightcap of Scotch and water.

‘On balance I thought the right thing was to let sleeping dogs lie. In the wider interest. As a loyal member of the government. Nothing to be gained by opening a whole can of worms.’

She argued, of course. ‘But the Major said they were terrorists.’

I couldn’t blame her for taking such a naïve approach. After all, even I had made the same mistake till I’d thought it all through properly.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But we bombed Dresden. Everyone’s a terrorist in a way, aren’t they?’

‘No,’ she said firmly, and gave me a look which defied me to disagree with her.

I had overstated it a bit. ‘No, well, but metaphorically they are,’ I added. ‘You ought to meet the Chief Whip, he certainly is.’

Annie pursued me. She didn’t understand the wider interest, the more sophisticated level on which decisions like this have to be reached. ‘But someone in Britain is giving bombs to murderers,’ she reiterated.

‘Not giving,’ I corrected her. ‘Selling.’

‘That makes it okay, does it?’

I told her to be serious, and to think it through. I explained that an investigation could uncover all sorts of goings-on.

She wasn’t impressed with this argument.

‘Ah, I see,’ she smiled sadly. ‘It’s all right to investigate if you might catch one criminal, but not if you might catch lots of them.’

‘Not if they’re your Cabinet colleagues, that’s right!’ She’d got the point now. But she sighed and shook her head. Clearly, she had not yet taken my new line on board. So I persisted. I really wanted her to understand. And to agree.

‘Annie, Government is a very complex business. There are conflicting considerations.’

‘Like whether you do the right thing or the wrong thing?’

I was infuriated. I asked her what else she suggested that I could do. She told me to take a moral stand. I told her I’d already tried that. She told me I hadn’t tried hard enough. I asked what else I could do. She told me to threaten resignation. I told her that they’d accept it.

And once out of office there’s no going back. No one ever resigned on a matter of principle, except a few people with a death wish. Most resignations that are said to be based on principle are in reality based on hard-nosed political calculations.

‘Resignation might be a sop to my conscience and to yours,’ I explained, ‘but it won’t stop the arms supply to the terrorists.’

‘It might,’ she retorted, ‘if you threaten to tell what you know.’

I considered that for a moment. But, in fact, what do I know? I don’t know anything. At least, nothing I can prove. I’ve no hard facts at all. I know that the story is true simply because no one has denied it – but that’s not proof. I explained all this to Annie, adding that therefore I was in somewhat of a fix.

She saw the point. Then she handed me a letter. ‘I don’t think you realise just how big a fix you’re in. This arrived today. From Major Saunders.’

This letter is a catastrophe. Major Saunders can prove to the world that he told me about this scandal, and that I did nothing. And it is a photocopy – he definitely has the original.

And it arrived Recorded Delivery. So I can’t say I didn’t get it.

I’m trapped. Unless Humphrey or Bernard can think of a way out.

September 12th

Bernard thought of a way out, thank God!

At our meeting first thing on Monday morning he suggested the Rhodesia Solution.

Humphrey was thrilled. ‘Well done Bernard! You excel yourself. Of course, the Rhodesia Solution. Just the job, Minister.’

I didn’t know what they were talking about at first. So Sir Humphrey reminded me of the Rhodesia oil sanctions row. ‘What happened was that a member of the government had been told about the way in which British companies were sanction-busting.’

‘So what did he do?’ I asked anxiously.

‘He told the Prime Minister,’ said Bernard with a sly grin.

‘And what did the Prime Minister do?’ I wanted to know.

‘Ah,’ said Sir Humphrey. ‘The Minister in question told the Prime Minister in such a way that the Prime Minister didn’t hear him.’

I couldn’t think what he and Bernard could possibly mean. Was I supposed to mumble at the PM in the Division Lobby, or something?

They could see my confusion.

‘You write a note,’ said Humphrey.

‘In very faint pencil, or what? Do be practical, Humphrey.’

‘It’s awfully obvious, Minister. You write a note that is susceptible to misinterpretation.’

I began to see. Light was faintly visible at the end of the tunnel. But what sort of note?