The Complete Yes Minister

I went with Councillor Brian Wilkinson, Chairman of the local authority’s Arts and Leisure Committee and by trade an electrician’s mate at the Sewage Farm, and Harry Sutton, the Chairman of the Wanderers, a local balding businessman who’s done rather well on what he calls ‘import and export’. Both party stalwarts.

Afterwards they invited me into the Boardroom for a noggin. I accepted enthusiastically, feeling the need for a little instant warmth after braving the elements in the Directors’ Box for nearly two hours.

I thanked Harry for the drink and the afternoon’s entertainment.

‘Better enjoy it while the club’s still here,’ he replied darkly.

I remarked that we’d always survived so far.

‘It’s different this time,’ said Brian Wilkinson.

I realised that the invitation was not purely social. I composed myself and waited. Sure enough, something was afoot. Harry stared at Brian and said, ‘You’d better tell him.’ Wilkinson threw a handful of peanuts into his mouth, mixed in some Scotch, and told me.

‘I’ll not mince words. We had an emergency meeting of the Finance Committee last night, Aston Wanderers is going to have to call in the receiver.’

‘Bankruptcy?’ I was shocked. I mean, I knew that football clubs were generally in trouble, but this really caught me unawares.

Harry nodded. ‘The final whistle. We need one and a half million quid, Jim.’

‘Peanuts,’ said Brian.

‘No thank you,’ I said, and then realised that he was describing the sum of one and a half million pounds.

‘Government wastes that much money every thirty seconds,’ Brian added.

As a member of the government, I felt forced to defend our record. ‘We do keep stringent control on expenditure.’

It seemed the wrong thing to say. They both nodded, and agreed that our financial control was so stringent that perhaps it was lack of funds for the fare which had prevented my appearance at King Edward’s School prize-giving. I explained – thinking fast – that I’d had to answer Questions in the House that afternoon.

‘Your secretary said you had some committee meeting.’

Maybe I did. I can’t really remember that kind of trivial detail. Another bad move. Harry said, ‘You know what people round here are saying? That it’s a dead loss having a Cabinet Minister for an MP. Better off with a local lad who’s got time for his constituency.’

The usual complaint. It’s so unfair! I can’t be in six places at once, nobody can. But I didn’t get angry. I just laughed it off and said it was an absurd thing to say.

Brian asked why.

‘There are great advantages to having your MP in the Cabinet,’ I told him.

‘Funny we haven’t noticed them, have we, Harry?’

Harry Sutton shook his head. ‘Such as?’

‘Well . . .’ And I sighed. They always do this to you in your constituency, they feel they have to cut you down to size, to stop you getting too big for your boots, to remind you that you need them to re-elect you.

‘It reflects well on the constituency,’ I explained. ‘And it’s good to have powerful friends. Influence in high places. A friend in need.’

Harry nodded. ‘Well, listen ’ere, friend – what we need is one and a half million quid.’

I had never imagined that they thought I could solve their financial problems. Was that what they thought, I wondered? So I nodded non-committally and waited.

‘So will you use all that influence to help us?’ asked Harry.

Clearly I had to explain the facts of life to them. But I had to do it with tact and diplomacy. And without undermining my own position.

‘You see,’ I began carefully, ‘when I said influence I meant the more, er, intangible sort. The indefinable, subtle value of an input into broad policy with the constituency’s interest in mind.’

Harry was confused. ‘You mean no?’

I explained that anything I can do in a general sense to further the cause I would certainly do. If I could. But it’s scarcely possible for me to pump one and a half million into my local football club.

Harry turned to Brian. ‘He means no.’

Brian Wilkinson helped himself to another handful of peanuts. How does he stay so thin? He addressed me through the newest mouthful, a little indistinctly.

‘There’d be a lot of votes in it. All the kids coming up to eighteen, too. You’d be the hero of the constituency. Jim Hacker, the man who saved Aston Wanderers. Safe seat for life.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘That might just strike the press too. And the opposition. And the judge.’

They stared at me, half-disconsolately, half-distrustfully. Where, they were wondering, was all that power that I’d been so rashly talking about a few minutes earlier? Of course the truth is that, at the end of the day, I do indeed have power (of a sort) but not to really do anything. Though I can’t expect them to understand that.

Harry seemed to think that I hadn’t quite grasped the point. ‘Jim,’ he explained slowly, ‘if the club goes to the wall it’ll be a disaster. Look at our history.’

We all looked sadly around the room, which was lined with trophies, pennants, photos.