The Complete Yes Minister

I was rather surprised to receive a telephone call from Sir Humphrey Appleby about it, asking what – precisely – our political master was up to.

Rather tactlessly I asked him how he found out about it, and was instantly reprimanded. ‘Not from you, Bernard, an omission you may perhaps like to explain.’

He asked for a memo. I sent him one, describing the situation and concluding with my opinion that it would be a very popular move that the local people would support. I received a stern reply, which I have always kept. It is an excellent guideline for all policy matters connected with the Arts.

[Hacker’s diary continues – Ed.]

September 29th

Bernard slipped an extra meeting with Sir Humphrey into my diary, first thing this morning.

My Permanent Secretary wanted to warn me personally that there is a reshuffle in the offing.

Naturally this made me a little nervous, as I wasn’t sure if he was dropping an early hint about my being dropped. This was not just paranoia on my part, because I still don’t know whether my deal with the Chief Whip on the matter of the bomb detonators has redounded to my credit or debit as far as the PM is concerned.

But Humphrey made it quickly clear that he was actually talking about a departmental reorganisation – what he called ‘a real reshuffle’. He was warning me that we may be given extra responsibilities.

God knows if we want them! I certainly feel that I’ve got quite enough on my plate. But Humphrey was in no doubt that it would be a definite plus.

‘We want all responsibilities, so long as they mean extra staff and bigger budgets. It is the breadth of our responsibilities that makes us important – makes you important, Minister. If you want to see vast buildings, huge staff and massive budgets, what do you conclude?’

‘Bureaucracy,’ I said.

Apparently I’d missed the point. ‘No, Minister, you conclude that at the summit there must be men of great stature and dignity who hold the world in their hands and tread the earth like princes.’

I could certainly see his point, put like that.

‘So that is the reason,’ Humphrey continued, ‘why every new responsibility must be seized and every old one guarded jealously. Entirely in your interest of course, Minister.’

A real overdose of soft soap. In my interest perhaps, but certainly not entirely in my interest. He must think I was born yesterday.

I thanked him for the information and courteously dismissed him. I can really see through him nowadays.

As he was leaving he enquired about the Corn Exchange Art Gallery proposal. I was surprised he’d heard about it as it’s not a matter for central government.

To my surprise he heaped abuse upon the scheme. ‘It’s a most imaginative idea. Very novel.’

I wondered what he’d got against it, and invited him to go on.

‘Well . . .’ He returned from the door to my desk, ‘I just wondered if it might not be a little unwise.’

I asked him why.

‘A valuable civic amenity,’ he replied.

I pointed out that it is a monstrosity.

He amended his view slightly. ‘A valuable civic monstrosity,’ he said, and added that it contained a most important collection of British paintings.

He’s obviously been misinformed. In fact, as I told him then and there, the collection is utterly unimportant. Third-rate nineteenth-century landscapes and a few modern paintings so awful that the Tate wouldn’t even store them in its vaults.

‘But an important representative collection of unimportant paintings,’ insisted Sir Humphrey, ‘and a great source of spiritual uplift to the passing citizenry.’

‘They never go in,’ I told him.

‘Ah, but they are comforted to know it’s there,’ he said.

I couldn’t see where this was leading, what it had to do with Humphrey Appleby, or how he could possibly have any views about this collection of paintings at all. He’s hardly ever been north of Potters Bar.

I took a stand on a principle. I reminded him that this is a constituency matter, that it concerns the Borough Council and me as constituency MP – not as Minister – and that it was nothing at all to do with him or Whitehall.

He pursed his lips and made no reply. So I asked him why he was interested. To my surprise he told me that it was a matter of principle.

This astonished me. Throughout our whole fight on the question of the bomb detonators he had insisted with religious fervour that principles were no concern of his. I reminded him of this.

‘Yes Minister.’ He conceded the point. ‘But principle is what you’ve always told me that government is all about.’

I was baffled. ‘What principle is at stake here?’

‘The principle of taking money away from the Arts and putting it into things like football. A football club is a commercial proposition. There is no cause for subsidising it if it runs out of money.’

He seemed to think that he had just made an irrefutable statement of fact.

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘Why not what?’