The Complete Yes Minister

We met in the Hospitality Room before the programme was recorded, and I tried to find out what angle he was taking. We were a little tense with each other, of course. [McKenzie used to call the Hospitality Room the Hostility Room – Ed.]

‘We are going to talk about cutting government extravagance and that sort of thing, aren’t we?’ I asked, and immediately realised that I had phrased that rather badly.

Bob McKenzie was amused. ‘You want to talk about the government’s extravagance?’ he said with a twinkle in his eye.

‘About the ways in which I’m cutting it down, I mean,’ I said firmly.

‘We’ll get to that if we have time after the National Data Base,’ he said.

I tried to persuade him that people weren’t interested in the Data Base, that it was too trivial. He said he thought people were very interested in it, and were worried about Big Brother. This annoyed me, and I told him he couldn’t trivialise the National Data Base with that sort of sensationalistic approach. Bob replied that as I’d just said it was trivial already, why not?

We left the Hospitality Room. In the studio, waiting for the programme to begin, a girl with a powder-puff kept flitting about and dabbing at my face and preventing me from thinking straight. She said I was getting a bit pink. ‘We can’t have that,’ said Bob jovially, ‘what would the Daily Telegraph say?’

Just before we started recording I remarked that I could well do without all those old chestnut questions like, ‘Are we creating a Police State?’

In retrospect, perhaps this was a mistake.

[We have found, in the BBC Archives, a complete transcript of Robert McKenzie’s interview with James Hacker. It is printed below – Ed.]

I thought I’d waffled a bit, but Bob told me I’d stonewalled beautifully. We went back to Hospitality for another New Year’s drink. I congratulated him on finding that old article of mine – a crafty move. He said that one of his research girls had found it, and asked if I wanted to meet her. I declined – and said I’d just go back to my office and have a look at her dossier!

I watched the programme in the evening. I think it was okay. I hope Sir Humphrey is pleased, anyway.

January 7th

There was divided opinion in the office this afternoon about my TV appearance three days ago. The matter came up at a 4 p.m. meeting with Sir Humphrey, Bernard and Frank Weisel.

Humphrey and Bernard thought I’d been splendid. Dignified and suitable. But Frank’s voice was particularly notable by its silence, during this chorus of praise. When I asked him what he thought, he just snorted like a horse. I asked him to translate.

He didn’t answer me, but turned to Sir Humphrey. ‘I congratulate you,’ he began, his manner even a little less charming than usual. ‘Jim is now perfectly house-trained.’ Humphrey attempted to excuse himself and leave the room.

‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr Weasel . . .’

‘Weisel!’ snapped Frank. He turned on me. ‘Do you realise you just say everything the Civil Service programmes you to say. What are you, a man or a mouth?’

Nobody laughed at his little pun.

‘It may be very hard for a political adviser to understand,’ said Sir Humphrey, in his most patronising manner, ‘but I am merely a civil servant and I just do as I am instructed by my master.’

Frank fumed away, muttering, ‘your master, typical stupid bloody phrase, public school nonsense,’ and so forth. I must say, the phrase interested me too.

‘What happens,’ I asked, ‘if the Minister is a woman? What do you call her?’

Humphrey was immediately in his element. He loves answering questions about good form and protocol. ‘Yes, that’s most interesting. We sought an answer to the point when I was a Principal Private Secretary and Dr Edith Summerskill was appointed Minister in 1947. I didn’t quite like to refer to her as my mistress.’

He paused. For effect, I thought at first, but then he appeared to have more to say on the subject.

‘What was the answer?’ I asked.

‘We’re still waiting for it,’ he explained.

Frank chipped in with a little of his heavy-duty irony. ‘It’s under review is it? Rome wasn’t built in a day, eh Sir Humphrey? These things take time, do they?’

Frank is actually beginning to get on my nerves. The chip on his shoulder about the Civil Service is getting larger every day. I don’t know why, because they have given him an office, he has free access to me, and they tell me that they give him all possible papers that would be of use to him. Now he’s started to take out his aggressions on me. He’s like a bear with a sore head. Perhaps he’s still getting over his New Year’s hangover.