The Complete Yes Minister

But it seems that Hayward’s Spinney is regarded by some of these cranks as a vital part of Britain’s heritage. ‘The badgers have dwelt in it for generations,’ spluttered an elderly upper-class socialist of the Michael Foot patrician ilk.

‘How do you know?’ I asked, simply out of curiosity.

‘It said so in The Guardian,’ said an intense young man in hobnail boots.

Some reason for believing anything! You’ve only got to be in public life for about a week before you start to question if the newspapers are even giving you today’s date with any accuracy! However, the young man thrust a copy of The Guardian at me.

I looked at the story he had circled in red. Actually, what The Guardian said was: ‘The bodgers have dwelt in it for in it for generators.’

I read it aloud, and laughed, but they appeared to have absolutely no sense of humour. Then the middle-aged lady in a brown tweed skirt that enveloped mighty hips demanded, ‘How would you feel if you were going to have office blocks built all over your garden by a lot of giant badgers?’

Giant badgers? I tried not to laugh at this Monty Pythonesque vision, while another of these freaks continued self-righteously, ‘There’s nothing special about man, Mr Hacker. We’re not above nature. We’re all a part of it. Men are animals too, you know.’

Obviously I knew that already. I’d just come from the House of Commons.

Bernard helped me get rid of them after about ten minutes. I made no promises to them, and gave them the usual bromides about all views being taken into consideration at the appropriate stage. But I am concerned that no one in the Department warned me that unifying the administration of the countryside would mean removing special protected status from these blasted badgers. Not that I give a damn about badgers, but I have been allowed to tell Parliament and the press that no loss of amenity was involved.

I should take this matter up with Humphrey tomorrow.

I shall also take up the matter of why my time is being wasted with footling meetings of this kind, when I want to spend much more time meeting junior staff here, getting to know their problems, and generally finding out how to run the Department more efficiently.

[We discovered a remarkable exchange of memos between Sir Humphrey Appleby and Bernard Woolley, written during this week – Ed.]

[Translation: ‘Considered all the implications’ means ‘You are making a complete balls-up of your job.’ ‘Consequences which could be unfortunate, or even regrettable’ means ‘You are in imminent danger of being transferred to the War Graves Commission’ – Ed.]

SIR BERNARD WOOLLEY RECALLS:²

Being rather young and green at this time, I was still somewhat puzzled about how to put Sir Humphrey’s advice into practice, as the Minister made these diary appointments for himself and was getting thoroughly on top of his work.

I sought a meeting with Sir Humphrey, and began it by attempting to explain that I couldn’t prevent the Minister from doing what he wanted if he had the time.

Sir Humphrey was thunderously angry! He asked me why the Minister had free time. He told me to ensure that the Minister never had free time, and that it was my fault if he had. My job was to create activity. The Minister must make speeches, go on provincial visits, foreign junkets, meet deputations, work through mountains of red boxes, and be forced to deal with crises, emergencies and panics.

If the Minister made spaces in his diary, I was to fill them up again. And I was to make sure that he spent his time where he was not under our feet and would do no damage – the House of Commons for instance.

However, I do recall that I managed to redeem myself a little when I was able to inform Sir Humphrey that the Minister was – even as we spoke – involved in a completely trivial meeting about preserving badgers in Warwickshire.

In fact, he was so pleased that I suggested that I should try to find some other threatened species with which to involve the Minister. Sir Humphrey replied that I need not look far – Private Secretaries who could not occupy their Ministers were a threatened species.

February 10th

This morning I raised the matter of the threatened furry animals, and the fact that I told the House that no loss of amenity was involved.

Sir Humphrey said that I’d told the House no such thing. The speech had contained the words: ‘No significant loss of amenity.’