The Complete Yes Minister

I thought this was the same thing, but Sir Humphrey disabused me. ‘On the contrary, there’s all the difference in the world, Minister. Almost anything can be attacked as a loss of amenity and almost anything can be defended as not a significant loss of amenity. One must appreciate the significance of significant.’

I remarked that six books full of signatures could hardly be called insignificant. Humphrey suggested I look inside them. I did, and to my utter astonishment I saw that there were a handful of signatures in each book, about a hundred altogether at the most. A very cunning ploy – a press photo of a petition of six fat books is so much more impressive than a list of names on a sheet of Basildon Bond.

And indeed, the publicity about these badgers could really be rather damaging.

However, Humphrey had organised a press release which says that the relevant spinney is merely deregistered, not threatened; that badgers are very plentiful all over Warwickshire; that there is a connection between badgers and brucellosis; and which reiterates that there is no ‘significant loss of amenity’.

We called in the press officer, who agreed with Humphrey that it was unlikely to make the national press except a few lines perhaps on an inside page of The Guardian. The consensus at our meeting was that it is only the urban intellectual middle class who worry about the preservation of the countryside because they don’t have to live in it. They just read about it. Bernard says their protest is rooted more in Thoreau than in anger. I am beginning to get a little tired of his puns.

So we’d dealt satisfactorily with the problems of the animal kingdom. Now I went on to raise the important fundamental question: Why was I not told the full facts before I made the announcement to the House?

Humphrey’s reason was astonishing. ‘Minister,’ he said blandly, ‘there are those who have argued – and indeed very cogently – that on occasion there are some things it is better for the Minister not to know.’

I could hardly believe my ears. But there was more to come.

‘Minister,’ he continued unctuously, ‘your answers in the House and at the press conference were superb. You were convinced, and therefore convincing. Could you have spoken with the same authority if the ecological pressure group had been badgering you?’

Leaving aside this awful pun, which in any case I suspect might have been unintentional despite Humphrey’s pretensions to wit, I was profoundly shocked by this open assertion of his right to keep me, the people’s representative, in ignorance. Absolutely monstrous. I told him so.

He tried to tell me that it is in my best interests, a specious argument if ever I heard one. I told him that it was intolerable, and must not occur again.

And I intend to see that it doesn’t.

February 16th

For the past week Frank Weisel and I have been hard at work on a plan to reorganise the Department. One of the purposes was to have assorted officials at all levels reporting to me.

Today I attempted to explain the new system to Sir Humphrey, who effectively refused to listen.

Instead, he interrupted as I began, and told me that he had something to say to me that I might not like to hear. He said it as if this were something new!

As it happens, I’d left my dictaphone running, and his remarks were recorded for posterity. What he actually said to me was: ‘Minister, the traditional allocation of executive responsibilities has always been so determined as to liberate the Ministerial incumbent from the administrative minutiae by devolving the managerial functions to those whose experience and qualifications have better formed them for the performance of such humble offices, thereby releasing their political overlords for the more onerous duties and profound deliberations that are the inevitable concomitant of their exalted position.’

I couldn’t imagine why he thought I wouldn’t want to hear that. Presumably he thought it would upset me – but how can you be upset by something you don’t understand a word of?

Yet again, I begged him to express himself in plain English. This request always surprises him, as he is always under the extraordinary impression that he has done so.

Nevertheless, he thought hard for a moment and then, plainly, opted for expressing himself in words of one syllable.

‘You are not here to run this Department,’ he said.

I was somewhat taken aback. I remarked that I think I am, and the public thinks so too.

‘With respect,’ he said, and I restrained myself from punching him in the mouth, ‘you are wrong and they are wrong.’

He then went on to say that it is his job to run the Department. And that my job is to make policy, get legislation enacted and – above all – secure the Department’s budget in Cabinet.

‘Sometimes I suspect,’ I said to him, ‘that the budget is all you really care about.’