The Complete Yes Minister

Clearly I have not succeeded in ingratiating myself with my own daughter.

Annie intervened again. ‘Lucy,’ she said, rather too gently I thought, ‘that’s not a very nice thing to say.’

‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’ said Lucy.

Annie said: ‘Ye-e-es, it’s true . . . but well, he’s in politics. Daddy has to be ingratiating.’

Thanks a lot.

‘It’s got to be stopped,’ said Lucy. Having finished denouncing me, she was now instructing me.

‘Too late.’ I smiled nastily. ‘The decision’s been taken, dear.’

‘I’m going to stop it, then,’ she said.

Silly girl. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘That should be quite easy. Just get yourself adopted as a candidate, win a general election, serve with distinction on the back benches, be appointed a Minister and repeal the act. No problem. Of course, the badgers might be getting on a bit by then.’

She flounced out and, thank God, stayed out for the rest of the day.

[Meanwhile, Bernard Woolley was becoming increasingly uneasy about keeping secrets from the Minister. He was finding it difficult to accustom himself to the idea that civil servants apply the ‘need to know’ principle that is the basis of all security activities. Finally he sent a memo to Sir Humphrey, asking for a further explanation as to why the Minister should not be allowed to know whatever he wants to know. The reply is printed below – Ed.]

[It is worth examining Sir Humphrey Appleby’s choice of words in this memo. The phrase ‘the common ground’, for example, was much used by senior civil servants after two changes in government in the first four years of the 1970s. It seemed to mean policies that the Civil Service can pursue without disturbance to the party in power. ‘Courageous’ as used in this context is an even more damning word than ‘controversial’. ‘Controversial’ only means ‘this will lose you votes’. ‘Courageous’ means ‘this will lose you the election’ – Ed.]

February 22nd

[The above letter was found by Bernard Woolley when he opened Hacker’s boxes in the office on Monday 22 February. The envelope was addressed to ‘Daddy’ but rules state that Private Secretaries open every letter of every classification up to and including TOP SECRET, unless specifically marked PERSONAL. This was a letter not marked PERSONAL. Hacker’s diary continues – Ed.]

This afternoon seemed to last an eternity. I think I’ve more or less got over the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but it was one of the worst afternoons of my political life so far. However, I shall relate it from the start. Firstly, there was Jak’s cartoon in the Standard.

Then, on my return from cabinet Committee after lunch, Bernard and Humphrey edged into the office looking extremely anxious. I asked if anything was wrong.

For the next four minutes they appeared to speak in riddles.

‘Shall we say, a slight embarrassment,’ said Sir Humphrey.

‘How slight?’ I asked.

First he rambled on about not wishing to overstate the case or suggest that there was any cause for under alarm, but nevertheless . . . etc. etc. I told him to get on with it, he told me he had a confession to make, and I told him to make a clean breast of it.

‘Not the happiest of phrases, in the circumstances,’ he replied engimatically. I still hadn’t the foggiest idea what he was talking about, although it was soon to become only too clear.

But Humphrey couldn’t find a way to tell me the bad news. Extraordinary. First he said there was to be a twenty-four-hour protest vigil in Hayward’s Spinney, conducted by a girl student and her boyfriend. I could see no problem in two irresponsible layabouts trying – and failing – to attract attention to themselves.