The Complete Yes Minister

[The slang word used by drivers to describe he who knows the most – Ed.]

‘My mate Charlie,’ he explained. ‘He knows all right. He’s the driver for the Secretary of State for Health.’

When I got to the office I summoned Humphrey at once. I told him straight out that I was appalled by yesterday’s debate.

‘So am I, Minister,’ Humphrey said. I was slightly surprised to find him agreeing so vehemently.

‘The stupidity of it . . . the incompetence,’ I continued.

‘I agree,’ said Humphrey. ‘I can’t think what came over you.’

I blinked at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘To concede a full independent enquiry . . .’

So that was it. I stopped him dead in his tracks. ‘Humphrey!’ I said magisterially. ‘That is not what I am talking about.’

Sir Humphrey looked puzzled. ‘But you mentioned stupidity and incompetence.’

‘Yours, Humphrey!’ I roared. ‘Yours!’

Now it seemed to be his turn to be astounded. ‘Mine, Minister?’ He was incredulous.

‘Yes. Yours. How could you drop me in it like that?’

To be fair, he personally hadn’t dropped me in it. But his precious Department had. Humphrey, however, seemed disinclined to apologise.

‘A small omission from the brief. We can’t foresee everything.’ Then his face resumed an expression of pure horror. ‘But to concede a full independent enquiry . . .’

I’d had enough of this. ‘I didn’t particularly want an enquiry either,’ I pointed out. ‘But if you’re drowning and somebody throws you a rope, you grab it.’

‘It was not a rope,’ replied Sir Humphrey. ‘It was a noose. You should have stood up for the Department – that is what you are here for.’

That may be what Humphrey thinks I’m here for. As a matter of fact, it’s nice to know he thinks I’m here for something. But I knew that if I didn’t stop him he would give me a little lecture on Ministerial Responsibility.

The Doctrine of Ministerial Responsibility is a handy little device conceived by the Civil Service for dropping the Minister in it while enabling the mandarins to keep their noses clean. It means, in practice, that the Civil Service runs everything and takes all the decisions, but when something goes wrong then it’s the Minister who takes the blame.

‘No, Humphrey, it won’t do,’ I interjected firmly before he could go any further. ‘I prepared myself thoroughly for Question Time yesterday. I mugged up all the Questions and literally dozens of supplementaries. I was up half Sunday night, I skipped lunch yesterday, I was thoroughly prepared.’ I decided to say it again. ‘Thoroughly prepared!’ I said. ‘But nowhere in my brief was there the slightest indication that you’d been juggling the figures so that I would be giving misleading replies to the House.’

‘Minister,’ said Humphrey in his most injured tones, ‘you said you wanted the administration figures reduced, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed.

‘So we reduced them.’

Dimly I began to perceive what he was saying. ‘But . . . you only reduced the figures, not the actual number of administrators!’

Sir Humphrey furrowed his brow. ‘Of course.’

‘Well,’ I explained patiently, ‘that was not what I meant.’

Sir Humphrey was pained. ‘Well really, Minister, we are not mind-readers. You said reduce the figures, so we reduced the figures.’

This was obvious nonsense. He knew perfectly well what I’d meant, but had chosen to take my instructions literally. It was because of this sort of Civil Service foolishness and unhelpfulness that this country is literally bleeding to death.

[We assume that Hacker did not literally mean literally – Ed.]

‘How did it get out?’ I demanded. ‘Another leak. This isn’t a Department, it’s a colander.’ I was rather pleased with that little crack. Sir Humphrey ignored it, of course. ‘How can we govern responsibly,’ I continued, ‘if backbenchers are going to get all the facts?’ There was another silence. Naturally. There was no answer to that one. ‘Anyway,’ I concluded, ‘at least an enquiry gives us a little time.’

‘So does a time bomb,’ observed my Permanent Secretary.

So I waited to see if he had a disposal squad up his sleeve. Apparently not.

‘If only you’d said we’d have a departmental enquiry,’ he complained, ‘then we could have made it last eighteen months, and finally said that it revealed a certain number of anomalies which have now been rectified but that there was no evidence of any intention to mislead. Something like that.’

I allowed myself to be diverted for a moment. ‘But there was an intention to mislead,’ I pointed out.

‘I never said there wasn’t,’ Sir Humphrey replied impatiently. ‘I merely said there was no evidence of it.’

I think I was looking blank. He explained.

The job of a professionally conducted internal enquiry is to unearth a great mass of no evidence. If you say there was no intention, you can be proved wrong. But if you say the enquiry found no evidence of an intention, you can’t be proved wrong.’