The Complete Yes Minister

‘It’s won,’ she told me proudly, ‘by the most hygienic hospital in the Region.’

I asked God silently to give me strength. Then I told her that I’d said my last word and that three hundred staff must go, doctors and nurses hired, and patients admitted.

‘You mean, three hundred jobs lost?’ Billy Fraser’s razor-sharp brain had finally got the point.

Mrs Rogers had already got the point. But Mrs Rogers clearly felt that this hospital had no need of patients. She said that in any case they couldn’t do any serious surgery with just a skeleton medical staff. I told her that I didn’t care whether or not she did serious surgery – she could do nothing but varicose veins, hernias and piles for all I cared. But something must be done.

‘Do you mean three hundred jobs lost,’ said Billy Fraser angrily, still apparently seeking elucidation of the simple point everybody else had grasped ten minutes ago.

I spelt it out to him. ‘Yes I do, Mr Fraser,’ I replied. ‘A hospital is not a source of employment, it is a place to heal the sick.’

He was livid. His horrible wispy beard was covered in spittle as he started to shout abuse at me, his little pink eyes blazing with class hatred and alcohol. ‘It’s a source of employment for my members,’ he yelled. ‘You want to put them out of work, do you, you bastard?’ he screamed. ‘Is that what you call a compassionate society?’

I was proud of myself. I stayed calm. ‘Yes,’ I answered coolly. ‘I’d rather be compassionate to the patients than to your members.’

‘We’ll come out on strike,’ he yelled.

I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears. I was utterly delighted with that threat. I laughed in his face.

‘Fine,’ I said happily. ‘Do that. What does it matter? Who can you harm? Please, do go on strike, the sooner the better. And take all those administrators with you,’ I added, waving in the direction of the good Mrs Rogers. ‘Then we won’t have to pay you.’

Bernard and I left the battlefield of St Edward’s Hospital, I felt, as the undisputed victors of the day.

It’s very rare in politics that one has the pleasure of completely wiping the floor with one’s opponents. It’s a good feeling.

March 26th

It seems I didn’t quite wipe the floor after all. The whole picture changed in a most surprising fashion.

Bernard and I were sitting in the office late this afternoon congratulating ourselves on yesterday’s successes. I was saying, rather smugly I fear, that Billy Fraser’s strike threat had played right into my hands.

We turned on the television news. First there was an item saying that the British Government is again being pressured by the US Government to take some more Cuban refugees. And then – the bombshell! Billy Fraser came on, and threatened that the whole of the NHS in London would be going on strike tonight at midnight if we laid off workers at St Edward’s. I was shattered.

[We have been fortunate to obtain the transcript of the television news programme in question, and it is reproduced below – Ed.]

Humphrey came in at that moment.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you’re watching it.’

‘Yes,’ I said through clenched teeth. ‘Humphrey, you told me you were going to have a word with the unions.’

‘I did,’ he replied. ‘But well, what can I do?’ He shrugged helplessly. I’m sure he did his best with the unions. But where has it got us?

I asked him what we were supposed to do now.

But Humphrey had come, apparently, on a different matter – of equal urgency. Another bombshell, in fact!

‘It looks as if Sir Maurice Williams’ independent enquiry is going to be unfavourable to us,’ he began.

I was appalled. Humphrey had promised me that Williams was sound. He had told me that the man wanted a peerage.

‘Unfortunately,’ murmured Sir Humphrey, embarrassed, looking at his shoes, ‘he’s also trying to work his peerage in his capacity as Chairman of the Joint Committee for the Resettlement of Refugees.’

I enquired if there were more Brownie points in refugees than in government enquiries.

He nodded.

I pointed out that we simply haven’t got the money to house any more refugees.

Then came bombshell number three! The phone rang. It was Number Ten.

I got on the line. I was told rather sharply by a senior policy adviser that Number Ten had seen Billy Fraser on the six o’clock news. By ‘Number Ten’ he meant the PM. Number Ten hoped a peace formula could be found very soon.

As I was contemplating this euphemistic but heavy threat from Downing Street, Humphrey was still rattling on about the boring old Cuban refugees. Sir Maurice would be satisfied if we just housed a thousand of them, he said.

As I was about to explain, yet again, that we haven’t the time or the money to open a thousand-bed hostel . . . the penny dropped!

A most beautiful solution had occurred to me.

A thousand refugees with nowhere to go. A thousand-bed hospital, fully staffed. Luck was on our side after all. The symmetry was indescribably lovely.