The Complete Yes Minister

Equally, everybody pretended that leaking was ‘not on’, ‘not cricket’, ‘below board’ or underhand in the same way. This is because discretion is the most highly valued talent in Whitehall. Even above ‘soundness’. Or perhaps discretion is the ultimate indication that you are ‘sound’!

Whenever a ‘leak’ occurred there would be cries of moral indignation, and a leak inquiry would be set up by the Prime Minister. Such enquiries seldom reported at the end, for fear of the embarrassing result – most leaks came from ‘Number Ten’ (a euphemism), most budget leaks from ‘Number Eleven’ (another euphemism) – Ed.]

March 30th

I met Walter Fowler in Annie’s Bar, as arranged, and leaked my plans for curtailing surveillance.

Walter seemed a little sceptical. He said it was a worthy cause but I’d never see it through. This made me all the more determined. I told him that I intended to see it through, and to carry the Home Office on this matter in due course. I asked him if it would make a story – I knew it would, but journalists like to feel that their opinions are valuable.

Walter confirmed it would make a story: ‘MINISTER FIGHTS FOR PHONE-TAP SAFEGUARDS – yes, there’s something there.’ He wheezed deeply and drank two-thirds of a pint of special.

I asked where they’d run it. He thought fairly high up on the Home News Page. I was slightly disappointed.

‘Not on page one?’

‘Well . . .’ said Walter doubtfully. ‘Can I attribute it? MINISTER SPEAKS OUT!’

I squashed that at once.

‘So where did I get the story?’ asked Walter plaintively. ‘I presume I can’t say it was “officially announced” or a “government spokesman”?’

I told him he presumed right.

We silently pondered the other options.

‘How about “sources close to the Minister”?’ he asked after a minute or two.

‘Hopeless,’ I pointed out, ‘I don’t want everybody to know I told you. Isn’t it possible for you to do a “speculation is growing in Westminster . . .”?’

Walter shook his head sadly. ‘Bit weak,’ he said, and again he wheezed. He was like an old accordion. He produced a vile-looking pipe from his grubby pockets and stuffed tobacco into the bowl with a stubby forefinger that had a thick black line of dirt under the nail.

I watched fascinated. ‘What about “unofficial spokesman”,’ I suggested, just before the first gust of smoke engulfed me.

‘I’ve used that twice this week already,’ replied Walter, contentedly polluting the atmosphere of central London. I choked quietly.

It was true. He had used it twice this week. I’d noticed. ‘Cabinet’s leaking like a sieve, isn’t it?’

He nodded. ‘Yes – um . . .’ he poured some more bitter past his nicotine-stained molars into his smoking mouth, ‘. . . could we attribute it to a leading member of the sieve?’ I looked at him. ‘Er . . . Cabinet?’ he corrected himself hastily.

I shook my head.

‘How would you like to be an “informed source”?’ he offered.

That seemed a good idea. I hadn’t been an informed source for some weeks.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘That’s what I’ll be.’

Walter chuckled. ‘Quite a joke, isn’t it?’

‘What?’ I asked blankly.

‘Describing someone as “informed”, when his Permanent Secretary is Sir Humphrey Appleby.’

He bared his yellow teeth at me. I think it was a smile. I didn’t smile back – I just bared my teeth at him.

March 31st

Annie came up to London today from the constituency.

So this evening I told her about the surveillance we’d been under. I thought she’d be as indignant as me. But she didn’t seem to care.

I tried to make her grasp the extent of the wrongdoing. ‘Everything we said on the phone, everything we said to each other – all recorded. Transcribed. It’s humiliating.’

‘Yes, I see . . .’ she said thoughtfully, ‘it is a little humiliating that someone at MI5 knows just how boring our life is.’

‘What?’

‘All will be revealed,’ she said. ‘Or has already been revealed. That what you talk about at home is what you talk about in public – the gross national product, the public sector borrowing requirement, the draft agenda for the party conference . . .’

I explained that I didn’t mean that. I meant that all our private family talk had been overheard.

‘Oh dear, yes,’ said Annie. ‘I hadn’t thought of that . . . “Have you got the car keys?” . . . “No, I thought you had them” . . . “No, I gave them to you” . . . My God, that could bring the government down!’

‘Annie.’ I was cross. ‘You’re not taking this seriously.’

‘Whatever gives you that idea?’