The Complete Yes Minister

I asked Humphrey what he thought of this new situation. ‘I don’t agree with them, of course,’ he said.

‘You mean,’ I asked, ‘you think I should be assassinated?’

‘No, no.’

‘You mean, I’m not important enough?’

‘Yes. No! I mean you are important enough but they shouldn’t assassinate you anyway.’ He breathed a sigh of relief.

Anyway, it seemed I was off the hook, and perhaps that’s all to the good. I mean, there’s no point in being important but dead, is there? But, if even terrorist loonies doubt my value to the government, there’s clearly some image-building to be done right away.

Bernard then asked me if I’d finish my interview with Walter Fowler. Of course, I was delighted to.

He was ushered in, and I opened up right away. I told Bernard to bring the petition along on the trolley, so that Walter could see how big it was.

Bernard said, ‘The petition? But I thought you said . . .’

‘Yes I did,’ I interrupted hastily. ‘Could you get it, Bernard?’ He still looked blank. ‘Antennae, Bernard,’ I explained.

The penny dropped. ‘Ah. Yes. Indeed, Minister,’ he said quickly. ‘You mean, I’m to get the petition that you said you were so pleased with?’

The boy’s learning.

Walter demanded an answer to his various questions. I told him to sit down. Then I told him that I welcomed the petition, warmly. That it is not just something you sweep under the carpet.

Bernard Woolley receiving the petition and wondering how to sweep it under the carpet (DAA Archives)

‘And as for death lists,’ I concluded. ‘Well – Ministers are dispensable, but freedom is indivisible. Isn’t that so, Humphrey?’

‘Yes Minister,’ replied my smiling Permanent Secretary, dead on cue.

¹ In conversation with the Editors.

² In conversation with the Editors.

10

Doing the Honours

April 23rd

I had a very unsatisfactory meeting today, with assorted secretaries – Deputy Secretaries, Under-Secretaries, and Assistant Secretaries.

I asked about economies in accommodation, in stationery acquisition, in parks and forestry commission administration, in data processing equipment, in the further education budget.

As always I was met with the usual vague and regretful murmurs of ‘No Minister,’ ‘Afraid not Minister,’ ‘Doesn’t seem possible, Minister,’ ‘Sadly it cannot be, Minister,’ ‘We have done the utmost possible, Minister,’ ‘Pared to the bone, Minister, alas!’ and so forth.

I reflected aloud that at least the Universities are not going to cost us quite so much, now that overseas students are to pay fees that cover the full cost of their education here.

‘Unless,’ someone said, ‘you make the exceptions which have been proposed to you.’

Nobody else at the meeting had been prepared to make exceptions. I couldn’t see why I should. I remarked that as it seemed the only available saving at the moment we had no choice but to hang on to it.

As the meeting broke up Bernard reminded me again that the Honours Secretary at Number Ten had been asking if I had approved our Department’s recommendations for the Honours List.

Curiously this was about the eighth time Bernard had asked me. I enquired sarcastically if honours were really the most important subject in the whole of the DAA.

Bernard replied, without any apparent awareness of my sarcasm, that they were indeed the most important subject for the people on the list. ‘They’re never off the phone,’ he said pathetically. ‘Some of them don’t seem to have slept for about three nights.’

I was mildly surprised. I thought it was all a formality. ‘Ministers never veto Civil Service honours, do they?’ I asked.

‘Hardly ever. But it’s theoretically possible. And they’re all getting worried by the delay.’

I suddenly realised that Bernard had just told me that people knew they were on the list. How? The file is marked strictly confidential.

He shook his head sadly at me when I mentioned it. ‘Oh Minister,’ he replied, and smiled at me in a kindly fashion.

I was amused and embarrassed at my naïveté. But all that energy that goes into worrying about honours . . . If only they’d put a quarter of it into cutting expenditure. I asked Bernard how I could get this Department to want economies in the way they wanted OBEs and KCBs and so on.

A gleam came into Bernard’s eye. ‘Well,’ he said, with a slightly mischievous air that I’d never noticed before. ‘I’ve been thinking . . .’ Then he hesitated.

‘Go on.’

‘No, no, no.’

‘What was it?’

‘No. Nothing, Minister.’

I was on tenterhooks. I knew he had something up his sleeve. ‘Come on Bernard,’ I ordered, ‘spit it out.’ Bernard did not spit it out. Instead, he tentatively explained that it was not his place, and he wouldn’t suggest this, and he couldn’t possibly recommend it, but ‘. . . well . . . suppose you were to refuse to recommend any honours for Civil Servants who haven’t cut their budgets by five per cent per annum?’

‘Bernard!’

He retreated immediately.