The Complete Yes Minister

This was all too urbane for my liking. I had an irresistible urge to get to the bottom of this great moral issue, once and for all. This ‘just obeying orders’ mentality can lead to concentration camps. I wanted to nail this argument.

‘Humphrey, have you ever known a civil servant resign on a matter of principle?’

Now, he was shocked. ‘I should think not! What a suggestion!’

How remarkable. This is the only suggestion that I had made in this conversation that had shocked my Permanent Secretary. I sat back in my chair and contemplated him. He waited, presumably curious to see what other crackpot questions I would be asking.

‘I realise, for the very first time,’ I said slowly, ‘that you are committed purely to means, never to ends.’

‘As far as I am concerned, Minister, and all my colleagues, there is no difference between means and ends.’

‘If you believe that,’ I told him, ‘you will go to Hell.’

There followed a long silence. I thought he was reflecting on the nature of the evil to which he had committed himself. But no! After a while, realising that I was expecting a reply, he observed with mild interest, ‘Minister, I had no idea that you had a theological bent.’

My arguments had clearly left him unaffected. ‘You are a moral vacuum, Humphrey,’ I informed him.

‘If you say so, Minister.’ And he smiled courteously and inclined his head, as if to thank me for a gracious compliment.

Bernard had been in the room for the entire meeting so far, though taking very few minutes, I noticed. Unusually for him, he had not said a word. Now he spoke.

‘It’s time for your lunch appointment, Minister.’

I turned to him. ‘You’re keeping very quiet, Bernard. What would you do about all this?’

‘I’d keep very quiet, Minister.’

The conversation had ground to a halt. I’d thrown every insult at Sir Humphrey that I could think of, and he had taken each one as a compliment. He appears to be completely amoral. Not immoral — he simply doesn’t understand moral concepts. His voice broke in on my thoughts. ‘So may we now drop this matter of arms sales?’

I told him that we may not. I told him that I would be telling the PM about it, in person. And I told Bernard to make the appointment for me, as it is just the sort of thing the PM wants to know about.

Humphrey intervened. ‘I assure you, Minister, it is just the sort of thing the Prime Minister desperately wants not to know about.’

I told him we’d see. And I left for lunch.

SIR BERNARD WOOLLEY RECALLS:[56]

I well remember that I felt fearfully downcast after that fateful meeting. Because I couldn’t help wondering if the Minister was right. I voiced this fear to old Humphrey. ‘Most unlikely,’ he replied. ‘What about?’

I explained that I too was worried about ends versus means. I asked Humphrey if I too would end up as a moral vacuum. His reply surprised me. ‘I hope so,’ he told me. ‘If you work hard enough.’

This made me feel more melancholy than before. At that time, you see, I still believed that if it was our job to carry out government policies we ought to believe in them.

Sir Humphrey shook his head and left the room. Later that day I received a memorandum from him. I have it still.

Memorandum From: The Permanent Secretary To: B.W.

I have been considering your question. Please bear in mind the following points.

I have served eleven governments in the past thirty years. If I had believed in all their policies I would have been:

1) passionately committed to keeping out of the Common Market.

2) passionately committed to going into the Common Market.

3) utterly convinced of the rightness of nationalising steel.

4) utterly convinced of the rightness of denationalising steel.

5) utterly convinced of the rightness of renationalising steel.

6) fervently committed to retaining capital punishment.

7) ardently committed to abolishing capital punishment.

8) a Keynesian.

9) a Friedmanite.

10) a grammar school preserver.

11) a grammar school destroyer.

12) a nationalisation maniac.

13) a privatisation freak.

14) a stark, staring, raving schizophrenic.

H.A.

The following day he sent for me, to check that I was fully seized of his ideas and had taken them on board.

Of course, his argument was irrefutable. I freely admitted it. And yet I was still downcast. Because, as I explained to Appleby, I felt that I needed to believe in something.

He suggested that we should both believe in stopping Hacker from informing the PM.

Of course he was right. Once the PM knew of this business, there would have to be an enquiry. It would be like Watergate, in which, as you know, the investigation of a trivial break-in led to one ghastly revelation after another and finally to the downfall of a President. The Golden Rule is, was, always has been and always will be: Don’t Lift Lids Off Cans of Worms.

‘Everything is connected to everything else,’ Sir Humphrey explained. ‘Who said that?’

I ventured a guess that it might have been the Cabinet Secretary.

‘Nearly right,’ Sir Humphrey encouraged me. ‘Actually, it was Lenin.’