The Complete Yes Minister

[Many civil servants of the time deflected criticisms about ends and means by stating flippantly that the only ends in administration are loose ends. If administration is viewed in a vacuum this is, of course, true. Administration can have no end in itself, and is eternal. For ever and ever, amen — Ed.]

[Hacker’s diary continues — Ed.]

The upshot of the whole argument was that I refused to discipline the most efficient local authority in Britain, on the grounds that I would look like an idiot if I did.

Sir Humphrey told me that was my job. I think he meant to discipline South-West Derbyshire, rather than to look like an idiot, but I’m not certain. He said that I had no alternative to consider, no discretion to exercise, and that the Treasury and the Cabinet Office insist.

[By Cabinet Office Sir Humphrey clearly meant the Cabinet Secretary rather than the PM. But he could never have said so — the fiction had to be preserved that Britain was governed by Ministers who told civil servants what to do, not vice versa — Ed.]

I still refused to co-operate.

‘Minister. You don’t seem to understand. It’s not up to you or me. It’s the law.’

And there we left it. I felt a bit like a dog refusing to go for a walk — sitting down and digging in my paws while being dragged along the pavement on my bottom.

But there must be some way out. The more I think of it, the less willing I am to discipline that council until there is really no alternative.

And the more I think of it, the more I conclude that Bernard must have told Humphrey that I’d gone to talk to Cartwright.

November 18th

I had no free time to talk to Bernard on his own yesterday.

But first thing this morning, while I was doing my letters, I had a serious word with Bernard. I asked him how Humphrey had found out yesterday that I was with Cartwright.

‘God moves in a mysterious way,’ he said earnestly.

‘Let me make one thing quite clear,’ I said, ‘Sir Humphrey is not God. Okay?’

Bernard nodded. ‘Will you tell him, or shall I?’ he replied.

Very droll. But again I asked him how Humphrey knew where to find me.

I am fortunate that my dictaphone had been left running. I noticed it some minutes later. As a result I am able to record his reply for posterity in this diary.

‘Confidentially, Minister, everything you tell me is in complete confidence. So, equally, and I’m sure you appreciate this, and by appreciate I don’t actually mean appreciate, I mean understand, that everything that Sir Humphrey tells me is in complete confidence. As indeed everything I tell you is in complete confidence. And for that matter, everything I tell Sir Humphrey is in complete confidence.’

‘So?’ I said.

‘So, in complete confidence, I am confident you will understand that for me to keep Sir Humphrey’s confidence and your confidence means that my conversations must be completely confidential. As confidential as conversations between you and me are confidential, and I’ll just get Alex Andrews as he’s been waiting to see you, Minister.’

There it is. Word for word. What was I supposed to make of that? Nothing, of course.

My meeting with Alex Andrews of The Mail was today. I’d been very keen to fit him in at the earliest opportunity. I’d been hoping for a Profile, or something of that sort, but no such luck. Still, I’ve done him a good turn today, it’s no skin off my nose, and perhaps he’ll do the same for me one day.

He asked for my help in a fascinating story that he had just come across. ‘Did you know that your government is about to give away forty million pounds’ worth of buildings, harbour installations, a landing-strip, to a private developer? For nothing?’

I thought he was having me on. ‘Forty million pounds?’

‘Scout’s Honour.’

‘Why ask me?’ I said. Suddenly I had a dreadful moment of panic. ‘I didn’t do it, did I?’

[You may think that Hacker should have known if he had done it. But a great many things are done in a Minister’s name, of which he may have little or no awareness — Ed.]

Alex smiled, and told me to relax. Thank God!