The Complete Yes Minister

Then he told me the story. It goes back a long way. Almost thirty years ago the Ministry of Defence took a lease on a Scottish island. They put up barracks, married quarters, an HQ block, and the harbour and airstrip. Now the lease has expired and they all become the property of the original landowner. And he is turning it into an instant holiday camp. Chalets, yachting marina, staff quarters — it’s all there. He is going to make a fortune.

I listened, open-mouthed. ‘But he can’t do that!’ I began. ‘The law says that…’

Andrews interrupted me. ‘You’re talking about English law. This contract was under Scottish law and some idiot didn’t realise the difference.’

I was relieved that at least I am in the clear. Even The Mail can’t blame me for a cock-up in the early fifties. Though I’m sure they would if they could. And I couldn’t at first see what he wanted from me. He already had the story. Thirty years late, as quick with the news as ever — still, not bad for Fleet Street!

They are running the story tomorrow. But apparently they don’t want to leave it at that. The Editor wants Alex to follow up with an investigative feature. He wants him to go through the files, and find out exactly how it happened.

I couldn’t see the point, not now.

‘Well,’ he explained, ‘there may be lessons for today. And we might find who was responsible.’

I asked why it would matter? It would, in any case, have been handled by quite a junior official.

He nodded. ‘Okay, but that was thirty years ago. He could be in a very senior position now, even a Permanent Secretary, running a great department, responsible for spending billions of pounds of public money.’

A very unlikely eventuality, in my opinion. These hacks will do anything to try and find a story where there isn’t one.

He agreed it was pretty unlikely. But he asked to see the papers.

Naturally I had to be a bit cautious about that. I can’t just hand files over, as he well knows. But I advised him that, as it was a thirty-year lease that was in question, he would be able to get the papers from the Public Record Office under the Thirty-Year Rule.

He was unimpressed. ‘I thought you’d say that. I’ve asked for them already. But I want a guarantee that I will get them. All of them.’

I hate being asked to guarantee anything. I don’t really think it’s fair. And anyway, was I in a position to? ‘Well,’ I said, carefully feeling my way, ‘Defence papers are sometimes…’

He interrupted me. ‘Don’t come that one. It’s not top security. Look, you made a manifesto commitment about telling voters the facts. This is a test case. Will you guarantee that no papers are removed before the files are opened?’

I could see no reason not to give him that guarantee. ‘Fine,’ I said, throwing caution to the winds. ‘No problem.’

‘Is that a promise?’ Journalists are suspicious bastards.

‘Sure,’ I said with a big reassuring smile.

‘A real promise? Not a manifesto promise?’

Some of these young Fleet Street fellows can be really rather insulting.

‘Your trouble, Alex,’ I said, ‘is that you can’t take yes for an answer.’

‘Because otherwise,’ he continued as if I hadn’t even spoken, ‘we do the feature on Ministers ratting on manifestos.’

Clearly I shall now have to stand by that promise. It’s fortunate that I have every intention of doing so.

[The following day The Mail ran the story, exactly as predicted in Hacker’s diary (see below). That night Sir Humphrey’s diary contains the following entry — Ed.]

Horrible shock.

A story in today’s Mail about the Glenloch Island base.

I read it on the 8.32 from Haslemere to Waterloo. Was seized instantly by what Dr Hindley calls a panic attack. A sort of tight feeling in the chest, I felt I couldn’t breathe, and I had to get up and walk up and down the compartment which struck one or two of the regulars on the 8.32 as a bit strange. Or perhaps I just think that because of the panic attack.

Fortunately Valium did the trick as the day wore on, and I’ll take a few Mogadon[60] tonight.

I tell myself that no one will ever connect that incident with me, and that it’s all ancient history anyway, and that that’s the last that anyone will want to know about it.

I tell myself that — but somehow it’s not helping!

Why has this come up now, so many years later, when I thought it was all forgotten?

If only there was someone I could talk to about this.

Oh my God…

[Hacker’s diary continues — Ed.]

November 21st

They ran that story in The Mail today. Quite amusing.

November 22nd

Today was the happiest day of my ministerial life.

All my prayers were answered.

As Humphrey and I were finishing up our weekly departmental meeting I asked him if he’d seen the story in yesterday’s Mail.

‘I’m not sure,’ he said.