The Complete Yes Minister

I then congratulated Charlie on becoming Head of State. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘though it wasn’t difficult. I didn’t have to do any of the boring things like fighting elections.’ He paused, and then added casually, ‘Or by-elections,’ and smiled amiably at us.

Was this a hint? I decided to say nothing. So after a moment he went on. ‘Jim, of course I’m delighted to see you, but is this purely a social visit or is there anything you particularly wanted to talk about? Because I do have to put the finishing touches to my speech.’

Another hint?

I told him we’d seen the advance copy. He asked if we liked it. I asked him if, as we were old friends, I could speak frankly. He nodded.

I tried to make him realise that the bit about colonialist oppression was slightly — well, really, profoundly embarrassing. I asked him if he couldn’t just snip out the whole chunk about the Scots and the Irish.

Charlie responded by saying, ‘This is something that I feel very deeply to be true. Surely the British don’t believe in suppressing the truth?’

A neat move.

Sir Humphrey then tried to help. ‘I wonder if there is anything that might persuade the President to consider recasting the sentence in question so as to transfer the emphasis from the specific instance to the abstract concept, without impairing the conceptual integrity of the theme?’

Some help.

I sipped my coffee with a thoughtful expression on my face.

Even Charlie hadn’t got it, I don’t think, because he said, after quite a pause: ‘While you’re here, Jim, may I sound you out on a proposal I was going to make to the Prime Minister at our talks?’

I nodded.

He then told us that his little change of government in Buranda had alarmed some of the investors in their oil industry. Quite unnecessarily, in his view. So he wants some investment from Britain to tide him over.

At last we were talking turkey.

I asked how much. He said fifty million pounds.

Sir Humphrey looked concerned. He wrote me a little note. ‘Ask him on what terms.’ So I asked.

‘Repayment of the capital not to start before ten years. And interest free.’

It sounded okay to me, but Humphrey choked into his coffee. So I pointed out that fifty million was a lot of money.

‘Oh well, in that case…’ began Charlie, and I could see that he was about to end the meeting.

‘But let’s talk about it,’ I calmed him down. I got another note from Humphrey, which pointed out that, if interest ran at ten per cent on average, and if the loan was interest free for ten years, he was in effect asking for a free gift of fifty million pounds.

Cautiously, I put this point to Charlie. He very reasonably (I thought) explained that it was all to our advantage, because they would use the loan to buy oil rigs built on the Clyde.

I could see the truth of this, but I got another frantic and, by now, almost illegible note from Humphrey, saying that Charlie wants us to give him fifty million pounds so that he can buy our oil rigs with our money. (His underlinings, I may say.)

We couldn’t go on passing notes to each other like naughty schoolboys, so we progressed to muttering. ‘It sounds pretty reasonable to me,’ I whispered.

‘You can’t be serious,’ Humphrey hissed.

‘Lots of jobs,’ I countered, and I asked Charlie, if we did such a deal, would he make appropriate cuts in his speech? This was now cards on the table.

Charlie feigned surprise at my making this connection, but agreed that he would make cuts. However, he’d have to know right away.

‘Blackmail,’ Sir Humphrey had progressed to a stage whisper that could be heard right across Princes Street.

‘Are you referring to me or to my proposal?’ asked Charlie.

‘Your proposal, naturally,’ I said hastily and then realised this was a trick question. ‘No, not even your proposal.’

I turned to Humphrey, and said that I thought we could agree to this. After all, there are precedents for this type of deal.[5]

Sir Humphrey demanded a private word with me, so we went and stood in the corridor.

I couldn’t see why Humphrey was so steamed up. Charlie had offered us a way out.

Humphrey said we’d never get the money back, and therefore he could not recommend it to the Treasury and the Treasury would never recommend it to Cabinet. ‘You are proposing,’ he declared pompously, ‘to buy your way out of a political entanglement with fifty million pounds of public money.’

I explained that this is diplomacy. He said it was corruption. I said ‘GCB,’ only just audibly.

There was a long pause.

‘What did you say, Minister?’

‘Nothing,’ I said.

Humphrey suddenly looked extremely thoughtful. ‘On the other hand…’ he said, ‘… we don’t want the Soviets to invest in Buranda, do we?’ I shook my head. ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ he murmured.

‘And they will if we don’t,’ I said, helping him along a bit.

Humphrey started to marshal all the arguments on my side. ‘I suppose we could argue that we, as a part of the North/South dialogue, have a responsibility to the…’

‘TPLACs?’ I said.