The Complete Yes Minister

I couldn’t believe the impertinence of the suggestion. Axed eight hundred jobs? ‘But no one was ever doing these jobs,’ I pointed out incredulously. ‘No one’s been appointed yet.’

‘Even greater economy,’ he replied instantly. ‘We’ve saved eight hundred redundancy payments as well.’

‘But…’ I attempted to explain ‘… that’s just phony. It’s dishonest, it’s juggling with figures, it’s pulling the wool over people’s eyes.’

‘A government press release, in fact,’ said Humphrey. I’ve met some cynical politicians in my time, but this remark from my Permanent Secretary was a real eye-opener.

I nodded weakly. Clearly if I was to avoid the calamity of four hundred new people employed to make economies, I had to give up the four hundred new people in my cherished Watchdog Office. An inevitable quid pro quo. After all, politics is the art of the possible. [A saying generally attributed to R. A. Butler, but actually said by Bismarck (1815–98) in 1867, in conversation with Meyer von Waldeck: ‘Die Politik ist die Lehre von Möglichen’ — Ed.]

However, one vital central question, the question that was at the root of this whole débâcle, remained completely unanswered. ‘But Humphrey,’ I said. ‘How are we actually going to slim down the Civil Service?’

There was a pause. Then he said: ‘Well… I suppose we could lose one or two of the tea ladies.’

4 Big Brother

January 4th

Nothing of interest happened over Christmas. I spent the week in the constituency. I went to the usual Christmas parties for the constituency party, the old people’s home, the general hospital, and assorted other gatherings and it all went off quite well — I got my photo in the local rag four or five times, and avoided saying anything that committed me to anything.

I sensed a sort of resentment, though, and have become aware that I’m in a double-bind situation. The local party, the constituency, my family, all of them are proud of me for getting into the Cabinet — yet they are all resentful that I have less time to spend on them and are keen to remind me that I’m nothing special, just their local MP, and that I mustn’t get ‘too big for my boots’. They manage both to grovel and patronise me simultaneously. It’s hard to know how to handle it.

If only I could tell them what life is really like in Whitehall, they would know that there’s absolutely no danger of my getting too big for my boots. Sir Humphrey Appleby will see to that.

Back to London today for a TV interview on Topic, with Robert McKenzie. He asked me lots of awkward questions about the National Data Base.

We met in the Hospitality Room before the programme was recorded, and I tried to find out what angle he was taking. We were a little tense with each other, of course. [McKenzie used to call the Hospitality Room the Hostility Room — Ed.]

‘We are going to talk about cutting government extravagance and that sort of thing, aren’t we?’ I asked, and immediately realised that I had phrased that rather badly.

Bob McKenzie was amused. ‘You want to talk about the government’s extravagance?’ he said with a twinkle in his eye.

‘About the ways in which I’m cutting it down, I mean,’ I said firmly.

‘We’ll get to that if we have time after the National Data Base,’ he said.

I tried to persuade him that people weren’t interested in the Data Base, that it was too trivial. He said he thought people were very interested in it, and were worried about Big Brother. This annoyed me, and I told him he couldn’t trivialise the National Data Base with that sort of sensationalistic approach. Bob replied that as I’d just said it was trivial already, why not?

We left the Hospitality Room. In the studio, waiting for the programme to begin, a girl with a powder-puff kept flitting about and dabbing at my face and preventing me from thinking straight. She said I was getting a bit pink. ‘We can’t have that,’ said Bob jovially, ‘what would the Daily Telegraph say?’

Just before we started recording I remarked that I could well do without all those old chestnut questions like, ‘Are we creating a Police State?’

In retrospect, perhaps this was a mistake.

[We have found, in the BBC Archives, a complete transcript of Robert McKenzie’s interview with James Hacker. It is printed below — Ed.]