The Complete Yes Minister

I’d never thought of that. Of course, I’d be absolutely horrified. It would be a constant threat. I would never be able to speak freely in my own office.

Sir Humphrey knew that he’d scored a bull’s-eye. He pressed home his advantage. ‘We cannot give your political opponents ammunition against you — nor vice versa.’

Of course, I can see his point but there is one essential difference in this instance. I pointed out to Sir Humphrey that Tom Sargent was my predecessor, and he wouldn’t mind. He’s a very decent chap. After all, the Data Base is not a party political matter, politicians of all parties are united on this.

But Sir Humphrey wouldn’t budge. ‘It’s the principle, Minister,’ he said, and added that it just wouldn’t be cricket.

This was a powerful argument. Naturally I don’t want to do anything that’s not cricket. So I suppose I’ll never know what went on before I came here. I can’t see a way round that.

So where have we got to? We’ve established that we don’t need legislation to enable the citizen to see his own file, but that there are numerous unspecified admin. problems that have to be solved first.

One other thing occurred today. Bernard said that because of the adverse (Bernard called it ‘not entirely favourable’) press reaction to my appearance on Topic, the other network wants me to appear on their programme World in Focus. Funny how television is never interested when you’ve got an important announcement to make, but the moment some trivial thing goes wrong the phone never stops ringing. At first I told him to decline, but he said that if I don’t appear they’ll do the item anyway, and no one will be there to state my case.

I asked Humphrey what I was to say about safeguards for the Data Base, in view of our very limited progress today. ‘Perhaps you could remind them, Minister, that Rome wasn’t built in a day.’

Big help!

As I review the meeting, writing it all down for this diary, I now feel that I got absolutely nowhere today. But there must be some way to get Sir Humphrey and the DAA to do what I tell them.

[In the light of Hacker’s experience and frustrations, it is as well to remember that if a Whitehall committee is not positively stopped, it will continue. There could be a Crimea committee, for all we know. There is very probably a ration-book committee and an identity-card committee — Ed.]

January 12th

Today, by a lucky chance, I learned a bit more about dealing with Sir Humphrey.

I bumped into Tom Sargent, in the House of Commons smoking room. I asked if I could join him, and he was only too pleased.

‘How are you enjoying being in Opposition?’ I asked him jocularly.

Like the good politician he is, he didn’t exactly answer my question. ‘How are you enjoying being in government?’ he replied.

I could see no reason to beat about the bush, and I told him that, quite honestly, I’m not enjoying it as much as I’d expected to.

‘Humphrey got you under control?’ he smiled.

I dodged that one, but said that it’s so very hard to get anything done. He nodded, so I asked him, ‘Did you get anything done?’

‘Almost nothing,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘But I didn’t cotton on to his technique till I’d been there over a year — and then of course there was the election.’

It emerged from the conversation that the technique in question was Humphrey’s system for stalling.

According to Tom, it’s in five stages. I made a note during our conversation, for future reference.

Stage One: Humphrey will say that the administration is in its early months and there’s an awful lot of other things to get on with. (Tom clearly knows his stuff. That is just what Humphrey said to me the day before yesterday.)

Stage Two: If I persist past Stage One, he’ll say that he quite appreciates the intention, something certainly ought to be done — but is this the right way to achieve it?

Stage Three: If I’m still undeterred he will shift his ground from how I do it to when I do it, i.e. ‘Minister, this is not the time, for all sorts of reasons.’

Stage Four: Lots of Ministers settle for Stage Three according to Tom. But if not, he will then say that the policy has run into difficulties — technical, political and/or legal. (Legal difficulties are best because they can be made totally incomprehensible and can go on for ever.)

Stage Five: Finally, because the first four stages have taken up to three years, the last stage is to say that ‘we’re getting rather near to the run-up to the next general election — so we can’t be sure of getting the policy through’.