The Complete Yes Minister

Incredible!

It is true, of course. I have learned that he who drafts the document wins the day.

[This is the reason why it was common Civil Service practice at this time to write the minutes of a meeting BEFORE the meeting took place. This achieves two things. First, it helps the chairman or secretary to ensure that the discussion follows the lines agreed beforehand and that the right points are made by somebody. And second, as busy men generally cannot quite remember what was agreed at meetings, it is extremely useful and convenient to lay it down in advance. Only if the conclusions reached at a meeting are radically different or diametrically opposed to what has been previously written in the minutes will the officials have to rewrite them. Thus it is that pre-written minutes can dictate the results of many meetings, regardless of what may be said or agreed by those actually present — Ed.]

Sir Humphrey and Sir Frederick were discussing Humphrey’s plan (not mine, I may add!) for reducing the number of autonomous government departments, when they encountered Dr Donald Hughes,[9] who overheard their conversation.

Hughes revealed that the Think-Tank recommendation accepted the idea of reducing the number of autonomous government departments. This news came as a profound shock to Sir Humphrey, because not all the Ministerial evidence has been taken — ours, for instance, has not!

However, it seems that they have reported unofficially, and clearly the report is not going to change now, no matter what we say. Dr Hughes explained to Sir Humphrey that the Central Policy Review Staff do not sully their elevated minds with anything as squalid as evidence from Ministers!

Sir Humphrey, at first, was not unhappy with Donald Hughes’s news. Naturally, as an experienced civil servant, a proposal to reduce and simplify the administration of government conjured up in Humphrey’s mind a picture of a large intake of new staff specifically to deal with the reductions.

However, this is not the plan at all. Humphrey informed me, at an urgently convened meeting at nine a.m. this morning [Tautology — Ed.] that Dr Donald Hughes had made these points:

That Jim Hacker is always seeking to reduce overmanning in the Civil Service.

That he is going to succeed, at last.

And that to facilitate this matter, the Treasury, the Home Office and the Civil Service Department have all proposed abolishing the Department of Administrative Affairs.

And that ‘the PM is smiling on the plan’ (his very words).

Appalling! My job’s at stake.

It seems that the PM is entranced by the idea, on the grounds that it is neat, clean, dramatic, and will be politically popular.

The plan is that all the DAA’s functions will be subsumed by other departments.

And my fate? Apparently it is to be presented to the press and public that I have won through with a public-spirited self-sacrificing policy, and I’m to be kicked upstairs to the Lords.

Donald Hughes, rubbing salt in the wound, apparently described it as ‘approbation, elevation and castration, all in one stroke’. It seems he suggested that I should take the title Lord Hacker of Kamikaze.

Apparently Hughes was very pleased with himself, and with this plan, presumably because of his own crusade against Civil Service extravagance, bureaucracy and waste. Ironically, I agree with him on all that — but not at the expense of my job, thank you very much.

This certainly confirms my instincts, that some political Cabinet in-fighting was due to start up again, and clearly we have a huge fight on our hands. Everyone’s against us. The Perm. Secs of the Treasury, Home Office and Civil Service Department all stand to gain more power and influence. So do my Cabinet colleagues running those departments. And, of course, I always knew that the DAA was a political graveyard and that the PM might have been handing me a poisoned chalice — after all, I did run Martin’s leadership campaign against the PM — whose motto, incidentally, is ‘In Defeat, Malice — in Victory, Revenge!’