The Complete Yes Minister

I said I’d read it. Nonetheless she read it out to me. ‘Hacker the badger butcher,’ she said.

‘Daddy’s read it, darling,’ said Annie, loyally. As if stone-deaf, Lucy read the whole story aloud. I told her it was a load of rubbish, she looked disbelieving, so I decided to explain in detail.

‘One: I am not a badger butcher. Two: the badger is not an endangered species. Three: the removal of protective status does not necessarily mean the badgers will be killed. Four: if a few badgers have to be sacrificed for the sake of a master plan that will save Britain’s natural heritage — tough!’

Master plan is always a bad choice of phrase, particularly to a generation brought up on Second World War films. ‘Ze master plan, mein Führer,’ cried my darling daughter, giving a Nazi salute. ‘Ze end justifies ze means, does it?’

Apart from the sheer absurdity of a supporter of the Loony Left having the nerve to criticise someone else for believing that the end justifies the means — which I don’t or not necessarily, anyway — she is really making a mountain out of a ridiculous molehill.

‘It’s because badgers haven’t got votes, isn’t it?’ This penetrating question completely floored me. I couldn’t quite grasp what she was on about.

‘If badgers had votes you wouldn’t be exterminating them. You’d be up there at Hayward’s Spinney, shaking paws and kissing cubs. Ingratiating yourself the way you always do. Yuk!’

Clearly I have not succeeded in ingratiating myself with my own daughter.

Annie intervened again. ‘Lucy,’ she said, rather too gently I thought, ‘that’s not a very nice thing to say.’

‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’ said Lucy.

Annie said: ‘Ye-e-es, it’s true… but well, he’s in politics. Daddy has to be ingratiating.’

Thanks a lot.

‘It’s got to be stopped,’ said Lucy. Having finished denouncing me, she was now instructing me.

‘Too late.’ I smiled nastily. ‘The decision’s been taken, dear.’

‘I’m going to stop it, then,’ she said.

Silly girl. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘That should be quite easy. Just get yourself adopted as a candidate, win a general election, serve with distinction on the back benches, be appointed a Minister and repeal the act. No problem. Of course, the badgers might be getting on a bit by then.’

She flounced out and, thank God, stayed out for the rest of the day.

[Meanwhile, Bernard Woolley was becoming increasingly uneasy about keeping secrets from the Minister. He was finding it difficult to accustom himself to the idea that civil servants apply the ‘need to know’ principle that is the basis of all security activities. Finally he sent a memo to Sir Humphrey, asking for a further explanation as to why the Minister should not be allowed to know whatever he wants to know. The reply is printed below — Ed.]

[It is worth examining Sir Humphrey Appleby’s choice of words in this memo. The phrase ‘the common ground’, for example, was much used by senior civil servants after two changes in government in the first four years of the 1970s. It seemed to mean policies that the Civil Service can pursue without disturbance to the party in power. ‘Courageous’ as used in this context is an even more damning word than ‘controversial’. ‘Controversial’ only means ‘this will lose you votes’. ‘Courageous’ means ‘this will lose you the election’ — Ed.]

February 22nd

[The above letter was found by Bernard Woolley when he opened Hacker’s boxes in the office on Monday 22 February. The envelope was addressed to ‘Daddy’ but rules state that Private Secretaries open every letter of every classification up to and including TOP SECRET, unless specifically marked PERSONAL. This was a letter not marked PERSONAL. Hacker’s diary continues — Ed.]