It did not matter, however, that the guesses were inaccurate. What mattered was that they were being made at all, and that the show was being talked about. More and more people were starting to be drawn into its cultured, insightful and intriguingly believable netherworld.
The real depth to the series was provided by the power of its ever- present themes, which kept connecting each isolated plot to a richer, regular texture. Whereas most sitcoms flitted skittishly from one self-contained storyline to the next, Yes Minister, while never skimping on local detail, touch or colour, never lost sight of the bigger picture.
There were, for example, some deftly delivered satirical observations about the various tensions between bureaucracy and politics. In episode three, Sir Humphrey explained to Woolley how Whitehall is naturally inclined to evaluate itself:
There has to be some way to measure success in the Civil Service. British Leyland measure their success by the size of their profits. Or, to be more accurate, they measure their failure by the size of their losses. But we don’t have profits and losses. We have to measure our success by the size of our staff and our budget. By definition, Bernard, a big department is more successful than a small one.10
Similarly, in a later episode, Hacker let slip how Westminster approaches the same process:
HACKER:
You must realise that there is a real desire for radical reform in the air. The All-Party Select Committee on Administrative Affairs, which I founded, is a case in point. It’s a great success.
SIR HUMPHREY:
Oh, indeed. What has it achieved?
HACKER:
Um … nothing, yet, but the Party’s very pleased with it.
SIR HUMPHREY:
Ah. Why?
HACKER:
Ten column inches in last Monday’s Daily Mail for a start!
SIR HUMPHREY:
Oh, I see, the Government is going to measure its success in column inches, is it?
HACKER:
Yes … No … Yes and no!11
Later on in the series, Sir Humphrey, with uncharacteristic directness, serves as the mouthpiece for another bitingly sardonic summary of the Civil Service’s take on the relationship between a Permanent Secretary and his Minister:
SIR HUMPHREY:
You are not here to run this Department.
HACKER:
I beg your pardon?
SIR HUMPHREY:
You are not here to run this Department.
HACKER:
I think I am! The people think I am, too!
SIR HUMPHREY:
With respect, Minister, you are – they are – wrong.
HACKER:
And who does run this Department?
SIR HUMPHREY:
I do.
HACKER:
Oh! I see! And what am I supposed to do?
SIR HUMPHREY:
We’ve been through all this before: make policy, get legislation enacted and, above all, secure the Department’s budget in Cabinet.
HACKER:
I sometimes think that the budget is all you ever really care about.
SIR HUMPHREY:
Well, it is rather important, Minister. If nobody cared about the budget, we might end up with a department so small that even a Minister could run it.12
This relationship is explained in even more brilliantly damning detail in another exchange – this time between Sir Humphrey, Woolley and another Permanent Secretary, the gloriously orgulous Sir Frederick ‘Jumbo’ Stewart:
SIR HUMPHREY:
Is something the matter, Bernard?
WOOLLEY:
Er, well, it’s just that, er, I’ve been increasingly worried about, er, keeping things back from the Minister.
SIR HUMPHREY:
What do you mean?
WOOLLEY:
Well, er, why shouldn’t he be allowed to know things … if he wants to?
SIR FREDERICK:
Silly boy!
SIR HUMPHREY:
Bernard, this country is governed by Ministers making decisions from the various alternative proposals that we offer them, is it not?
WOOLLEY:
Well, yes, of course.
SIR HUMPHREY:
Well, don’t you see? If they had all the facts they’d see all sorts of other possibilities. They might even formulate their own plans instead of choosing between the two or three that we put up.
WOOLLEY:
Would that matter?
SIR FREDERICK:
Would it matter?!?
WOOLLEY:
But why?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Well, as long as we can formulate our own proposals, we can guide them to the correct decision.
WOOLLEY:
Can we? How?
SIR FREDERICK:
It’s like a conjurer. The Three-Card Trick. You know: ‘Take any card …’ Then make sure they pick the one that you intend. Ours is the Four-Word Trick.
SIR HUMPHREY:
There are four words you have to work into a proposal if you want a Minister to accept it.
SIR FREDERICK:
Quick. Simple. Popular. Cheap. And, equally, there are four words to be included in a proposal if you want it thrown out.
SIR HUMPHREY:
Complicated. Lengthy. Expensive. Controversial. And if you want to be really sure that the Minister doesn’t accept it you must say the decision is ‘courageous’.
WOOLLEY:
And that’s worse than ‘controversial’?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Oh! ‘Controversial’ only means: ‘This will lose you votes’. ‘Courageous’ means: ‘This will lose you the election’!
SIR FREDERICK:
You see, if they have all the facts instead of just the options, they might start thinking for themselves.
SIR HUMPHREY:
Mmmm.
WOOLLEY:
And the system works?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Works? It’s made Britain what she is today!13
Another impressively effective recurring theme was that concerning the ‘cheat of words’ – the various uses and abuses of rhetoric. Both Sir Humphrey and Hacker, for example, demonstrated in certain circumstances that they were well versed in the dark arts of ‘anti-speak’, whereby civil servants and politicians alike conspire to eviscerate language and then use the limp remains as a sort of protective lagging.
In Sir Humphrey’s case, of course, such questionable skills are in evidence almost every time he opens his mouth (e.g. ‘The traditional allocation of executive responsibilities has always been so determined as to liberate the ministerial incumbent from the administrative minutiae by devolving the managerial functions to those whose experience and qualifications have better formed them for the performance of such humble offices, thereby releasing their political overlords for the more onerous duties and profound deliberations which are the inevitable concomitant of their exalted position’14). Even Hacker, however, when he finds himself squirming in such an uncomfortable situation as, say, a probing television interview, shows that he, too, can waffle with the worst of them (‘D’you know? I’m glad you asked me that question! Because … it’s a question a lot of people are asking. And why? Because a lot of people want to know the answer to it. And let’s be quite clear about this without beating about the bush: the plain fact of the matter is … is that it’s a very important question indeed! And people have a right to know!’15).
In a more specific analysis of the pros and cons of trying to communicate, and manipulate, through the means of the modern media, the series captured on numerous occasions how dangerous it can be when a politician, rashly unsheathing the simple sword of truth, sets out to carve his or her name with pride in the press. One such instance occurred in an episode in which Hacker’s cynical bid to gain favourable personal coverage – by launching an ill-conceived but headline-hunting economy drive (‘HACKER SETS AN EXAMPLE!’ ‘SAVE IT, SAYS JIM!’) – sees him resort to such
clumsy publicity stunts as eschewing the use of his drinks cabinet, cutting down on staff in his private office and shunning his chauffeur-driven ministerial car, only to end up being photographed looking somewhat tired and emotional one wet and miserable evening as he sinks to his knees in the gutter and struggles to retrieve his car keys from a drain.
The same episode shows how these media misfortunes are often explained away through the devious powers of spin. Sir Humphrey, noting that Hacker’s ham-fisted attempt at cutting bureaucracy will only lead to the creation of more bureaucracy (with at least four hundred new jobs in the offing if his new administrative ‘watchdog’ is established), proposes abandoning the policy, scrapping all the yet-to-be-filled vacancies and then issuing an immediate press announcement to the effect that the Minister has done precisely what he promised. ‘That’s phoney,’ Hacker complains as he contemplates how much the truth is being twisted. ‘It-it’s cheating, it’s dishonest, it’s just … cheating with figures, pulling the wool over people’s eyes!’ Sir Humphrey responds with a knowing grin: ‘A Government press release, in fact.’16
Another issue within the media theme was addressed later on in the series when the hazards of a politician having a free-willed family was brought briefly into focus, with Hacker’s left-leaning student daughter threatening to ruin one of his policies by making the political personal, and vice versa. The Minister, having been persuaded by Sir Humphrey to support proposed legislation that will see certain areas of the countryside lose their protected status (‘It’s only the urban middle class who worry about the preservation of the countryside – because they don’t have to live in it’), is then horrified to discover that his own faux-radical daughter is one of those planning to stage a front-page-friendly nude protest at an endangered badger colony. ‘What about the police?’ asks Hacker, desperately. ‘“MINISTER SETS POLICE ON NUDE DAUGHTER” – I’m not sure that completely kills the story, Minister,’ replies Sir Humphrey drily. Once again, it is the Permanent Secretary’s penchant for spin that saves the public face of the politician, first assuring the daughter that the only extant local animals are rats, and then assuring the Minister that there is no need for him to have such ‘facts’ confirmed.
It is the ancient problem of ‘dirty hands’, however, that runs throughout the series like a thread. Although Hacker, decent but driven, arrives in the Department determined always to do the right thing, it does not take long before he finds himself pressured into sometimes doing some of the wrong things in order to achieve it. After considering ‘hushing’ something up in the opening episode, Hacker, his moral compass now sent spinning by the sheer complexity of practical politics, soon shows himself open to a bit of bribery to seal a deal with a shady foreign leader (‘Everyone has his price’17), as well as, on occasion, misleading his fellow MPs (‘I don’t want the truth – I want something I can tell Parliament!’18).
By the final episode of the series, Hacker is clearly a much more morally compromised creature from the one who arrived in Whitehall preaching the pure ideals of openness, honesty and unquestionable integrity, and now – although remaining essentially well intentioned – he appears to be very much at home in a world in which practically everyone is open to at least some degree of corruption. Working in tandem with Sir Humphrey, he saves an important Government-sponsored building project by using his powers of patronage to buy the compliance of a banker, tame a trade unionist and even shut up and shut out his own noisily principled political adviser. Time and again he brushes his own objections aside as he pursues his ultimate objectives.
Although he refrains from saying so himself, he would, one suspects, applaud the ingenuity, rather than condemn the insincerity, of Sir Humphrey’s sly redefinition of a cover-up as ‘responsible discretion exercised in the national interest to prevent unnecessary disclosure of eminently justifiable procedures in which untimely revelation could severely impair public confidence’.19 The Minister, at this stage, has hands that are as dirty as any others inside his Department.
As if the sustained and intelligent treatment of this and the other recurring themes was not impressive enough for the short and populist form of the sitcom, the series also managed to find sufficient room and wit to touch on a number of more specific topical issues, ranging from current ecological concerns to the burgeoning use of quangos. Probably the most evocative and provocative of such issues, and the one that was treated with the most clinical satirical swipe, was that pertaining to the chronically vexed question of Britain’s role in Europe:
SIR HUMPHREY:
Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause, we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans and with the French against the Germans and the Italians. Divide and rule, you see? Why should we change now, when it’s worked so well?
HACKER:
That’s all ancient history, surely?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Yes. And current policy. We had to break the whole thing up so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside but that wouldn’t work. Now that we’re inside we can make a complete pig’s breakfast of the whole thing! Set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch … The Foreign Office is terribly pleased – it’s just like old times!
HACKER:
But surely we’re all committed to the European ideal?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Really, Minister!
HACKER:
If not, why are we pressing for an increase in the membership?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Well, for the same reason. It’s just like the United Nations, in fact: the more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up. The more futile and impotent it becomes.
HACKER:
What appalling cynicism!
SIR HUMPHREY:
Yes. We call it diplomacy, Minister.20
The one aspect of life that was largely missing from the first series was private life, but that absence, understandably, was a reflection of an absence in real life. This was, after all, the story of how a Minister becomes increasingly immersed in the business of government, and, as a consequence, it also had to be, implicitly, the story of how a Minister becomes progressively alienated from ordinary civilian activities. Like some poor soul who has followed the footsteps leading into Virgil’s dark cave of Polyphemus, there is only one direction that Hacker is heading, and that is deeper and deeper into the abyss. In dramatic terms, therefore, there was probably precious little to show of the typical senior bureaucratic or political official’s life beyond the day-to-day exigencies of government.
True, in theory, and in keeping with a much more conventional sitcom style, we could probably have seen more of Sir Humphrey off duty than one fleeting scene of him sharing a shadowy bed with his wife (totalling a mere fifty-five seconds), and more of Hacker spending some time domestically with his own wife (only six scenes in seven episodes, totalling a modest sixteen minutes), or his daughter (just one scene, totalling just four minutes), but, to be fair, the concision had more to do with fact than fiction. Apart from a few isolated moments when Hacker’s wife acted as his confidante-cum-conscience, such as when she shamed and cajoled him into finally standing up for himself (‘And while you’re at it, why not just sign your letters with a rubber stamp, or get an Assistant Principal to sign them for you? They write them, anyway!’), there was little opportunity for his family to interact with him genuinely without distracting viewers from each complicated plot.
The real message conveyed by the peripheral nature of his personal life was that, whether he likes it or not, the Department of Administrative Affairs is now Jim Hacker’s de facto home, and Sir Humphrey and Woolley are now his surrogate family. He might have started out on that balcony, arm in arm with his wife with his party rosette proudly on display on his overc
oat, but gradually, as the red boxes pile up and the problems proliferate, he becomes more and more rooted in his job, and, eventually, this Westminster man becomes wedded to Whitehall.
This gradual process was charted by means of an effective dialectic. In three well-paced stages, the transformation was traced.
The first three episodes provided the thesis: Whitehall rules over Westminster. Sir Humphrey, with his cobra-cool eyes, would listen patiently to his mouse of a Minister, and then, when the moment was right, he would pounce, wrapping his words around his prey until all resistance had been suffocated. Hacker, time and again, would react with the kind of dazed and dazzled awe that had caused Charles Pooter, in The Diary of a Nobody, to remark that the pronouncements of the similarly verbose and ‘very clever’ Hardfur Huttle seemed ‘absolutely powerful’.21
The fourth episode, however, provided the antithesis: Westminster fights back. Jim Hacker, realising that he is being consistently outwitted by his Permanent Secretary, resolves to claw back some authority by acting just as slyly as his tormentor. Spurred on by the combined efforts of his special adviser and his wife, Hacker starts mimicking the master’s own brand of deviousness, unnerving Sir Humphrey by waking him up in the early hours of the morning with a speciously complicated query (‘I didn’t interrupt you in the middle of dinner or anything, did I?’), confounding him with his sudden addiction to secrecy (‘Humphrey, my lips are sealed!’), anticipating and dismissing all of his procrastinating tactics (‘Right: well, we can go ahead, then!’), and then using the media to bypass and bully the bureaucracy (‘… And I’m happy to announce that we’re now ready to put our proposals into publication’), leaving a furious Sir Humphrey facing a fait accompli (‘I think,’ the discreetly impressed Woolley tells him, ‘it’s checkmate’). Even though the sheer amount of effort Hacker expends to win this particular battle seems unlikely to be repeated all that often – one already senses that Hacker, compared to Sir Humphrey, is, essentially, lazier as well as slower-witted – the victory does at least show his Permanent Secretary that, from this point on, the Minister is quite capable, on his day, of putting him back in his place.
A Very Courageous Decision Page 14
