A Very Courageous Decision
Page 32
HACKER:
Told you so!
The second part of the masterclass takes place in the next episode, when Woolley asks for advice about how best to report what happened at another important meeting:
SIR HUMPHREY:
Bernard, the minutes do not record everything that was said at a meeting, do they?
WOOLLEY:
Well, no, of course not.
SIR HUMPHREY:
And people change their minds during a meeting, don’t they?
WOOLLEY:
Well, yes.
SIR HUMPHREY:
So the actual meeting is a mass of ingredients for you to choose from.
WOOLLEY:
Oh. Like cooking?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Like – no, not like cooking! Better not to use that word in connection with books or minutes. You choose, from a jumble of ill-digested ideas, a version which represents the Prime Minister’s views as he would, on reflection, have liked them to emerge.
WOOLLEY:
But, if it’s not a true record …
SIR HUMPHREY:
The purpose of minutes is not to record events, it is to protect people. You do not take notes. If the Prime Minister says something he did not mean to say, particularly if it contradicts something he has said publicly, you try to improve on what has been said. Put it in a better order. You are tactful.
WOOLLEY:
But how do I justify that?
SIR HUMPHREY:
You are his servant.
WOOLLEY:
Oh. Yes.
SIR HUMPHREY:
A minute is a note for the records, and a statement of action, if any, that was agreed upon.
Another theme that was featured in more than one episode was that of the increasingly cynical view of, and attitude towards, the modern mass media. First, for example, there was a summary30 of how politicians viewed those newspapers that were still supposed to be one of the means whereby the governors are monitored by the governed:
SIR HUMPHREY:
The only way to understand the press is to remember that they pander to their readers’ prejudices.
HACKER:
Don’t tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: the Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; the Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
SIR HUMPHREY:
Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?
WOOLLEY:
The Sun readers don’t care who runs the country, as long as she’s got big tits.31
This was followed by a glimpse of how troublesome complexities, rather than being explained and defended, are instead secreted away inside a range of tabloid-friendly clichés:
HACKER:
I’m not at all happy about my speech for the Party Conference. It contains absolutely no good news.
WAINWRIGHT:
We couldn’t think of any.
HACKER:
Well, we have to make the bad news look good. Now, I’d better say something about the Health Service – ‘care for the elderly … mothers and children … growing up into a healthy nation …’
WAINWRIGHT:
‘Value for money’?
HACKER:
Can’t say that. Everybody knows that costs are completely out of control.
WAINWRIGHT:
Right: ‘We are spending more than ever to make our Health Service the best in the world’.
HACKER:
Good. Now, Defence. I was hoping to say something about defence cuts but I haven’t been able to persuade them to make any yet.
WAINWRIGHT:
‘This Government will not put the security of the nation in jeopardy by penny-pinching and false economies’. Not that we’d really have put the security of the nation in jeopardy by having one service music school instead of three separate ones for the Army, Navy and the RAF. I mean, there can hardly be a specific Royal Naval method of playing the bassoon!
HACKER:
You’re not going to put that in, are you? [She glowers at him] Er, no, sorry.
WAINWRIGHT:
Is there anything good we can say about the economy?
HACKER:
Hmm, the economy, that’s a problem. No really good news at all.
WAINWRIGHT:
Oh, we’ll find something. Unemployment coming down at all?
HACKER:
No.
WAINWRIGHT:
‘We shall make the attack on unemployment our top priority’. Pay?
HACKER:
Rising too fast.
WAINWRIGHT:
‘We cannot afford to pay ourselves more than we earn, and the world does not owe us a living’. Interest rates?
HACKER:
Too high.
WAINWRIGHT:
You mean they might come down before the Conference? Now that would be terrific!
HACKER:
I don’t have that kind of luck.
WAINWRIGHT:
Well, if the whole picture’s a total disaster we could always wave the Union Jack: ‘The nation’s great destiny’.
HACKER:
‘Unique role on the world stage’.
WAINWRIGHT:
‘Devote every effort to building a peaceful and prosperous world for our children, and our children’s children’.
HACKER:
That’s probably about how long it’ll take!32
Then there was recognition of how, in the age of spin, politicians much prefer to use media interviews to evade rather than engage with the electorate. When, for instance, Sir Humphrey prepares for a rare exchange with an ‘outsider’ in the media, Hacker is only too happy to give him the benefit of his own expertise:
HACKER:
If he does say that lots of people want to know the answer to that question, you say: ‘Name six !’ That’ll fix him – he’ll never be able to remember more than two!
SIR HUMPHREY:
Oh, excellent, Prime Minister. Any more tricks?
HACKER:
‘Tricks,’ Humphrey? This is technique. Attack one word in the sentence, like, um, ‘frequently’: ‘“Frequently”? What do you mean, “frequently”?’ Or attack the interviewer. Say: ‘You clearly have never read the White Paper itself, have you!’ Or else ask your own question, like: ‘That was a very interesting question. Now let me ask you a question!’ You see?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Oh, thank you, Prime Minister.33
In addition to all of this, there was also another reference to the readiness of contemporary politicians to turn practically any occasion, no matter how ostensibly delicate or dignified, into a self-serving media stunt. When, for example, a state funeral is being planned, Hacker can hardly wait to exploit its PR potential. ‘Dignified grief goes down very well with the voters, especially when it’s shared by the world’s statesmen,’ he says, before adding dreamily, ‘It’s a wonderful thing, death – so uncontroversial …’34
Such a coldly calculating attitude slotted very snugly into the broader theme of the amoral nature that the system tends to cultivate. Time and again, from one episode to the next, the notion of dishonesty, deviousness and dirty hands kept intruding rudely into view:
SIR ARNOLD:
I presume the Prime Minister is in favour of the scheme because it will reduce unemployment?
SIR HUMPHREY:
Well, it’ll look as if he’s reducing unemployment.
SIR ARNOLD:
Or look as if he’s trying to reduce unemployment.
SIR HUMPHREY:
Whereas in reality he’s only trying to look as if he’s trying to reduce unemploy
ment.
SIR ARNOLD:
Yes, because he’s worried that it doesn’t look as if he’s trying to look as if he’s trying to reduce unemployment.35
PRESS OFFICER:
Do you want to give any interviews?
HACKER:
Certainly not.
PRESS OFFICER:
Shall I say why?
HACKER:
Oh, make it a quote: ‘Insignificant matter of no national importance, typical of the media’s trivialisation of politics’.
PRESS OFFICER:
And who shall I attribute that quote to?
HACKER:
‘Close Cabinet colleagues’.36
SIR HUMPHREY:
It’s up to you, Bernard, what do you want?
WOOLLEY:
I want to have a clear conscience.
SIR HUMPHREY:
A clear conscience?
WOOLLEY:
Yes.
SIR HUMPHREY:
When did you acquire this taste for luxuries?37
The most overtly ideological episodes in the series were the sixth (‘The Patron of the Arts’) and the seventh (‘The National Education Service’), both of which seemed heavily influenced by, and inclined towards, the kind of public choice theory ideas that were still being popularised by the Conservative Government. Antony Jay, by this time, was not only well known for his support of such views, but was also (unofficially) writing some of the witty lines, phrases and passages that defended them in the speeches of not only Margaret Thatcher herself, but also certain real-life Cabinet Ministers of the day, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson.38 It would therefore be his input, rather than that of Jonathan Lynn, that would be most noticeable in these particular storylines.
‘The Patron of the Arts’ was, in a sense, a reprise of the old Yes Minister episode from 1982, ‘The Middle-Class Rip-Off’, but, though making the same basic point, it was at least mercifully less crude in the manner of its exposition. It concerned the plight of Jim Hacker, who, having accepted an invitation to be guest of honour at the annual British Theatre Awards dinner, now knows that the size of next year’s grant to the Arts Council is going to be cut, so he is desperate to avoid being attacked and ridiculed by angry actors as ‘the philistine at Number Ten’ at an event that will be broadcast live on television.
What follows is the same simplistic distinction between an absurdly snobbish defence of subsidised culture (‘We have a great heritage to support,’ Sir Humphrey haughtily exclaims. ‘Pictures hardly anyone wants to see, music hardly anyone wants to hear, plays hardly anyone wants to watch. You can’t let them die just because nobody’s interested!’) and a lazy dismissal of it (‘There are no votes for me in giving money to the arts,’ moans Hacker). The story itself, though, is considerably more interesting and entertaining.
Hacker searches for a solution to his PR problem. Sir Humphrey proves to be of no use when he asks for advice about how to handle the occasion (HACKER: ‘It’s to be to a hostile audience of posturing, self-righteous, theatrical drunks.’ SIR HUMPHREY: ‘The House of Commons, you mean?’), but his political adviser Dorothy Wainwright comes up trumps when she suggests that he should call the bluff of the artistic activists by threatening to sell the National Theatre and devolve dramatic productions, thus leaving the company to hire existing theatres around the country and become ‘strolling players again instead of … civil servants’.
This proposal so scares the Managing Director of the National Theatre that he abandons plans to attack the Prime Minister publicly and instead meekly accepts the reduction in his grant. ‘There are many calls on the public purse,’ he says contritely, delivering his speech as Hacker sits beside him, gloating. ‘Education … inner cities … health … kidney machines …’
Jonathan Lynn would later claim that the episode had managed to be so even-handed in the way it covered its subject that it provoked a range of reactions that said more about those who espoused them than it did about the content itself. ‘The interesting thing about this programme was that everyone saw in it what they wanted to see,’ he said. ‘All our socialist friends were convinced that this programme proved that we were socialists. All our Conservative friends felt that this proved that we were Conservatives. This episode appeared to be an attack on Thatcher’s policy towards the arts, but it was also, at the same time, critical of the way that arts organisations ran themselves. The arguments set out in the programme were equally hostile to both sides.’39
This was surely a little too generous an interpretation. While it is true that the episode did indeed score some strong satirical points against the management of arts organisations (a critique helped by the fact that Lynn, as a director at the National Theatre, knew all about its faults as well as its strengths), in addition to the cynicism of certain aspects of Government policy on the arts, it was still arguably the case that the majority of viewers, left to form a judgement purely on the evidence of the story, would have been far more sympathetic to Hacker’s aesthetic incomprehension than they would have been to Sir Humphrey’s glib elitism.
A more balanced treatment of the issue would have had someone counter the contemptuous comments with a positive argument for such funding, but the only lines given to the pro-arts representatives were ones that questioned alternative uses of public money: HACKER: ‘We’ll do what we can, but there are many calls on the public purse, y’know: inner cities, schools, hospitals, kidney machines …’ ACTORS: ‘… Tanks, rockets, H-bombs …’ The closest the episode came, therefore, to a positive defence of the arts was that the arts were not as morally dubious a waste of public money as tanks, rockets or H-bombs.
For two writers who were themselves working in the arts, and collaborating on a sitcom that almost certainly would never have found an audience, or at least a broad audience, anywhere else but the publicly funded BBC, the approach seemed, to put it mildly, less than gracious. It was not just biting the hand that fed them. It was also, some might say, punching themselves in the mouth.
A far more ambitious and impressive form of satirical polemic took shape in the subsequent episode, ‘The National Education Service’. This saw Hacker, spurred on by Dorothy Wainwright, resolve to revamp his Government’s education policy dramatically by dragging schools into the marketplace:
WAINWRIGHT:
Suppose schools were like doctors. I mean, after all, under the National Health Service you can choose whichever doctor you like to go to, can’t you?
HACKER:
Yes.
WAINWRIGHT:
And he gets paid per patient. Well, why don’t we do the same with schools? Have a National Education Service. The parents could choose the schools they want and the schools get paid per pupil.
There was in fact a real-life backdrop to this idea. Back in 1982, Sir Keith Joseph, the then Secretary of State for Education and an arch-monetarist, wanted to introduce education vouchers. Every parent would receive a voucher and be free to ‘cash it in’ at a school of his or her choice – the theory being that, under the influence of parental choice operating in a schools market, the efficient would flourish while the inefficient would go to the wall.
Margaret Thatcher (criticised repeatedly by her predecessor Edward Heath for being ‘obsessed’ with market economics and eager to see people shop for their children’s education ‘as though they were in Sainsbury’s or Marks & Spencer’40) was known to have been much in favour of this ‘noble concept’, but it was not long before Sir Keith was meekly acknowledging (in a paper prepared for him by his civil servants) numerous problems that suggested his own plan would be ‘impracticable and costly’. The result was that, after a year or so of internal deliberations, the Government, instead of succeeding in establishing parent power, ended up with even more centralised DES power: in short, the Government got the exact opposite of what it had set out to achieve, while the supposedly ‘tamed’ Civil Service had delivered precisely what it had wanted.41
The t
opic, therefore, fitted perfectly within Yes, Prime Minister’s classic Whitehall versus Westminster battleground, and also provided the writers with an opportunity to revisit the original ideological argument. ‘Dorothy Wainwright,’ Jonathan Lynn would later acknowledge, ‘was arguing pure Friedmanism when she countered Sir Humphrey’s claim that it was impossible to rationalise education without centralisation by pointing out that two and a half thousand private schools solve planning problems every day by simply responding to changing circumstances – i.e., to the marketplace’.42
Likewise, Sir Humphrey’s response to the proposal very much mirrors the Civil Service’s actual response to the education voucher plan:
SIR HUMPHREY:
With respect, Prime Minister, I think that the DES will react with some caution to your rather novel proposal.
HACKER:
You mean they’ll block it?
SIR HUMPHREY:
I mean they will give it the most serious and urgent consideration and insist on a thorough and rigorous examination of all the proposals, allied to a detailed feasibility study and budget analysis, before producing a consultative document for consideration by all interested bodies and seeking comments and recommendations to be included in a brief, for a series of working parties who will produce individual studies which will provide the background for a more wide-ranging document, considering whether or not the proposal should be taken forward to the next stage.