A Very Courageous Decision
Page 41
10 Richard Crossman, New Statesman, 21 March 1959, pp. 419–20.
11 Richard Crossman, Diaries of a Cabinet Minister: Volume 1: Minister of Housing 1964–66 (London: Hamish Hamilton and Jonathan Cape, 1975), p. 12.
12 See The Times, 2 October 1975, p. 1.
13 The Times, 8 December 1975, p. 12.
14 The Times, 30 June 1976, p. 14.
15 Guardian, 8 January 1976, p. 11.
16 Richard Crossman, The Crossman Diaries: Condensed Version, ed. Anthony Howard (London: Magnum, 1979), p. 25.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid. pp. 26–7.
21 Ibid. p. 40.
22 Ibid. p. 41.
23 See Kevin Theakston and Geoffrey Fry, ‘Britain’s Administrative Elite: Permanent Secretaries 1900–1986’, Public Administration, vol. 67, no. 2, June 1989, pp. 129–47.
24 Crossman, The Crossman Diaries, pp. 41 and 64. (The then Head of the Home Civil Service was Sir Laurence Helsby.)
25 Ibid. pp. 92–4.
26 Ibid. p. 94.
27 Ibid. p. 92.
28 Antony Jay, quoted in Kandiah, p. 517.
29 Crossman, The Crossman Diaries, p. 25.
30 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 98.
31 Nelson Polsby, ‘Where Do Ideas Come From?’ lecture at the University of Chicago, quoted by Harry Kreisler, 4 September 2002, as part of the ‘Conversations with History’ series at the Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
32 Lord Donoughue, interview with the author, 25 March 2014.
33 Antony Jay, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
34 Jonathan Lynn, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
35 Bernard Donoughue, Downing Street Diary, Volume One: With Harold Wilson in No. 10 (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005), p. 51.
36 Lynn, Radio Times, 15 January 2013, p. 17.
37 Lynn, quoted in Kandiah, p. 527.
38 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 98.
39 Jay, quoted by Ben Duckworth in ‘The Power of Comedy’, Total Politics, 20 November 2009, online source: http://www.totalpolitics.com/articles/3313/the-power-of-comedy.thtml.
40 Leslie Chapman quoted in The Times, 9 May 1978, p. 2. (Shortly before Chapman retired, he sent the Department of the Environment a memorandum outlining his arguments for reform, citing some of the examples that would later feature in his first book. According to a spokesman for the Department at the time, an internal investigation was launched but it was found that ‘the allegations were not supported by the evidence’.)
41 World in Action: ‘In the Public Interest’, broadcast on ITV on 8 May 1978. The Man Alive Report: ‘Civil They May Be, But Are They Servants?’, broadcast on BBC2 on 9 May 1978.
42 Leslie Chapman, Your Disobedient Servant (London: Chatto & Windus, 1978), p. 30.
43 Antony Jay, quoted in Kandiah, p. 518.
44 Antony Jay, quoted in Kandiah, pp. 511–12.
45 Lynn, quoted in Kandiah, p. 529.
46 P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves (London: Penguin, 1999), p. 76.
47 P. G. Wodehouse, Joy in the Morning (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), p. 170.
48 Ibid. pp. 110–11.
49 See my Spike & Co. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006), pp. 261–78.
50 Jay, quoted by Duckworth,
51 Jay, quoted in Kandiah, p. 508.
52 Crossman, The Crossman Diaries, p. 25.
53 Ibid. pp. 159–60.
54 Antony Jay, speaking in Comedy Connections, series six, episode two: Yes Minister, first broadcast on BBC1 on 25 July 2008.
55 This early name for Hacker is in some secondary sources rendered as ‘Jerry’, but documents in the BBC Written Archives Centre (henceforth abbreviated as WAC) confirm the spelling as ‘Gerry’.
56 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 101.
57 Lynn, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
58 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 101.
59 Jay, quoted in Kandiah, p. 511.
60 Lynn, quoted in Kandiah, p. 531.
61 See Theakston and Fry, ‘Britain’s Administrative Elite’, pp. 129–47.
62 Lynn, quoted in Kandiah, pp. 531–2.
63 Crossman, The Crossman Diaries, p. 159.
64 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 112.
65 Lynn, quoted in Kandiah, p. 533.
66 Ibid. p. 532.
3 The Pitch
Header quotation: Anon, ‘The Prayer of St Francis’, submitted anonymously to the French publication La Clochette in 1912, and quoted by Margaret Thatcher outside Number Ten Downing Street on 4 May 1979.
1 James Gilbert sent a memo to David Gower at the BBC’s copyright department on 13 October 1977, saying: ‘Would you please go ahead and commission Tony Jay and Jonathan Lynn to write a 30-minute pilot script (as yet untitled). Delivery date 1.1.78’. Gilbert did actually know the writers’ intention to call the programme Yes Minister, but at this stage he saw no need to confirm it. (Source: BBC WAC: Antony Jay Copyright File 1975–9.)
2 Lynn, quoted in Kandiah, p. 533.
3 Jay, quoted in Kandiah, p. 509.
4 Lynn, quoted in Kandiah, p. 527.
5 Lynn, quoted in Kandiah, p. 527.
6 See the ‘Room 3’ chapter in my Spike & Co. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006).
7 See my Dad’s Army: The Story of a Classic Television Show (London: Fourth Estate, 2001), pp. 102–3.
8 See Richard Webber, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (London: Orion, 1999), p. 20.
9 See Chapter 2 of my Fawlty Towers (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2007).
10 John Cleese, quoted by Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 109.
11 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 109.
12 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 114.
13 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 110.
14 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 110.
15 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 113.
16 The episode in question was episode five in series 3, called ‘The Bed of Nails’.
17 The script in question was from series three: ‘The Bed of Nails’.
18 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 111.
19 See Crossman, The Crossman Diaries, p. 35.
20 Jay, quoted in Kandiah, op. cit. p. 509. (William Whitelaw, at the time when Yes Minister was first being written, was Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of the Conservative Party; Labour’s Merlyn Rees had recently been appointed Home Secretary. Both men were widely regarded both inside and outside of the Commons as relatively reasonable, ruminative, moderate types who epitomised the kind of consensual politics that had characterised twentieth-century British politics before Thatcherism, briefly, challenged the orthodoxy.)
21 John Cleese, quoted in my Fawlty Towers, p. 54.
22 The pilot script had been formally accepted on 10 January 1978. (Source: BBC WAC: Antony Jay Copyright File 1975–9.)
23 Jay, quoted in Kandiah, p. 511.
24 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 103.
25 Antony Jay, speaking in Comedy Connections, series six, episode two: Yes Minister, first broadcast on BBC1 on 25 July 2008.
26 The Good Life, series one, episode four, ‘Pig’s Lib’, broadcast on BBC1, 25 April 1975. Lynn played a window cleaner.
27 See The Times, 28 December 1985, p. 34.
28 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 103.
29 Nigel Hawthorne, Daily Express, 24 November 1984, p. 17.
30 Nigel Hawthorne, Straight Face (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002), pp. 247–8.
31 Quotes in The Times, 28 December 1985, p. 34.
32 John Howard Davies, interview with the author, 31 May 2007.
33 Source: BBC WAC: Antony Jay Copyright File 1975–9.
34 Source: BBC WAC: Antony Jay Copyright File 1975–9.
35 Source: BBC WAC: Antony Jay Copyright File 1975–9.
36 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 104.
37 Davies commissioned scripts five and six on 2 November 1978 for a joint fee of £725. He would not decide to commission a seventh script until after
production on the show resumed after the 1979 General Election. (Source: BBC WAC: Antony Jay Copyright File 1975–9.)
38 See my Fawlty Towers, pp. 55–6.
39 See my Dad’s Army, p. 52.
40 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 4 March 2014.
41 Derek Fowlds, interview 4 March 2014.
42 Derek Fowlds, interview 4 March 2014.
43 Source: BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/34/1, episodes one to seven, (series one).
44 John Howard Davies, interview with the author, 31 May 2007.
45 John Howard Davies, interview 31 May 2007.
4 The Preparation
Header quotation: Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho (London: John Calder, 1983), p. 7.
1 Source: BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/34/1, episodes one to seven (series one).
2 John Howard Davies, interview with the author, 31 May 2007.
3 Jonathan Lynn, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
4 Jonathan Lynn, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
5 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 70.
6 Ibid. p. 71.
7 Antony Jay, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
8 Paul Eddington, So Far, So Good (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995), p. 142.
9 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
10 Nigel Hawthorne, Straight Face, p. 248.
11 Quoted by Lynn, Comedy Rules, pp. 105–6.
12 Ibid. p. 106.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
16 Hawthorne, Straight Face, p. 249.
17 Ibid.
18 Eddington, So Far, So Good, p. 142.
19 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
20 Antony Jay, speaking in Comedy Connections, series six, episode two: Yes Minister, first broadcast on BBC1 on 25 July 2008.
21 George Fox (1624–91) is commonly regarded as the founder of the Society of Friends, which is often referred to as the Quaker movement. Emerging in the 1650s in reaction to the corruption and obscurantism associated with the Anglican Church, the Quakers believed in the unique value of each individual, so they insisted on treating everyone equally. They believed in direct experience of God, so they regarded priests and rituals as unnecessary obstructions between the individual believer and God. Because of their spiritual egalitarianism, they resisted social hierarchies as well, refusing to raise their hats or bow their heads to anyone else regardless of title or rank. They were suspicious of any signs of affectation, so favoured plain and simple language, clothes and manners. Part of the power of Thomas Paine’s radical political writings in the mid-eighteenth century, it is usually argued, came from his own Quaker background, which encouraged him to write more simply and accessibly than any of his eminent theoretical predecessors.
22 Eddington, interviewed in The Times, 28 December 1985, p. 34.
23 Eddington, quoted by Khan, ‘The Men from the Ministry’, p. 12.
24 Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory (London: Vintage Classics, 2001), p. 193.
25 Lynn, quoted in Kandiah, p. 524.
26 See, for example, the Daily Express, 11 November 1982, p. 23. (The actor Jonathan Cecil told me that Eddington had mentioned to him James Prior as a model for Jim Hacker.)
27 See the interview with James Prior, Desert Island Discs, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 11 January 1987.
28 See Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 116. He told Lynn, ‘I’m not interested in politics. Never have been.’
29 Jay, quoted in Kandiah, pp. 510–11.
30 Jay, ‘Why Yes Minister is as true as ever’, Daily Telegraph, 20 November 2009, p. 25.
31 Antony Jay, quoted by Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 116.
32 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
33 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
34 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
35 BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/34/1, episodes one to seven (series one). No clear confirmation exists in the BBC archives regarding the authorship of the caricatures. Neither Antony Jay nor Jonathan Lynn could recall the name of any artist involved prior to Gerald Scarfe’s arrival.
36 Nigel Hawthorne, in Straight Face, p. 248, recalled: ‘they were so crudely executed, and, in any case, they didn’t look like us’.
37 Ibid. p. 249.
38 BBC WAC: Ronnie Hazlehurst Artist File.
39 Jay, quoted in Kandiah, p. 510.
40 John Howard Davies, interview with the author, 31 May 2007.
41 It is sometimes – wrongly – claimed that John Cleese decided to use Lotterby’s name in ‘The Four Lotterbys’ sketch, but Lotterby himself would recall that it was Feldman who ‘rang me and said, “I want to use your name.” I said, “Why?” He said, “It’s such an unusual name.” (Sydney Lotterby, quoted in the London Evening Standard, 28 July 2000, p. 48).
42 The first sketch was a delightfully whimsical routine that saw four identically dressed Englishmen bump into each other while on holiday in Spain. As they talk to each other, they discover that all of them are called Sydney Lotterby, and three of them happen to be ‘wholesale greengrocers’ – while the fourth is a barrister who ‘used to be a wholesale greengrocer’. The follow-up sketch appears to have been very similar, although, as a recording was rediscovered only recently, I have not yet been able to view it. ‘Sydney Lotterby Wants to Know the Test Score’ is more or less self-explanatory, and was apparently inspired by the fact that Lotterby did indeed often want to know the Test score.
43 Geoffrey Palmer, quoted in the Daily Post (North Wales), 20 July 2002, pp. 2–3.
44 See Ronnie Waldman, ‘The Toughest Job’, Radio Times, 4 December 1953, p. 5, as well as my Morecambe & Wise (London: Fourth Estate, 1998), especially Chapters 5, 13 and 14.
45 Source: BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/34/1, episodes one to seven (series one).
46 See my Spike & Co., pp. 315–16. The question of stopping That Was The Week That Was in General Election year, according to Kenneth Adam, the then Director of Television at the BBC, began as a discussion between the Director-General, Hugh Carleton Greene, and himself. This was followed by further discussion at the weekly management meeting of BBC directors, after which the Director-General stated the intention to the Board of Governors at the beginning of November 1963, which they approved (see The Stage, 21 November 1963, p. 9).
47 The so-called Lib-Lab Pact was negotiated in March 1977 when the Labour Government, recently deprived of an overall majority due to a by-election defeat, was now facing a motion of no confidence. Needing the votes of some Opposition MPs to survive, an agreement was struck with the Liberal Party, whereby the Labour Party would accept a limited number of Liberal Party policy proposals in exchange for the Liberal Party’s promise to vote with the Government in any subsequent motion of no confidence.
48 See, for example, the Daily Express, 7 February 1079, p. 1.
49 See the Daily Express, 15 February 1979, p. 1.
50 See the Sunday Express, 4 March 1979, p. 1.
51 Jonathan Lynn, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
52 See the Guardian, 29 March 1979, p. 1.
53 Source: BBC WAC: Antony Jay Copyright File 1975–9.
54 Source: BBC WAC: David Jason Artist File.
55 Source: BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/34/1, episodes one to seven (series one).
56 Source: BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/34/1, episodes one to seven (series one).
57 BBC WAC: Ronnie Hazlehurst Artist File.
58 Source: BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/34/1, episodes one to seven (series one).
PART TWO
Frontispiece quotations:
Max Weber: quoted by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich in their editors’ introduction to Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. LIX.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter X
IV: ‘How a ruler should act concerning military matters’, p. 52.
5 Series One
Header quotation: Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, p. 61.
1 Conservative Party manifesto, 1979.
2 Naseem Khan, ‘The Men from the Ministry’, Radio Times, 23 to 29 February 1980, pp. 12–13.
3 This was actually a very late decision. In a letter dated 14 February 1980, Carol Vigurs, Manager of Facilities at the BBC, informed a colleague: ‘A transmission date for this series has still to be arranged’ (source: BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T701/34/1, episodes one to seven, series one).
4 Peter Fiddick, Guardian, 26 February 1980, p. 9. His complaint about Hansard was that, in one brief exchange, Sir Humphrey startles Jim Hacker by demonstrating that he has committed to memory a minor remark in the House by citing its place in Hansard as ‘volume 497, page 1102, column B’. Fiddick complained that ‘Hansard does not have page numbers – and each column is numbered. (And, judging by the volume number, our newly created Minister must have got into the Lords by mistake on the day in question but we’ll let that pass)’.
5 David Sinclair, The Times, 25 February 1980, p. 25.
6 Source: BBC WAC: Viewing Barometer for 25 February 1980.
7 Roy Hattersley, ‘Of Ministers and Mandarins’, The Listener, 20 March 1980, pp. 367–8.
8 Daily Mail, 5 April 1980, p. 19.
9 Harold Wilson, quoted by Bernard Donoughue, Downing Street Diary: With Harold Wilson in No. 10 (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005), p. 573.
10 Series one, episode three: ‘The Economy Drive’.
11 Series one, episode five: ‘The Writing on the Wall’.
12 Series one, episode six: ‘The Right to Know’.
13 Series one, episode six: ‘The Right to Know’.
14 Series one, episode six: ‘The Right to Know’.
15 Series one, episode four: ‘Big Brother’.
16 Series one, episode three: ‘The Economy Drive’.
17 Series one, episode two: ‘The Official Visit’.
18 Series one, episode 5: ‘The Writing on the Wall’.
19 Series one, episode 7: ‘Jobs for the Boys’.
20 Series one, episode 5: ‘The Writing on the Wall’.