A Very Courageous Decision
Page 42
21 George and Weedon Grossmith, The Diary of a Nobody (London: Wordsworth Editions, 1994), p. 144.
22 Source: BBC WAC: Viewing Barometers and Viewing Panel Reports. In some publications and online sites it has been claimed that the series’ appreciation rating was 90 per cent or even higher. I have found nothing to corroborate this figure in the BBC archives. The final Viewing Barometer data for the series clearly states that the Reaction Index for this series (in other words, the average percentage of positive responses given via the BBC’s own programme research poll) was 74 per cent.
23 It would also, in March 1981, win the Best Comedy award for 1980 from the Broadcasting Press Guild, with Nigel Hawthorne also receiving the Best Actor award.
Case Study 1
24 Sir Robin Butler, speaking on Yes Minister: The View from Whitehall, Part 1, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 26 February 2005.
25 Yes Minister, series one, episode two: ‘The Official Visit’.
26 The official, who requested anonymity, confirmed this in a private conversation with the author, 27 November 2013.
27 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 126.
28 Hattersley, ‘Of Ministers and Mandarins’, p. 367.
29 Hattersley, ‘Yes Minister’, in Merullo, Annabel and Neil Wenborn, British Comedy Greats (London: Cassell Illustrated, 2003), pp. 179–82.
30 Kenneth Clarke, speaking on Yes Minister: The View from Whitehall, Part 1, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 26 February 2005.
31 See Marcia Williams, Inside Number 10 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972), p. 233.
32 See Joe Haines, The Politics of Power (London: Jonathan Cape, 1977), p. 183, and Glimmers of Twilight (London: Politico’s, 2003), p. 154.
33 Quoted by Gerald Kaufman, Hansard, HC Deb 24 May 1995, vol. 260 c. 913.
34 Gerald Kaufman, How to be a Minister (London: Faber & Faber, 1997), pp. 68–9.
35 Jonathan Lynn, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
6 Series Two
Header quotation: George Lichtenberg, The Waste Books (New York: NYRB Classics, 2000), p. 88.
1 Hansard, HC Deb. 26 March 1981, vol. 1 cc. 1180–6.
2 Michael White, ‘Men Behind the Ministry’, p. 6.
3 Margaret Thatcher, letter to Alasdair Milne, 31 December 1982 (accessed at the Thatcher Archive at Churchill College, Cambridge).
4 Michael White, ‘Men Behind the Ministry’, p. 6.
5 Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (London: Wordsworth Editions, 1992), p. 6.
6 Barbara Castle, who served in Harold Wilson’s Labour Governments during the 1960s and 1970s, published the first volume of her diaries, The Castle Diaries 1964–1976, shortly after the 1979 General Election, too late for Jay and Lynn to draw on for their first series but in good time for the preparation of the second.
7 Jonathan Lynn, speaking on Desert Island Discs, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 20 October 1984.
8 Sir Ian Bancroft, quoted in The Times, 7 May 1980, p. 18.
9 Jay, quoted in Kandiah, p. 518.
10 Jay, quoted in Kandiah, pp. 518–19.
11 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 122.
12 Ibid. p. 123.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid. p. 124.
17 Ibid. p. 125.
18 Source: BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/33/1, episode one and filming (series two).
19 Hawthorne, Straight Face, p. 250.
20 Eddington, So Far, So Good, p. 168.
21 Hawthorne, quoted by Khan, ‘The Men from the Ministry’, p. 12.
22 Hawthorne, quoted by Garth Pearce, Daily Express, 24 November 1984, p. 17.
23 Hawthorne, Straight Face, p. 254.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid. p. 253.
27 Ibid. p. 254.
28 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
29 Sydney Lotterby, interviewed in The Stage, 8 May 1980, p. 19.
30 Antony Jay, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
31 Friedrich Hayek was a critic of all forms of centralised economic planning, arguing that centralised planning cannot work for an economy because complete knowledge of that economy is never available centrally. See The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
32 Free to Choose was a six-part television series produced by Video Arts and first broadcast in the UK in 1980 by BBC2. An American version of the series, which ran to ten episodes, was broadcast in the same year on PBS. See also Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
33 As Buchanan put it in ‘Contractarian presuppositions and democratic governance’ in H.G. Brennan/Loren F. Lomasky, eds, Politics and Process: New Essays in Democratic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 174 (1986), politics is ‘a process within which individuals, with separate and potentially differing interests and values, interact for the purpose of securing individually valued benefits of cooperative effort’.
34 Jay, quoted in Kandiah, p. 519.
35 Lynn, quoted in Kandiah, p. 523.
36 Lord Donoughue, interview with the author, 25 March 2014.
37 Lord Donoughue, interview with the author, 25 March 2014.
38 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
39 See the Sunday Express, 12 April 1981, p. 2.
40 Observer, 22 February 1981, p. 48.
41 Daily Express, 24 February 1981, p. 23.
42 Source: Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB).
43 Yes Minister, series two, episode three: ‘The Death List’.
44 Yes Minister, series two, episode seven: ‘A Question of Loyalty’.
45 Yes Minister, series two, episode five: ‘The Devil You Know’.
46 Yes Minister, series two, episode seven: ‘A Question of Loyalty’.
47 Yes Minister, series two, episode six: ‘The Quality of Life’.
48 Yes Minister, series two, episode two: ‘Doing the Honours’.
49 This episode, called ‘The Death List’, was, as Antony Jay would recall, the only script in the series that caused the BBC to express any concern: ‘The BBC only raised problems about one script and that was where we had a death threat against Jim Hacker. Their worry then was that it might go out on the same night as an assassination, like the March 1979 incident when the Conservative MP Airey Neave was killed by the IRA in the car park at Westminster. We overcame that, not by altering the script, but by agreeing that the programmes would be filmed well enough in advance, as they always were, for there to be a standby to put in that particular programme’s place if anything were to happen’ (quoted in Kandiah, p. 510).
50 Yes Minister, series two, episode one: ‘The Compassionate Society’.
51 Yes Minister, series two, episode three: ‘The Death List’.
52 Yes Minister, series two, episode five: ‘The Devil You Know’.
53 Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter XVIII: ‘How rulers should keep their promises’, p. 61.
54 Source: BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/33/1, episode one and filming (series two).
55 Source: BBC WAC: Viewing Panel Report, VR/81/142, 23 February to 6 April 1981.
56 Rosalie Horner, Daily Express, 24 February 1981, p. 23.
57 Dennis Skinner, Hansard, HC Deb. 29 January 1981, vol. 997 cc. 1071–2.
Case Study 2
58 The Phil Silvers Show, season one, episode two: ‘The Empty Store’, first broadcast on CBS on 27 September 1955. The genius of the plot – surely one of the quintessential sitcom episodes of all time – was to have Bilko turn adversity into advantage by responding to gambling losses by renting an empty store, and then sitting back as all of his colleagues, convinced that, given this devious man’s involvement, there must be something exceptionally lucrative in the empty store, start begging him to grant them a share in the non-business.
59 The ‘Cheese Shop’ sketch appeared originally in ep
isode seven of series three, ‘Salad Days’, of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (first broadcast by BBC1 on 30 November 1972) and was then featured in the 1973 Python album, Matching Tie and Handkerchief. A complete transcript of the version John Cleese and Michael Palin performed for Amnesty International’s 1979 Secret Policeman’s Ball is included in my edited collection, A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick) (London: Canongate, 2012), pp. 109–17.
60 Hansard, HC Deb. 15 June 1976, vol. 913 cc. 90–1W.
61 Hansard, HC Deb. 14 July 1983, vol. 45 c. 448W.
62 Jonathan Lynn, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
63 See Financial Control and Accountability in the National Health Service, Public Accounts Committee report, 1981.
64 David Blunkett, speaking on Yes Minister: The View from Whitehall, Part 2, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 5 March 2005.
65 See ‘Memory Lane’, Wandsworth Guardian, 23 November 2010, p. 10.
66 One reason for the now-defunct Putney Hospital’s lack of redevelopment was the legal wrangling over the existence of a covenant, in the original deed of gift made by its founder, Sir William Lancaster, which stipulated that the land should ‘be used in perpetuity as a general hospital’.
67 See Hansard, HL Deb. 16 June 1998, vol. 590 cc 128–9WA, for confirmation of the original decision to close the hospital following an NHS review. The plan to demolish the hospital and build a school on the site was widely reported in 2011, but was opposed by local groups due to environmental concerns. Another planning application was submitted in January 2013, and was again challenged. In November 2013, the High Court rejected the judicial review made by the Friends of Putney Common against Wandsworth Council regarding the legality of their plans to develop on the former Putney Hospital site. A planning application was then given the go-ahead by the council’s planning committee during a separate meeting soon after this decision. (See the Wandsworth Guardian, 8 November 2013, online: http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/local/wandsworthnews/10797218.High_court_rejects_bid_to_block_school_development_on_Putney_Hospital_site/.)
7 Series Three
Header quotation: Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufmann, Beyond Good and Evil (New York: Vintage, 1966), aphorism 146, p. 58.
1 According to Lord Donoughue (interview with the author, 25 March 2014): ‘I heard from Jonathan and Tony that the BBC had been unconvinced that the books would sell. And then, when of course they did, and sold really, really well, they boasted about it as though it had been their idea!’
2 Lynn, quoted in Kandiah, pp. 530–1.
3 Ibid.
4 Sir Robert Armstrong, speaking on Yes Minister: The View from Whitehall, Part 1, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 26 February 2005.
5 Records and cassettes featuring a selection of episodes started being produced by BBC Enterprises in 1981.
6 Source: BBC WAC.
7 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
8 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
9 Jonathan Lynn, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
10 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 4 March 2014.
11 Paul Eddington, interviewed by Felicity Kendal on Wogan, first broadcast on BBC1, 13 January 1986.
12 Sources: BBC WAC and BARB.
13 Yes Minister, series three, episode one: ‘Equal Opportunities’.
14 Yes Minister, series three, episode one: ‘Equal Opportunities’.
15 Yes Minister, series three, episode three: ‘The Skeleton in the Cupboard’.
16 Yes Minister, series three, episode two: ‘The Challenge’.
17 Yes Minister, series three, episode four: ‘The Moral Dimension’.
18 Yes Minister, series three, episode six: ‘The Whisky Priest’.
19 Yes Minister, series three, episode six: ‘The Whisky Priest’.
20 Yes Minister, series three, episode three: ‘The Skeleton in the Cupboard’.
21 Source: BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/33/1, episode one and filming (series two).
22 Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (London: Harper Press, 2010), p. 3.
23 Sources: Rallings and Thrasher, British Electoral Facts 1832–2006; House of Commons Library Research Paper 10/36 General Election 2010.
24 Annie Hacker appeared in three of the seven episodes of series three: ‘Equal Opportunities’, ‘The Moral Dimension’ and ‘The Whisky Priest’. In the first of these three she was politically engaged and eager for Jim Hacker to make his mark on Government policy until she felt threatened by one of his female colleagues; in the second she was a naive wife who was dazzled by a gift even though it plunged her husband into a scandal; and in the third she was a somewhat world-weary politician’s wife who expected little in terms of principle and sat back and saw him serve up even less.
25 Yes Minister, series three, episode two: ‘The Challenge’.
26 Yes Minister, series three, episode four: ‘The Moral Dimension’.
27 Martin Bailey’s Oilgate: The Sanctions Scandal (Sevenoakes: Coronet, 1979) was an in-depth examination of the 1965 Rhodesian oil embargo and how British Petroleum (BP), the company that, at that stage, was more than 50 per cent owned by the British Government, was party to an agreement that was in direct defiance of official Government policy which banned direct oil sales to Rhodesia.
Case Study 3
28 The Times, 30 January 1973, p. 2.
29 The Times, 30 January 1973, p. 1.
30 Antony Jay, quoted in Kandiah, p. 519.
31 Baroness Symons, speaking on Yes Minister: The View from Whitehall, Part 2, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 5 March 2005.
32 Lord Donoughue, interview with the author, 25 March 2014.
8 Interregnum
Header quotation: Giuseppe di Lampedusa, The Leopard (London: Folio Society, 2000), p. 17.
1 Letter from Jonathan Lynn to Margaret Thatcher, 10 June 1983 (accessed at the Thatcher Archive at Churchill College, Cambridge). The full contents of the letter is as follows:
Dear Mrs Thatcher,
As co-author of Yes Minister I have often been delighted to read and hear of your admiration for our programme.
May I now return the compliment and offer you my congratulations and my good wishes on your magnificent and excellent election victory?
Yours sincerely,
Jonathan Lynn.
2 Letter from Margaret Thatcher to Jonathan Lynn, 15 June 1983 (accessed at the Thatcher Archive at Churchill College, Cambridge).
3 Yes Minister sketch, featuring Neil Kinnock and Patricia Hewitt, written in 1983. Source: The Churchill Archives Centre (Churchill College, Cambridge), The Papers of Neil Kinnock, KNNK 2/1/84.
4 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
5 Eddington, So Far, So Good, p. 170.
6 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 131.
7 Ibid. p. 130.
8 Ibid. p. 131.
9 Jonathan Lynn, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
10 Antony Jay, interview with the author, 1 February 2014.
11 John Howard Davies, interview with the author, 31 May 2007.
12 The first radio series was aired on BBC Radio 4 between 18 October and 6 December 1983, with the second transmitted between 9 October and 27 November 1984.
13 BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/33/1, series two, episode one and filming.
14 BBC WAC: Yes Minister File T70/33/1, series two, episode one and filming.
15 Although Pete Atkin’s adapted scripts were generally true to the spirit, as well as the letter, of the original television shows, there was, perhaps inevitably, the odd tiny detail that jarred. In the episode entitled ‘The Quality of Life’, for example, Atkin has Woolley call Hacker ‘Jim’, which the on-screen Woolley would never have done, famously resisting his Minister’s attempts to get him to address him as anything less formal than ‘Minister’.
16 Mary Whiteho
use to Margaret Thatcher, 20 July 1983, National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association Archives, Box 6, Albert Sloman Library, University of Essex.
17 See Bernard Ingham, ‘Lady T’s Favourite Yes Man’, Daily Express, 7 November 1995, p. 7.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Jay, speaking in Comedy Connections.
21 Jonathan Lynn, speaking in Yes, Prime Minister: Re-elected, first broadcast on 15 January 2013 on GOLD.
22 Eddington, So Far, So Good, p. 191.
23 Ibid.
24 Daily Express, 21 January 1984, p. 9.
25 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 159.
26 Lynn, speaking in Comedy Connections.
27 Derek Fowlds, interview with the author, 3 February 2014.
28 Eddington, quoted in The Times, 28 December 1985, p. 34.
29 Interview with the author, 6 June 2000.
30 Interview with the author, 6 June 2000.
31 Lynn, Comedy Rules, p. 150.
32 Nigel Lawson would recall being the source for this in Yes, Prime Minister: Re-elected, first broadcast on 15 January 2013 on GOLD.
33 Source: BARB.
PART THREE
Frontispiece quotations:
Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, p. 179.
Sir Edward Bridges, Portrait of a Profession, p. 29.
9 Yes, Prime Minister
Header quotation: The Candidate, screenplay by Jeremy Larner, Warner Bros, 1972.
1 As a phrase, there is some contention as to the origins of ‘Prime Minister’ in the British political context. It had been used, occasionally but invariably pejoratively, as early as the 1670s, in relation to Charles II’s principal official, the Earl of Danby. Robert Walpole, when he heard himself so described in the 1720s and 1730s, dismissed it angrily, as did George Grenville in the 1760s and Lord North a decade later. The first use of the term ‘Prime Minister’ in an official document only came in 1878 when Benjamin Disraeli signed the final instrument of the Congress of Berlin as ‘First Lord of the Treasury and Prime Minister of her Britannic Majesty’. The title did not appear in the Order of Precedence at Buckingham Palace until 1904, when it was given precedence after the Archbishop of York. The first statutory recognition of the title was the Chequers Estates Act (1917), which provided that the country house be occupied by the ‘Crown’s First Minister’. Even after this, however, there was no clear and entrenched constitutional definition of the office and the proper extent of its powers. (See Peter Hennessey, The Prime Minister [London: Allen Lane, 2000].)