The Complete Yes Minister (21 page)

[
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
.]

This afternoon seemed to last an eternity. I think I’ve more or less got over the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but it was one of the worst afternoons of my political life so far. However, I shall relate it from the start. Firstly, there was Jak’s cartoon in the
Standard
.

Then, on my return from cabinet Committee after lunch, Bernard and Humphrey edged into the office looking extremely anxious. I asked if anything was wrong.

For the next four minutes they appeared to speak in riddles.

‘Shall we say, a slight embarrassment,’ said Sir Humphrey.

‘How slight?’ I asked.

First he rambled on about not wishing to overstate the case or suggest that there was any cause for under alarm, but nevertheless . . . etc. etc. I told him to get on with it, he told me he had a confession to make, and I told him to make a clean breast of it.

‘Not the happiest of phrases, in the circumstances,’ he replied engimatically. I still hadn’t the foggiest idea what he was talking about, although it was soon to become only too clear.

But Humphrey couldn’t find a way to tell me the bad news. Extraordinary. First he said there was to be a twenty-four-hour protest vigil in Hayward’s Spinney, conducted by a girl student and her boyfriend. I could see no problem in two irresponsible layabouts trying – and failing – to attract attention to themselves.

And like an idiot, I said so. (If there’s one lesson I learned today it is not to shoot from the hip. Wait until you know the full facts before giving
any
response, if you don’t want to finish up looking like a proper Charlie.)

But I got an attack of verbal diarrhoea. ‘Nobody’s interested,’ I said. ‘Everyone’s fed up with these ghastly students. They’re just exhibitionists, you know.’

‘In this case,’ remarked Sir Humphrey, suddenly becoming less enigmatic, ‘they seem to have something to exhibit. It is to be a nude protest vigil.’

This did seem to present a problem. It would clearly attract considerable press interest, and could even get onto the front pages of the tabloids. Regrettably, however, Humphrey hadn’t given me the full picture, so I went on and on talking, making myself seem more idiotic every minute. ‘Really, I don’t know what gets into these students. Appalling. Quite shameless. And it’s their parents’ fault. Don’t bring them up properly, let them run wild and feed them all this trendy middle-class anti-establishment nonsense.’ Then I wittered on about the lack of authority nowadays, and how all this student anarchy is a shocking indictment of their parents’ lack of discipline.

At this point Humphrey was kind enough to reveal to me that the student’s name was Miss Hacker. For a moment I thought it was a coincidence. And then the penny dropped. I’ve never felt so foolish in my whole life. I’m sure (at least I
think
I’m sure) that Humphrey didn’t intend to make any humiliation as complete as possible. But he succeeded. And I’ll get him for it one day!

After I picked myself up off the floor, I expressed the hope that the press might not think it worth going all the way to Warwickshire. Even as I spoke I knew I was talking rubbish – for a story like this the press would go all the way to the South Pole.

Humphrey and Bernard just looked pityingly at me, and then showed me the letter.

I noted that Lucy was giving out the press release at five p.m. Very professional. Misses the evening papers, which not too many people read, and therefore makes all the dailies. She’s learned
something
from being a politician’s daughter.

Then Bernard said that he thought he’d better mention that Lucy was ringing up in ten minutes, from a call-box, for an answer.

I asked how we could kill the story. Silence from them both. ‘Advise me,’ I said.

‘What about a bit of parental authority and discipline?’ suggested Sir Humphrey. I told him not to be silly.

‘If you could make her listen to reason . . .’ volunteered Bernard.

I explained to him that she is a sociology student.

‘Oh I see,’ he said sadly.

Another long pause for thought. Then I suggested calling the police.

Humphrey shook his head, and composed the inevitable headline: MINISTER SETS POLICE ON NUDE DAUGHTER.

‘I’m not sure that
completely
kills the story, Minister,’ he said.

We sat in one of our tragic silences. Occasional sighs filled the room. Then Humphrey suddenly perked up. ‘What if . . .’ he said.

‘Yes?’ I said hopefully.

‘What if . . .’ he said again, ‘. . . I looked at the files?’

I’m ashamed to say that I completely lost my temper with him. ‘Bloody marvellous!’ I shouted. ‘Is that what you get over thirty thousand a year for? My daughter’s about to get herself all over the front page of the
Sun
and probably page three as well, and all you can think of is the
files
! Brilliant!’

He waited till I finished yelling. ‘Nevertheless . . .’ he said.

‘They’re all out there,’ said Bernard, quickly indicating the Private Office. Humphrey disappeared as fast as he could, before I could shout at him again.

Bernard and I gazed at each other in despair. ‘I wonder what sort of angle they’ll take?’ I said.

‘Wide angle, I should think.’ I glared at him. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. Sorry.’

All I could think of was the fun the Opposition was going to have with this, next time I had to face questions in the House. ‘Does the proud father want to make a statement?’ ‘Is the Minister’s family getting too much exposure?’ ‘Did the Minister try to conduct a cover-up?’ Or even: ‘Does the Minister run the Department of Administrative Affairs any better than he runs his family?’

I mentioned the last question to Bernard, because it is my Achilles’ heel. I added bitterly that I supposed Bernard would want me to tell the world that Sir Humphrey runs the Department.

Bernard seemed genuinely shocked.

‘Certainly not, Minister, not I,’ he said indignantly. ‘I am your Private Secretary.’

‘You mean,’ I enquired disbelievingly, ‘that when the chips are down, you’ll be on my side, not Humphrey’s?’

Bernard answered very simply: ‘Minister, it is my job to see that the chips stay up!’

[
This is, in fact, a precise definition of the Private Secretary’s role – Ed
.]

At that moment Lucy rang in. She was in a call-box. I grabbed the phone. First I tried bluffing. ‘I got your little note,’ I said, trying to laugh it off. ‘You know, for a moment I was taken in. I thought it was serious.’ My little laugh sounded false even to me.

‘It is serious,’ she replied coldly. ‘Pete and I are just going to ring the Exchange Telegraph and Press Association, and then we’re off to the Spinney.’

Then I grovelled. I begged her to think of the damage to me. She replied that it was the badgers who were going to be exterminated, not I.

She’s quite wrong about that! This could have been the end of a promising career.

It was clear that she was about to go ahead with her dreadful plan, because I couldn’t change my policy on her account, when Humphrey came running through the door waving a file. I’ve never seen him run before. He was burbling on about a new development and asked if he could speak to Lucy.

He took the phone, opened the file and began to explain his finding. ‘I have just come upon the latest report from the Government’s Wildlife Inspectors. It throws a new light on the whole issue.’

He went on to explain that, apparently, there is
no
badger colony in Hayward’s Spinney. Apparently the wording of the report says: ‘The last evidence of badger habitation – droppings, freshly-turned earth, etc. – was recorded eleven years ago.’

Lucy was plainly as astonished as Bernard and I. I was listening in on my other phone. So was Bernard, on his. She asked how come the newspaper had said badgers were there. Humphrey explained that the story about the poor badgers had been leaked to the press, untruthfully, by a local property developer.

Lucy was immediately willing to believe Humphrey. As far as the Trots are concerned, property developers are Satan’s representatives on earth. She asked for the explanation.

‘The Local Authority have plans to use the Spinney to build a new College of Further Education, but the developer wants to buy it for offices and luxury flats.’

‘But,’ interrupted Lucy, ‘if it’s protected, he can’t.’

‘No,’ agreed Sir Humphrey, ‘but nor can the Council. And he knows that, if they can’t, they’ll spend the money on something else. Then, in twelve months, he’ll move in, show that there’s no badgers after all, get the protection removed and build his offices.’

From the complete silence, I could tell that Lucy was profoundly shocked. Then Humphrey added: ‘It’s common practice among property developers. Shocking isn’t it?’

I had no idea Humphrey felt this way about property developers. I had thought he rather liked them.

Lucy asked Humphrey if there was any wildlife at all in the Spinney.

‘Yes, there is some,’ said Humphrey, looking through the file. ‘It’s apparently been used as a rubbish dump by people from Birmingham, so there are lots of rats.’

‘Rats,’ she said quietly. Lucy hates rats.

‘Yes, thousands of them,’ said Humphrey and added generously, ‘Still, I suppose they’re wildlife too, in their way.’ He paused and then remarked: ‘It would be a pity to play into the developer’s hands, wouldn’t it?’

‘I suppose it would,’ she answered. Clearly the Save-the-Badgers vigil was off!

Humphrey added, with great warmth and total hypocrisy: ‘But do let me say how much I respect your views and commitment.’

She didn’t ask to speak to me again. She just rang off. The crisis was over as suddenly as it had begun. There was no way she was going to conduct a nude love-in with lots of rats in the vicinity – other than the press, of course.

I congratulated Humphrey profusely. ‘It was nothing, Minister,’ he said self-effacingly, ‘it was all in the files.’

I was amazed by the whole thing. What a cunning bastard that property developer must be. I asked Humphrey to show me the report.

Suddenly he became his old evasive self. He told me it wasn’t awfully interesting. Again I asked to see it. He held it behind his back like a guilty schoolboy.

Then I had an extraordinary insight. I asked him if the story were true. He claimed he didn’t understand my question. So I asked him, again, clearly, if there had been one word of truth in that amazingly convenient story which he had just told Lucy.

He eyed me, and then enquired slowly and carefully: ‘Do you really want me to answer that question, Minister? Don’t answer hastily.’

It was a good question. A very good question. I could think of no advantage in knowing the truth, if my suspicions were correct. And a huge disadvantage – I would be obliged to be dishonest with Lucy, something I have never done and will never do!

‘No,’ I said after a few moments, ‘um, Humphrey, don’t bother to answer.’

‘Quite so,’ he said, as smug as I’ve ever seen him. ‘Perhaps you would care to note that there
are
some things that it is better for a Minister not to know.’

¹
The Council for the Protection of Rural England.

²
In conversation with the Editors.

7

Jobs for the Boys

[
At the beginning of March Jim Hacker came within a hair’s-breadth of involving himself in a scandal that would have rocked the government and brought an ignominious and premature end to his political career. Ironically Hacker would have found himself taking responsibility for events with which he had no real connection or involvement – but for which, as Minister, he would have been answerable – Ed
.]