The Complete Yes Minister (52 page)

Persistent little blighter.

I started to explain the facts of political life. ‘Yes, well, politics is a complex business, Cathy.’ I was careful to use her name again. ‘Lots of people have to have their say. Things take time. Rome wasn’t built in a day.’

As I looked at her face, I could see an air of disappointment written across it. [
In view of the insight that Hacker’s frequently mixed metaphors give us into the clouded state of his mind, we have retained them unless clarity is threatened – Ed
.] I began to feel slightly disappointed with myself. I realised that I could not give a proper answer to her question. I also began to feel more than a little irritated that this wretched child should have produced these feelings of inadequacy in me. Enough was enough. It was time to bring the interview to an end.

I pointed out that time was flying, and that I still had to do my boxes. I hustled her out, emphasising how much I’d enjoyed our little talk, and reminding her that she had agreed to let me approve the article before it was printed.

I returned and sat down heavily in my favourite fireside armchair. I was feeling very brought down.

‘Bright kid,’ commented Annie.

‘That’s the last time I ever give an interview to a school magazine,’ I responded. ‘She asked me some very difficult questions.’

‘They weren’t difficult,’ said Annie firmly. ‘Just innocent. She was assuming that there is some moral basis to your activities.’

I was puzzled. ‘But there is,’ I replied.

Annie laughed. ‘Oh Jim, don’t be silly.’

I wasn’t amused. I gazed gloomily into the carefully arranged embers of the artificial gas log fire.

‘What are you sighing for?’ Annie asked.

I tried to explain.

‘What
have
I achieved?’ I asked. ‘Cathy was right.’

Annie suggested that, since Cathy and I had agreed I had all that power, I should go and achieve something forthwith. She
will
persist in making these silly suggestions.

‘You know I’m only a Cabinet Minister,’ I snapped.

Annie smiled. ‘It really does make you humble.’

My humility is not in question, and never has been. The point is that I can’t change anything in the foreseeable future. Changing things means getting bills through Parliament, and all the time’s been taken up for the next two years.

Annie was unimpressed.

‘Why don’t you reform the Civil Service?’ she suggested.

She makes it sound like one simple little task instead of a lifetime of dedicated carnage. Which reforms in particular did she have in mind, I wondered? Anyway, any real reform of the Civil Service is impossible, as I explained to her.

‘Suppose I thought up fifty terrific reforms. Who will have to implement them?’

She saw the point at once. ‘The Civil Service,’ we said in unison, and she nodded sympathetically. But Annie doesn’t give up easily.

‘All right,’ she suggested, ‘not fifty reforms. Just one.’

‘One?’

‘If you achieve
one
important reform of the Civil Service – that would be something.’

Something? It would get into the
Guinness Book of Records
. I asked her what she was proposing.

‘Make them put more women in top civil servants’ jobs. Women are half the population. Why shouldn’t they be half the Permanent Secretaries? How many women are there at the top?’

I tried to think. Certainly not many. I’d hardly come across any.

‘Equal opportunities,’ I said. I liked the sound it made. It has a good ring to it, that phrase. ‘I’ll have a go,’ I said. ‘Why not? There’s a principle at stake.’

Annie was delighted. ‘You mean you’re going to do something out of pure principle?’

I nodded.

‘Oh Jim,’ she said, with real love and admiration in her voice.

‘Principles,’ I added, ‘are excellent vote-winners.’

Shortly afterwards, Annie developed a headache and went to bed unusually early. I wanted to pursue the conversation with her but she seemed to have lost interest. Odd, that!

Today I learned a thing or two about equal opportunities, or the lack of them, in the Civil Service.

Quite coincidentally I had a meeting with Sarah Harrison, who is the only woman Under-Secretary in the DAA.

Sarah really is a splendid person. Very attractive, intelligent, and about thirty-nine or forty years old, which is pretty young for an Under-Sec. She has a brisk and – I suppose – slightly masculine approach to meetings and so forth, but seems to be jolly attractive and feminine in spite of all that.

She has brought me a very difficult letter of complaint from one of the opposition front bench on a constituency matter; something to do with special powers for local authorities for land development in special development areas. I had no idea what it all meant or what I was supposed to do about it.

It turned out that I didn’t have to do
anything
about it. She explained that some of the facts were wrong, and other points were covered by statutory requirements so that I didn’t have any alternatives anyway.

This is the kind of Civil Service advice that makes a Minister’s life easy. No decision needed, not even an apology required. Nothing to do at all, in fact. Great.

I asked her to draft a reply, and she’d already done it. She handed it across my desk for me to sign. It was impeccable. I found myself wondering why they don’t make more Under-Secretaries like her – and realised that this was the moment to actually
find out
. So I asked her how many women are there at the top of the Civil Service.

She had an immediate answer to that question. ‘None of the Permanent Secretaries. Four out of one hundred and fifty odd Deputy Secretaries.’

I wondered silently if there are any that aren’t odd. Presumably not, not by the time they become Deputy Secretaries.

I asked her about her grade – Under-Secretary. As I expected, she knew the precise figure.

‘Oh, there’s twenty-seven of us.’

That seemed not so bad. ‘Out of how many?’ I asked.

‘Five hundred and seventy-eight.’

I was shocked. Appalled. I wonder why
she
wasn’t. At least, she didn’t seem to be, she was answering these questions in her usual bright, cheerful, matter-of-fact sort of way.

‘Doesn’t this appal you?’ I asked.

‘Not really,’ she smiled. ‘I think it’s comic. But then I think the whole Civil Service is comic. It’s run by men, after all.’

As a man who was about to devote himself to the cause of women’s rights, I felt able to rise above that one. I was on her side.

‘What can you do about it?’ I asked. She looked blank. I rephrased it. ‘What can
I
do about it?’ I said.

She looked me straight in the eye, with a cool clear gaze. Her eyes were a beautiful deep blue. And she wears an awfully nice perfume.

‘Are you serious, Minister?’

I nodded.

‘It’s easy,’ she said. ‘Bring top women from the professions and commerce and industry, straight into the top grades. The pay is quite good for women. There’s long holidays, index-linked pensions. You’d get a lot of very high-quality applicants.’

‘And they could do this job?’ I asked.

‘Of course.’ She seemed surprised at the question.’ I mean, with all due respect,
³
if you can make a journalist MP into an instant Minister, why can’t you make a senior partner of a top legal firm into an Under-Secretary?’ [
Hacker, of course, before he became a Minister, had been a journalist, editing the journal
Reform –
Ed
.] ‘Most of the work here only needs about two O-Levels anyway,’ she added.

Bernard came in to remind me of my next appointment. He escorted Sarah out. ‘Bernard,’ I said.

‘Yes Minister?’ he replied as always. I’ve been trying to establish a closer personal relationship with him for nearly a year now, why does he persist in such formality?

‘I wish you’d call me Jim,’ I complained. ‘At least when we’re alone.’

He nodded earnestly. ‘I’ll try to remember that, Minister,’ he replied. Hopeless!

I waved the papers from my meeting with Sarah. ‘Sarah says this complaint is complete nonsense,’ I informed him. ‘And she’s done a reply.’

Bernard was pleased. ‘Fine, we can CGSM it.’

‘CGSM?’ I asked.

‘Civil Service code,’ he explained. ‘It stands for Consignment of Geriatric Shoe Manufacturers.’ I waited for the explanation. ‘A load of old cobblers,’ he added helpfully.
⁴

I took the paper from him.

‘I am not a civil servant,’ I remarked loftily. ‘I shall write my own code on it.’

I wrote ‘Round Objects’ in the margin.

Today I had a meeting with Sir Humphrey about equal opportunities. But I had taken care not to let on in advance – in his diary Bernard had written ‘Staffing’.

He came in, smiling, confident, benign, patrician, apparently without a care in the world. So I decided to shake him up a bit, then and there.

‘Humphrey,’ I began, ‘I have made a policy decision.’

He froze, half-way down into his chair, in a sort of Groucho Marx position, eyeing me warily with pursed lips.

[
Presumably Hacker intended to say that Sir Humphrey eyed him warily, and that simultaneously he had pursed his lips – Ed
.]

‘A policy decision, Minister?’ He recovered himself rapidly and pretended to be pleased with this piece of news.

‘Yes,’ I replied cheerfully. ‘I am going to do something about the number of women in the Civil Service.’

‘Surely there aren’t all that many?’ He looked puzzled.

Bernard hastened to explain.

‘The Minister thinks we need
more
.’

‘Many more,’ I added firmly.

Now Sir Humphrey really
was
taken aback. His mind was racing. He just couldn’t see what I was driving at. ‘But we’re actually quite well up to Establishment on typists, cleaners, tea-ladies . . .’ He petered out, then sought advice. ‘Any ideas, Bernard?’

‘Well,’ said Bernard helpfully, ‘we are a bit short of temporary secretaries.’

Clearly Bernard had not got the point either.

‘I’m talking about Permanent Secretaries,’ I said.

Sir Humphrey was stunned. He seemed unable to formulate a sentence in reply. So I went on.

‘We need some female mandarins.’ Sir Humphrey was still mentally pole-axed. He didn’t respond at all. Bernard also seemed completely baffled. He sought clarification.

‘Sort of . . . satsumas, Minister?’ he enquired desperately.

I’m never quite sure if Bernard has a highly-intelligent deadpan wit, or is faintly moronic. So I merely told him to sit down.

‘How many Permanent Secretaries,’ I asked Sir Humphrey, ‘are there at the moment?’

‘Forty-one, I believe.’

A precise answer.

‘Forty-one,’ I agreed pleasantly. ‘And how many are women?’

Suddenly Sir Humphrey’s memory seemed to fail him. ‘Well, broadly speaking, not having the exact figures to hand, I’m not exactly sure.’

‘Well, approximately?’ I encouraged him to reply.

‘Well,’ he said cautiously, ‘
approximately
none.’

Close but no cigar, as our American allies would say.
Precisely
none was the correct answer. And Sir Humphrey knew that only too well. [
Hacker was right. The Permanent Secretaries form an exclusive little club in all but name, so exclusive that a newly-nominated Permanent Secretary could, in effect, be blackballed. This would be an ‘informal’ process not fully clear to their political ‘Lords and Masters’, but nonetheless effective for all that – Ed
.]

I was beginning to enjoy myself. ‘And I believe there are one hundred and fifty Deputy Secretaries,’ I continued gleefully. ‘Do you know how many of them are women?’

Sir Humphrey hedged. Either he genuinely didn’t know the answer to this one, or wasn’t going to say if he did. ‘It’s difficult to say,’ was the best reply he could manage.

This surprised me. ‘Why is it difficult?’ I wanted to know.

Bernard tried to be helpful again. ‘Well, there’s a lot of old women among the men.’

I ignored him. ‘Four,’ I said to Humphrey. ‘Four women Dep. Secs out of one hundred and fifty-three, to be precise.’

Sir Humphrey seemed impressed that there were so many. ‘Are there indeed,’ he said, slightly wide-eyed.

I had enjoyed my little bit of fun. Now I came bluntly to the point. I had a proposal to make. I’ve been thinking about it since my first conversation with Sarah.

‘I am going to announce,’ I announced, ‘a quota of twenty-five per cent women Deputy Secretaries and Permanent Secretaries to be achieved within the next four years.’

I think Sir Humphrey was rattled, but it was hard to tell because he’s such a smooth operator.

‘Minister, I am obviously in total sympathy with your objectives,’ he said. This remark naturally increased my suspicions.

‘Good,’ I said.

‘Of course there should be more women at the top. Of
course
. And all of us are deeply concerned by the apparent imbalance.’ I noted the skilful use of the word ‘apparent’. ‘But these things take time.’

I was ready for that one. ‘I want to make a start right away,’ I replied.

‘I agree wholeheartedly,’ responded Sir Humphrey enthusiastically. ‘And I propose that we make an immediate start by setting up an interdepartmental committee . . .’

This was not what I meant, and he knew it. I told him firmly that I didn’t want the usual delaying tactics.

‘This needs a sledgehammer,’ I declared. ‘We must cut through the red tape.’

Bloody Bernard piped up again. ‘You can’t cut tape with a sledgehammer, it would just . . .’ and then he made a sort of squashing gesture. I squashed
him
with a look.