The Complete Yes Minister

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, I do think there is a real dilemma here, in that while it has been government policy to regard policy as the responsibility of Ministers and administration as the responsibility of officials, questions of administrative policy can cause confusion between the administration of policy and the policy of administration, especially when responsibility for the administration of the policy of administration conflicts or overlaps with responsibility for the policy of the administration of policy.

Mrs Betty Oldham: That’s a load of meaningless drivel, isn’t it, Sir Humphrey?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: It is not for me to comment on government policy. You must ask the Minister.

SIR BERNARD WOOLLEY RECALLS:²

It was theoretically true, as Sir Humphrey claimed, that Ministers are – and were in the 1980s – responsible for policy. In practice, however, Ministers are responsible for relatively little policy because the useful life of a government is only about two years. The first year is spent learning that commitments made while in Opposition cannot be kept once they are in office: once a government gets in it has to get to grips with the real problems that actually exist, invariably connected with the prevailing economic situation which is always either appalling or catastrophic, and of which the full details of the horror were invariably kept secret from the nation and therefore from the Opposition.

As a new government struggles to sort out these problems it will be dependent on economists and on the Treasury. This is a trifle unfortunate – economists are always in a state of total intellectual disarray and confusion and are too busy arguing with each other to be able to advise politicians who are usually rather ignorant of economics. And the Treasury, on the other hand, has had rather a lot of bad luck with its economic forecasts over the last sixty years or so.

So, after a period of between a year and eighteen months, Ministers come to an understanding of the situation as it actually is. Then there follows about two years of potentially serious government – after which the run-up to the next general election begins. At this point achievement has to be subordinated to the winning of votes – or, rather, winning votes becomes the only measure of achievement. The last two years are rather like swotting for an exam. You don’t do anything new, you just try to pass.

Therefore, as he knew only too well, Sir Humphrey’s claim that Ministers make policy applies – at most – to two years out of every five. This Select Committee enquiry took place, of course, during the first year that Hacker was in office.

There is one further interesting question raised by this discussion. If the Minister makes policy for two years out of five, who makes policy in the other three years? Obviously, we in the Civil Service used to fill the vacuum. And this created serious problems during the Minister’s two years of ‘serious government’ – which were therefore frequently absorbed in a war between the Minister’s policies and the Ministry’s policies.

The only time that this eighteen-month vacuum did not occur at the start of a government was when a government was re-elected for a second full term with a working majority. In the early 1980s this had not occurred in Britain for a quarter of a century. This is why it was always absurd to categorise the Civil Service as either Conservative or Labour – we always believed in, and hoped for, regular alternation of governments. This gave us the maximum freedom from control by Ministers who, if they stayed too long in office, were likely to begin to think that they knew how to run the country.

October 13th

Today I read in the papers the reports of Humphrey’s appearance before the Select Committee. He’s been a big help!

And we’ve both been called back to make a joint appearance, to sort out the mess that he made.

I called him in and gave him a bollocking.

He said he’d done his best.

I told him: ‘You did your best for yourself, perhaps. But you’ve solved nothing. The day after tomorrow we’ll be sitting there, side by side, getting the third degree from the Committee. We must have proper answers – or, at the very least, the same answers.’

Humphrey said that we must begin by establishing what our position is.

‘Very well,’ I agreed. ‘What are the facts?’

He got very impatient with me. ‘I’m discussing our position, Minister – the facts are neither here nor there.’

Fair enough. So I asked him to outline our position.

He suggested that we choose one of the Civil Service’s five standard excuses, to deal with each of their allegations. A different one for each if possible.

I had never before heard of the five standard excuses. Humphrey must be quite anxious about the situation if he’s prepared to reveal his techniques to me so openly.

I made notes. I have called each excuse by the name of a famous example of its use.

The Anthony Blunt excuse

There is a perfectly satisfactory explanation for everything, but security prevents its disclosure

The Comprehensive Schools excuse

It’s only gone wrong because of heavy cuts in staff and budget which have stretched supervisory resources beyond the limit

The Concorde excuse

It was a worthwhile experiment now abandoned, but not before it provided much valuable data and considerable employment

The Munich Agreement excuse

It occurred before important facts were known, and cannot happen again