He handed it to me. Sir Humphrey shook his head. I ripped it open. As I read it I was aware of Humphrey’s voice.
‘I did warn you,’ it was saying. ‘Bernard, perhaps you should give some thought to drafting a face-saving letter of resignation for the Minister.’
I read the letter. [
10 Downing Street
15th October
The Prime Minister
Dear Jim,
We haven’t seen enough of each other lately. Would you be free to lunch at Chequers on Sunday? We shall be just the family. Do please bring Annie and Lucy.
I look forward so much to seeing you and perhaps we could catch up on each other’s news.
Then I read it aloud.
Humphrey’s face was a picture of confusion. ‘I don’t think I quite . . .’ he said, and then the penny dropped. ‘A conspiracy!’ he hissed at me. ‘That drink with Mark Spencer!’
I just smiled. The gamble had paid off. I reread the letter. It was a triumph. ‘We haven’t seen enough of each other lately . . . lunch at Chequers . . . just the family . . .’ And it is
‘Do you know what this letter is worth, Humphrey?’ I asked with quiet pride.
‘I believe the going rate is thirty pieces of silver,’ he replied nastily.
I shook my head. ‘No Humphrey,’ I said with supreme confidence. ‘Integrity and loyalty have been rewarded.’
‘Loyalty?’ he sneered contemptuously. ‘
I just couldn’t resist rubbing his nose in it. ‘Yes Humphrey. I supported you just the way you have always supported me. Isn’t that so?’
He really didn’t know how to answer that. A sort of snorting noise emanated from behind his clenched teeth.
‘Did you say something, Humphrey?’ I asked politely.
‘I think,’ said Bernard, ‘that he said “Yes Minister.”’
1 In conversation with the Editors.
2 In conversation with the Editors.
15
Equal Opportunities
Today was a fairly quiet Saturday afternoon in the constituency. The end of our first year and I was feeling that I’ve done pretty well, one way or another: no great cock-ups after my first-ever year in office (or at least, none which we haven’t survived somehow) and I have a sense that I am beginning to understand the administrative machine at last.
You may think that a year is rather too long a period in which to achieve an understanding of the one department of which I am the titular head. In political terms, of course, that’s true. Nonetheless if, had I become Chairman of ICI after a lifetime as a journalist and polytechnic lecturer and with no previous experience of running a major industry, I had a thorough understanding of how it all worked after only one year, I would be considered a great success.
We politicians blunder into Whitehall like babes in the wood. So few of us have ever run
All in all, I think we do pretty well! [
However, my enthusiastic feelings about my first year in office were, I must admit, a little shaken after I was interviewed at teatime by a precocious schoolgirl for the school magazine.
She began by asking me how I had reached my present eminent position. I summarised my political career so far, culminating, I said, with carefully calculated modesty, ‘with the moment when the Prime Minister saw fit, for whatever reason, to invite one to join the Cabinet and, well, here one is.’ I didn’t want to seem conceited. In my experience the young have a nose for that sort of thing.
She asked me if it isn’t a terrific responsibility. I explained to her that if one chooses, as I have chosen, to dedicate one’s life to public service, the service of others, then responsibility is one of those things one has to accept.
Cathy was full of admiration, I could see it in her eyes. ‘But all that power . . .’ she murmured.
‘I know, I know,’ I replied, attempting the casual air of a man who is used to it. ‘Frightening, in a way. But actually, Cathy . . .’ (I was careful to use her name, of course, because it showed I did not consider myself above my constituents, even schoolchildren – future voters, after all) ‘. . . this power actually makes one rather humble!’
Annie hurried in and interrupted me. The phone had been ringing elsewhere in the house.
‘Bernard just rang, oh Humble One,’ she said. I
