The Complete Yes Minister

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.

October 27th

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.