The Complete Yes Minister

Why should I be? Politics is about helping others. Even if it means helping terrorists. Well, terrorists are others, aren’t they? I mean, they’re not us, are they?

So you’ve got to follow your conscience. But you’ve also got to know where you’re going. So you can’t follow your conscience because it may not be going the same way that you are.

Aye, there’s the rub.

I’ve just played back today’s diary entry on my cassette recorder. And I realise that I am a moral vacuum too.

September 14th

Woke up feeling awful. I don’t know whether it was from alcoholic or emotional causes. But certainly my head was aching and I felt tired, sick, and depressed.

But Annie was wonderful. Not only did she make me some black coffee, she said all the right things.

I was feeling that I was no different from Humphrey and all that lot in Whitehall. She wouldn’t have that at all.

‘He’s lost his sense of right and wrong,’ she said firmly. ‘You’ve still got yours.’

‘Have I?’ I groaned.

‘Yes. It’s just that you don’t use it much. You’re a sort of whisky priest. You do at least know when you’ve done the wrong thing.’

She’s right. I am a sort of whisky priest. I may be immoral but I’m not amoral. And a whisky priest – with that certain air of raffishness of Graham Greene, of Trevor Howard, that je ne sais quoi – is not such a bad thing to be.

Is it?

¹ Her Majesty’s Government.

² ‘No man is an Island, entire of itself . . . Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’ – John Donne.

³ In conversation with the Editors.

20

The Middle-Class Rip-off

September 24th

After my constituency surgery this morning, which I used to do every other Saturday but which I can now manage less often since I became a Minister, I went off to watch Aston Wanderers’ home match.

It was a sad experience. The huge stadium was half empty. The players were a little bedraggled and disheartened, there was a general air of damp and decay about the whole outing.

I went with Councillor Brian Wilkinson, Chairman of the local authority’s Arts and Leisure Committee and by trade an electrician’s mate at the Sewage Farm, and Harry Sutton, the Chairman of the Wanderers, a local balding businessman who’s done rather well on what he calls ‘import and export’. Both party stalwarts.

Afterwards they invited me into the Boardroom for a noggin. I accepted enthusiastically, feeling the need for a little instant warmth after braving the elements in the Directors’ Box for nearly two hours.

I thanked Harry for the drink and the afternoon’s entertainment.

‘Better enjoy it while the club’s still here,’ he replied darkly.

I remarked that we’d always survived so far.

‘It’s different this time,’ said Brian Wilkinson.

I realised that the invitation was not purely social. I composed myself and waited. Sure enough, something was afoot. Harry stared at Brian and said, ‘You’d better tell him.’ Wilkinson threw a handful of peanuts into his mouth, mixed in some Scotch, and told me.

‘I’ll not mince words. We had an emergency meeting of the Finance Committee last night, Aston Wanderers is going to have to call in the receiver.’

‘Bankruptcy?’ I was shocked. I mean, I knew that football clubs were generally in trouble, but this really caught me unawares.

Harry nodded. ‘The final whistle. We need one and a half million quid, Jim.’

‘Peanuts,’ said Brian.

‘No thank you,’ I said, and then realised that he was describing the sum of one and a half million pounds.

‘Government wastes that much money every thirty seconds,’ Brian added.

As a member of the government, I felt forced to defend our record. ‘We do keep stringent control on expenditure.’

It seemed the wrong thing to say. They both nodded, and agreed that our financial control was so stringent that perhaps it was lack of funds for the fare which had prevented my appearance at King Edward’s School prize- giving. I explained – thinking fast – that I’d had to answer Questions in the House that afternoon.

‘Your secretary said you had some committee meeting.’

Maybe I did. I can’t really remember that kind of trivial detail. Another bad move. Harry said, ‘You know what people round here are saying? That it’s a dead loss having a Cabinet Minister for an MP. Better off with a local lad who’s got time for his constituency.’

The usual complaint. It’s so unfair! I can’t be in six places at once, nobody can. But I didn’t get angry. I just