The Complete Yes Minister

‘What?’ I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly.

‘If and when you know what?’

‘I don’t know what,’ I said confused. ‘What?’

‘What?’ Now Sir Humphrey seemed confused.

‘What do you mean, if and when you know what? If and when, I know what – what?’

At last Humphrey decided to make his meaning clear. ‘When the chips are down, Minister, and the balloon goes up and the lights go out . . . there has to be somewhere to carry on government, even if everything else stops.’

I considered this carefully for a few moments. ‘Why?’ I asked.

Humphrey appeared to be absolutely staggered by this question. He explained to me, as if I were a backward five-year-old, ‘Government doesn’t stop merely because the country’s been destroyed. Annihilation is bad enough, without anarchy to make it even worse.’

Obviously Humphrey was concerned about the danger of a lot of rebellious cinders.

However, this is clearly an MoD matter [Ministry of Defence matter – Ed.] and I can see it is beyond my power to do anything about 3 to 17 Beaconsfield Street.

There was one more virtually unused building on Frank’s list. It was my last shot. ‘What about the Central Registry?’ I enquired, without any real hope.

‘No planning permission,’ said Sir Humphrey, with a bland smile of a man who knows he’s won five rounds and is way ahead on points.

Frank suddenly intervened. ‘How does he know all this?’ he enquired belligerently, and turned accusingly to Sir Humphrey. ‘You knew where I’d been.’

This hadn’t occurred to me, but Frank was obviously right. I was about to lay into Humphrey on that score, when Humphrey said to me, most disarmingly: ‘Of course we knew where he’d been. Why, was he supposed to be spying?’

I wasn’t ready for that particular googly. I realised at once that I was on a very sticky wicket.

Humphrey pressed home his advantage. ‘I mean, we do believe in open enquiries, don’t we?’

There was no answer to this, so, in my most businesslike fashion, I closed the Buildings file. [In any case, it would have been impossible to sell all these government buildings simultaneously. If you put government property in London on the market all at once, you would destroy the market – like diamonds – Ed.]

I turned to Manpower. Here, I felt I was on rock-solid ground.

‘Apparently,’ I began, ‘there are ninety civil servants in Sunderland exactly duplicating the work of ninety others here in Whitehall.’

Humphrey nodded. ‘That stems from a cabinet decision. Job Creation in the North-East.’

At last we were in agreement about something. ‘Let’s get rid of them,’ I proposed.

Frank chimed in eagerly, ‘Yes, that would get rid of ninety civil servants at a stroke.’ Somehow, the way Frank spits out the words ‘civil servants’ makes them sound more contemptible than petty thieves. If I were a civil servant I think Frank’s style would offend me, though Sir Humphrey doesn’t seem too bothered, I must say.

But he picked up Frank’s phrase ‘at a stroke’. [Actually, Edward Heath’s phrase, originally applied to price reductions which, needless to say, never occurred – Ed.] ‘Or indeed,’ said Sir Humphrey, ‘at a strike.’

‘What?’ I said.

‘Personally, Minister, I should be wholeheartedly in favour of such a move. A considerable economy. But . . . I should remind you that it is a depressed area. Hence the original job creation scheme. It would show great political courage for the government to sack staff in a depressed marginal constituency.’

We sat for a while in silence. I must say, I think it was rather sporting of Humphrey to remind me that a marginal constituency was at stake. Normally civil servants take no interest in those vital political calculations.

Clearly, I couldn’t possibly risk a strike up there. But I was feeling really hopeless about these economies by now. I decided to put the ball back into Humphrey’s court.

‘Look, Humphrey,’ I said, ‘this is all very well . . . but . . . well, I just don’t believe that there are no savings to be made in the Civil Service. I see waste everywhere.’

‘I agree with you, Minister,’ came the reply, much to my surprise. ‘There is indeed scope for economy . . .’

‘Then . . .’ I interrupted, ‘. . . where, for God’s sake?’

And to my surprise, Sir Humphrey suddenly became very positive. ‘I sometimes feel that the whole way we do things is on too lavish a scale. You know, cars, furnishings, private office staff, entertainment, duplicating machines. . . .’

This was marvellous. I couldn’t agree more. I nodded enthusiastically.

‘There is a difficulty, however,’ he added. My heart sank again, but I waited to hear what it was. ‘It does cause profound resentment if those at the top continue to enjoy the convenience and comforts they have withdrawn from those below them, not to mention the deeply damaging publicity. . . .’

He broke off, and waited to see how I reacted. I wasn’t awfully keen, I must admit. It became clear that Humphrey’s scheme was that he and I should set a personal example. Economy begins at home, and we can’t expect others to do what we don’t do ourselves, and so forth.