The Complete Yes Minister

obligingly offered to redraft it.

This hardly seems to be the answer. I pointed out that he had redrafted it three times already.

Bernard argued about this. ‘That’s not quite correct, Minister.’

I told him I could count. And that this was the third draft. ‘Quite so,’ he said. ‘It has been drafted once and redrafted twice.’ A typical piece of boring pedantic quibbling. Bernard has an idiotic obsession about using language with accuracy – it’s fortunate he’s not in politics.

I told him not to quibble, and Humphrey said placatingly he would be happy to redraft the report a third time. Of course he would. And a fourth time, and a fifth no doubt. ‘And a sixth,’ I went on. ‘But it still won’t say what I want it to say, it will say what you want it to say. And I want it to say what I want it to say.’

‘What do you want it to say?’ asked Bernard.

‘We want it to say what you want it to say,’ murmured Humphrey soothingly.

‘I’m sure,’ wittered Bernard, ‘that the Department doesn’t want you to say something that you don’t want to say.’

I tried again. For the fourth time in as many weeks I explained the position. ‘Six weeks ago the Think-Tank asked for our evidence on Civil Service overmanning. Three times I have briefed a group of civil servants in words of one syllable – and each time I get back a totally unintelligible draft which says the exact opposite of what I have told them to say.’

‘With respect, Minister,’ countered Sir Humphrey (untruthfully), ‘how do you know it says the opposite if it is totally unintelligible?’ He really is the master of the irrelevant question-begging answer.

‘All I want to say,’ I explained plaintively, ‘is that the Civil Service is grossly overmanned and must be slimmed down.’

‘I’m sure we all want to say that,’ lied my Permanent Secretary. ‘And that is what the report says.’

‘No it doesn’t.’

‘Yes it does.’

Then we said, ‘Oh no, it doesn’t,’ ‘Oh yes, it does,’ ‘Oh no, it doesn’t,’ at each other for a while. Then I quoted phrases from the draft report at him. It says, for instance, that a phased reduction of about a hundred thousand people is ‘not in the public interest’. Translation: it is in the public interest but it is not in the interest of the Civil Service. ‘Public opinion is not yet ready for such a step,’ it says. Translation: Public opinion is ready but the Civil Service is not! Then it goes on: ‘However, this is an urgent problem and we therefore propose setting up a Royal Commission.’ Translation: This problem is a bloody nuisance, but we hope that by the time a Royal Commission reports, four years from now, everyone will have forgotten about it or we can find someone else to blame.

[Hacker was beginning to understand Civil Service code language. Other examples are:

‘I think we have to be very careful.’ Translation: We are not going to do this.

‘Have you thought through all the implications?’ Translation: You are not going to do this.

‘It is a slightly puzzling decision.’ Translation: Idiotic!

‘Not entirely straightforward.’ Translation: Criminal.

‘With the greatest possible respect, Minister . . .’ Translation: Minister, that is the silliest idea I’ve ever heard – Ed.]

Humphrey could see no way out of this impasse. ‘Minister, I can only suggest that we redraft it.’ Brilliant!

‘Humphrey,’ I said, ‘will you give me a straight answer to a straight question?’

This question took him completely by surprise, and he stopped to think for a brief moment.

‘So long as you are not asking me to resort to crude generalisations or vulgar over-simplifications, such as a simple yes or no,’ he said, in a manner that contrived to be both openly ingenuous and deeply evasive, ‘I shall do my utmost to oblige.’

‘Do you mean yes?’ I asked.

A fierce internal struggle appeared to be raging within. ‘Yes,’ he said finally.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Here is the straight question.’

Sir Humphrey’s face fell. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I thought that was it.’

I persevered. ‘Humphrey, in your evidence to the Think-Tank, are you going to support my view that the Civil Service is overmanned and feather-bedded or not? Yes or no! Straight answer!’

Could I have put this question any more plainly? I don’t think so. This was the reply: ‘Minister, if I am pressed for a straight answer I shall say that, as far as we can see, looking at it by and large, taking one thing with another, in terms of the average of departments, then in the last analysis it is probably true to say that, at the end of the day, you would find, in general terms that, not to put too fine a point on it, there really was not very much in it one way or the other.’

While I was still reeling from this, he added, no doubt for further clarification, ‘As far as one can see, at this stage.’

I made one last attempt. ‘Does that mean yes or no?’ I asked, without much hope.

‘Yes and no,’ he replied helpfully.

‘Suppose,’ I said, ‘suppose you weren’t asked for a straight answer?’