The Complete Yes Minister

The Bursar added that most nights I’d find them eating Mother’s Pride⁷ and processed cheese.

I remarked that what they need is a twentieth-century benefactor and this innocent remark produced a long lecture on the different types of University benefactors. Isaac Wolfson, apparently, is only the third man in history to have a college named after him at Oxford and Cambridge. Jesus and St John being the first two.

‘Benefactors achieve some sort of immortality,’ said the Bursar. ‘Their names are kept alive and honoured for centuries. Sir William de Vere, whose name was inscribed on a sconce, directed a Baronial army away from Baillie in the fifteenth century – he had the soldiers quartered at St George’s College instead.’

I didn’t want to appear ignorant, but I ventured a comment that I didn’t actually know there was a St George’s College. ‘There isn’t,’ said the Bursar, ‘not any more.’

We all chuckled.

Then the Bursar told me about Henry Monkton.

‘The MonktonQuad is named after him. He stopped Cromwell from melting down the college silver to pay for the New Model Army.’

Humphrey added:

‘Told them that the silver was much better quality at Trinity, Cambridge.’

More chuckles all round. Then the Master pointedly remarked that it now looked as if there’d be no college left to remember these benefactors. Unless the problem of the overseas students can be solved.

They all looked at me and waited. I’m used to this kind of pressure, but naturally I wanted to help if I could. So I explained that one always tries to help and that politicians only go into politics out of a desire to help others. I explained that I’m an idealist. And, in case they were under the impression that all this talk of honouring benefactors might persuade me to help Baillie in some way, I pointed out that any honour is irrelevant to me – after all, there’s not much point in having your name on a silver sconce when you’re six feet under.

Humphrey changed the conversation abruptly at that moment, and started asking when the University awards its honorary doctorates. The Master said that the ceremony isn’t for a few months but the Senate makes its final selection in a matter of weeks.

I don’t think that it was entirely coincidental that Humphrey mentioned this matter at this juncture.

[The ceremony in question takes place each June. A large luncheon is given in the Codrington Library of All Souls, followed by an afternoon reception. The degrees are given in a Latin ceremony, in the Sheldonian. All the speeches are in Latin. The Chancellor of the University was, at this period, that arch-manipulator of politicians and, with Sir Harold Wilson, Joint Life President of the Society of Electoral Engineers: Mr Harold Macmillan, as he then was (later Earl of Stockton) – Ed.]

Humphrey, the Master, and the Bursar were – I realised – hinting at an offer. Not an unattractive one. I’ve always secretly regretted not being an Oxbridge man, as I am undoubtedly of sufficient intellectual calibre. And there must be very few LSE men who’ve ever had an honorary degree from Oxford.

The Master dropped another hint. Very decorously. He said that there was still one honorary doctorate of Law to decide, and that he and his colleagues were wondering whether it should go to a judge or to someone in government!

I suggested that someone in government might be more appropriate. Perhaps as a tribute to the Chancellor of the University. I know that I argued it rather brilliantly, because they were so enthusiastic and warm in response to me – but I can’t actually remember precisely how I put it.

Exhausted by the intellectual cut and thrust of the evening, I fell asleep in the car going home.

SIR BERNARD WOOLLEY RECALLS:⁸

Having seen Hacker’s account of this dinner, and his behaviour at it, I’m afraid to say that it is rather inaccurate and self-serving.

By the time we had reached the port Hacker was, not to put too fine a point on it, embarrassingly drunk.

The Master, Sir Humphrey and several of the dons set about persuading him that he would acquire a certain immortality if he became a college benefactor – in other words, if he made Baillie a special case in the matter of overseas students. A typical Oxford ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ offer.

Hacker’s reference to the conversation about Wolfson and Jesus Colleges is less than complete. When told that Wolfson is the only man, other than Jesus and St John, to have a college named after him at both Oxford and Cambridge, he looked glassy-eyed and blank. ‘Jesus?’ he asked. The Bursar actually felt called upon to clarify it. ‘Jesus Christ, that is,’ he explained.

When Hacker remarked that he wanted to help he was pouring himself a glass of port. His actual words, I clearly recall, were ‘Yes, well, one would certainly like to help oneself . . . I mean, help one’s friends, that is, help the college . . . not for the honours of course . . .’. He was completely transparent.

The Master and Bursar chimed in with suitable bromides like ‘Perish the thought,’ ‘Ignoble suggestion,’ and so forth.

Hacker then gave us all that guff about how he was in politics to help others, and how he wasn’t interested in honours – but when the honorary doctorates were mentioned he got so excited he cracked a walnut so hard that pieces of shell were flying across High Table like shrapnel.

Then came his final humiliation.

By the time the matter was raised as to whether the last remaining honorary doctorate (if indeed it were so) should go to a judge or a politician, it was clear that the academics were playing games with Hacker.

He was too drunk to see that they were merely amusing themselves. I well remember the appalling drunken speech he launched into. It is forever etched on my memory.

He began by saying ‘Judge? You don’t want to make a judge a doctor of law. Politicians,’ he said, ‘are the ones who make the laws. And pass the laws,’ he added, apparently unaware of the tautology. ‘If it wasn’t for politicians, judges wouldn’t be able to do any judging, they wouldn’t have any laws to judge, know what I mean? They’d all be