The Complete Yes Minister

(b) what he believed happened

(c) what he would like to have happened

(d) what he wanted others to believe happened

(e) what he wanted others to believe that he believed happened.

As a general rule, politicians’ memories are less reliable about failures than successes, and about distant events than recent ones. Since Hacker’s career, like all politicians’, inevitably consisted mostly of failures, these diaries ran the risk of having only small historical value. But the fact that the great man had no time to make any alterations or excisions in the light of subsequent events has enabled us to select from the morass a document of unique value to students of that period of British history.

This book covers Hacker’s entire career as the Minister for Administrative Affairs. This was his first experience in government. The Ministry had been created some years earlier as an umbrella ministry, along the lines of George Brown’s Department of Economic Affairs in the Wilson government of the 1960s, to co-ordinate government administration. Theoretically it gave Hacker a roving brief, to investigate and control administrative inefficiency and overspending throughout the system, wherever it was to be found. Unfortunately the Department of Administrative Affairs was not only created to control the Civil Service, it also had to be staffed by the Civil Service. Readers will therefore be well aware of the inevitable result of Hacker’s labours.

Nonetheless, it remains a slight puzzle to the editors of this volume that Hacker, who was such a master of blurring and obfuscation in his own political dealings, should have found such difficulty in dealing with a group of civil servants whose techniques were essentially similar. Hacker’s innocence, as revealed in these diaries, is quite touching.

Later volumes under the title Yes Prime Minister will deal with Hacker’s career as he failed upwards to Number Ten Downing Street, and thence to his final demise on his elevation to the House of Lords (as it then was).

We have, of course, had the benefit of other sources. Hacker was, inevitably, in ignorance of certain conversations and events which, had he known of them, would doubtless have altered his perceptions and his views. We are fortunate that under the Thirty-Year Rule all of Sir Humphrey Appleby’s memos and minutes have become available to us. We are also fortunate that because Appleby was a first-class civil servant he had a total belief in the value of committing everything to paper. Thus we have also had the benefit of Sir Humphrey’s own private diaries, and we would like to record our debt of gratitude to the Public Record Office and the Trustees of the voluminous Appleby Papers.

A final word of thanks. We were most grateful to have had a few conversations with Sir Humphrey himself before the advancing years, without in any way impairing his verbal fluency, disengaged the operation of his mind from the content of his speech. And we should like to express our thanks to the staff of St Dympna’s Hospital for the Elderly Deranged, where he resided for his last days.

Above all, we are grateful to Sir Bernard Woolley, GCB, former Head of the Civil Service, who was Hacker’s private secretary for the period covered by this volume. He has given generously of his time and checked our selection against his own memory and records. Nevertheless, any responsibility for errors and omissions is, of course, entirely our own.

Jonathan Lynn

Antony Jay

Hacker College, Oxford

September 2019 AD

1 Open Government

October 22nd

Well, perhaps it’s the early hours of Friday, the 23rd now. I am most excited. I have just been returned to Parliament by Birmingham East. And after years in opposition, the party has finally won a general election and we’re back in office.

After the result was announced I went to the celebration do at Alderman Spotteswoode’s[1] and saw Robert McKenzie on the telly say: ‘And so Jim Hacker’s back, with an increased majority in his marginal constituency. After many years as a Shadow Minister he seems almost certain to get a Cabinet post in the new government.’

Robin Day seemed doubtful, though. I do hope Bob McKenzie’s right.

October 23rd

I’m still hoping but I wonder if Robin Day knows something that I don’t.

I’ve been sitting by the telephone ever since breakfast. No potential Cabinet Minister ever moves more than twenty feet from the telephone in the twenty-four hours following the appointment of a new Prime Minister. If you haven’t heard within twenty-four hours, you’re not going to be in the Cabinet.

Annie kept me supplied with constant cups of coffee all morning, and when I returned to the armchair next to the phone after lunch she asked me to help do the Brussels sprouts for dinner if I didn’t have anything else to do. I explained to her that I couldn’t because I was waiting for the call.

‘Who from?’ Sometimes Annie really is a bit dense.