‘Itwasa brilliantruse, Humphrey—I toldthetruth!’
IN YES, Prime Minister, the sequel to Yes Minister, hapless Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington) somehow finds himself in No 10, still at the mercy of the machinations of civil servants Sir Humphrey (Nigel Hawthorne) and eager-to-please Bernard (Derek Fowlds).
Jim Hacker is thrilled about his performance on that afternoon’s Prime minister’s Questions, in the commons and is keen to regale Sir Humphrey with his impressive responses to some very tricky questions. Unfortunately, Sir Humphrey is aware of a very serious flaw in the Pm’s performance, which he’s going to have to tell him. SIR HUMPHREY: Ah, Bernard, how is our great statesman this afternoon? BERNARD: Very cheerful. SIR HUMPHREY: What has he found to be cheerful about? BERNARD: Well, at Question Time he did very well. SIR HUMPHREY: In whose opinion? BERNARD: Everyone was impressed with his answer on tapping MPs’ phones. SIR HUMPHREY: I heard about that but, regrettably, not from you. BERNARD: I didn’t see any point. SIR HUMPHREY: I co- ordinate all government security. Why was the question not referred to me first? BERNARD: It was an unforeseen supplementary. SIR HUMPHREY: A foreseeable unforeseen supplementary. BERNARD: It was a good answer. ‘Much as I respect and value the opinions of this House, I have no desire to listen to honourable members for any longer than I have to.’ Got a good laugh. SIR HUMPHREY: From you. BERNARD: Yes, and from his own party. SIR HUMPHREY: The ones hoping to be promoted or the ones afraid of being sacked? BERNARD: That’s just about all of them. SIR HUMPHREY: I gather that he denied that he’d authorised the bugging of an MP’s telephone. BERNARD: Well, yes. Well, he hasn’t, has he? Has he? He has? Crikey! SIR HUMPHREY: It’s all here, Bernard, including the transcripts. Shall we um . . . Walking towards the Pm’s door and indicating that they should go in. BERNARD: Well, can’t we leave it a bit longer? He doesn’t get many PM: moments of unalloyed pleasure. BERNARD: SIR HUMPHREY: I suppose he gets all he deserves. They open the door to the room next door and walk in. PM: Ah, come in! Come in Humphrey. SIR HUMPHREY: I want to talk about PM’s Question Time. PM: Thank you, I accept your congratulations! SIR HUMPHREY: Well, I . . . PM: Wasn’t I brilliant? SIR HUMPHREY: Well, I didn’t . . . PM: Didn’t you think so? SIR HUMPHREY: Well, I wasn’t there, but um . . . Wasn’t I brilliant, Bernard?
Er . . . Well, I believe your replies this afternoon will not be quickly forgotten.
PM: Ah, let me tell you what happened, Humphrey. The first question was about that Home Office cock- up over the shortage of prison officers. My reply was masterly! I said: ‘I refer the honourable member to the speech I made on October 28.’ SIR HUMPHREY: Did he remember what you’d said?
PM: Well, no, of course not. Neither did I, come to that. Still, it shut him up. The next one was about unemployment and g
whether the Department of Employment fiddle the figures? BERNARD: You mean, periodically restructure the base from which the statistics have been derived without drawing public attention to the fact? PM: Exactly. Fiddle the figures. SIR HUMPHREY: Well, of course they do.
PM: I know they do. But, I said I’d found no significant evidence of it.
BERNARD: That’s because you haven’t been looking.
SIR HUMPHREY: And because we haven’t shown you.
PM: I know, well done, Humphrey. Then we went straight on to a googly about the Department of Energy’s plans for disposing of nuclear waste. The question was trying to get me to admit that the Cabinet was divided.
SIR HUMPHREY: Well, it is. PM: Well, I know that. So, I said: ‘My Cabinet took a unanimous decision.’ SIR HUMPHREY: That’s only because you threatened to dismiss anyone who wouldn’t agree. PM: It certainly made them agree unanimously. By this time, my backbenchers were cheering my every word. Oh, yes, then we had a question about why, since we’d spent so much money on it, our new anti-missile missile was scrapped as obsolete the day before the first one came off the production line. SIR HUMPHREY: And how did you wriggle out of that one?
PM: Wriggle out! That was my masterstroke! My reply, Humphrey, was sheer genius. I simply said our policy had not been as effective as we’d hoped. Clearly, we had got it wrong.
SIR HUMPHREY: You admitted that?
PM: Yeah. Brilliant! Wasn’t it? Took the wind right out of his sails! Honesty always gives you the advantage of surprise in the House of Commons.
BERNARD: There was, actually, a supplementary. The Prime Minister was asked when he would request the resignation from the responsible minister.
PM: Too easy! I said: ‘I’ll ask for his resignation when he makes a mistake that could’ve been seen at the time and not with the benefit of hindsight.’ He laughs, delighted at himself. PM: They were on their feet cheering, stamping, waving their Order Papers! SIR HUMPHREY: I gather that there was a question about the bugging of an MP’s telephone. PM: Oh, yes, I got a terrific laugh with that. I said . . . SIR HUMPHREY: Yes, I know, Bernard told me. PM: I said: ‘ Much as I respect . . .’ SIR HUMPHREY: Yes, I know, Bernard told me. PM: Oh. Oh, well, anyway, that was stupid. I mean, why should we bug Hugh Halifax’s telephone? I mean, one of my own administration! Don’t know where they got such a daft idea! Sheer paranoia. SIR HUMPHREY: Yes, the only thing is . . .
PM: Why should we listen in to MPs? Boring, stupid, ignorant windbags! I do my best not to listen to them. And he’s only a PPS. I have enough trouble finding out what’s going on at Defence. What could he know?
SIR HUMPHREY: So, I gather you denied that Mr Halifax’s phone had been bugged?
PM: Well, obviously. It was the one question today to which I could give a clear, simple, straightforward, honest answer.
SIR HUMPHREY: Yes, unfortunately, although the answer was clear, simple and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement, inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated and the facts insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated is such as to cause epistemological problems of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear.
PM: Epistemological? What are you talking about?
SIR HUMPHREY: You told a lie. PM: A lie? SIR HUMPHREY: A lie. PM: What do you mean, a lie? SIR HUMPHREY: I mean, you lied. I know this is a difficult concept to get across to a politician. You er . . . (mutters.) Ah, yes, you did not tell the truth. PM: You mean we are bugging Hugh Halifax’s telephone? SIR HUMPHREY: We were. PM: When did we stop? SIR HUMPHREY: Um . . . 17 minutes ago. PM: Well, you can’t call that lying!