The Complete Yes Minister

16 The Challenge

March 10th

Wonderful news today. I had a call at home last night to go straight to Number Ten this morning.

When I got there I was told of a big Government administrative reorganisation. Not a reshuffle; I stay Minister of Administrative Affairs at the DAA. But I’ve been given a new remit: local government. It’s quite a challenge.

[Later that day Hacker was interviewed by Ludovic Kennedy in The World at One, a popular radio current affairs programme in the 1970s and 80s.

We have obtained a transcript of the broadcast discussion, which we reproduce below — Ed.]

[The following day Sir Humphrey Appleby received a note from Sir Arnold Robinson, Secretary of the Cabinet. We reproduce below the exchange of notes that ensued — Ed.]

The reply from Sir Humphrey Appleby:

A reply from Sir Arnold Robinson:

[On the same date, 12 March, Sir Humphrey made a reference to this exchange of notes in his diary — Ed.]

Received a couple of notes from A.R. Clearly he’s worried that Hacker may overstep the mark. I’ve made it plain that I know my duty.

Nonetheless, A. made a superb suggestion: that I divert Hacker by getting him to look into Civil Defence. By which he means fall-out shelters.

This is a most amusing notion. Everybody knows that Civil Defence is not a serious issue, merely a desperate one. And it is thus best left to those whose incapacity can be relied upon: local authorities.

It is a hilarious thought that, since the highest duty of government is to protect its citizens, it has been decided to leave it to the Borough Councils.

[Hacker’s diary continues — Ed.]

March 15th

I met a very interesting new adviser today: Dr Richard Cartwright.

We were having a meeting of assorted officials, of which he was one. I noticed that we hadn’t even been properly introduced to each other, which I had presumed was some sort of oversight.

But, as the meeting was breaking up, this shambling figure of an elderly schoolboy placed himself directly in front of me and asked me in a soft Lancashire accent if he could have a brief word with me.

Naturally I agreed. Also, I was intrigued. He looked a bit different from most of my officials — a baggy tweed sports jacket, leather elbows, mousy hair brushed forward towards thick spectacles. He looked like a middle-aged ten-year-old. If I’d tried to guess his profession, I would have guessed prep school science master.

‘It’s about a proposal, worked out before we were transferred to this Department,’ he said in his comforting high-pitched voice.

‘And you are…?’ I asked. I still didn’t know who he was.

‘I am… what?’ he asked me.

I thought he was going to tell me what his job is. ‘Yes,’ I asked, ‘you are what?’

He seemed confused. ‘What?’

Now I was confused. ‘What?’

‘I’m Dr Cartwright.’

Bernard chose this moment to intervene. ‘But if I may put it another way… what are you?’

‘I’m C of E,’ said Dr Cartwright puzzled.

‘No,’ said Bernard patiently. ‘I think the Minister means, what function do you perform in this Department.’

‘Don’t you know?’ Dr Cartwright sounded slightly horrified.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Bernard, ‘but the Minister wants to know.’

‘Ah,’ said Dr Cartwright. We’d got there at last. No one would believe that this is how busy people in the corridors of power communicate with each other.

‘I’m a professional economist,’ he explained. ‘Director of Local Administrative Statistics.’

‘So you were in charge of the Local Government Directorate until we took it over?’

He smiled at my question. ‘Dear me, no.’ He shook his head sadly, though apparently without bitterness. ‘No, I’m just Under-Secretary rank. Sir Gordon Reid was the Permanent Secretary. I fear that I will rise no higher.’

I asked why not.

He smiled. ‘Alas! I am an expert.’

[It is interesting to note that the cult of the generalist had such a grip on Whitehall that experts accepted their role as second-class citizens with equanimity and without rancour — Ed.]

‘An expert on what?’

‘The whole thing,’ he said modestly. Then he handed me a file.

I’m sitting here reading the file right now. It’s dynamite. It’s a scheme for controlling local authority expenditure. He proposes that every council official responsible for a new project would have to list the criteria for failure before he’s given the go-ahead.

I didn’t grasp the implication of this at first. But I’ve discussed it with Annie and she tells me it’s what’s called ‘the scientific method’. I’ve never really come across that, since my early training was in sociology and economics. But ‘the scientific method’ apparently means that you first establish a method of measuring the success or failure of an experiment. A proposal would have to say: ‘The scheme will be a failure if it takes longer than this’ or ‘costs more than that’ or ‘employs more staff than these’ or ‘fails to meet those pre-set performance standards’.

Fantastic. We’ll get going on this right away. The only thing is, I can’t understand why this hasn’t been done before.

March 16th

The first thing I did this morning was get Dr Cartwright on the phone, and ask him.

He didn’t know the answer. ‘I can’t understand it either. I put the idea up several times and it was always welcomed very warmly. But Sir Gordon always seemed to have something more urgent on when we were due to discuss it.’

I told him he’d come to the right place this time and rang off.

Then Bernard popped in. He was looking rather anxious. Obviously he’d been listening-in on his extension and taking notes. [This was customary, and part of the Private Secretary’s official duties — Ed.]

‘That’s marvellous, isn’t it Bernard?’ I asked.

There was a pointed silence.

‘You’ve read the report, have you? Cartwright’s report?’

‘Yes, Minister.’

‘Well, what do you think of it?’

‘Oh, it’s er, that is, er it’s very well presented, Minister.’

The message was clear.

‘Humphrey will be fascinated, don’t you think?’ I said mischievously.

Bernard cleared his throat. ‘Well, I’ve arranged a meeting with him about this for tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll give you his views.’

‘What are you saying, Bernard? Out with it.’

‘Yes, well, as I say,’ he waffled for a bit, ‘um… I think that he’ll think that it’s er, beautifully… typed.’

And then surprisingly he smiled from ear to ear.

March 17th

Today I had the meeting with Sir Humphrey. It was supposed to be about our new responsibilities in the area of local government. But I saw to it that it was about Cartwright’s scheme.

It began with the usual confusion between us.

‘Local authorities,’ I began. ‘What are we going to do about them?’

‘Well, there are three principal areas for action: budget, accommodation and staffing.’

I congratulated him for putting his finger right on it. ‘Well done, Humphrey. That’s where all the trouble is.’

He was nonplussed. ‘Trouble?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘with all those frightful councils. Budget, accommodation and staffing. They all go up and up and up.’

‘No, Minister.’ He had assumed his patronising tone again. ‘I’m afraid you misunderstand. I’m referring to this Department’s budget, accommodation and staffing. Obviously they must all be increased now that we have all those extra responsibilities.’

I was even more patronising in my response. ‘No Humphrey, I’m afraid you misunderstand.’ I told him that local government is a ghastly mess, and that I was asking what we were going to do to improve it, to make it more efficient and economical.

He didn’t answer my question. He hesitated momentarily, and then tried to divert me with flattery. ‘Minister, this new remit gives you more influence, more Cabinet seniority — but you do not have to let it give you any more work or worry. That would be foolishness.’

Nowadays I find I’m able to resist his blandishments very easily. Stubbornly I repeated that we have to put a stop to all this ghastly waste and extravagance that’s going on.

‘Why?’ he asked.

I was staggered. ‘Why?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Because it’s my job, we’re the government, we were elected to govern.’

‘Minister, surely you don’t intend to tamper with the democratic rights of freely-elected local government representatives?’

Humphrey’s new-found interest in democracy surprised me slightly. For a moment I couldn’t think of an answer to what sounded like a perfectly reasonable point. And then it became clear. There is no competition between local government and Westminster — local authorities are given their powers by Westminster. They must act accordingly. Parliament is supreme. We live in a Parliamentary democracy. And there was another aspect to this.

‘Local councils aren’t democratic at all,’ I said. ‘Local democracy is a farce. Nobody knows who their local councillor is. Most people don’t even vote in local elections. And the ones who do, just treat it as a popularity poll on the government in Westminster. Councillors, in practice, are accountable to nobody.’

He looked po-faced. ‘They are public-spirited citizens, selflessly sacrificing their spare time.’

‘Have you ever met any?’ I enquired.

‘Occasionally. When there was no alternative,’ he replied, with one of his occasional flashes of honesty.

‘I’ve met plenty of them. Half of them are self-important busybodies on an ego trip and the other half are in it for what they can get out of it.’

‘Perhaps they ought to be in the House of Commons,’ said Humphrey.

I think I must have given him a dirty look, because he added hastily, ‘I mean, to see how a proper legislative assembly behaves.’

I decided that we’d done enough beating about the bush. I told Humphrey that I intended to get a grip on these local councils. And I announced that I had a plan.

He smiled a supercilious smile. ‘You have a plan?’

I told him that I was going to insist that any council official who puts up a project costing over £10,000 must accompany it with failure standards.

‘With what?’

‘With a statement,’ I said, ‘that he will have failed if his project does not achieve certain pre-set results or exceeds fixed time or staff or budget limits.’

I had hoped, faintly, that he would think this was my idea. No such luck.

‘Minister,’ he demanded, ‘where did you get the idea for this dangerous nonsense?’

I could see that Dr Cartwright needed my protection. ‘From someone in the Department,’ I replied evasively.

He exploded. ‘Minister, I have warned you before about the dangers of talking to people in the Department. I implore you to stay out of the minefield of local government. It is a political graveyard.’

Bernard intervened. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, Bernard abominates a mixed metaphor. ‘Actually, Sir Humphrey,’ he explained confidentially, ‘you can’t have a graveyard in a minefield because all the corpses would…’ and he made a vague explosion gesture. Humphrey gave him a look which reduced him to silence.

I was more immediately interested in why Humphrey, who has been claiming that he got me this local government job, is now saying that it’s a minefield and a graveyard. Was this a friendly act?

‘Well, what am I supposed to do?’ I asked.

‘Um… yes, well… quite honestly, Minister, I didn’t think you’d do anything. I mean, you’ve never done anything before.’

I brushed aside the insult and the complaints. I told him I wanted specific proposals right away, and immediate plans for the implementation of failure standards by local authorities. I couldn’t see why he was getting so worked up about it — and then, the penny dropped: these failure standards could be made to apply to Whitehall as well.

I’d just started to say something along those lines when Humphrey made a chance remark that immediately caught my attention.

‘Minister, if you insist in interfering in local government, may I make a positive suggestion that could prove a very real vote-winner?’

I always try to make time to listen to a positive suggestion.

‘There is an area of local government that needs urgent attention — Civil Defence.’

I thought at first that this was a completely frivolous suggestion. Everybody regards fall-out shelters as a joke.

He seemed to read my mind. ‘At the moment, Minister, you may think they are a joke. But the highest duty of any government is to protect its citizens. And Local Authorities are dragging their feet.’

‘Some people,’ I said, ‘think that building shelters makes nuclear war more likely.’

‘If you have the weapons, you must have the shelters.’

‘I suppose you’re right. But I wonder if we really need the weapons.’

Sir Humphrey was shocked. ‘Minister! You’re not a unilateralist?’

I told him that I sometimes wonder. He told me that in that case I should resign from the government. I told him that I’m not that unilateralist.

‘But after all, Humphrey,’ I added, ‘the Americans will always protect us from the Russians, won’t they?’

‘The Russians?’ he asked. ‘Who’s talking about the Russians?’

‘Well, the independent nuclear deterrent…’

He interrupted me. ‘It’s to protect us against the French.’

I could hardly believe my ears. The French? It sounded incredible. An extraordinary idea. I reminded Humphrey that they are our allies, our partners.

‘They are now,’ he agreed. ‘But they’ve been our enemies for most of the past nine hundred years. If they have it, we must!’

It only needed a few seconds’ thought to realise the profound truth of what he was saying. Suddenly it didn’t seem at all incredible — just common sense, really. If the bomb is to protect us from the French, that’s a completely different matter, obviously we’ve got to have it, you can’t trust the Frogs, there’s no room for discussion about that!’

Furthermore, there is — unquestionably — increasing public concern about the bomb. And if one can be seen to be doing something about it, it could do one a lot of good politically.

Also I gathered at the Beeb that Ludovic Kennedy is preparing a TV documentary on Civil Defence, and it’s bound to be critical of the current situation. So if I were seen to be taking decisive measures…

‘When do we start?’ I asked Humphrey.

He had an immediate suggestion. ‘The London Borough of Thames Marsh has spent less on Civil Defence than any authority in the country.’

An excellent starting plan. Thames Marsh is Ben Stanley’s borough, that odious troglodite with the wispy moustache. The press hate him.

So I told Bernard to set up the visit, and make sure the press are fully informed. ‘Tell them,’ I instructed him, ‘that I lie awake at night worrying about the defenceless citizens of Thames Marsh.’

‘Do you?’ asked Bernard.

‘I will now!’ I said firmly.

March 23rd

I made an official visit to Thames Marsh Town Hall today. There was a very satisfactory turn-out from the press, I noticed, especially photographers.

I met a so-called ‘welcoming committee’ on the front steps. Loads of flash-guns going off. I was introduced to the Leader of the Council.

‘Mr Stanley, I presume,’ I said. I’d prepared it of course, but it got a jolly good laugh from the assembled hacks.

The ensuing discussion over cups of tea and sticky buns in the Mayor’s Parlour can hardly be described as a meeting of minds. But I made the point I had to make with great effectiveness, and I’m sure it will all be reported. If not, no doubt it will be leaked somehow. [In other words, Hacker would leak it — Ed.]

Stanley opened the hostilities by asking me belligerently why I thought I could come swanning down to Thames Marsh from Whitehall, telling them how to run their borough.

In return, I asked him (politely) why he was doing less than any other borough in Britain to protect the people who elected him.

‘Simple,’ he said, ‘we can’t find the money.’

I suggested he try looking for it. This produced an outburst of anger, mixed with a good dose of self-righteousness.

‘Oh that’s great,’ he snapped, smiling a thin smile, strangely at variance with his malevolent, beady eyes, a crumb or two of the Mayor’s Battenburg marzipan cake stuck to his twitching moustache. ‘Oh that’s great. Stop school meals? Buy no textbooks? Turn the OAPs[42] out into the cold?’

I wasn’t impressed by all that cheap electioneering rubbish. It’s nothing to do with our Senior Citizens.[43]

‘If you want the money,’ I said wearily, ‘I can tell you exactly where you can find it.’

‘You can?’ he sneered.

‘Yes,’ I said. I told Cartwright to tell him, because he had the file. So Cartwright read him the list that he and I had approved.

This list of suggestions would save £21 million on capital account over five years, and £750,000 a year on revenue account.

Stanley read the list. There followed a bemused silence. Finally he came up with an answer.

‘That’s just stupid,’ he said.

I asked why.

‘Because,’ he explained laboriously, ‘it’s depriving the disadvantaged of indispensable services.’

‘Jacuzzi pools?’ I asked innocently.

He knew only too well that he was on a very sticky wicket, so changed his line of defence.

‘Look,’ he said, completely abandoning the argument that Thames Marsh couldn’t find the necessary money, ‘I don’t care whether we can afford fall-out shelters or not. This is a unilateralist borough. We don’t believe in nuclear war in Thames Marsh.’

‘Mr Stanley,’ I replied carefully. ‘I don’t believe in nuclear war either. No sane man does. But the provision of fall-out shelters is government policy.’

‘It is not Thames Marsh policy,’ he snarled. ‘Thames Marsh has no quarrel with the USSR.’

‘It’s not just the USSR we’re scared of, it could be the Fr….’

I stopped myself just in time. Had I completed that word I could have caused the biggest international incident of the decade.

‘The who?’ he asked.

I though fast. ‘The fr… frigging Chinese’ was all I could think of on the spur of the moment. But it served its purpose, and the crisis passed. And I kept talking. I thought I’d better. Not that it was difficult. The idea of each borough in the UK having its own foreign policy was too absurd to contemplate. The TUC has its own foreign policy, each trade union, now each borough, where is it going to end? Soon they’ll all want their own Foreign Office — as if we haven’t enough problems with the one we’ve got.

The irony is, in practice it is virtually impossible for any institution to have its own foreign policy, even the Government. The Foreign Office sees to that, with the help of Washington, NATO, the EEC and the Commonwealth Secretariat.

So I attempted to show him that he was suffering from delusions of grandeur.

‘If the Russians ever invade us,’ I suggested sarcastically, ‘I suppose they’ll stop at the borough boundaries, will they, and say: Hang on, we’re not at war with the London Borough of Thames Marsh. Right wheel Comrades. Annex Chelsea instead’?

The discussion was becoming fairly heated. [What the press statement would later describe as a ‘frank exchange of views’ — Ed.]

But at this moment Bernard intervened and, excusing himself for interrupting us, handed me a little note. It was most revealing. In no time at all I grasped its contents, and its political significance.

I looked at Comrade Ben. ‘Oh Mr Stanley,’ I said, trying not to smile, ‘it seems that you would not be called upon to make the supreme sacrifice, in any case.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, knowing perfectly well what I meant.

The note contained the information that there is a fall-out shelter under Thames Marsh Town Hall, with a place reserved in it for, among others, the Leader of the Council. I asked if it was true.

‘We didn’t build it.’ I’d got him on the defensive.

‘But you maintain it?’

‘It’s only a very small one,’ he muttered sullenly.

I asked him about his own place in it.

‘I was persuaded with deep reluctance that my preservation was a necessity in the interests of the ratepayers of Thames Marsh.’

So I asked him what provision he had made for other essential people: doctors, nurses, ambulance men, firemen, civil rescue squads, emergency radio and television services? ‘People who might be almost as important as councillors,’ I added sarcastically.

‘One of them’s a chemist.’

‘Oh great,’ I said. ‘Nothing like an aspirin for a nuclear holocaust.’

[Later that week Sir Humphrey Appleby lunched with Sir Arnold Robinson, the Cabinet Secretary, at the Athenaeum Club. As usual Sir Humphrey kept a memo of the meeting — Ed.]

Arnold observed that my Minister had enjoyed quite a little publicity triumph down at Thames Marsh. He seemed pleased, which surprised me.

I’m always worried when this Minister has a triumph of any sort. It invariably leads to trouble because he thinks he has achieved something.

Arnold thinks it’s good when Ministers think they have achieved something. He takes the view that it makes life much easier, because they stop fretting for a bit and we don’t have to put up with their little temper tantrums.

My worry, on the other hand, is that he will want to introduce his next idea.

Arnold was most interested to learn that we have a Minister with two ideas. He couldn’t remember when we last had one of those.

[Of course, Hacker had not really had any ideas. One was Bernard’s and the other was Dr Cartwright’s — Ed.]

Arnold wanted to know about the latest idea, and I was obliged to tell him that it was Cartwright’s idiotic scheme to introduce pre-set failure standards for all council projects over £10,000, and to make a named official responsible.

Arnold knew about this scheme, of course, it’s been around for years. But he thought (as I did) that Gordon Reid had squashed it. I think Arnold was a bit put out that Cartwright had got it to Hacker, though I don’t see how I could have prevented it since Cartwright has now come over to the DAA. After all, he slipped it to the Minister privately, under plain cover. Brown envelope job.

Arnold was adamant that it must be stopped. He’s absolutely right. Once you specify in advance what a project is supposed to achieve and whose job it is to see that it does, the entire system collapses. As he says, we would be into the whole squalid world of professional management.

Arnold reminded me (as if I didn’t already know) that we already move our officials around ever two or three years, to stop this personal responsibility nonsense. If Cartwright’s scheme goes through, we would have to be posting everybody once a fortnight.

Clearly we have to make the Minister understand that his new local authority responsibilities are for enjoying, not for exercising.

I told Arnold that tomorrow Hacker will be living his little triumph all over again, recording a TV interview with Ludovic Kennedy for a documentary on Civil Defence.

Arnold wondered out loud what would happen if we gave Hacker a dossier of the curious ways in which local councillors spend their Civil Defence budgets. I remarked that I couldn’t really see how that would help. But Arnold had an idea…

Perhaps he should become a Minister!

[Appleby Papers 39/H1T/188]

[It was known that Hacker was delighted by the invitation, expected though it was, to appear on Ludovic Kennedy’s television documentary on Civil Defence. He was under the impression that he was being given a chance to discuss a Ministerial success. Before the recording, in fact, it is said that he jocularly asked Kennedy if this represented a change of policy by the BBC.

We reproduce the transcripts of the interview, which took a course that was, as it turned out, not to Hacker’s liking. This, of course, was a result of Sir Arnold Robinson’s idea — Ed.]

[It is interesting to read Hacker’s brief remarks in his diary, written on the evening of the television interview — Ed.]

March 29th

TV interview went quite well. But I got into a bit of difficulty over Ben Stanley’s bunker. I said that politicians weren’t as important as doctors and so on.

He asked about the PM’s place in a government shelter. I should have seen that one coming.

I got out of it, pretty cleverly on the whole. All the same I’m not sure how happy the PM will be about it.

Fortunately I was able to tell a marvellously funny story about a group of councillors who spent three years’ Civil Defence budget on a jaunt to California. So that’s all right. On the whole it should do me a bit of good when it goes out next week.

March 30th

A worrying day. I’ve put my foot in it with the PM in a much bigger way than I’d ever imagined.

That wretched story about the councillors going to California is the root of the trouble. I don’t even remember where I got it from — it was in some brief that Bernard passed on to me from the Civil Defence Directorate before the TV programme, I think.

Anyway, Humphrey asked me about it. At first he wouldn’t say why. He merely made the observation that he was sure that I knew what I was doing.

He only says that when I’ve made an appalling cock-up.

Then he revealed that the borough in question contains the PM’s constituency. And the PM’s election agent was the councillor who led the offending delegation.

At first I thought he was joking. But no.

‘Number Ten have been trying to keep it quiet for weeks,’ he said. ‘Ah well. Truth will out.’

I couldn’t see why. Truth mustn’t out. That’s the worst thing that can happen. It’ll look like a personal attack, and the PM’s very touchy about disloyalty at the moment. I told Humphrey that we must stop the interview going out. I could see no other alternative.

To my astonishment he chose that moment to get to his feet and bring the discussion to a close.

‘Unfortunately, Minister, I have no time. I must be going.’

I gasped. ‘You can’t. This is top priority. I order you.’

‘Alas! Minister, it is your orders that are calling me away.’

I couldn’t think what he meant. He explained: ‘Your scheme for imposing pre-set failure standards on local councils is very complex. You asked for proposals straight away. It is taking every moment of my time. Much as I would like to help…’

He paused. Then he seemed to make a proposal. ‘On the other hand, if implementing failure standards were not quite so urgent…’

‘Do you mean,’ I asked casually, ‘you could stop the broadcast?’

He was guarded. ‘Minister, we cannot censor the BBC. But… I happen to be having lunch tomorrow with the BBC’s Director of Policy, perhaps you’d care to join us?’

I couldn’t see any point, if we can’t censor them. I said so, rather disconsolately.

But Sir Humphrey’s reply has given me grounds for hope. ‘No Minister, but we can always try to persuade them to withdraw programmes voluntarily once they realise that transmission is not in the public interest.’

‘It’s not in my interest,’ I replied firmly, ‘and I represent the public. So it can’t be in the public interest.’

Humphrey looked intrigued. ‘That’s a novel approach,’ he said. ‘We’ve not tried that on them before.’

I think that he has more respect for my ideas than he likes to show.

March 31st

A very successful lunch today with Humphrey and Francis Aubrey, the BBC’s Director of Policy, a man with a permanently anxious expression on his face. As well he might have.

It started badly though. As soon as I broached the subject he stated his position firmly. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Hacker, but the BBC cannot give in to government pressure.’ His black bushy eyebrows bristled sternly.

‘Well, let’s leave that on one side, shall we?’ said Sir Humphrey smoothly.

I thought Humphrey was supposed to be on my side.

‘No really,’ I began, ‘I must insist…’

But he silenced me, rather rudely I thought. ‘Let’s leave that on one side,’ he repeated. ‘Please, Minister.’

I had no option really. But I later realised that I had underestimated my Permanent Secretary.

He turned to Mr Aubrey and said: ‘Frank, can I raise something else? There is considerable disquiet about the BBC’s hostility to the Government.’

Aubrey laughed off the idea. ‘That’s absurd.’

‘Well, is it?’ asked Humphrey. And he leaned across to the empty chair beside him and opened up an enormous briefcase. Not his usual slimline leather job with gold engraved initials, but a big fat bulging leather bag, so heavy that his driver had carried it into the club for us.

I’d been preoccupied and worried, and I’d scarcely noticed it. If I had thought about it I suppose I’d have assumed it contained some documents with such a high security clearance that Humphrey had to take them with him everywhere he went.

In the event, it turned out that it contained a number of files that he intended to show the man from the Beeb.

‘We have been documenting instances of bias in BBC current affairs.’ He handed over a file with Bias written across it in a felt pen in large red letters. Francis Aubrey put down his knife and fork and was about to open it when Humphrey handed over a second file, with the words Favourable News Stories Not Reported By The BBC. Then he handed over one file after another, pointing out their contents.

Excessive Publicity For Other Countries’ Case Against Britain — ‘Especially our Common Market enemies. Er, partners, I mean,’ explained Humphrey. Jokes Against The Prime Minister. Unnecessary Publicity for Anti-government Demonstrations. And finally, one huge file, much fatter than the others, which he heaved across the table, marked, Ministers’ Programme Suggestions Not Accepted.

Francis Aubrey was clearly shaken by this mass of incriminating allegations and evidence. ‘But… I’m… but I’m sure we’ve got answers to all these.’ He sounded more firm than he looked.

‘Of course the BBC’s got answers,’ I told him. ‘It’s always got answers. Silly ones, but it’s always got them.’

Humphrey was taking a cooler line. ‘Of course the BBC has explanations,’ he said soothingly. ‘But I just thought I ought to warn you that questions are being asked.’

‘What sort of questions?’ Mr Aubrey was looking even more worried.

‘Well,’ said Humphrey thoughtfully, ‘for example, if Parliament were to be televised, whether it shouldn’t be entrusted to ITV.’

‘You can’t be serious,’ he exploded.

‘And,’ continued Humphrey in the same quiet and thoughtful vein, ‘whether the BBC administration has really made the cuts in jobs and premises that we have endured in government. Should a Select Committee be appointed to scrutinise all BBC expenditure?’

Francis Aubrey started to panic. ‘That would be an intolerable intrusion.’ Resorting to pomposity to hide his thoroughly understandable fears.

I was enjoying myself thoroughly by this time.

‘Of course,’ said Sir Humphrey agreeably. ‘And then there’s the extraordinary matter of the boxes at Ascot, Wimbledon, Lord’s, Covent Garden, the Proms…’

I pricked up my ears. This was news to me.

Francis said, ‘Ah yes, but these are a technical requirement. For production and engineering staff, you know.’

At this juncture Humphrey fished about at the bottom of his copious and now nearly empty Gladstone bag, and produced a box of photographs and press cuttings.

‘Hmmm,’ he said, and smiled and dropped his final bombshell. ‘Reports suggest your production and engineering staff are all holding champagne glasses, all accompanied by their wives — or other ladies of equal distinction — and all bearing a remarkable similarity to governors, directors and executives of the corporation and their friends. I’m wondering whether it is my duty to pass the evidence to the Department of Inland Revenue. What’s your view?’

And, with that, he handed over the box of photographs.

In silence, an ashen Francis Aubrey looked through them.

As he stopped at a splendid ten by eight portrait Humphrey leaned across, glanced at it, and observed, ‘You’ve come out awfully well, haven’t you?’

We fell into silence for some while. F. A. put down the photographs, tried to eat a little more of his Sole Meunière, but clearly it was turning to dust in his mouth. He gave up. I just watched with interest. Humphrey’s performance was brilliant, and I had no wish to interrupt it or get in the way.

Humphrey was quietly enjoying his glass of Château Léoville-Barton 1973, a bottle of which he had carefully chosen to go with his roast beef. It tasted okay, though one glass of red is much like another as far as I’m concerned.

Finally Humphrey broke the silence. ‘Mind you, I think we may just be able to contain all this criticism of the corporation, provided the files don’t get any larger. That’s why I am urging my Minister that there is no need to take up the case of the Civil Defence programme formally.’

Francis was looking desperate. He turned the photo of himself face downwards on the pile. ‘Look, you do see my position. The BBC cannot give in to government pressure.’

‘Of course not,’ said Humphrey. This surprised me. I thought that that was precisely what we were trying to achieve. But I had reckoned without the hypocrisy of the Establishment. Or, to put it more kindly, Humphrey was devising some face-saving apparatus for Mr Aubrey.

And that’s how it turned out to be. He looked at me.

‘We wouldn’t want the BBC to give in to government pressure. Would we Minister?’

‘No?’ I asked, slightly cautiously, recognising a clear cue.

‘No, of course we wouldn’t,’ he went on. ‘But the Minister’s interview with Ludovic Kennedy did contain some factual errors.’

Francis Aubrey seized on that. He brightened up considerably. ‘Factual errors? Ah, that’s different. I mean the BBC couldn’t give in to government pressure…”

‘Of course not,’ we agreed.

‘… but we set great store by factual accuracy.’

‘Indeed,’ said Humphrey, nodding sympathetically. ‘And then, some of the information in the interview is likely to be out of date by the time of transmission.’

‘Out of date?’ he responded eagerly. ‘Ah that’s serious. As you know, the BBC couldn’t give in to government pressure…’

‘Of course not,’ we agreed in unison.

‘… but we don’t want to transmit out-of-date material.’

I saw that I could help Humphrey now.

‘And since the recording,’ I interjected, ‘I’ve discovered that I inadvertently let slip one or two remarks that might have security implications.’

‘Such as?’ he asked.

I hadn’t expected that question. I thought he’d be too well-bred to ask.

Humphrey came to the rescue. ‘He can’t tell you what they are. Security.’

Francis Aubrey didn’t seem to mind a bit. ‘Ah well, we can’t be too careful about security, I do agree. If the defence of the realm is at stake, we have to be very responsible. I mean, obviously the BBC can’t give in to government pressure…’

‘Of course not,’ we chorused enthusiastically one more time.

‘… but security, well, you can’t be too careful, can you?’

‘You can’t be too careful,’ I echoed.

‘You can’t be too careful,’ murmured Humphrey.

‘And in the end, it wasn’t a very interesting interview anyway. All been said before. Bit of a yawn, actually.’

F. A. — or Sweet F.A. as I like to think of him now — had brightened up considerably by this time. Colour had returned to his cheeks. His eyes were no longer lustreless and dead. He was now able to expound on the matter of BBC policy and practice with renewed confidence.

‘I mean,’ he explained, ‘if it’s boring, and if there are inaccuracies and security worries, the BBC wouldn’t want to put the interview out. That puts a completely different complexion on it.’

‘Completely different,’ I said happily.

‘Transmission,’ he went on, ‘would not be in the public interest. But I do want to make one thing absolutely clear.’

‘Yes?’ enquired Humphrey politely.

‘There can be absolutely no question,’ Francis Aubrey stated firmly and categorically, ‘of the BBC ever giving in to government pressure.’

I think it will be all right now.

April 5th

This afternoon Sir Humphrey popped in to see me. He had just received a message that the BBC had decided to drop my interview with Ludovic Kennedy. Apparently they feel it is the responsible course. Of course they do.

I thanked Humphrey, and offered him a sherry. As I thought about the events of the last few days a new thought occurred to me.

‘You know,’ I said, ‘it seems to me that, somehow, I was trapped into saying those things that would embarrass the PM.’

‘Surely not,’ said Humphrey.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think I was dropped right in it.’

Humphrey derided this as a ridiculous thought, and asked how I could even think it. I asked him why it was ridiculous to think that Ludo tried to trap me.

‘Who?’ he asked.

‘Ludo. Ludovic Kennedy.’

Humphrey suddenly changed his tune. ‘Oh, Ludovic Kennedy tried to trap you. I see. Yes. I’m sure he did.’

We both agreed that everyone who works for the media is deceitful, and you can’t trust them an inch. But, now I think about it, why was he so surprised that I was talking about Ludo? Who did he think I was talking about?

Still, he has got me out of a frightful hole. And it was quite clear what the quid pro quo was expected to be. I had to suggest that we lay off the local authorities.

‘It must be admitted,’ I was forced to concede, ‘that local councillors — on the whole — are sensible, responsible people, and they’re democratically elected. Central government has to be very careful before it starts telling them how to do their job.’

‘And the failure standards?’

‘I think they can manage without them, don’t you think?’

‘Yes Minister.’

And he smiled contentedly.

But I don’t intend to let the matter drop for good. I shall return to it, after a decent interval. After all, we had a little unspoken agreement, an unwritten détente — but no one can hold you to an unspoken, unwritten deal, can they?