The Complete Yes Minister

10 Doing the Honours

April 23rd

I had a very unsatisfactory meeting today, with assorted secretaries — Deputy Secretaries, Under-Secretaries, and Assistant Secretaries.

I asked about economies in accommodation, in stationery acquisition, in parks and forestry commission administration, in data processing equipment, in the further education budget.

As always I was met with the usual vague and regretful murmurs of ‘No Minister,’ ‘Afraid not Minister,’ ‘Doesn’t seem possible, Minister,’ ‘Sadly it cannot be, Minister,’ ‘We have done the utmost possible, Minister,’ ‘Pared to the bone, Minister, alas!’ and so forth.

I reflected aloud that at least the Universities are not going to cost us quite so much, now that overseas students are to pay fees that cover the full cost of their education here.

‘Unless,’ someone said, ‘you make the exceptions which have been proposed to you.’

Nobody else at the meeting had been prepared to make exceptions. I couldn’t see why I should. I remarked that as it seemed the only available saving at the moment we had no choice but to hang on to it.

As the meeting broke up Bernard reminded me again that the Honours Secretary at Number Ten had been asking if I had approved our Department’s recommendations for the Honours List.

Curiously this was about the eighth time Bernard had asked me. I enquired sarcastically if honours were really the most important subject in the whole of the DAA.

Bernard replied, without any apparent awareness of my sarcasm, that they were indeed the most important subject for the people on the list. ‘They’re never off the phone,’ he said pathetically. ‘Some of them don’t seem to have slept for about three nights.’

I was mildly surprised. I thought it was all a formality. ‘Ministers never veto Civil Service honours, do they?’ I asked.

‘Hardly ever. But it’s theoretically possible. And they’re all getting worried by the delay.’

I suddenly realised that Bernard had just told me that people knew they were on the list. How? The file is marked strictly confidential.

He shook his head sadly at me when I mentioned it. ‘Oh Minister,’ he replied, and smiled at me in a kindly fashion.

I was amused and embarrassed at my naïveté. But all that energy that goes into worrying about honours… If only they’d put a quarter of it into cutting expenditure. I asked Bernard how I could get this Department to want economies in the way they wanted OBEs and KCBs and so on.

A gleam came into Bernard’s eye. ‘Well,’ he said, with a slightly mischievous air that I’d never noticed before. ‘I’ve been thinking…’ Then he hesitated.

‘Go on.’

‘No, no, no.’

‘What was it?’

‘No. Nothing, Minister.’

I was on tenterhooks. I knew he had something up his sleeve. ‘Come on Bernard,’ I ordered, ‘spit it out.’ Bernard did not spit it out. Instead, he tentatively explained that it was not his place, and he wouldn’t suggest this, and he couldn’t possibly recommend it, but ‘… well… suppose you were to refuse to recommend any honours for Civil Servants who haven’t cut their budgets by five per cent per annum?’

‘Bernard!’

He retreated immediately.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry, do forgive me, Minister, I knew I shouldn’t have…’

‘No, no,’ I said, hastily reassuring him. Bernard has great ideas but he needs much more confidence. ‘It’s brilliant!’

And indeed it is a brilliant idea. I was cock-a-hoop. It’s our only hold over the civil servants. Ministers can’t stop their pay rises, or their promotion. Ministers don’t write their reports. Ministers have no real disciplinary authority. But Bernard is right — I can withhold honours! It’s brilliant!

I congratulated him and thanked him profusely.

‘You thought of it, Minister!’

I didn’t get the point at first. ‘No, you did,’ I told him generously.

‘No, you did,’ he said meaningfully. ‘Please!’

I understood. I nodded, and smiled reassuringly.

He looked even more anxious.

[Some days later Sir Humphrey Appleby was invited to dine at the High Table of his alma mater, Baillie College, Oxford. He refers to the dinner and subsequent discussion in his private diary — Ed.]

Had an excellent high table dinner at Baillie, followed by a private chat over the port and walnuts, with the Master and the Bursar. Clearly they were worried about the cuts. Sir William [Sir William Guthrie, the Master — Ed.] was looking somewhat the worse for wear — and the worse for port. His face was red, his hair is now quite white but his eyes were still the same clear penetrating blue. Rather patriotic, really. Christopher [Christopher Venables, the Bursar — Ed.] still looked like the precise ex-RAF officer that he had been in the days before he became a don — tall, neat, and meticulous in manner and speech.

I asked the Master how he was feeling. He replied that he was feeling very old. But he smiled. ‘I’m already an anomaly, I shall soon be an anachronism, and I have every intention of dying an abuse.’ Very droll!

Guthrie and Venables started out by telling me that they intended to sell the rest of the rather delicious 1927 Fonseca[20] which we were drinking. Baillie has a couple of pipes left and the Bursar told me they’d fetch quite a bit. I couldn’t think what they were talking about. I was astounded. Excellent shock tactics, of course. Then they told me that if they sold all the paintings and the silver, they could possibly pay off the entire mortgage on the new buildings.

They think — or want me to think — that Baillie College is going to the wall.

It transpired that the trouble is the government’s new policy of charging overseas students the full economic rate for their tuition. Baillie has always had an exceptional number of overseas students.

The Bursar tells me that they cannot charge the full economic fee of £4000 per annum. Hardly anyone will pay it.

He says he has been everywhere! All over the USA, raising funds, trying to sell the idea of an Oxford education to the inhabitants of Podunk, Indiana, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

But the competition is cut-throat. Apparently Africa is simply crawling with British Professors frantically trying to flog sociology courses to the natives. And India. And the Middle East.

I suggested that they do the obvious thing — fill up the vacancies with British students.

This idea met with a very cold response. ‘I don’t think that’s awfully funny, Humphrey,’ the Master said.

He explained that home students were to be avoided at all costs! Anything but home students!

The reason is simple economics. Baillie only gets £500 per head for the UK students. Therefore, it would have to take four hundred home students to replace a mere fifty foreigners. The number of students at a tutorial would quadruple. The staff/student ratio would go from one in ten to one in thirty-four.

I see their point. This could be the end of civilisation as we know it. It would certainly be the end of Baillie College as we know it. There would be dormitories. Classrooms. It would be indistinguishable from Wormwood Scrubs or the University of Sussex.

And Hacker is the Minister who has the authority to change it. I had not realised the implications of all this, it being a DES [Department of Education and Science — Ed.] decision. Ours not to reason why, ours just to put the administrative wheels in motion.[21]

[Although Sir Humphrey, and Jim Hacker, were responsible for the implementation of these cuts, characteristically the Department of Education and Science had made them without consulting any of the other interested departments — the Foreign Office, or the Department of Health and Social Security or the Department of Administrative Affairs — Ed.]

I suggested that we must persuade Hacker of the special and unique importance of Baillie College. He should be invited to dinner at High Table and the case explained to him.

The Master was noticeably worried about Hacker — he was concerned whether he was of the intellectual calibre to understand the case.

I pointed out that the case is intelligible to anyone of the intellectual calibre of Winnie-the-Pooh.

They asked me if Hacker is of the intellectual calibre of Winnie-the-Pooh. Clearly they’ve had dealings with politicians before.

I was able to reassure them on that point. I’m fairly sure that he is of the intellectual calibre of Winnie-the-Pooh. On his day.

I left Oxford convinced that I must find a way to get Baillie recognised as a special institution (like Imperial College) for the extraordinary work that they do. [A well-chosen adjective! As this episode in Hacker’s life is fundamentally concerned with honours — deserved or undeserved, earned or unearned — we felt that at this point it might be of interest to the reader to know the principal honours conferred on the antagonists:

Sir William Guthrie, OM, FRS, FBA, Ph.D, MC, MA (Oxon)

Group Captain Christopher Venables, DSC, MA

Sir Humphrey Appleby, KCB, MVO, MA (Oxon)

Bernard Woolley, MA (Cantab)

The Rt Hon. James Hacker, PC, MP, BSc. (Econ)

Sir Arnold Robinson, GCMG, CVO, MA (Oxon) — Ed.]

April 28th

This morning Humphrey badgered me again.

‘Two things,’ he said. ‘First, there is the matter of the Departmental recommendations for the Honours List.’

I told him we’d leave that on one side for a bit.

He became very tense and twitchy. I tried not to show amusement. He told me we can’t leave it as we are getting dangerously close to the five weeks.

[All recipients of honours are notified at least five weeks before promulgation. Theoretically it gives them time to refuse. This is rare. In fact, the only time a civil servant is known to have refused a knighthood was in 1496. This was because he already had one — Ed.]

I decided that I would not yet give my approval to the Department’s Honours List, because I’ve been doing some research. [Hacker almost certainly meant that a party research assistant had been doing some research and he had read the report — Ed.] I have found that twenty per cent of all honours go to civil servants. The rest of the population of this country have to do something extra to get an honour. Over and above their ordinary work, for which they get paid. You or I have to do something special, like work with mentally-handicapped children for twenty-seven years, six nights a week — then we might get an MBE. But Civil Service knighthoods just come up with the rations.

These honours are, in any case, intrinsically ridiculous — MBE, for instance, according to Whitaker’s Almanack, stands for Member of the Most Honourable Order of the British Empire. Hasn’t anyone in Whitehall noticed that we’ve lost the Empire?

The civil servants have been having it both ways for years. When Attlee was PM he got £5000 a year and the Cabinet Secretary got £2500. Now the Cabinet Secretary gets more than the PM. Why? Because civil servants used to receive honours as a compensation for long years of loyal public service, for which they got poor salaries, poor pensions and few perks.

Now they have salaries comparable to executives in the most successful private enterprise companies (guess who’s in charge of the comparability studies), inflation-proof pensions, chauffeur-driven cars — and they still get automatic honours.

[Hacker was right. The civil servants were undoubtedly manipulating the honours system to their own advantage. Just as incomes policies have always been manipulated by those that control them: for instance, the 1975 Pay Policy provided exemptions for Civil Service increments and lawyers’ fees. Needless to say, the policy was drafted by civil servants and parliamentary draftsmen, i.e. lawyers.

The problem is, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?[22] — Ed.]

So how can civil servants possibly understand the way the rest of us live, if they are immune to the basic threats to economic well-being faced by the rest of us: inflation and unemployment?

And how did the civil servants get away with creating these remarkably favourable terms of service for themselves? Simply by keeping a low profile. They have somehow managed to make people feel that discussing the matter at all is in rather poor taste.

But that cuts no ice with me. I believe in action now!

I asked Humphrey how he accounted for twenty per cent of honours going to the Civil Service.

‘A fitting tribute to their devotion to duty,’ he said.

It’s a pretty nice duty to be devoted to, I thought.

Humphrey continued: ‘Her Majesty’s civil servants spend their lives working for a modest wage and at the end they retire into obscurity. Honours are a small recompense for a lifetime of loyal, self-effacing discretion and devoted service to Her Majesty and to the nation.’

A pretty speech. But quite ridiculous. ‘A modest wage?’ I queried.

‘Alas, yes.’

I explained to Humphrey, since he appeared to have forgotten, that he earned well over thirty thousand a year. Seven and a half thousand more than me.

He agreed, but insisted that it was still a relatively modest wage.

‘Relative to whom?’ I asked.

He was stuck for a moment. ‘Well… Elizabeth Taylor for instance,’ he suggested.

I felt obliged to explain to Sir Humphrey that he was in no way relative to Elizabeth Taylor. There are important differences.

‘Indeed,’ he agreed. ‘She did not get a First in Greats.’[23]

Then, undaunted and ever persistent, he again asked me if I had approved the list. I made my move.

‘No Humphrey,’ I replied pleasantly, ‘I am not approving any honour for anyone in this Department who hasn’t earned it.’

Humphrey’s face was a wonderful study in blankness.

‘What do you mean, earned it?’

I explained that I meant earned it. In other words, having done something to deserve it.

The penny dropped. He exploded. ‘But that’s unheard of,’ he exclaimed.

I smiled serenely. ‘Maybe so. But my new policy is to stop all honours for all civil servants who fail to cut their department’s budgets by five per cent a year.’

Humphrey was speechless.

So after a few moments I said: ‘May I take it that your silence indicates approval?’

He found his voice fast. ‘You may not, Minister.’ He was deeply indignant. ‘Where did you get this preposterous idea?’

I glanced at Bernard, who studied his right shoe-lace intently. ‘It came to me,’ I said.

Humphrey was spluttering incoherently. ‘It’s ridiculous. It’s out of the question. It’s unthinkable.’ Now that Humphrey had found his voice there was no stopping him. ‘The whole idea… strikes at the whole root of… this is the beginning of the end… the thin end of the wedge… Bennite solution. [Perhaps it was the word ‘wedge’ that reminded him of Benn — Ed.] Where will it end? The abolition of the monarchy?’

I told him not to be silly. This infuriated him even more.

‘There is no reason,’ he said, stabbing the air with his finger, ‘to change a system which has worked well in the past.’

‘But it hasn’t,’ I said.

‘We have to give the present system a fair trial,’ he stated. This seemed quite reasonable on the face of it. But I reminded him that the Most Noble Order of the Garter was founded in 1348 by King Edward III. ‘Surely it must be getting towards the end of its trial period?’ I said.

So Humphrey tried a new tack. He said that to block honours pending economies might create a dangerous precedent.

What he means by ‘dangerous precedent’ is that if we do the right thing now, then we might be forced to do the right thing again next time. And on that reasoning nothing should ever be done at all. [To be precise: many things may be done, but nothing must ever be done for the first time — Ed.]

I told him I wasn’t going to budge on my proposal. He resorted to barefaced lies, telling me that he was fully seized of my aims and had taken them on board and would do his best to put them into practice.

So I asked him point blank if he would put my policy into practice. He made me his usual offer. I know it off by heart now. A recommendation that we set up an interdepartmental committee with fairly broad terms of reference so that at the end of the day we would be in a position to think through all the implications and take a decision based on long-term considerations rather than rush prematurely into precipitate and possibly ill-conceived action that might well have unforeseen repercussions. [In other words: No! — Ed.]

I wasn’t prepared to be fobbed off with this nonsense any longer. I told him I wanted action now. He went pale. I pointed out that, in my case, honours are fundamentally unhealthy. Nobody in their right mind can want them, they encourage sycophancy, snobbery and jealousy. ‘And,’ I added firmly, ‘it is not fair that civil servants get them all.’

Humphrey argued again. ‘We have done something to deserve them. We are civil servants,’ he said.

‘You just like having letters to put after your name to impress people,’ I sneered. ‘You wouldn’t impress people if they knew what they stood for: KCB? Knight Commander of the Most Noble Order of the Bath? Bloody daft. They’d think you were a plumber. I think they should shove the whole lot down the Most Noble Order of the Plughole.’

Humphrey wasn’t at all amused. ‘Very droll,’ he said condescendingly. ‘You like having letters after your name too,’ he continued. ‘PC,[24] MP. And your degree — BSc.Econ., I think,’ he sneered and slightly wrinkled up his elegant nose as if there were a nasty smell underneath it.

‘At least I earned my degree,’ I told him, ‘not like your MA. At Oxford they give it to you for nothing, when you’ve got a BA.’

‘Not for nothing. For four guineas,’ he snapped spitefully.

I was tired of this juvenile bickering. And I had him on the run. I told him that I had made my policy decision and that was the end of it. ‘And what was your other point?’ I enquired.

Humphrey was in such a state of shock about the Honours List that he had forgotten his other point. But after a few moments it came back to him.

It seems that Baillie College, Oxford, will be in serious trouble over the new ruling on grants for overseas students.

Humphrey said that nothing would please Baillie more than to take British students. Obviously that’s true. But he explained that Baillie has easily the highest proportion of foreign students and that the repercussions will be serious at the schools of Tropical Medicine and International Law. And the Arabic Department may have to close down completely.

I’m sympathetic to all this, but hard cases make bad law. I just don’t see how it’s possible for us to go on educating foreigners at the expense of the British taxpayer.

‘It’s not just foreigners, Minister,’ explained Humphrey. ‘If, for instance, our Diplomatic Service has nowhere to immerse its recruits in Arab culture, the results could be catastrophic — we might even end up with a pro-Israeli Foreign Office. And what would happen to our oil policy then?’

I said that they could send their diplomatic recruits elsewhere.

‘Where else,’ he demanded, ‘can they learn Arabic?’

‘Arabia?’ I suggested.

He was stumped. Then Bernard chipped in. ‘Actually, Minister, Baillie College has an outstanding record. It has filled the jails of the British Empire for many years.’

This didn’t sound like much of a recommendation to me. I invited Bernard to explain further.

‘As you know,’ he said, ‘the letters JB are the highest honour in the Commonwealth.’

I didn’t know.

Humphrey eagerly explained. ‘Jailed by the British. Gandhi, Nkrumah, Makarios, Ben-Gurion, Kenyatta, Nehru, Mugabe — the list of world leaders is endless and contains several of our students.’

Our students? He had said our students. It all became clear.

I smiled benignly. ‘Which college did you go to, Humphrey?’

‘Er… that is quite beside the point, Minister.’

He wasn’t having a very good day. ‘I like being beside the point, Humphrey,’ I said. ‘Humour me. Which college did you go to? Was it Baillie, by any strange coincidence?’

‘It so happens,’ he admitted with defiance, ‘that I am a Baillie man, but that has nothing to do with this.’

I don’t know how he has the face to make such a remark. Does he really think I’m a complete idiot? At that moment the buzzer went and saved Humphrey from further humiliation. It was the Division Bell. So I had to hurry off to the House.

On my way out I realised that I had to ask Bernard whether I was to vote ‘aye’ or ‘no’.

‘No,’ he replied and began to explain. ‘It’s an Opposition Amendment, the second reading of…’

But I had left by then. The man’s a fool. It doesn’t matter what the debate is, I just don’t want to go through the wrong door.

[Meanwhile, rumours about Hacker’s plan to link economies with honours had travelled fast along the two major Whitehall grapevines — the private secretaries’ and the drivers’. It was only a matter of hours before news reached Sir Arnold Robinson, the Secretary to the Cabinet. Sir Humphrey was asked to drop in for a chat with Sir Arnold, and an illuminating interview followed — illuminating not only for Sir Humphrey, but also for historians who learn that although the Cabinet Secretary is theoretically primus inter pares[25] he is in reality very much primus. It seems that all Permanent Secretaries are equal, but some are more equal than others.

The notes that Sir Arnold made on Sir Humphrey’s report have been found among the Civil Service files at Walthamstow and were of course released some years ago under the Thirty-Year Rule.

Sir Humphrey never saw these notes, because no civil servant is shown his own report, except in wholly unusual circumstances — Ed.]

Told Appleby that I was a little bit worried about this idea of his Minister’s, linking Honours to economies.

Appleby said that he could find no effective arguments against this plan.

I indicated that we would regard it as the thin end of the wedge, a Bennite solution. I asked where it would end?

Appleby replied that he shared my views and had emphasised them to the Minister. He added, somewhat strangely, that the scheme was ‘intolerable but yet irresistible’.

I took a dim view. I informed Appleby that, while I was not in any sense reprimanding him, I wanted his assurance that this plan would not be put into practice.

He looked very shaken at the mention of no reprimand. [Civil Service Code: the mere mention of a reprimand so high up the ladder is severe and deeply wounding criticism. It suggests that the Cabinet Secretary was flying in the face of the ‘Good Chap Theory’ — the theory that states that ‘A Good Chap Does Not Tell A Good Chap What A Good Chap Ought To Know.’ Sir Arnold was implying that Sir Humphrey was not a sufficiently good chap — Ed.]

Appleby was unable to give me the assurance I required. He merely voiced a hope that Hacker would not be acting on this plan.

I was obliged to point out that hopes are not good enough. If honours were linked to economies in the DAA, the contagion could spread throughout government. To every department.

Again I invited him to say that we could count on him to scotch the scheme. He said he would try. Feeble! I was left with no alternative but to warn him most seriously that, although I was quite sure he knew what he was doing, this matter could cause others to reflect upon whether or not he was sound.

The poor chap seemed to take that very hard, as well he might!

Before I terminated the interview I mentioned that the Master of Baillie, our old college, had been on the phone, and that I was sure Appleby would make sure Hacker treated Baillie as a Special Case.

Appleby seemed no more confident on this matter either, although he said he had arranged for Hacker to be invited to a Benefactor’s Dinner.

I congratulated him on his soundness in this matter, which didn’t seem to cheer him up a great deal. I begin to think that Appleby is losing his grip — on Hacker at least.

Perhaps Appleby is not an absolutely first-rank candidate to succeed one as Cabinet Secretary. Not really able in every department. Might do better in a less arduous job, such as chairman of a clearing bank or as an EEC official.

A.R.

[It is interesting to compare Sir Arnold’s report with Sir Humphrey’s own account of this interview — Ed.]

Went over to see Arnold at the Cabinet Office. We got on very well, as usual. He was very concerned about Hacker’s idea of linking honours to economies, and almost as concerned about the future of Baillie College. I was on a sticky wicket, but on the whole I think I was able to reassure him that I’m handling these difficult problems as well as anybody could reasonably expect. [Appleby Papers 31/RJC/638]

[Hacker’s diary resumes — Ed.]

May 4th

Today was the Benefactor’s Dinner at Baillie College, Oxford, which was, I think, an unqualified success.

For a start, on the way up to Oxford I learned a whole pile of useful gossip from young Bernard.

Apparently Sir Humphrey was summoned by the Cabinet Secretary yesterday and, according to Bernard, got the most frightful wigging. The Cabinet Secretary really tore him off a strip, because of Bernard’s brilliant scheme linking economies to honours.

Interestingly, Bernard continues to refer to it as my scheme — on this occasion, because we were in the official car and of course Roy [the driver — Ed.] was quietly memorising every word we said, for future buying and selling. No doubt he can sell news of Sir Humphrey’s wigging for quite a price in the drivers’ pool, though, it should be worth several small leaks in exchange, I should think. So Roy should have some useful snippets in two or three days, which I must remember to extract from him.

I asked Bernard how the Cabinet Secretary actually goes about giving a wigging to someone as high up as Humphrey.

‘Normally,’ Bernard informed me, ‘it’s pretty civilised. But this time, apparently, it was no holds barred. Sir Arnold told Sir Humphrey that he wasn’t actually reprimanding him!’

‘That bad?’

‘He actually suggested,’ Bernard continued, ‘that some people might not think Sir Humphrey was sound.’

Roy’s ears were out on stalks.

‘I see,’ I said, with some satisfaction. ‘A real punch-up.’

Sir Arnold was so bothered by this whole thing that I wondered if he had a personal stake in it. But I couldn’t see why. I presumed he must have his full quota of honours.

I asked Bernard if Arnold already had his G. Bernard nodded. [You get your G after your K. G is short for Grand Cross. K is a Knighthood. Each department has its own honours. The DAA gets the Bath — Sir Humphrey was, at this time, a KCB, and would have been hoping for his G — thus becoming a Knight Grand Cross of the Bath.

In the FCO the Honours are the Cross of St Michael and St George — CMG, KCMG, and GCMG. The Foreign Office is not popular throughout the rest of the Civil Service, and it is widely held that the CMG stands for ‘Call Me God’, the KCMG for ‘Kindly Call Me God’ and the GCMG for ‘God Calls Me God’ — Ed.]

However, Bernard revealed that although Sir Arnold has indeed got his G, there are numerous honours to which he could still aspire: a peerage, for instance, an OM [Order of Merit — Ed.] or a CH [Companion of Honour — Ed.], the Order of the Garter, the Knight of the Thistle, etc.

I asked him about the Knight of the Thistle. ‘Who do they award the Thistle to, Scotsmen and donkeys?’ I enquired wittily.

‘There is a distinction,’ said Bernard, ever the diplomat.

‘You can’t have met the Scottish nationalists,’ I replied, quick as a flash. I wasn’t bothered by Roy’s flapping lugs. ‘How do they award the Thistle?’ I asked.

‘A committee sits on it,’ said Bernard.

I asked Bernard to brief me about this High Table dinner. ‘Does Humphrey really think that I will change government policy on University Finance as a result?’

Bernard smiled and said he’d heard Baillie College gives a very good dinner.

We got to Oxford in little over an hour. The M40 is a very good road. So is the M4, come to think of it. I found myself wondering why we’ve got two really good roads to Oxford before we got any to Southampton, or Dover or Felixstowe or any of the ports.

Bernard explained that nearly all of our Permanent Secretaries were at Oxford. And most Oxford Colleges give you a good dinner.

This seemed incredible — and yet it has the ring of truth about it. ‘But did the Cabinet let them get away with this?’ I asked.

‘Oh no,’ Bernard explained. ‘They put their foot down. They said there’d be no motorway to take civil servants to dinners in Oxford unless there was a motorway to take Cabinet Ministers hunting in the Shires. That’s why when the Ml was built in the fifties it stopped in the middle of Leicestershire.’

There seemed one flaw in this argument. I pointed out that the M11 has only just been completed. ‘Don’t Cambridge colleges give you a good dinner?’

‘Of course,’ said Bernard, ‘but it’s years and years since the Department of Transport had a Permanent Secretary from Cambridge.’

[It is most interesting to compare Hacker’s account of the dinner with Sir Bernard Woolley’s recollections of the same event. First, Hacker’s version — Ed.]

The dinner itself went off perfectly.

I knew they wanted to discuss their financial problems, so when we reached the port and walnuts I decided to open up Pandora’s box, let the cat out of the bag and get the ball rolling. [Hacker never really learned to conquer his mixed metaphor problem — Ed.] So I remarked that, for a college on the edge of bankruptcy we had not had a bad little dinner. In truth, of course, we’d had a wildly extravagant banquet with four courses and three excellent wines.

The Master countered by informing me that the Fitzwalter Dinner is paid for by a specific endowment — Fitzwalter was a great sixteenth-century benefactor.

The Bursar added that most nights I’d find them eating Mother’s Pride[26] 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 Monkton Quad 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:[27]

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 out of work. Queues of unemployed judges. In silly wigs.’

I remember that argument well because the idea of unemployed judges in silly wigs richly appealed to me, as it would to anyone who has had contact with the higher and more self-satisfied reaches of the legal profession. In fact, I have always been struck by the absurdity of judges ticking people off in court about their unsuitable appearance — women in trousers, for instance — while the judges themselves are in fancy dress.

Be that as it may, Hacker continued in the cringing self-pitying lachrymose manner that he only exhibited when completely sloshed.

‘Anyway, it’s easy for the judges,’ he whined, ‘they don’t have to suck up to television producers. Don’t have to lie to journalists. Don’t have to pretend to like their Cabinet colleagues. Do you know something?’ he cracked another walnut and a piece of deadly flying shell struck the Bursar just below the left eye. ‘If judges had to put up with some of my Cabinet colleagues we’d have the death penalty back tomorrow. Good job too.’

By this time old Sir Humphrey was trying to stem the flow — but to no avail.

For Hacker pointed accusingly at Sir Humphrey. ‘And I’ll tell you another thing,’ he said, sublimely unaware that nobody at the table wanted to hear another thing, ‘I can’t send you to prison.’

Humphrey was flummoxed by this remark.

Hacker looked around the table. ‘I can’t send him to prison,’ he said, as if he had revealed a new extraordinary anomaly in the law. ‘But if I were a judge, I could whiz old Humphrey off to the Scrubs, no trouble, feet wouldn’t touch the ground, clang bang, see you in three years’ time, one-third remission for good conduct.’

Everyone was now staring at Hacker, open-mouthed, as he paused for breath, slurped at his glass and some Fonseca 1927 dribbled slowly down his chin. Being academics, they had hardly ever seen a politician in action late at night. [Hacker’s behaviour, of course, would have passed unnoticed at the House of Commons, where it would have been accepted as quite normal — possibly, even better than average — Ed.]

Hacker was still talking. Now he was unstoppable. ‘But I can’t do that to old Humphrey,’ he raved incoherently. ‘I have to listen to him — Oh God!’ He looked at the ceiling, and seemed to be on the verge of tears. ‘He goes on and on. Do you know, his sentences are longer than Judge Jeffreys’?’ He guffawed. We stared at him. ‘No, no, to sum up, politicians are much more deserving, you don’t want to give your donorary hoctorates to judges… definitely not.’

Finally he ground to a halt. The Master hastily pulled himself together and tried to rearrange his features so that they expressed friendliness rather than disgust. He was only partially successful.

Nevertheless he managed to tell Hacker that he had argued the proposition beautifully, and that he now realised that the honour couldn’t possibly go to a judge.

There were mutters of agreement all round, as the dons continued their embarrassing flattery of Hacker. No one really understands the true nature of fawning servility until he has seen an academic who has glimpsed the prospect of money. Or personal publicity.

They went on to say how wonderful it would be to see Hacker standing there, in the Sheldonian, wearing magnificent crimson robes, receiving the doctorate in front of a packed assembly of eminent scholars such as himself. Hacker belched, alcoholic fumes emanated from his mouth, his eyes went glassy, he clutched his chair so that he wouldn’t fall on to the floor, and he smiled beatifically.

I have always remembered that night. I took one more step towards maturity as I realised that even the most rigorous academics have their price — and it’s not as high as you’d think.

[Hacker’s diary continues — Ed.]

May 5th

Had rather a headache this morning. I don’t know why, it can’t be a hangover as I didn’t drink all that much last night. I couldn’t have done or I wouldn’t have been such a success.

We were due to have yet another meeting to examine the possibility of administrative cuts. But the outcome was sure to be the same as last time.

Humphrey popped into my office five minutes early, for a private word. Very good news. Apparently the Master of Baillie took Humphrey aside last night and asked him to sound me out, to see if I’d be interested in accepting an honorary doctorate of Law from the University.

I feigned surprise. In fact I wasn’t at all surprised, as I knew what an impression I’d made on them last night.

Humphrey was at pains to point out that it was not an actual offer. Apparently, according to Humphrey, the Council of the Senate or somebody or other is now trying to square the honorary doctorate with my well-known hostility to honours.

This was a bit of a blow. I had to squash this nonsense at once. ‘Don’t be silly, Humphrey, that’s quite different,’ I explained.

‘Not entirely, Minister,’ he replied. ‘It is a matter of accepting a doctorate without having done anything to earn it, as you yourself might put it in your refreshingly blunt fashion.’

‘I’m a Cabinet Minister,’ I responded with some indignation.

‘Isn’t that what you’re paid for?’ Smooth treacherous bugger.

‘The point is,’ I told him, ‘one can’t really refuse an honorary doctorate. I should have thought anyone could see that I would be insulting the DAA if I refused — because clearly I’ve been offered it as a sort of vote of confidence in the Department because I am, in fact, the titular head.’

Humphrey fell silent, having indicated again that it was not yet an offer. Clearly he had some sort of deal in mind. I waited. And waited.

Then the penny dropped. ‘By the way, Humphrey,’ I said breezily. ‘Changing the subject entirely, I would like to do what I can to help Baillie College over this overseas student problem.’

Now it was Humphrey’s turn to feign surprise. ‘Oh, good,’ he said, and smiled.

I explained quietly, however, that we need a reason. By which I meant a pretext. He was ready with one, as I knew he would be.

‘No problem. I understand that the Palace has been under pressure from a number of Commonwealth leaders. We can’t embarrass the Palace, so we’ll have to redesignate Baillie as a Commonwealth Education Centre.’

Immediately I saw a chance for the deal that I wanted to do.

‘But how will I find the money?’ I asked, wide-eyed. ‘You know how set I am on making five per cent cuts across the board. If we could achieve that… well, anything’s possible.’

I reckoned that this was an offer he couldn’t refuse. I was right. ‘We might be able to achieve these cuts —’ this was a big step forward — ‘and I can only speak for this Department, of course, as long as this absurd idea of linking cuts to honours were to be shelved.’

So there it was. A double quid pro quo. Out in the open.

The expenditure Survey Committee gathered around my conference table.

The minutes of the last meeting went through on the nod. Then we came to Matters Arising. The first was Accommodation. Sir Humphrey pre-empted the Assistant Secretary who usually spoke on this matter. As the young man opened his mouth to reply, I heard Humphrey’s voice: ‘I’m happy to say that we have found a five per cent cut by selling an old office block in High Wycombe.’

The Assistant Secretary looked mightily surprised. Clearly Humphrey had not forewarned him of the New Deal.

I was delighted. I said so. We moved straight on to number two: Stationery Acquisition.

A Deputy Secretary spoke up, after getting an unmistakeable eye signal and slight nod of the head from Humphrey. ‘Yes, we’d discovered that a new stock control system will reduce expenditure this year.’

‘By how much?’ I asked.

The Deputy Secretary hesitated uncertainly. ‘About five per cent, wasn’t it?’ said Humphrey smoothly.

The Dep. Sec. muttered his agreement.

‘Good, good,’ I said. ‘Three: Parks and Forestry Administration?’

An Under-Secretary spoke, having caught on with the civil servant’s customary speed to a change in the party line.

‘If we delay the planned new computer installation, we can make a saving there.’

‘Can we?’ I said, pretending surprise. ‘How much?’

They all pretended that they couldn’t remember. Much consultation of paper and files.

A bright Principal spoke up: ‘About five per cent?’ he said, hopefully. We all nodded our approval, and assorted civil servants muttered ‘Of that order.’

Humphrey pointed out that the saving in the computer installation would lead inevitably to a cut in Data Processing. I looked at him expectantly. ‘By about five per cent,’ he said.

‘This is all very encouraging, Humphrey,’ I said benevolently.

And after the meeting, at which everyone had somehow managed to come up with cuts of about five per cent, Humphrey took me aside for a quiet word.

‘Minister, while I think of it, have you finished with the list of departmental recommendations to the Honours Secretary?’

‘Certainly.’ I was at my most obliging. ‘There was no problem with any of them. Bernard will give it to you. All right, Humphrey?’

‘Yes, Doctor,’ he replied.

A fitting tribute. I look forward to the ceremony next June.