The Complete Yes Minister (23 page)

I played for time. I watched him wink again and asked him if he had something in his eye. ‘Only a gleam,’ he replied cheerfully.

I must have looked awfully blank. But he must have thought I was an awfully good poker player. He continued: ‘Come off it, Hacker, we’ve got you by the short and curlies. I’m asking ten per cent below London Allowance, and we’ll settle for thirty per cent below. Give you the credit for beating us down.’

‘There’s not going to be a Birmingham Allowance,’ I said abstractedly, my mind racing. ‘You’d better resign yourself to that.’

‘If anyone’s going to have to resign,’ countered Morgan, ‘it’s not going to be me.’

Resign? What was the man hinting at?

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘The Solihull project, of course. I could hardly believe it when you took all the credit for it in the broadcast. Great courage of course.’ Courage – how did that dreadful word get into the discussion? ‘But whatever possessed you?’

I didn’t know what he was on about. Cheerfully he burst into verse:

‘Cannons to the right of him

Cannons to the left of him.

Into the Valley of Death rode Mr Hacker.’

I can’t think what he was talking about. I’m getting very worried indeed.

[
It appears that Sir Humphrey Appleby met Sir Desmond Glaze-brook for lunch at a club in Pall Mall on the same day as Hacker’s broadcast. Most unusually, Sir Humphrey kept no notes and made no memos as a result of that meeting. This omission – which broke the habit and training of a lifetime in Whitehall – indicates that Sir Humphrey was profoundly frightened that the matter discussed at this meeting should ever become public knowledge
.

Fortunately, however, a letter came to light many years later, sent by Sir Desmond on 5 March, the next day, to his wife who was wintering in Barbados – Ed
.]

59 Cadogan Square

London SW1

Dearest Snookums [
Lady Glazebrook – Ed
.]

Hope you’re having a lovely hols, getting nice and brown and not forcing down too much rum punch.

Things are going quite well here. I made a little progress towards getting a couple of good quangos for my retirement, at lunch yesterday with old Humphrey Appleby, Perm. Sec. at the DAA. [QUANGO –
an acronym for Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation – Ed
.]

He’s got a bit of a problem at work. He’s got into bed with some idiot whiz-kid financier called Bradley, on a building project in Solihull. It seems that the whiz-kid has taken the money and run, leaving old Humphrey holding the bag. Anyway, I couldn’t follow all the details because I’d had rather too much of the claret but, to cut a long story short, as Bradley can’t pay his bills Humphrey wants our bank to take over the contract. He promised me that HMG would turn it all into a successful and profitable venture and all that bullshit. Whoever heard of the government being involved in a successful and profitable venture? Does he think I was born yesterday?

Naturally, I’d be perfectly happy to help good old Humph. out of a jam – it can’t cost me anything, of course, since I’m retiring next year. But I told him that it’s up to the Board and it could go either way. He swallowed that, I think, or pretended to anyway. I naturally chose that moment to remark that I was hoping to hear news of the new Ministry Co-Partnership Commission. I’m after the Chairmanship – £8000 a year part-time – just the thing to boost my meagre pension, don’t you think, Snookums?

To my astonishment he told me that my name was on a
shortlist
for a couple of quangos. Shortlist, mark you! Bloody insult. Quangos can’t suddenly be in short supply, no government ever cuts quangos without instantly replacing them with others. [
At this time there were about 8000 paid appointments within the gift of Ministers to Quangos, at a cost to the taxpayer of £5 million per year – Ed
.]

Humphrey, of course, pretended it was difficult to find me a quango, rather as I’d pretended that it was difficult for the bank to find his money.

He went through the most extraordinary routine. He mentioned the Advisory Committee of Dental Establishments, and asked if I knew anything about teeth. I pointed out that I was a banker. As I knew nothing about teeth, he then ruled out the Milk Marketing Board. Can’t quite see the connection myself.

He offered the Dumping at Sea Representations Panel, asking if I lived near the sea. I asked if Knightsbridge was near enough – but apparently not. So it seems I’m out of the running for the Clyde River Purification Board too.

Then, with every bit of the meal, Humphrey had a new idea. Rump steak suggested to him the Meat Marketing Board; but I don’t know a damn thing about meat. The fact that I eat it is not quite a close enough connection. So the Meat and Livestock Commission was ruled out too.
I’d
ordered Dover Sole, it reminded H. of the White Fish Authority. And, as the veg. arrived, he suggested the Potato Marketing Board, the Governors of the National Vegetable Research Station, the National Biological Standards Board, or the Arable Crops and Forage Board.

With the wine he suggested the Food and Drink Training Board. When I asked for mustard he mentioned the Food Additives and Contaminants Committee, and when we saw a Steak Diane being flambéed at the next table he offered the Fire Services Examination Board, the British Safety Council, and the St John’s Ambulance.

Of course, all of this was to make his point that he too was demanding a
quid pro quo
. But it was rather humiliating because after all this he asked me rather querulously: if I knew nothing about
any
of these quangos, what
did
I know about? I was forced to explain that there was nothing I knew about particularly – after all, I’m a banker. It’s not required.

Then he asked me if there were any minority groups that I could represent. I suggested bankers. We are definitely in a minority. He didn’t seem to think that was the answer.

He explained to me that the ideal quango appointee is a black, Welsh, disabled woman trades unionist. He asked me if I knew one of them, but I don’t.

I remarked that women are not a minority group and nor are trades unionists. Humphrey agreed, but explained that they share the same paranoia which is, after all, the distinguishing feature of any minority group.

So at the end of this whole rigmarole he was basically saying that my quango chances boil down to his Ministry’s Industry Co-Partnership Commission, the Chairmanship of which is within the gift of his Minister.

It sounds ideal, actually. There’s lots of papers but Old Humph. made it quite clear that it’s not awfully necessary to read them; that, in fact he’d be delighted if I didn’t bother so that I wouldn’t have too much to say at the monthly meetings.

So it looks like we’ll be scratching each other’s backs. I’ll have a word with my board, he’ll have a word with his Minister, and I’ll see you on the beach next week.

Your loving

Desi-pooh.

Had a very worrying conversation with Roy, my driver, today. Didn’t see him after recording the broadcast yesterday, because I was given a relief driver.

Roy asked me how the recording went. I said it had gone very well, that I’d talked about government partnership with industry, and that there was a most interesting project going on up in the Midlands.

I assumed he wouldn’t have heard of it. I was wrong.

‘You don’t mean the Solihull project, sir?’

I was astonished. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You’ve heard of it.’

Roy chuckled.

I waited, but he said nothing. ‘What are you laughing at?’ I asked.

‘Nothing, sir,’ he said. Then he chuckled again.

He’d obviously heard something.

‘What have you heard?’ I asked.

‘Nothing. Really.’

I could see his face in the rear-view mirror. He was smiling. I didn’t like it.

He was obviously laughing at some aspect of the Solihull project. But what? For some reason, I felt a need to defend it. To my
driver
? I must be cracking up. But I said, ‘We regard it as a shining example of a successful collaboration between government and private enterprise.’

Roy chuckled again. He was really getting on my nerves.

‘Roy, what’s so funny?’ I demanded. ‘What do you know about all this?’

‘No more than you might pick up on about thirty journeys between the DAA and Mr Michael Bradley’s Office, 44 Farringdon Street, and 129 Birmingham Road, Solihull,’ he replied.

‘Thirty journeys?’ I was astonished. ‘Who with?’

‘Oh,’ said Roy cheerfully, ‘your predecessor, sir, and Sir Humphrey, mostly.’ He chuckled again. I could have killed him. What’s so bloody funny, I’d like to know? ‘Very cheerful they were on the first few trips. They kept talking about shining examples of successful collaboration and suchlike. Then . . .’, he paused for effect, ‘. . . then the gloom started to come down, if you know what I mean, sir?’

Gloom? What did he mean, gloom? ‘Gloom?’

‘Well, no, not gloom, exactly,’ said Roy and I relaxed momentarily. ‘More like desperation really.’

My own mood was also moving inexorably from gloom to desperation. ‘Desperation?’ I asked.

‘Well,’ said Roy. ‘You’re the one who knows the background, aren’t you, sir?’

I nodded. ‘Yes I am.’ I suppose I must have been a trifle unconvincing because my damn driver chuckled again.

‘Was there . . . um . . . any . . . er . . . any particular bit of the background you were thinking of?’ I tried to ask in a casual sort of way, still in a state of total mental chaos.

‘No,’ Roy said firmly. ‘I mean, when something’s fishy, it’s just fishy isn’t it? You don’t know which particular bit the smell’s coming from.’

‘Fishy?’ Did he know more than he was letting on?
What’s
fishy?

‘Well,’ continued Roy helpfully, ‘I mean, I don’t really know do I? For all I know Mr Bradley may be quite kosher, despite everything Sir Humphrey said about him. Still, you’d know more about all that than I do, sir. I’m just the driver.’

Yes, I thought bitterly. What do I know? I’m just the bloody Minister.

I’ve spent the weekend wondering if I can get any more information out of Roy. Does he know more, or has he told me everything he knows? Perhaps he can find out more, on the driver’s network. Information is currency among the drivers. They leak all over the place. On the other hand, perhaps he’ll trade the information that
I
don’t know anything at all about the Solihull project – which could be very damaging to me, couldn’t it?

But the question is, how to find out if Roy knows any more without losing face myself. (Or losing any
more
face.) I’ve heard that drivers can be silenced with an MBE – can I get more information with the hint or promise of an MBE? But how would I drop the hint?

These are foolish and desperate thoughts. First I’ll try and get the truth out of my Permanent Secretary. Then I’ll try my Private Secretary. Only then will I turn to my driver.

It occurs to me, thinking generally around the problems that I’ve encountered in the last six months, that it is not possible to be a good Minister so long as the Civil Service is allowed complete control over its own recruitment. Perhaps it
is
impossible to stop the Civil Service appointing people in its own likeness, but we politicians ought to try to stop it growing like Frankenstein.

This whole matter of the Solihull project – which I am determined to get to the bottom of – has reminded me how incomplete is my picture of my Department’s activities. We politicians hardly ever know if information is being concealed, because the concealment is concealed too. We are only offered a choice of options,
all
of which are acceptable to the permanent officials, and in any case they force decisions on us the way magicians force cards on their audience in the three-card trick. ‘Choose any card, choose my card.’ But somehow we always choose the card they want us to choose. And how is it managed that we never seem to choose a course of action that the Civil Service doesn’t approve? Because we’re too busy to draft any of the documents ourselves, and he who drafts the document wins the day.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more the Department appears to be an iceberg, with nine-tenths of it below the surface, invisible, unknown, and deeply dangerous. And I am forced to spend my life manicuring the tip of this iceberg.

My Department has a great purpose – to bring administration, bureaucracy and red tape under control. Yet everything that my officials do ensures that not only does the DAA not achieve its purpose, but that it achieves the opposite.

Unfortunately, most government departments achieve the opposite of their purpose: the Commonwealth Office lost us the Commonwealth, the Department of Industry reduces industry, the Department of Transport presided over the disintegration of our public transport systems, the Treasury loses our money – I could go on for ever.