The Complete Yes Minister (37 page)

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.

¹
Vintage port.

²
In fact, the size of Oxford University is limited by the University Grants Committee. Baillie might not even have been allowed to take more home students, except by taking them from other colleges. The other colleges would be unlikely to agree to this, because it would put them in jeopardy.

³
Translation: who guards the guards? A quotation from Juvenal’s
Satires
and not, as is commonly supposed in political circles, from juvenile satires.

⁴
The Oxford term for the second part of the classics degree course.

⁵
Privy Counsellor.

⁶
First among equals.

⁷
Brand name of popular packaged sliced loaf, not of the kind customarily consumed at High Table.

⁸
In conversation with the Editors.

11

The Greasy Pole

[
There are times in a politician’s life when he is obliged to take the wrong decision. Wrong economically, wrong industrially, wrong by any standards – except one. It is a curious fact that something which is wrong from every other point of view can be right politically. And something which is right politically does not simply mean that it’s the way to get the votes – which it is – but also, if a policy gets the votes, then it can be argued that that policy is what the people want. And, in a democracy, how can a thing be wrong if it is what the people will vote for?

The incident in question only came to light slowly. The first reference that we can find to it is not in Jim Hacker’s diary, but in
Steel Yourself,
the memoirs of that uniquely outspoken Chairman of the British Chemical Corporation, the diminutive Glaswegian industrialist and scientist, Sir Wally McFarland
.

McFarland was known for his plain language and his unwillingness to bow to government interference in his nationalised industry. He was an expert both on chemicals and on business management – and he believed (rightly) that Hacker knew little or nothing about either. His low regard for Hacker was matched only by his contempt for Sir Humphrey’s skill in business. Like many businessmen, he believed that in commerce the Civil Service was not safe with a whelk stall – Ed
.]

From
Steel Yourself:

On 16 April I had a meeting with Sir Humphrey Appleby at the Department of Administrative Affairs. It was the umpteenth meeting on the subject of the manufacture of Propanol on Merseyside under licence from the Italian Government.

To my astonishment Sir Humphrey seemed to indicate that there might be a problem with the Minister, but his language was as opaque as usual and I could not be sure of this.

I asked him if he was havering [
Scottish word, meaning to be indecisive – Ed
.]. He denied it, but said that we cannot take the Minister’s approval for granted.

This was and still is incomprehensible to me. The Italian government was offering us a massive contract to manufacture Propanol at our Merseyside plant. This contract meant saving a plant which we would otherwise have to close down. It meant taking people on, instead of laying them off. And it meant big export royalties. We’d been fighting for two years to win it against tough German and US competition. It seemed completely obvious that it
had
to go ahead.

Appleby raised some footling idiotic question about what the Minister might think. In my experience Ministers
don’t
think. In my ten years as Chairman of the BCC I dealt with nineteen different Ministers. They never stopped to think, even if they possessed the basic intelligence necessary for thought – which several of them did not. As a matter of fact, they were usually too lazy to talk to me because they were usually talking to the trade union leaders and bribing them not to strike.

I told Appleby my views. He denied that trade union leaders were bribed. Naturally. It may not be technically bribery, but what else do you call conversations that amount to ‘Have a quango, Tom. Have a knighthood, Dick. Have a peerage, Harry’?

Appleby said that the Minister was worried about the Propanol scheme. If so, why hadn’t anything been said till now?

At this stage I – unwisely, perhaps – brushed aside suggestions that the Minister was worried. He’d never shown any real interest in the scheme, so he could know nothing about it. Naïvely, I assumed that his ignorance would prevent him interfering. And, in any case, all Ministers are worried. I never met a Minister who wasn’t worried.

Ministers worry whenever you do anything that is bold. Anything that makes business sense. Anything that is
necessary
, in fact. If I had never done anything to worry any of those lily-livered, vote-grubbing, baby-kissing jellies the BCC would have gone down the tube ten years earlier than it did.

Appleby said that the Minister’s worries centred on the fact that Propanol contained
Meta
dioxin. [
Dioxin was the chemical released in the accident at Seveso, Italy, some years earlier. It was believed to cause damage to the foetus – Ed
.] This was typical.
Meta
dioxin is completely different, an inert compound. It had a clean bill of health from the FDA [
Food and Drugs Administration – Ed
.] in Washington. And the Henderson Committee was about to approve it.

Nonetheless, I could see that Appleby, in all his ignorance of chemistry, was still a little worried. Or else he was reflecting Hacker’s worries.

I added that the name metadioxin was now not in the proposal. The chemical was simply called Propanol, making it politically safe.

Our meeting concluded with Appleby offering assurances that the Minister was unlikely to raise any objections, as long as the matter was handled with tact. I offered to go along myself, and have a tactful word with Hacker, and persuade that egotistical blancmange that there could be no argument on the matter.

Appleby declined my offer, and answered that he would be able to manage without what he generously called my unique and refreshing brand of tact.

I was not so sure. And, again, I was locked out of the crucial meeting.

Why do governments continually hire experts to run nationalised industries on business lines, and then interfere every time you try to make a business decision?

[
Hacker’s diary continues – Ed
.]

This morning Humphrey gave me some wonderful news. Or what appeared to be wonderful news.

He handed me a paper which summarised a new industrial scheme for Merseyside. In a nutshell, the plan is to turn a run-down chemical plant into one of the most profitable units in the British Chemical Corporation. Overnight it will make the BCC into the largest manufacturer of Propanol in Europe.

The benefits would be immense: capital equipment to be made in British factories, additional rateable income for the Local Authority, new jobs on Merseyside, foreign exchange from the exports, it all seemed too good to be true.

I said so.

‘But it
is
true, Minister,’ said Sir Humphrey, beaming.

How could it be, I asked myself.
Then
I asked myself, what’s the point of asking myself? So I asked Humphrey.

‘How could it be?’ I asked. ‘What’s the snag?’

‘The snag?’ repeated Humphrey.

‘Yes,’ I repeated. ‘The snag. What is the snag?’

I knew there must be some snag.

‘I don’t think I quite follow what you mean, precisely?’ Humphrey was playing for time, I could tell.

I formulated my worries even as I voiced them. ‘Well . . . what I mean is, this Propanol stuff is an Italian product. So why don’t they produce it in Italy?’ Humphrey was silent. This was indeed suspicious. ‘Why are they making us such a generous present?’

‘There’s no snag about this, Minister,’ said Sir Humphrey. ‘It’s wonderful news.’

I could see that if it
were
wonderful news, it would indeed be wonderful news.

‘Yes,’ I agreed cautiously. ‘It
is
wonderful news. Wonderful news, isn’t it?’ I said to Bernard, who was taking the minutes on my right.

He flashed a glance at Humphrey, then replied warily, ‘Yes, wonderful news,’ but he didn’t sound at all carefree.

I knew I’d find out nothing more, just by asking in a generalised fashion about snags. So I thought hard, I tried to find the right question. Humphrey would never actually lie to me [
Well, hardly ever – Ed
.] and will give me the right answers if I can only think of the right questions.

‘Good old Propanol,’ I said playing for time. Then, quite suddenly, it came to me. ‘What
is
Propanol?’ I asked.

‘It’s rather interesting,’ said Humphrey promptly. ‘It used to be made with dioxin, until the Seveso explosion in Northern Italy. Then they had to stop making it. Now they’ve developed a safe compound called metadioxin, but of course the Italian factory is still sealed off. So they’ve asked the BCC to make it for them.’

‘Ah,’ the fog was beginning to lift. ‘An ill wind, eh?’

‘Quite so,’ he agreed contentedly.

‘But is this new stuff perfectly safe?’

‘Perfectly,’ he replied.

‘Good,’ I said. So I was no nearer. Or was I?

‘Humphrey, are you givng me a categorical and absolute assurance that this stuff is not only safe, but one hundred per cent safe?’

‘Yes, Minister.’

Okay, so what’s up? Why do I smell danger somewhere in all this unequivocally good news? ‘Have you anything else to add, Humphrey, which you might regret later if you don’t say it now?’

‘Well Minister, I suppose I should point out that some weak Ministers might have doubts, in view of the similarity of the names, but no one with any backbone would be deflected from such a beneficial project on such a flimsy pretext.’

So that’s all that it was. The similarity of the names. Humphrey was right. I told him so in the most forthright terms. ‘Absolutely! I know the sort of Minister you mean. Political jellyfish. Frightened of taking any decision that might upset someone. After all, every decision upsets
someone
. Government is about doing what’s right, not doing what’s popular. Eh, Humphrey?’

Humphrey was full of approval. ‘I couldn’t have expressed it better myself, Minister.’ Conceited bugger. ‘I’ll tell Sir Wally to go ahead.’

This sounded a touch more hurried than usual. I stopped Humphrey as he walked to the door, and sought further reassurance.

‘Um . . . this decision
will
be popular, though, won’t it?’

‘Very popular,’ Humphrey replied firmly.

I
still
felt a certain nagging worry, somewhere in my bones. ‘Humphrey, I just want to be clear on this. You’re not asking me to take a courageous decision, are you?’

Humphrey was visibly shocked. ‘Of
course
not, Minister,’ he insisted. ‘Not even a controversial one. What a suggestion!’

[
Readers of these diaries will doubtless recall that whereas a controversial decision will merely lose you votes, a courageous decision will lose you the election – Ed
.]

Nonetheless, if I let it go at this, if anything went wrong I knew I should have to carry the can. So I suggested that perhaps we might take this matter to Cabinet.

‘In my opinion,’ Humphrey answered revealingly, ‘the less said about this the better.’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ he said patiently, ‘although metadioxin is totally harmless, the name might cause anxiety in ignorant and prejudiced minds.’

I was about to tick him off for referring to my Cabinet colleagues in this way (right though he was!) when I realised that he was referring to Friends of the Earth and other crank pressure groups.

The matter of the Propanol plant is still not fully agreed. Joan Littler, MP for Liverpool South-West, came to see me today.

I didn’t even know she was coming. I checked with Bernard, who reminded me that not only is she the PM’s PPS [
Parliamentary Private Secretary, the first – and unpaid – rung on the government ladder – Ed
.] but also that the new Propanol plant would be in her constituency.