The Complete Yes Minister (57 page)

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.

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
¹
out into the cold?’

I wasn’t impressed by all that cheap electioneering rubbish. It’s nothing to do with our Senior Citizens.
²

‘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.’