Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

Thought I would provide some light humour by posting some choice quotes from the ever still hilarious 'Yes Minister' and 'Yes Prime Minister'. For those not aware of the show it was a long running British satire about the way in which government tends to be run, ie that the Civil Service are the actual ones that run the country not the elected politicans.

"It is sometimes difficult to explain to Ministers that open government can sometimes mean informing their Cabinet colleagues as well as their friends in Fleet Street." - Fleet Street is where the press have or had most of their offices.

"'The matter is under consideration' means we have lost the file. 'The matter is under active consideration' means we are trying to find the file."

"Politicians must be allowed to panic. They need activity. It is their substitute for achievement."

"The argument that we [the Civil Service] must do everything a Minister demands because he has been 'democratically chosen' does not stand up to close inspection. MPs are not chosen by 'the people' - they are chosen by their local constituency parties: thirty-five men in grubby raincoats or thirty- five women in silly hats. The further 'selection' process is equally a nonsense: there are only 630 MPs and a party with just over 300 MPs forms a government and of these 300, 100 are too old and too silly to be ministers and 100 too young and too callow. Therefore there are about 100 MPs to fill 100 government posts. Effectively no choice at all."

"There has to be a nuclear bunker in Whitehall. Government doesn't stop merely because the country has been destroyed. Annihilation is bad enough. Without anarchy to make it even worse."

"The Opposition aren't really the opposition. They are only the Government in exile. The Civil Service are the opposition in residence. "

"Civil Service language: 'Sometimes one is forced to consider the possibility that affairs are being conducted in a manner which, all things being considered and making all possible allowances is, not to put too fine a point on it, perhaps not entirely straightforward.
Translation: 'You are lying'."

"The Prime Minister doesn't want the truth, he wants something he can tell Parliament."

"Almost anything can be attacked as a failure, but almost anything can be defended as not a significant failure. Politicians do no appreciate the significance of 'significant'. "

"If Civil Servants did not fight for the budgets of their departments they could end up with departments so small that even the Ministers could run them."

"The Official Secrets Act is not to protect secrets, it is to protect officials."

"Conjurors offer the audience any card in the pack and always get them to take the one they want. This is the way we in the Civil Service get Ministers to take decisions."

"'This would create a dangerous precedent'. Translation: 'If we do the right thing now, we might have to do the right thing again next time'."

"Avoiding precedents does not mean nothing should ever be done. It only means that nothing should ever be done for the first time."

"No one really understands the true nature of fawning servility until he sees an academic who has glimpsed the prospect of money or personal publicity."

"The surprising things about academics is not that they have their price, but how low that price is."

"It is only totalitarian governments that suppress facts. In this country we simply take a democratic decision not to publish them."


"How to discredit an unwelcome report:

Stage One: Refuse to publish in the public interest saying
1. There are security considerations.
2. The findings could be misinterpreted.
3. You are waiting for the results of a wider and more detailed report which is still in preparation. (If there isn't one, commission it; this gives you even more time).

Stage Two: Discredit the evidence you are not publishing, saying
1. It leaves important questions unanswered.
2. Much of the evidence is inconclusive.
3. The figures are open to other interpretations.
4. Certain findings are contradictory.
5. Some of the main conclusions have been questioned. (If they haven't, question them yourself; then they have).

Stage Three: Undermine the recommendations. Suggested phrases:
1. 'Not really a basis for long term decisions'.
2. 'Not sufficient information on which to base a valid assessment'.
3. 'No reason for any fundamental rethink of existing policy'.
4. 'Broadly speaking, it endorses current practice'.

Stage Four: Discredit the person who produced the report. Explain (off the record) that
1. He is harbouring a grudge against the Department.
2. He is a publicity seeker.
3. He is trying to get a Knighthood/Chair/Vice Chancellorship.
4. He used to be a consultant to a multinational.
5. He wants to be a consultant to a multinational."


"The Common Market: We went into it to screw the French by splitting them off from the Germans. The French went in to protect their inefficient farmers from commercial competition. The Germans went in to purge themselves of genocide and apply for readmission to the human race."

"If you are not happy with Minister's decision there is no need to argue him out of it. Accept it warmly, and then suggested he leaves it to you to work out the details."

"A good political speech is not one in which you can prove that the man is telling the truth; it is one where no one else can prove he is lying."

"Politicians speeches are not written for the audience to which they are delivered. Delivering the speech is merely the formality that has to be gone through in order to get the press release into the newspapers."

"Any statement in a politician's memoirs can represent one of six different levels of reality:
a. What happened.
b. What he believed happened.
c. What he would have liked to have happened.
d. What he wants to believe happened.
e. What he wants other people to believe happened.
f. What he wants other people to believe he believed happened."

"Terms for describing bribes when drawing up contracts:
1. Below £100,000
- Retainers
- Personal donations
- Special discounts
- Miscellaneous outgoings
2. £100,000 to £500,000
- Managerial surcharge
- Operating costs
- Ex-gratia payments
- Agents' fees
- Political contributions
- Extra-contractual payments
3. £500,000 +
- Introduction fees
- Commission fees
- Managements' expenses
- Administrative overheads
- Advance against profit sharing"

"The Civil Service is neither right wing nor left wing. Political bias varies from department to department. Defence, whose clients are military, is right wing, where as Health, dealing with health unions and social workers, is left wing. Industry, dealing with employers, is right wing; Employment, dealing with unions, is left wing. The Home Office - police, prison warders, immigration officers - is right wing. Education - teachers and lecturers - is left wing. The result is a perfectly balanced and neutral Civil Service."

"Government is about principles. And the principle is, never act on principle."

"The Letters JB in capitals are one of the highest Commonwealth honours. They stand for Jailed by the British. The order includes Gandhi, Nkrumah, Makarios, Ben Gurion, Kenyatta, Nheru, Mugabe and many other world leaders."

"The three most unreliable things in public life: Political Memoirs, Official Denials and Manifesto Promises."

"It is possible to remove everything of significance from a file released under the 30-year rule by saying that it is complete except for:
a. A small number of secret documents.
b. A few documents which are part of still active files.
c. Some correspondence lost in the floods of 1967.
d. Some records which went astray in the move to London.
e. Other records which went astray when the Department was reorganized.
f. The normal withdrawal of papers whose publication could give grounds for an action for libel of breach of confidence or cause embarrassment to friendly governments."

"'The Government's position' means 'the best explanation of past events that cannot be disproved by available facts'."

"Solved problems aren't news. Tell the press a story in two halves - the problem first and the solution later. Then they get a disaster story one day and triumph story the next."

"If a job's worth doing, it's worth delegating."

"Politician's logic:
We must do something.
This is something.
Therefore we must do it."

"If we cannot refute the arguments in a paper, we simply discredit the person who wrote it. This is called playing the man and not the ball."

"It is unthinkable that politicians should be allowed to remove civil servants on grounds of incompetence. Of course some civil servants are incompetent but not incompetent enough for a politician to notice. And if civil servants could remove politicians on grounds of incompetence it would empty the House of Commons, remove the Cabinet, and be the end of democracy and the beginning of responsible government."

"There was nothing wrong with appeasement. All that World War Two achieved after six years was to leave Eastern Europe under a Communist dictatorship instead of a Fascist dictatorship. That's what comes of not listening to the Foreign Office."

"It was a good idea to partition countries like India and Cyprus and Palestine and Ireland as a part of their independence. It keeps them busy fighting each other so we don't have to have a policy about them."

"The public aren't interested in foreign affairs. All they want to know is who are the goodies and who are the baddies."

"Foreign policy must be made in the Foreign office. It cannot be left to fools like Fleet Street editors, back-bench MPs and Cabinet Ministers."

"Press statements are not delivered under oath."

"A somewhat 'unorthodox procedure' means 'The act of a gibbering idiot'."

"Politicians are like children; you can't just give them what they want - it only encourages them."

"Any unwelcome initiative from a minister can be delayed until after the next election by the Civil Service 12-stage delaying process:
1. Informal discussions
2. Draft proposal
3. Preliminary study
4. Discussion document
5. In-depth study
6. Revised proposal
7. Policy statement
8. Strategy proposal
9. Discussion of strategy
10. Implementation plan circulated
11. Revised implementation plans
12. Cabinet agreement"

"You can't put the nation's interest at risk just because of some silly sentimentality about justice."

"Theology is a device for helping agnostics to stay within the Church of England."

"If you believe the security of the realm is at risk you don't hold a security enquiry, you call in the Special Branch. Government security enquiries are only used for killing press stories."

"Giving information to Moscow is serious. Giving information to anyone is serious. Some information would do Britain less harm if given to the Kremlin than if given to the Cabinet."

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location:
Posts: 1163

And the next Yes Minister will be streamed by the good old Beeb on Wed 19th.

Good stuff, and beautifully observed. These days, of course, there is no need to satirize the government.

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Registered: Jun 2002
Location: Just to the right of the moon
Posts: 3141

For the Yanks, Yes Minister/Prime minister was an earlier, British version of the West Wing. Thatcher thought it to be incredibly accurate.

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

Funnier than The West Wing as well

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

My grandfather was a senior civil servant and he found it very amusing.

It isn't really like the west wing; it was an out and out comedy and the episodes were much more self-contained. Although the West Wing is also a cool show.

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