Yes, Minister, Series One (1986)

Sir Humphrey:
Open government, Prime Minister. Freedom of information. We should always tell the press freely and frankly anything that they could easily find out some other way.

Hacker:
Wouldn't anybody... argue with me?

General Howard:
Serving officers obey orders without question!

Hacker:
What if I were to get drunk?

Sir Humphrey:
On the whole, it would be safer if you didn't.

Bernard:
Prime Minister, isn't conscription a courageous policy?

Hacker:
[panicking a bit] Courageous? Oh my God, is it?

Sir Humphrey:
With Trident we could obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe.

Hacker:
I don't want to obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe.

Sir Humphrey:
But it's a deterrent.

Hacker:
It's a bluff. I probably wouldn't use it.

Sir Humphrey:
Yes, but they don't know that you probably wouldn't.

Hacker:
They probably do.

Sir Humphrey:
Yes, they probably know that you probably wouldn't. But they can't certainly know.

Hacker:
They probably certainly know that I probably wouldn't.

Sir Humphrey:
Yes, but even though they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn't, they don't certainly know that although you probably wouldn't, there is no probability that you certainly would!

General Howard:
We don't need it. Complete waste of money. Totally unnecessary.

Hacker:
Well, that's what I said!

General Howard:
You're right.

Hacker:
And the whole defence staff agree?

General Howard:
No, the Navy want to keep it. It's launched from their submarines. Take away Trident, they'd hardly have a role left.

Hacker:
And the RAF?

General Howard:
Well, you could ask them if you're interested in the opinion of garage mechanics.

Sir Humphrey:
If you walked into a nuclear missile showroom, you would buy Trident. It's lovely, it's elegant, it's beautiful – it's quite simply the best, and Britain should have the best. In the world of the nuclear missile, it is the Savile Row suit, the Rolls-Royce Corniche, the Château Lafite 1945. It is the nuclear missile Harrods would sell you. What more can I say?

Hacker:
Only that it costs fifteen billion pounds and we don't need it.

Sir Humphrey:
Well, you could say that about anything at Harrods!

Bernard:
But he's the Prime Minister!

Sir Humphrey:
Indeed he is, Bernard. He has his own car, a nice house in London, a place in the country, endless publicity and a pension for life. What more does he want?

Bernard:
I think he wants to govern Britain.

Sir Humphrey:
Well, stop him, Bernard.

Sir Humphrey:
Bernard, what is the purpose of our defence policy?

Bernard:
To defend Britain.

Sir Humphrey:
No, Bernard. It is to make people believe Britain is defended.

Bernard:
The Russians?

Sir Humphrey:
Not the Russians, the British! The Russians know it's not.

Godfrey:
Will you be wearing those glasses?

Hacker:
Oh, well, what do you think?

Godfrey:
Well, it's up to you, obviously. With them on, you look authoritative and commanding; with them off, you look honest and open. Which do you want?

Hacker:
Well, really, I want to look authoritative and honest.

Godfrey:
It's one or the other, really.

Hacker:
What about starting with them off, and then just putting them on when I talk?

Godfrey:
That just looks indecisive.

Hacker:
I see.

Bernard:
What about a monocle?

Hacker:
[reading a speech written for him] "We shall of course be reviewing a wide range of options over the whole field of government expenditures." Bernard, this doesn't say anything.

Bernard:
Oh, thank you, Prime Minister.

Hacker:
It's completely lacking impact.

Bernard:
You're too kind, Prime Minster.

Permanent Secretary for Health:
It would be different if the Government were a team, but in fact they're a loose confederation of warring tribes.

Hacker:
The statistics are irrefutable...

Sir Humphrey:
Statistics? You can prove anything with statistics.

Hacker:
Even the truth.

Sir Humphrey:
Yes... No!

Sir Humphrey:
Notwithstanding the fact that your proposal could conceivably encompass certain concomitant benefits of a marginal and peripheral relevance, there is a countervailing consideration of infinitely superior magnitude involving your personal complicity and corroborative malfeasance, with a consequence that the taint and stigma of your former associations and diversions could irredeemably and irretrievably invalidate your position and culminate in public revelations and recriminations of a profoundly embarrassing and ultimately indefensible character.

Hacker:
Perhaps I can have a précis of that?

Hacker:
He’s got to learn to come to heel. He’s got to learn to 'co-operate'.

Bernard:
What do you mean 'co-operate'?

Hacker:
I mean obey my commands! That's what 'co-operate' means when you're Prime Minister.

...

Bernard:
Sir Humphrey's waiting to see you outside.

Hacker:
Send him in, at once!

Bernard:
Yes, Prime Minister. Your word is my 'co-operation'.

[Sir Humphrey is not happy that Hacker has decided to move Dorothy Wainwright back into her old office, which was turned into a waiting room on Sir Humphrey's orders while she was away on holiday.]

Jim Hacker:
People can wait in the lobby or in the state rooms.

Sir Humphrey:
Some people, but some people must wait where other people cannot see the people who are waiting; and people who arrive before other people must wait where they cannot see the people who arrive after them being admitted before them; and people who come in from outside must wait where they cannot see the people from inside coming in to tell you what the people from outside have come to see you about; and people who arrive when you are with people they are not supposed to know you have seen must wait somewhere until the people who are not supposed to have seen you have seen you.

[Jim is trying to explain to Dorothy why he's changed his mind about moving her back to her old office]

Jim Hacker:
...That is, if people saw people coming, before people saw them seeing people, people would see people! The whole ship would go off the rails - you see?

Dorothy Wainwright:
Did you work all that out for yourself?

[Sir Humphrey is not happy that Bernard has deprived him of his key to Number 10]

Bernard:
Well, I believe it's the Prime Minister's decision who comes into his house. After all, I don't give my mother-in-law the key to my house.

Sir Humphrey:
[furiously] I am not the Prime Minister's mother-in-law, Bernard!

Jim Hacker:
But me no buts, Bernard. Shakespeare.

Bernard:
Oh no, Prime Minister. "But me no buts" is circa 1820. Mrs. Centlivre used the phrase in 1708, but actually it was Scott's employment of it in The Antiquary in 1816 which made it fashionable.

Jim Hacker:
Shall we keep to the point please, Bernard?

Jim Hacker:
I wanted to sound you out about something.

Sir Frank Gordon:
Of course, Prime Minister.

Jim Hacker:
It's about Humphrey. I wonder if he hasn't got rather too much on his plate.

Sir Frank Gordon:
Oh I'm sure he can manage. Tremendously able.

Jim Hacker:
You don't think he is overstretched?

Sir Frank Gordon:
Oh no, got it all under control. No problem there.

Jim Hacker:
I see, because I was wondering, speculating of course, about his position as the head of the civil service.

Sir Frank Gordon:
Ah...

Jim Hacker:
It could make some sense if everything were to be transferred to the Treasury if you think you could do part of Humphrey's job.

Sir Frank Gordon:
Oh... Yes, that could make a lot of sense.

Jim Hacker:
But if as you say he's not overstretched...

Sir Frank Gordon:
Ah, when I say not 'overstretched', I was of course talking in the sense of total cumulative loading taken globally, rather than in respect of certain individual and essentially anomalous responsibilities which are not, logically speaking, consonant or harmonious with the broad spectrum of intermeshing and inseparable functions and could indeed be said to place an excessive and supererogatory burden on the office when considered in relation to the comparatively exiguous advantages of their overall centralization.

Jim Hacker:
You could do part of Humphrey's job!

Sir Humphrey:
Prime Minister, I must protest in the strongest possible terms my profound opposition to the newly instituted practice which imposes severe and intolerable restrictions upon the ingress and egress of senior members of the hierarchy and will, in all probability, should the current deplorable innovation be perpetuated, precipitate a constriction of the channels of communication, and culminate in a condition of organisational atrophy and administrative paralysis, which will render effectively impossible the coherent and co-ordinated discharge of the function of government within Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland!

Hacker:
You mean you've lost your key?

[The PM is considering taking the joint headship of the civil service away from Humphrey and making Frank the full head]

Sir Humphrey:
Oh, Frank.

Sir Frank Gordon:
Yes?

Sir Humphrey:
Good meeting with the PM?

Sir Frank:
Yes, very good.

Sir Humphrey:
Good. Any particular subject come up?

Sir Frank:
Any particular subject you're interested in?

Sir Humphrey:
No, not particularly. He didn't raise the issue of service appointments and so on?

Sir Frank:
It may have cropped up.

Sir Humphrey:
Did he foreshadow any redistribution of responsibility?

Sir Frank:
Shall we say it was a wide-ranging discussion.

Sir Humphrey:
Did it move towards any conclusion?

Sir Frank:
There were arguments on both sides.

Sir Humphrey:
Evenly balanced?

Sir Frank:
Perhaps tending slightly more one way than the other.

Sir Humphrey:
But nothing to worry about?

Sir Frank:
Nothing for me to worry about. See you this afternoon.

[Hacker has just had a stormy cabinet meeting over a sudden financial crisis.]

Hacker:
Bernard, Humphrey should have seen this coming and warned me.

Bernard:
I don't think Sir Humphrey understands economics, Prime Minister; he did read Classics, you know.

Hacker:
What about Sir Frank? He's head of the Treasury!

Bernard:
Well I'm afraid he's at an even greater disadvantage in understanding economics: he's an economist.

[Hacker complains about the MP deputation came to him to ask for a pay rise.]

Annie:
But aren't they underpaid in fact?

Hacker:
Underpaid? Backbench MPs, Darling? Being an MP is a vast subsidised ego trip. It's a job for which you need no qualifications, no compulsory hours of work, no performance standards. A warm room and subsidised meals for a bunch of self-opinionated windbags and busybodies who suddenly find people taking them seriously because they got letters "MP" after their names. How can they be underpaid when there're about two hundred applicants for every vacancy? You could fill every seat twenty times over even if they have to pay to do the job.

[Hacker asks Humphrey about the sudden financial crisis.]

Hacker:
Why the sudden crisis? The Treasury must've seen it coming.

Sir Humphrey:
Prime Minister, I'm not the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury. You must ask Sir Frank.

Hacker:
What would Sir Frank say?

Sir Humphrey:
It is not for a humble mortal such as I to speculate on the complex and elevated deliberations of the mighty. But in general, I think Sir Frank believes that if the Treasury knows something has to be done, the Cabinet shouldn't have too much time to think about it.

Hacker:
But that's an outrageous view!

Sir Humphrey:
Yes, indeed. It's known as Treasury policy.

Hacker:
Suppose the Cabinet has questions?

Sir Humphrey:
Well I think Sir Frank's view is that on the rare occasions when the Treasury understands the questions, the Cabinet doesn't understand the answers.

Sir Humphrey:
Real reductions in the size of the Service?! It'd be the end of civilisation as we know it!

[Bernard is trying to tell Sir Humphrey about a confidential conversation.]

Sir Humphrey:
You're speaking in riddles, Bernard.

Bernard:
Oh, thank you, Sir Humphrey.

Sir Humphrey:
That was not a compliment, Bernard!

[Hacker is discussing Humphrey's two responsibilities.]

Sir Humphrey:
It's so difficult for me, you see, as I'm wearing two hats.

Hacker:
Yes, isn't that rather awkward for you?

Sir Humphrey:
Not if one is in two minds.

Bernard:
Or has two faces.

Hacker:
If there were a conflict of interests which side would the civil service really be on?

Bernard:
The winning side, Prime Minister.

Hacker:
I gather we're planning to vote against Israel in the UN tonight.

Foreign Secretary:
Of course.

Hacker:
Why?

Foreign Secretary:
They bombed the PLO.

Hacker:
But the PLO bombed Israel!

Foreign Secretary:
Yes, but the Israelis dropped more bombs than the PLO did.

[Bernard pulls the Prime Minister away from Luke for a private conversation.]

Hacker:
You just said that the Foreign Office was keeping something from me! How do you know if you don't know?

Bernard:
I don't know specifically what, Prime Minister, but I do know that the Foreign Office always keep everything from everybody. It's normal practice.

Hacker:
Who does know?

Bernard:
May I just clarify the question? You are asking who would know what it is that I don't know and you don't know but the Foreign Office know that they know that they are keeping from you so that you don't know but they do know and all we know there is something we don't know and we want to know but we don't know what because we don't know! Is that it?

Hacker:
May I clarify the question: Who knows Foreign Office secrets, apart from the Foreign Office?

Bernard:
Oh, that's easy: only the Kremlin.

[Hacker has just requested a goodwill visit to St George's Island.]

Hacker:
He [the defence secretary] seemed to think 800 fully armed paratroopers was an awful lot to send on a goodwill visit.

Israeli Ambassador:
No, it is just an awful lot of goodwill!

Hacker:
Oh, this is nice. The Americans are delighted by our little visit to St. George's Island. That's good, isn't it?

Sir Humphrey:
[resigned] Excellent.

Hacker:
They say they have got a whole airborne division ready if we want reinforcements.

Sir Humphrey:
[sharply] Reinforcements of what?

Hacker:
Reinforcements of goodwill, Humphrey!

Bernard Woolley:
What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?

Sir Humphrey Appleby:
Then we follow the four-stage strategy.

Bernard Woolley:
What's that?

Sir Richard Wharton:
Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.

Sir Richard Wharton:
In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.

Sir Humphrey Appleby:
Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.

Sir Richard Wharton:
In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we *can* do.

Sir Humphrey Appleby:
Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

Bernard Woolley:
What if he demands options?

Sir Humphrey Appleby:
Well, it's obvious, Bernard. The Foreign Office will happily present him with three options, two of which are, on close inspection, exactly the same.

Sir Richard Wharton:
Plus a third which is totally unacceptable.

Sir Humphrey Appleby:
Like bombing Warsaw or invading France.

Sir Humphrey:
Bishops tend to have long lives. Apparently the Lord isn't all that keen to let them join him.

Man:
In such an awful country, they cut people's hands off and women get stoned when they commit adultery.

Sir Humphrey:
Unlike Britain, where they commit adultery when they get stoned.

Peter Harding:
Soames has been waiting for a bishopric for years.

Sir Humphrey:
Long time, no see.

Bernard:
It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it: I have an independent mind; you are an eccentric; he is round the twist.

[Sir Humphrey is suspected of having once been a Russian spy.]

Sir Humphrey:
So what do you think I should do, Arnold?

Sir Arnold Robinson:
[calmly pours his coffee] Hmm, difficult. Depends a bit on whether you actually were spying or not. [notices Sir Humphrey's horrified expression] One must keep an open mind.

Sir Humphrey:
But I couldn't have been! I wasn't at Cambridge!

Sir Arnold:
If once they accepted the principle that senior Civil Servants could be removed for incompetence, that would be the thin end of the wedge. We could lose dozens of our chaps. Hundreds, perhaps.

Sir Humphrey:
Thousands.