Yes, Minister, Series Three (1982)

[How to deal with a nonsensical complaint]

Bernard:
We can CGSM it.

Hacker:
CGSM?

Bernard:
Civil Service code, Minister. It stands for "Consignment of Geriatric Shoe Manufacturers".

Hacker:
What?

Bernard:
A load of old cobblers, Minister.

Hacker:
I'm not a civil servant. I shall use my own code. I shall write: "Round Objects".

Bernard:
You remember that letter you wrote "Round Objects" on?

Hacker:
Oh yes.

Bernard:
It's come back from Sir Humphrey's office. He's commented on it.

Hacker:
What does he say?

Bernard:
Who is Round and to what does he object?

Sir Humphrey:
Now, Minister, if you are going to promote women just because they're the best person for the job, you will create a lot of resentment throughout the whole of the Civil Service!

Hacker:
The three articles of Civil Service faith: it takes longer to do things quickly, it's more expensive to do them cheaply and it's more democratic to do them in secret.

Sir Arnold:
Life is so much easier when ministers think they've achieved something; it stops them fretting, and their little temper tantrums.

Sir Humphrey:
Yes, but now he wants to introduce his next idea.

Sir Arnold:
A minister with two ideas? I can't remember when we last had one of those.

Sir Humphrey:
[talking about nuclear fallout shelters] Well, you have the weapons; you must have the shelters.

Hacker:
I sometimes wonder why we need the weapons.

Sir Humphrey:
Minister! You're not a unilateralist?

Hacker:
I sometimes wonder, you know.

Sir Humphrey:
Well, then, you must resign from the government!

Hacker:
Ah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not that unilateralist! Anyway, the Americans will always protect us from the Russians, won't they?

Sir Humphrey:
Russians? Who's talking about the Russians?

Hacker:
Well, the independent deterrent.

Sir Humphrey:
It's to protect us against the French!

Hacker:
The French?! But that's astounding!

Sir Humphrey:
Why?

Hacker:
Well they're our allies, our partners.

Sir Humphrey:
Well, they are now, but they've been our enemies for the most of the past 900 years. If they've got the bomb, we must have the bomb!

Hacker:
If it's for the French, of course, that's different. Makes a lot of sense.

Sir Humphrey:
Yes. Can't trust the Frogs.

Hacker:
You can say that again!

Sir Humphrey:
If local authorities don't send us statistics, Government figures will be a nonsense.

Hacker:
Why?

Sir Humphrey:
They'll be incomplete.

Hacker:
Government figures are a nonsense, anyway.

Bernard:
I think Sir Humphrey wants to ensure they're a complete nonsense.

Bernard:
[on the phone] Hello, Graham, it's Bernard. Tell Sir Humphrey that the Minister's just gone walkabout. Yes, yes, AWOL. Well, of course I told him, yes. I know. I think you'd better let him know right away.

[hangs up]

Bernard:
One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight... nine... TEN.

Sir Humphrey:
[walks in on the stroke of ten] What's all this about?

Bernard:
The minister's just left the office, that's all.

Sir Humphrey:
That's all? Do you mean he's loose in the building? Why didn't you warn me?

Bernard:
I did advise him, but he is the minister. There's no prohibition against ministers talking to their staff.

Sir Humphrey:
Who's he talking to?

Bernard:
Perhaps he was just restless.

Sir Humphrey:
If the minister's restless, he can feed the ducks in St James's Park!

Bernard:
Yes, Sir Humphrey.

Sir Humphrey:
Tell me who the minister's talking to.

Bernard:
Well, surely the minister can talk to anyone?

Sir Humphrey:
Bernard... I'm in the middle of writing your annual report. Now, it is not a responsibility that either of us would wish me to discharge whilst I am in a bad temper. Who's the minister talking to?

Bernard:
Perhaps you could help me. I can see that you should know if he calls on an outsider. I fail to see why you should be informed if he just wants to, to take a hypothetical example, to check a point with... Dr Cartwright...

Sir Humphrey:
Thank you, Bernard. Must fly.

Bernard:
Room 4017.

Sir Humphrey:
I know!

Hacker:
Bernard, how did Sir Humphrey know I was with Dr Cartwright?

Bernard:
God moves in a mysterious way.

Hacker:
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: Humphrey is not God, OK?

Bernard:
Will you tell him or shall I?

Hacker:
Get Humphrey to come back here at once.

Bernard:
Yes, Minister. [Picks up phone] The Minister wonders if Sir Humphrey could spare time for a meeting sometime in the next few days.

Hacker:
At once.

Bernard:
In fact, sometime today is really...

Hacker:
At once!

Bernard:
...Sometime during the next 60 seconds. [hangs up] He's coming round now.

Hacker:
Why? Did he faint?

Bernard:
No, he's just, you know...

[they both start giggling]

Hacker:
This is serious, Bernard.

Bernard:
Yes, I know.

Hacker:
This is no laughing matter.

Bernard:
No, certainly not.

Hacker:
The question is, how am I going to deal with it?

Bernard:
In my opinion...

Hacker:
The question was purely rhetorical, Bernard.

Sir Humphrey:
The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume; but not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.

Hacker:
I beg your pardon?

Sir Humphrey:
It was... I.

Hacker:
How am I going to explain the missing documents to the Mail?

Sir Humphrey:
Well, this is what we normally do in circumstances like these.

[passes Hacker a memo]

Hacker:
"This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, some correspondence lost in the floods of 1967..." Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?

Sir Humphrey:
No, a marvellous winter. We lost no end of embarrassing files.

Hacker:
"...Some records which went astray in the move to London and others when the War Office was incorporated in the Ministry of Defence, and the normal withdrawal of papers whose publication could give grounds for an action for libel or breach of confidence or cause embarrassment to friendly governments". That's pretty comprehensive. How many does that normally leave for them to look at?

Hacker:
How many does it actually leave? About a hundred?... Fifty?... Ten?... Five?... Four?... Three?... Two?... One?... Zero?

Sir Humphrey:
Yes, Minister.

Sir Humphrey:
Well, obviously I'm not a trained lawyer or I wouldn't have been in charge of the legal unit!

Hacker:
Isn't this terrible? Print baseless accusations like this!

Sir Humphrey:
Oh, yes, yes, terrible.

Hacker:
Baksheesh, palm-greasing! Good God, we're British!

Sir Humphrey:
Absolutely, Minister!

Hacker:
Still, it's not like the FT to print a story like this unless there's something behind it. Is there something behind it, Humphrey?

Bernard:
I think the sports news is behind it.

Hacker:
I want to know the truth, Humphrey.

Sir Humphrey:
I don't think you do, Minister.

Hacker:
Will you answer a direct question?

Sir Humphrey:
I strongly advise you not to ask a direct question.

Hacker:
Why?

Sir Humphrey:
It might provoke a direct answer.

Hacker:
It never has yet.

Hacker:
Bernard, what do YOU know about this? Tell me on your word of honour.

Bernard:
Oh, well, I... er... Er, that is... there was. Someone did.

Sir Humphrey:
It’s a lot of gossip, that's all. Rumour, hearsay.

Hacker:
Bernard?

Bernard:
Well one of the Kumranis did tell me he'd received...

Sir Humphrey:
Hearsay, Minister.

Hacker:
Hearsay?

Sir Humphrey:
Yes, Bernard heard him say it.

Hacker:
Are you telling me Humphrey that the BES contract was won by bribery?

Sir Humphrey:
Oh Minister, I do wish you wouldn't use words like bribery.

Hacker:
What would you like me to say? Slush funds, sweeteners, brown envelopes?

Sir Humphrey:
Oh Minister these are extremely crude and unworthy expressions for what is no more than creative negotiation. It is the general practice.

Hacker:
You do realise what you're saying don’t you, Humphrey? I ratified that contract, didn’t I? In good faith!

Sir Humphrey:
Yes indeed, Minister.

Hacker:
And in that communiqué I issued to the press, I announced a British success won in a fair fight!

Sir Humphrey:
Mm, yes, I did wonder about that bit.

Hacker:
Now you're telling me it was got by bribery.

Sir Humphrey:
No, Minister.

Hacker:
Oh, it was not got by bribery?

Sir Humphrey:
That is not what I said.

Hacker:
What did you say?

Sir Humphrey:
I said I'm not telling you it was got by bribery.

Hacker:
Well how would you describe these payments?

Sir Humphrey:
How does the contract describe them you mean? Oh, well, that's really quite simple. Retainers, personal donations, special discounts. Miscellaneous outgoings, agents' fees, political contributions, management expenses.

Hacker:
And how are these payments made?

Sir Humphrey:
Well anything from a numbered account in a Swiss bank, to a fistful of used oncers slipped under the door of the gents.

Hacker:
Are you saying that winking at corruption is government policy?

Sir Humphrey:
No, no, Minister! It could never be government policy. That is unthinkable! Only government practice.

Hacker:
You're a cynic, Humphrey!

Sir Humphrey:
A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist.

[Hacker has been offered the job of Transport Supremo.]

Hacker:
Sir Mark thinks there might be votes in it, and I do not intend to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Sir Humphrey:
I put it to you, Minister, that you are looking a Trojan horse in the mouth.

Hacker:
You mean if we look closely at this gift horse, we'll find it's full of Trojans?

Bernard:
Um, if you had looked the Trojan Horse in the mouth, Minister, you would have found Greeks inside. Well, the point is that it was the Greeks who gave the Trojan horse to the Trojans, so technically it wasn't a Trojan horse at all; it was a Greek horse. Hence the tag "timeo Danaos et dona ferentes", which, you will recall, is usually and somewhat inaccurately translated as "beware of Greeks bearing gifts", or doubtless you would have recalled had you not attended the LSE.

Hacker:
Yes, well, I'm sure Greek tags are all very well in their way; but can we stick to the point?

Bernard:
Sorry, sorry: Greek tags?

Hacker:
"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts." I suppose the EEC equivalent would be "Beware of Greeks bearing an olive oil surplus".

Sir Humphrey:
Excellent, Minister.

Bernard:
No, well, the point is, Minister, that just as the Trojan horse was in fact Greek, what you describe as a Greek tag is in fact Latin. It's obvious, really: the Greeks would never suggest bewaring of themselves, if one can use such a participle (bewaring that is). And it's clearly Latin, not because timeo ends in "-o", because the Greek first person also ends in "-o" – although actually there is a Greek word timao, meaning 'I honour'. But the "-os" ending is a nominative singular termination of a second declension in Greek, and an accusative plural in Latin, of course, though actually Danaos is not only the Greek for 'Greek'; it's also the Latin for 'Greek'. It's very interesting, really.

Sir Humphrey:
The ship of state, Bernard, is the only ship that leaks from the top.

Hacker:
Last night a confidential source disclosed to me that British arms are being sold to Italian red terrorist groups.

Sir Humphrey:
I see. May I ask who this confidential source was?

Hacker:
Humphrey, I just said it was confidential.

Sir Humphrey:
Oh, I'm sorry. I naturally assumed that meant you were going to tell me.

Bernard:
So what do we believe in?

Sir Humphrey:
At this moment, Bernard, we believe in stopping the minister from informing the Prime Minister.

Bernard:
But why?

Sir Humphrey:
Because once the Prime Minister knows, there will have to be an enquiry, like Watergate. The investigation of a trivial break-in led to one ghastly revelation after another and finally the downfall of a president. The golden rule is don't lift lids off cans of worms. Everything is connected to everything else. Who said that?

Bernard:
The Cabinet Secretary?

Sir Humphrey:
Nearly right. Actually, it was Lenin.

Bernard:
How do you stop a Cabinet Minister talking to a Prime Minister?

Sir Humphrey:
Interesting question. You tell me.

Bernard:
I don't know.

Sir Humphrey:
Work it out. You're supposed to be a high flier. Or are you really a low-flier supported by occasional gusts of wind?

[The Minister has received a letter with information about sanctions violations.]

Hacker:
I'm trapped. I can't tell the PM, I can't not tell the PM.

Sir Humphrey:
I see.

Bernard:
I was just wondering, Minister, if we may not use the Rhodesia solution.

Sir Humphrey:
Bernard! You excel yourself! Of course, Minister, the Rhodesia solution!

Hacker:
What are you talking about?

Sir Humphrey:
Oil sanctions, remember? A member of the government was told about the way British companies were sanction-busting.

Hacker:
What did you do?

Bernard:
He told the Prime Minister.

Hacker:
What did he do?

Sir Humphrey:
He told the Prime Minister in such a way that the Prime Minister didn't hear him.

Hacker:
Would you mean I should mumble it or something in the division lobby?

Sir Humphrey:
No, Minister, you write a note.

Hacker:
In very faint pencil? Please, impractical.

Sir Humphrey:
No, Minister, it's awfully obvious; you write a note which is susceptible to misinterpretation.

Hacker:
Oh, I see. Dear Prime Minister, it has come to my attention that the Italian Red Terrorists are getting hold of British top secret bomb-making equipment—how do you misinterpret that?

Sir Humphrey:
You can't.

Hacker:
Well, exactly.

Sir Humphrey:
So you don't write that. You use a more circumspect style, and you avoid any mention of bombs, or terrorists, or any of that.

Hacker:
Wouldn't that be rather difficult? Is that what it's all about?

Sir Humphrey:
You say—Bernard, write this down—My attention has been drawn, on a personal basis, to information which suggests the possibility of certain irregularities under Section... [snaps fingers]

Bernard:
Section 1 of the Import, Export and Customs Powers Defence Act 1939 C.

Sir Humphrey:
Thank you, Bernard. You then go on to suggest that somebody else should do something about it. Prima facie evidence suggests that there could be a case for further investigation; to establish whether or not enquiries should be put in hand. And then you smudge it all over.

Sir Humphrey:
Nevertheless, it should be stressed that available information is limited, and relevant facts could be difficult to establish with any degree of certainty.

Hacker:
I see.

Sir Humphrey:
Then, if there were an inquiry, you'd be in the clear, and everybody would understand that the busy PM might not have grasped the full implications of such a letter

Hacker:
They certainly would; that's most unclear.

Sir Humphrey:
Thank you, Minister. Then you arrange for the letter to arrive at Number 10 on the day the PM leaves for an overseas summit, so there's also doubt about whether it was the PM or the acting PM who read the note. And so the whole thing is written off as a breakdown in communications, everybody's in the clear, and everybody can get on with their business.

Bernard:
Including the Red Terrorists.

Sir Humphrey:
Exactly.

Sir Humphrey:
My job is to carry out government policy.

Hacker:
Even if you think it's wrong?

Sir Humphrey:
Well, almost all government policy is wrong, but… frightfully well carried out.

Bernard:
If it's our job to carry out government policies, shouldn't we believe in them?

Sir Humphrey:
Oh, what an extraordinary idea! I have served 11 governments in the past 30 years. If I'd believed in all their policies, I'd have been passionately committed to keeping out of the Common Market, and passionately committed to joining it. I'd have been utterly convinced of the rightness of nationalising steel and of denationalising it and renationalising it. Capital punishment? I'd have been a fervent retentionist and an ardent abolitionist. I'd have been a Keynesian and a Friedmanite, a grammar school preserver and destroyer, a nationalisation freak and a privatisation maniac, but above all, I would have been a stark-staring raving schizophrenic!

Sir Humphrey:
[calmly] Bernard, subsidy is for art, for culture. [almost furiously] It is not to be given to what the people want! It is for what the people don't want but ought to have!

Hacker:
Nothing wrong with subsidising sport. Sport is educational.

Sir Humphrey:
We have sex education too. Should we subsidise sex, perhaps?

Bernard:
[earnestly] Oh, could we?

Sir Humphrey:
In addition to your existing responsibilities, you will be Cabinet Minister responsible for the Arts.

Hacker:
[smiling] Eh? I say, that's rather good, isn't it? Hold on -- how do you know about this before I do?

Sir Humphrey:
Oh, I just happened to be with the Cabinet Secretary shortly after the decision was taken.

Hacker:
[pleased] Cabinet Minister with the responsibility for the Arts, eh? Well well well!

Sir Humphrey:
Yes indeed!

Hacker:
Thank you for letting me know, Humphrey! Anything more? I'm just about to start a meeting.

Sir Humphrey:
Oh, the meeting, yes. Now Minister, I do hope that you've considered the implications of your new appointment on the subject you're discussing.

Hacker:
What, rescuing a football club?

Sir Humphrey:
No, no, no; I was wondering how it would look if, as Cabinet Minister responsible for the Arts, your first action would be to knock down an art gallery.

Councillor Brian Wilkinson:
I can't believe this! You mean I've got to go and tell the people back home that you've gone back on your word? I mean, it was your own idea!

Hacker:
I mean, it's not me, it's the law!

Councillor Brian Wilkinson:
Well, why didn't you find out until now?

Hacker:
Well, um--

[Bernard coughs, attracting the Minister's attention, and keeps glancing at the paperwork for increased allowances for councillors, until Hacker finally gets the hint]

Hacker:
[taking the paperwork in hand] Let me be absolutely frank with you. The truth is, it would be possible to push this through. Just possible. But it would take an awful long time.

Councillor Brian Wilkinson:
Okay, take the time! We've spent enough!

Hacker:
Yes, but the trouble is, you see, something else would have to go by the board. And the thing that's taking my time at the moment is forcing through this increase in councillor's expenses and attendance allowances. You see, I can't put my personal weight behind both schemes. I suppose I could forget about the increased allowances for councillors...

[Wilkinson and his fellow councillors look at each other, alarmed]

Hacker:
...concentrate on the legal obstacles to the sale of the art gallery.

Councillor Brian Wilkinson:
[in a less confrontational tone] Tricky things, legal obstacles.

Sir Humphrey:
And this is a particularly tricky one.

Councillor Brian Wilkinson:
And at the end of the day, you might still fail.

Hacker:
Every possibility.

Councillor Brian Wilkinson:
Well, if that's the way it is... [turns to one of his fellow councillors] There is a chance that we might want to close Edgehill Road Primary at the end of the year. That site should fetch a couple of million, give or take.

[the councillors rise from their chairs]

Councillor Brian Wilkinson:
Well, there it is, then! No ill feelings, Jim! [shakes hands with the Minister]

Hacker:
Good! And you'll explain locally that we can't overcome the legal obstacles?

Councillor Brian Wilkinson:
Of course we will!

[Councillor Wilkinson points at the paperwork regarding increased allowances for councillors]

Councillor Brian Wilkinson:
Ah, carry on with the good work, eh?

[the councillors depart]

Sir Humphrey:
Oh, Minister...a work of art.

Sir Humphrey:
I wonder if I might crave your momentary indulgence in order to discharge a by no means disagreeable obligation which has, over the years, become more or less established practice in government service as we approach the terminal period of the year — calendar, of course, not financial — in fact, not to put too fine a point on it, Week Fifty-One — and submit to you, with all appropriate deference, for your consideration at a convenient juncture, a sincere and sanguine expectation — indeed confidence — indeed one might go so far as to say hope — that the aforementioned period may be, at the end of the day, when all relevant factors have been taken into consideration, susceptible to being deemed to be such as to merit a final verdict of having been by no means unsatisfactory in its overall outcome and, in the final analysis, to give grounds for being judged, on mature reflection, to have been conducive to generating a degree of gratification which will be seen in retrospect to have been significantly higher than the general average.

Jim Hacker:
Are you trying to say "Happy Christmas," Humphrey?

Sir Humphrey:
Yes, Minister.

[The Home Secretary has been forced to resign after a drink-driving incident]

Hacker:
What will happen to him?

Sir Humphrey:
Well, I gather he was as drunk as a lord. So, after a discreet interval, they'll probably make him one.

[The EEC wants to standardise sausages, and it turns out British bangers are not up to the standard]

Hacker:
By the end of next year, we shall be waving good-bye to the good old British sausage, and we'll be forced to accept some foreign muck like salami or bratwurst or something in its place.

Bernard:
They can't stop us eating the British sausage, can they?

Hacker They can stop us calling it the sausage, though. Apparently, it's going to be called the "emulsified high-fat offal tube".

Bernard:
And you swallowed it?

[Bernard is waiting at the Hackers' flat for the Minister to come home]

Annie Hacker:
He's obviously been held up. You can stamp some of these cards for me while you're waiting if you like.

Bernard Woolley:
Oh, but aren't they to constituents?

Annie:
Yes.

Bernard:
Well, that's not government business, Mrs Hacker, that's political activity. I'm not allowed to help with the Minister's political activities.

Annie:
Suppose they were all to journalists?

Bernard:
Oh, that would be alright.

Annie:
They're all to journalists.

Bernard:
Fine. I suppose licking is an essential part of relationships with the press.

[Discussing possible reasons for the Prime Minister's early retirement]

Bernard:
Minister, I've heard something quite different.

Hacker:
What?

Bernard:
That there is £1 million worth of diamonds from South Africa in a Downing Street safe, but of course it's only a rumour.

Hacker:
Is that true?

Bernard:
Oh, yes.

Hacker:
So, there ARE all those diamonds in Downing Street!

Bernard:
Are there?

Hacker:
You just said there were.

Bernard:
No, I didn't.

Hacker:
Yes, you did! You said you'd heard this rumour, I said is it true, you said yes!

Bernard:
I said yes, it was true that it was a rumour.

Hacker:
You said you heard it was true!

Bernard:
No, I said it was true that I heard it!

Annie:
I'm sorry to cut into this important discussion, but do you believe it?

Hacker:
I believe I heard it. Oh, about the diamonds. No.

Annie:
Is it impossible?

Hacker:
No, but it's never been officially denied. First rule in politics: never believe anything until it's officially denied.

Sir Arnold:
So, will our next Prime Minister be our eminent Chancellor or our distinguished Foreign Secretary?

Sir Humphrey:
That's what I wanted to ask you, which do you think it should be?

Sir Arnold:
Hmmm. Difficult, like asking which lunatic should run the asylum.

Sir Arnold:
Have we any allies?

Sir Humphrey:
Oh, quite a few yes; the Chief Whip, particularly. But he's worried that whichever gets the job will antagonise the other's supporters and split the party.

Sir Arnold:
So we're looking for a compromise candidate.

Sir Humphrey:
Hmm. Malleable.

Sir Arnold:
Flexible.

Sir Humphrey:
Likeable.

Sir Arnold:
No firm opinions.

Sir Humphrey:
No bright ideas.

Sir Arnold:
Not intellectually committed.

Sir Humphrey:
Without the strength of purpose to change anything.

Sir Arnold:
Someone who you know can be manipula— professionally guided.

Sir Humphrey:
And leave the business of government in the hands of the experts.

[Long beat as Sir Arnold and Sir Humphrey slowly realise Hacker is the perfect candidate. They catch each other's eye and burst into uproarious laughter.]

Sir Humphrey:
Bernard, what would you say to your present master as the next Prime Minister?

Bernard:
The Minister?

Sir Humphrey:
Yes.

Bernard:
Mr Hacker?

Sir Humphrey:
Yes.

Bernard:
As Prime Minister?

Sir Humphrey:
Yes.

[Bernard checks his watch]

Sir Humphrey:
Are you in a hurry?

Bernard:
No; I'm just checking to see it wasn't April the First.

Sir Humphrey:
[Talking about his promotion] The relationship which I might tentatively venture to aver has been not without some degree of reciprocal utility and perhaps even occasional gratification, is approaching a point of irreversible bifurcation and, to be brief, is in the propinquity of its ultimate regrettable termination.

Hacker:
... I see.

Sir Humphrey:
I'm... on my way out.

Hacker:
What?

Sir Humphrey:
There comes a time when one has to accept what fate has in store. When one passes on.

Hacker:
[horrified] Passes on!?

Sir Humphrey:
To pastures new, perhaps greener, and places oneself finally in the service of one who is greater than any of us.

Hacker:
Humphrey... I'm so sorry.

Sir Humphrey:
Oh, thank you, Minister.

Hacker:
Does Lady Appleby know?

Sir Humphrey:
Well, she's suspected it for some time, apparently.

Hacker:
When did they tell you?

Sir Humphrey:
This afternoon.

Hacker:
How long did they give you?

Sir Humphrey:
Oh, just a few weeks...

Hacker:
[horrified] A few weeks!?

Sir Humphrey:
Well, it'll give me enough time to sort everything out.

Hacker:
[his eyes filling with tears] Oh Humphrey, you're so terribly brave.

Sir Humphrey:
Well, one is a little anxious of course. One is always rather wary of the unknown, but I have faith somehow I'll muddle through.

[Hacker takes his handkerchief out of his pocket and begins to cry into it]

Sir Humphrey:
Minister, what is the matter?

Hacker:
I am sorry, Humphrey. Just, well we had our ups and downs.

Sir Humphrey:
Oh Minister, do not take on so. We will still be seeing one another regularly. Yes, once a week at least.

[Hacker looks up, aghast]

Hacker:
What??

Sir Humphrey:
I have not told you where I am going yet. I have been appointed Secretary to the Cabinet.

Hacker:
Secretary to the Cabinet?

Sir Humphrey:
What did you think I meant?

Hacker:
I thought, I..., I....

Sir Humphrey:
How are things at the Campaign for Freedom of Information?

Sir Arnold:
I'm sorry, I can't talk about it.

[Hacker, Humphrey and Chief Whip Jeffery are talking about Hacker's campaign on Prime Ministership ]

Hacker:
But supposing somebody would say "Does that mean you refuse to stand?" You know how these media people try to trap you.

Sir Humphrey:
Well, Minister, it's not my place, but on previous occasions, a generally acceptable answer has been "While one does not seek the office, one has pledged oneself to the service of one's country. And if one's friends were to persuade one that that was the best way one could serve, one might reluctantly have to accept the responsibility, whatever one's own private wishes might be."

Hacker:
[taking notes] "...private wishes might be." yes, I think I've got that.

[Jim Hacker and Maurice, the EEC Commissioner, are having a meeting to discuss the EEC plans to name British sausages 'emulsified high fat offal tubes':
]

Hacker:
One of your officials pays farmers to produce surplus food, while on the same floor, the next office is paying them to destroy the surpluses.

Maurice:
That is not true!

Hacker:
No?

Maurice:
He is not in the next office, not even on the same floor!