YES, PRIME MINISTER
A NEW COMEDY BY ANTONY JAY & JONATHAN LYNN
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By Bernard Donoughue (This articles is re-produced from "Yes, Prime Minister" Apollo Theatre programme)
I first met Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, the authors of Yes, Prime Minister, a short while after ceasing to work at 10 Downing Street. There I had been Senior Policy Advisor to 2 prime ministers, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, from 1974 - 1979. Between them they had served in cabinet for 23 years and as leaders had won four elections out of six.
From the centre of government I had observed cabinets composed of very experienced ministers working closely with dedicated civil servants in Rolls-Royce Whitehall administration. The process of decision-making was supremely efficient, with the classic system of cabinet government at its heart. Yet the results were deeply disappointing. Economic growth stagnated, social divisions were deep, and the trade unions finally brought the country to a halt in the Winter of Discontent.
When Margaret Thatcher took charge and confronted many of these problems, she often battled against the civil service machine. At times she defeated it, almost shattering its old Whitehall culture. At others she was forced to capitulate to the Sir Humphreys of her day.
It was against this general political background, that Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn wrote their satirical portraits of British government and politics at work - and sometimes not working - in the public interest.
In Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby, they produced two of the most enduring portraits of 'Top People' in British public life. They described the basic tensions that exist between political ministers of the crown, who theoretically take all decisions in government, and the civil servants who in theory simply advise the ministers and then implement the decisions taken by their political masters. The authors exposed that in reality the situation in Whitehall is much more complex than the simple model of the official advising and the politician deciding.
The Prime Minister and cabinet ministers of course do have the constitutional authority to decide. But the civil servant advisor also has many subtle levers of real power. He has the backing of the huge repository of policy knowledge based on the Whitehall departments, which can be used as ammunition overcoming the arguments of a lone minister or Prime Minister. (Harold Wilson asked me to set up the Policy Unit in Number Ten especially to provide him the policy ammunition to counter the arguments of officials, and especially those of the Treasury.)
Officials also have the advantage of time and continuity. Sir Humphrey and private secretary Bernard will survive in office long after a minister departs or a Prime Minister's government falls. They can wait until time and circumstances are more favorable to their position, Fighting them is 'like swimming against a tide that is always coming in', Harold Wilson once said to me.
A Prime Minister may, to the public, appear supremely powerful. But he does not always feel that way. He does not have many troops supporting him against Sir Humphrey's mighty legions in Whitehall. He has only so much energy and so many working hours to cope with the multitude of problems, which fall daily on his desk.
These tensions between the political power and the bureaucratic power, dealing with serious policy issues, are at the heart of the dramatic scenarios which constituted the Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister series, and now this new play. When I started to watch the television programmes in the early 1980s, I realized how much they truly conveyed the life, which I had recently lived, enjoyed and suffered in Number Ten.
But of course there is much more here than political descriptions and analysis of life in Downing Street or Chequers. The authors lifted these portraits onto a high literary plane, full of wit and satire.
Jim is, on the surface, blundering, vain, self-serving and self-publishing - much of what the public fears they see in their politicians today. But he is not always a fool, being crafty and a more worthy opponent of Sir Humphrey than at first appears. His political exposure to public is what ultimately keeps his feet on the ground. Above all, he is touchingly human.
Sir Humphrey contains every virtue and vice whichI observed in the Whitehall civil service of that time: incredibly intelligent, efficient, purposeful, industrious, effortlessly managing the mighty machine; yet also arrogant, devious, deceitful, and never missing opportunity to advance the welfare of his profession. His dedication to his country's interest - and especially seeking to protect it against political party interest - is unquestioned, as also is his skill at combining that national interest with self-interest of himself and Whitehall.
The relationship between Jim and Sir Humphrey Jim is complex and subtle, each striving to master the other, yet so often achieving a mutually acceptable compromise, concluding without the humiliation (usually for Jim) which had seemed at first on the agenda.
Two decades after leaving Number Ten, I returned to Whitehall as a minister under Tony Blair. I was first struck by how Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister had educated the new generation of politicians I met in government. Time and again young ministers made it clear that they were not going to be Jim Hackers and had no intention of being hoodwinked and controlled by the current Sir Humphreys. They had special advisers to help them resist the famous Whitehall policy 'bounce'. They boasted of ignoring their departmental policy briefs.
I found it sad in a way. Because, although I and fellow advisers in the 1970s and 1980s criticized the controlling mechanisms of the then Sir Humphrey regimes, in fact I had always greatly respected the Whitehall of my time. That old Civil Service was staffed by people of the highest ability and integrity. Oxbridge's finest then headed for Whitehall, whereas today many of them follow the money to the City, to the media or into the law.
But to me an even more striking change on my return to the government battlefield, was to find that Sir Humphrey's Rolls-Royce machine was no longer running Whitehall as smoothly as earlier.
Prime Ministers Thatcher and Blair made huge structural changes to the working of our public administration, which created a new Whitehall. They sought to make it more 'efficient', more focused on 'delivery', basically less independent and more responsive to prime ministerial will or whim, which we see in the play. They also sought to make it function more like the private sector. Sir Humphrey's public service values have often been replaced by bonuses and the Whitehall culture by modern management-speak.
Cabinet government, which was the jewel in the crown of the British system of government, has been (temporarily, I nope) diminished. Then, Number Ten and its Cabinet Office was the small centre of power at the apex of a unified Whitehall. Jim and Humphrey sat there in a balance of power at the top. It is less simple now. Above all, the almost presidential power of the contemporary prime minister, supported by far more advisers, has shifted the balance of power in Jim's favor. Claire is giving Sir Humphrey a run for his money.
Many policy decisions are now taken not in cabinet, but often between the Prime Minister and a single nuiisfer or adviser, on the sofa at Number Ten. This is the notorious 'Sofa Government7, sometimes leaving the cabinet arid the Cabinet Secretary unaware of all that has been decided. Yet the fundamental themes of the television series, as of this play, remain unchanged and relevant today.
Those timeless themes concern the underlying power relationships at work in the centre of government: the tensions between the official and the political sides; between traditional conventions in Whitehall and practical political objectives; between conflicting public and personal and professional self interest - and the hypocrisies which play between them; and the fine line between comedy and tragedy that lies at the very top of public life.
The authors of this play analyze and present these issues through characters of timeless quality and through them we understand better how our national public life is conducted.
I first met Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, the authors of Yes, Prime Minister, a short while after ceasing to work at 10 Downing Street. There I had been Senior Policy Advisor to 2 prime ministers, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, from 1974 - 1979. Between them they had served in cabinet for 23 years and as leaders had won four elections out of six.
From the centre of government I had observed cabinets composed of very experienced ministers working closely with dedicated civil servants in Rolls-Royce Whitehall administration. The process of decision-making was supremely efficient, with the classic system of cabinet government at its heart. Yet the results were deeply disappointing. Economic growth stagnated, social divisions were deep, and the trade unions finally brought the country to a halt in the Winter of Discontent.
When Margaret Thatcher took charge and confronted many of these problems, she often battled against the civil service machine. At times she defeated it, almost shattering its old Whitehall culture. At others she was forced to capitulate to the Sir Humphreys of her day.
It was against this general political background, that Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn wrote their satirical portraits of British government and politics at work - and sometimes not working - in the public interest.
In Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby, they produced two of the most enduring portraits of 'Top People' in British public life. They described the basic tensions that exist between political ministers of the crown, who theoretically take all decisions in government, and the civil servants who in theory simply advise the ministers and then implement the decisions taken by their political masters. The authors exposed that in reality the situation in Whitehall is much more complex than the simple model of the official advising and the politician deciding.
The Prime Minister and cabinet ministers of course do have the constitutional authority to decide. But the civil servant advisor also has many subtle levers of real power. He has the backing of the huge repository of policy knowledge based on the Whitehall departments, which can be used as ammunition overcoming the arguments of a lone minister or Prime Minister. (Harold Wilson asked me to set up the Policy Unit in Number Ten especially to provide him the policy ammunition to counter the arguments of officials, and especially those of the Treasury.)
Officials also have the advantage of time and continuity. Sir Humphrey and private secretary Bernard will survive in office long after a minister departs or a Prime Minister's government falls. They can wait until time and circumstances are more favorable to their position, Fighting them is 'like swimming against a tide that is always coming in', Harold Wilson once said to me.
A Prime Minister may, to the public, appear supremely powerful. But he does not always feel that way. He does not have many troops supporting him against Sir Humphrey's mighty legions in Whitehall. He has only so much energy and so many working hours to cope with the multitude of problems, which fall daily on his desk.
These tensions between the political power and the bureaucratic power, dealing with serious policy issues, are at the heart of the dramatic scenarios which constituted the Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister series, and now this new play. When I started to watch the television programmes in the early 1980s, I realized how much they truly conveyed the life, which I had recently lived, enjoyed and suffered in Number Ten.
But of course there is much more here than political descriptions and analysis of life in Downing Street or Chequers. The authors lifted these portraits onto a high literary plane, full of wit and satire.
Jim is, on the surface, blundering, vain, self-serving and self-publishing - much of what the public fears they see in their politicians today. But he is not always a fool, being crafty and a more worthy opponent of Sir Humphrey than at first appears. His political exposure to public is what ultimately keeps his feet on the ground. Above all, he is touchingly human.
Sir Humphrey contains every virtue and vice whichI observed in the Whitehall civil service of that time: incredibly intelligent, efficient, purposeful, industrious, effortlessly managing the mighty machine; yet also arrogant, devious, deceitful, and never missing opportunity to advance the welfare of his profession. His dedication to his country's interest - and especially seeking to protect it against political party interest - is unquestioned, as also is his skill at combining that national interest with self-interest of himself and Whitehall.
The relationship between Jim and Sir Humphrey Jim is complex and subtle, each striving to master the other, yet so often achieving a mutually acceptable compromise, concluding without the humiliation (usually for Jim) which had seemed at first on the agenda.
Two decades after leaving Number Ten, I returned to Whitehall as a minister under Tony Blair. I was first struck by how Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister had educated the new generation of politicians I met in government. Time and again young ministers made it clear that they were not going to be Jim Hackers and had no intention of being hoodwinked and controlled by the current Sir Humphreys. They had special advisers to help them resist the famous Whitehall policy 'bounce'. They boasted of ignoring their departmental policy briefs.
I found it sad in a way. Because, although I and fellow advisers in the 1970s and 1980s criticized the controlling mechanisms of the then Sir Humphrey regimes, in fact I had always greatly respected the Whitehall of my time. That old Civil Service was staffed by people of the highest ability and integrity. Oxbridge's finest then headed for Whitehall, whereas today many of them follow the money to the City, to the media or into the law.
But to me an even more striking change on my return to the government battlefield, was to find that Sir Humphrey's Rolls-Royce machine was no longer running Whitehall as smoothly as earlier.
Prime Ministers Thatcher and Blair made huge structural changes to the working of our public administration, which created a new Whitehall. They sought to make it more 'efficient', more focused on 'delivery', basically less independent and more responsive to prime ministerial will or whim, which we see in the play. They also sought to make it function more like the private sector. Sir Humphrey's public service values have often been replaced by bonuses and the Whitehall culture by modern management-speak.
Cabinet government, which was the jewel in the crown of the British system of government, has been (temporarily, I nope) diminished. Then, Number Ten and its Cabinet Office was the small centre of power at the apex of a unified Whitehall. Jim and Humphrey sat there in a balance of power at the top. It is less simple now. Above all, the almost presidential power of the contemporary prime minister, supported by far more advisers, has shifted the balance of power in Jim's favor. Claire is giving Sir Humphrey a run for his money.
Many policy decisions are now taken not in cabinet, but often between the Prime Minister and a single nuiisfer or adviser, on the sofa at Number Ten. This is the notorious 'Sofa Government7, sometimes leaving the cabinet arid the Cabinet Secretary unaware of all that has been decided. Yet the fundamental themes of the television series, as of this play, remain unchanged and relevant today.
Those timeless themes concern the underlying power relationships at work in the centre of government: the tensions between the official and the political sides; between traditional conventions in Whitehall and practical political objectives; between conflicting public and personal and professional self interest - and the hypocrisies which play between them; and the fine line between comedy and tragedy that lies at the very top of public life.
The authors of this play analyze and present these issues through characters of timeless quality and through them we understand better how our national public life is conducted.