"Politicians like to panic. They need activity; it’s their substitute for achievement.”
As the world and its politics cease to make sense—at least twice a day these days—I find myself occasionally burrowing into the sarcastic and insightful comforts of the British classic, Yes Minister. Created by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, the 22-episode series (and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister) can be streamed in India on the BBC Player section of Amazon Prime Video. Generations of Indians have grown up on this 1980s series about bureaucratic double-speak and institutional ineffectiveness, a series holding up a mirror to our own desi issues with power and powermongers.
I must here mention that my own first foray with screenwriting came decades ago when I sat at an NDTV desk, and helped in adapting Jay and Lynn’s magnificent scripts to an Indian context for the adaptation Ji Mantriji. The show starred Farooq Shaikh and Jayant Kripalani in the roles of Minister and Secretary, made so famous in the original by the beautifully bewildered Paul Eddington and the supremely supercilious Nigel Hawthorne. While episodes about knighthoods and honours proved specifically slippery to set in an Indian context, most other issues felt all too relatable. At that time, more than 2 decades after the original, it applied perfectly to our times of coalition governments and dodging-the-blame.
This week—given how the government is suggesting austerity measures for its citizens, including buying less gold, travelling less and relying more on public transport—I revisited the third Yes Minister episode, The Economy Drive. Here, the Minister Jim Hacker feels that the government is spending too much money and he has to start belt-tightening so that the public’s money isn’t wasted, a sentiment immediately rubbished by his Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby. “The public doesn’t know anything about wasting government money,” declares Sir Humphrey. “We’re the experts.”
The episode begins with the Minister discovering that more people serve in the department of Inland Revenue than in the Royal Navy. Hacker’s political adviser ladles on the scorn: “Perhaps the government feels a tax is the best form of defence.” What a line, and how true it still rings.
The episode becomes a tug-of-war battle between a Minister trying to axe unwanted jobs and clear government-owned buildings that aren’t being used, and his Permanent Secretary trying to stop him from stirring up trouble and actually implementing changes. When Hacker asks about a set of unused buildings, Sir Humphrey not only acknowledges that they are empty but claims that they are needed by British Intelligence. “Ladysmith Buildings is top secret,” he asserts. Hacker objects immediately: “How can a seven-storey building in Walthamstow be a secret?”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” says Sir Humphrey, a twinkle in his eye.
The Minister desperately wants to make the redundant, well, redundant. He can, you see, picture the heroic headlines already. Despite Sir Humphrey’s insistence that the civil service may only be overstaffed by one or two tea-ladies, Hacker makes his own enquiries and wants to affect change. This is where Sir Humphrey finally comes up with Operation Hairshirt, one calculated to show the Minister that an economy drive must begin at the very top—and that Hacker must lead by example by giving up all his luxuries.
“It does cause profound resentment if those at the top continue to enjoy the convenience and comforts they have withdrawn from those below them,” explains Sir Humphrey, and Hacker, picturing the front pages heralding his self-sacrifice, gives in to the idea.
Soon the Minister is taking the tube and missing his train home, leading his wife to conclude that he’s mad. “For 20 years as a backbencher you’ve complained that you’ve had no facilities and no help,” she complains. “This move,” Hacker explains warily, “would give me much greater power in the end.” Mrs Hacker is unimpressed. “And how will you travel when you’re Prime Minister? Hitchhike?”
By the end of the episode, the Minister is made to face several personal and professional hardships, including significant problems with the unions, and the press—who do initially give him some applause for trying to slim down the bowler-hatted bureaucracy—are all too delighted to laugh at his catastrophic failures. Despite Hacker’s earnest attempts at reducing the expenditure within the civil service, the only cutback Sir Humphrey could possibly allow would be the taxing of a tea-lady.
It’s immaculate television, though watching it today feels sobering. Four decades after the original, Yes Minister finally feels dated and unapplicable to our life and times. We may have, at long last, finally moved past the problems inherited from the British systems—and come into our own selfmade crises. Problems that aren’t imported but instead manufactured very much at home.
Therefore, even the once prescient Yes Minister feels too naïve for the times of today. Can you even imagine a minister being encouraged—or deterred—by what a newspaper headline might have to say about them? Can you possibly conceive of government officials tightening their own belts and cutting down on travel and fuel usage instead of telling the public to take it light?
Our roles have shifted. We can all feel a bit like the Minister in the way we’re being manipulated, and the only way we can all feel a bit like Sir Humphrey lies in the fact that we have to end up saying… Yes.
Streaming Tip Of The Week:
Armando Iannucci’s The Death Of Stalin — available to rent on YouTube — is one of the finest political satires for our times. In the film the dictator dies but his closest aides remain scared of him as they move forward with cover-ups and conspiracies. Hilarious.
Raja Sen is a critic, screenwriter and columnist. His first play, a murder mystery called The Simla Affair, recently opened in Delhi. He is currently writing a horror film.