Jonathan Lynn - The Complete Yes Prime Minister

Sir Humphreys paternalist attitude may not have been wholly cynical. He apparently believed that more central direction was the answer to all the nations problems. It is possible that he viewed the main purpose of state education as a means of removing children from the undesirable influence of their semi-educated parents. And he doubtless felt that most parents regarded schools as somewhere that they could dump their children during working hours. In short, he truly believed that the man in Whitehall knew best. For at the root of this passionate dispute over education lay the fundamental tribal struggle between the Whitehall Man and Westminster Man.

It is not that Sir Humphrey was against giving the parents what was euphemistically known as a voice in the running of the school. Indeed, he was unconcerned about parent governors because, so long as the parents as a whole were unable to remove their children from a school with which they were unhappy, the parent governors could safely be ignored. If a child was prevented from attending school by a dissatisfied parent, the Attendance Officer was soon on hand to threaten the parent with an appearance in court.

In the end, it was the more affluent middle classes who benefited from the system, the same middle classes who won the lions share of all the benefits of the welfare state in not only education, but housing and medicine too. Inevitably benefits went to articulate people who could best advance their claims, who could move to the nicest residential areas with the best schools and doctors, who could claim mortgage tax relief, and who enjoyed subsidised art.

Sir Humphrey, however, clung to the only belief that he had left after thirty years in government: that if he had more control, he could make things better. Anything that was wrong with society was evidence, proof indeed, of not enough power. Sadly he remained unshakeably convinced right up until the very day of his death in St Dympnas Home for the Elderly Deranged.

[The last entry of the year in Sir Humphrey private diary records a meeting with Sir Arnold Robinson, his predecessor as Secretary of the Cabinet, at their old haunt: the Athenaeum Club Ed.]

Tuesday 18 December

Met Arnold for lunch at the Club. I told him of the truly appalling meeting with Hacker this morning.

Like me, he thought it was unthinkable. Once they start abolishing whole departments, the very foundations of civilisation crumble. Indeed hes right. The barbarians are at the gates. This is the return of the Dark Ages.

I asked him if anything so shocking had ever been suggested while he was at 70 Whitehall [the Cabinet Office Ed.]. Apparently not. Arnold had let them amalgamate Departments, of course, but thats quite a different matter: amalgamation means that you keep all the existing staff and put in an extra layer of co-ordinating management at the top.

But he agreed that, come hell or high water, I have to stop the liquidation of the DES. He asked me if Id tried discrediting the person who proposed it.

That is impossible in this case, of course. The Wainwright female is the culprit, and therefore Hackers passing it off as his own idea.

Arnold had a couple of other tired old ideas:

1. Discrediting the facts its based on.

Not possible. Its a political idea, so obviously facts dont come into it.

2. Massaging the figures.

There are no figures involved.

I asked him what he really thought. Shamefully he peered over the side of his leather wing armchair to check that he wasnt being overheard, and then he leaned forward and whispered an appalling admission: that in his opinion it was actually a good idea.

Id never even though of that: for a mad moment I wondered if we ought to experiment with it, play along with it for the sake of the nations children.

But this was not Arnolds intention and, seeing that I was wavering, he bolstered me up and gave me courage. Never mind about the nations children! What about our colleagues in the Department of Education?

I apologised for my lapse. Its just that Ive been under great strain.

The fact is that the only people who will like this plan are parents and the children. Everyone who counts will be against it, namely:

i) Teachers Unions

ii) Local Authorities

iii) The Educational Press

iv) The DES

We decided upon a temporary holding strategy:

1) The Unions can be counted on to disrupt the schools. And their leaders will go on television to say that it is the government who are causing the disruption.

2) The local authorities will threaten to turn the constituency parties against the government.

3) The DES will delay every stage of the process and leak anything and everything that embarrasses the government. Arnold will be able to help with that, at the Campaign for Freedom of Information.

4) The education press will print any damn fool story we feed them.

We relaxed and ordered a couple more brandies. There was one little problem: we hadnt decided what our argument would be. Arnold suggested that we say that this new proposal will destroy our educational system. But there was a problem: everyone knows that its destroyed already. So we decided that we will say [by which Sir Arnold meant that the Press will say Ed] that government interference has already destroyed the education system, and that this plan will make things even worse.

I was sceptical. I wondered if that would really do the trick. Arnold assured me that it always has in the past. Hes right, of course, but this time the political pressure is much stronger.

We had no answer. Arnold stressed that I must find a political weapon with which to fight this battle. It is undoubtedly in the national interest to do so, even though Id be in conflict with government policy.

Government policy, said Arnold thoughtfully, is almost always in conflict with the national interest. Our job is to see that the national interest triumph. Governments are always grateful in the end.

He may be right. But I have no political weapon in mind, and nor has he. And its my job. I must somehow prove myself worthy of the high office to which Ive been called.

[But luck was on Sir Humphreys side. A most unlikely event occurred that changed the course of history. When the Cabinet Secretary arrived at 70 Whitehall the following morning, with leaden step and a heavy heart and no strategy, Bernard Woolley was waiting anxiously to see him. Sir Bernard Woolley recalls [in conversation with the Editors] the momentous events of that morning, the turning point that never was Ed.]

I was waiting for Sir Humphrey in his oak-panelled office. He was late. The Prime Minister had sent me to find him.

Humphrey asked for the agenda -- which was all too simple. The Abolition of the DES.

He commented that it was going to be bloody! I agreed.

And on the way to the Cabinet Room I asked him for some advice on what I thought was an urgent but minor problem.

This was it: St Margarets School in Widnes, the enterprise school which the Prime Minister had visited at the beginning of the week, where theyd given him that stool, had been in trouble with the law.

It had just come to light that the wood being used in the carpentry shop was stolen. In fact, stolen from the government, from a YTS [Youth Training Scheme] workshop. It was stolen by the previous years pupils, who were working there.

Humphreys reaction astonished me. He stopped dead, in the middle of the long dark corridor, stared at me, and then smiled what I can only describe as an ecstatic smile. How shocking! he beamed. I gave him the file, which showed that the matter had been referred to the DES from the Department of Employment because the theft had come to light in a school. They didnt know whether to prosecute.

I apologised for bothering Sir Humphrey with such a minor matter. Little did I realise the significance of the report at that moment -- though only five minutes later it was clear that Id help drop an atom bomb on Hackers educational reforms.