Yes, Minister

Yes, Minister and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister are British television shows that were broadcast between 1980 and 1988. All episodes were written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. The principal cast is as follows:

Yes, Minister

Series One (1980)

Episode One: Open Government

Jim Hacker: I'd like a new chair. I hate swivel chairs.
Bernard Woolley: It used to be said there were two kinds of chairs to go with two kinds of Minister: one sort folds up instantly; the other sort goes round and round in circles.
Hacker: Who else is in this department?
Sir Humphrey: Well briefly, sir, I am the Permanent Under Secretary of State, known as the Permanent Secretary. Woolley here is your Principal Private Secretary. I too have a Principal Private Secretary and he is the Principal Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary. Directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, 87 Under Secretaries and 219 Assistant Secretaries. Directly responsible to the Principal Private Secretaries are plain Private Secretaries, and the Prime Minister will be appointing two Parliamentary Under-Secretaries and you will be appointing your own Parliamentary Private Secretary.
Hacker: Can they all type?
Sir Humphrey: None of us can type. Mrs Mackay types: she's the secretary.
Minister: Pity, we could have opened an agency.
Sir Humphrey: Very droll, Minister.
Hacker: I suppose they all say that, do they?
Sir Humphrey: Certainly not Minister. Not quite all..."
Bernard: But surely the citizens of a democracy have a right to know.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: No. They have a right to be ignorant. Knowledge only means complicity in guilt; ignorance has a certain dignity.

Episode Two: The Official Visit

[There are two official replies to the Minister's correspondence.]
Jim Hacker: What's the difference?
Bernard: Well, "under consideration" means "we've lost the file"; "under active consideration" means "we're trying to find it".
[The President of Buranda plans a speech urging the Scots and Irish to fight against "English colonialism".]
Jim Hacker: Humphrey, do you think it is a good idea to issue a statement?
Sir Humphrey: Well, Minister, in practical terms we have the usual six options:
  • One: do nothing.
  • Two: issue a statement deploring the speech.
  • Three: lodge an official protest.
  • Four: cut off aid.
  • Five: break off diplomatic relations.
  • And six: declare war.
Hacker: Which should be it?
Sir Humphrey: Well:
  • If we do nothing, that means we implicitly agree with the speech.
  • If we issue a statement, we'll just look foolish.
  • If we lodge a protest, it'll be ignored.
  • We can't cut off aid, because we don't give them any.
  • If we break off diplomatic relations, then we can't negotiate the oil rig contracts.
  • And if we declare war, it might just look as though we were over-reacting!

Episode Three: The Economy Drive

[Frank Weisel is quoting an article in the Express about the fact that Inland Revenue has more employees than the Royal Navy.]
Frank Weisel: "Perhaps the government thinks that a tax is the best form of defence."
Hacker: How many people do we have in this department?
Sir Humphrey: Ummm... well, we're very small...
Hacker: Two, maybe three thousand?
Sir Humphrey: About twenty three thousand to be precise.
Hacker: TWENTY THREE THOUSAND! In the department of administrative affairs, twenty three thousand! We need to do a time-and-motion study to see who we can get rid of.
Sir Humphrey: We had one of those last year.
Hacker: And what were the results?
Sir Humphrey: It transpired that we needed another five hundred people.
[There is a government building with a reinforced concrete basement in case of a nuclear war.]
Sir Humphrey: There has to be somewhere to carry on government, even if everything else stops.
Hacker: Why?
Sir Humphrey: Well, government doesn't stop just because the whole country's been destroyed! I mean, annihilation’s bad enough without anarchy to make things even worse!
Hacker: You mean you'd have a lot of rebellious cinders.

Episode Four: Big Brother

The Minister is already double-booked when his wife reminds him of another prior engagement.]
Jim Hacker: [on the phone] Bernard? Yes, it's me. Look, I'm going to have to cancel tomorrow. Swansea and Newcastle. Well, you see, it's my wife's wedding anniversary tomorrow.
Annie: It's yours, too!
Hacker: And mine, too, actually. Yes, it is...What do you mean, "coincidence"? Don't be silly, Bernard!
[It is 2 a.m, and Hacker has just made a phone call to a sleepy Sir Humphrey.]
Hacker: [hangs up] Oh, damn! I meant to tell him to come and see me about it before Cabinet.
Annie: Don't ring him now!
Hacker: No, perhaps you're right. It is a bit late.
Annie: Give him another ten minutes.

Episode Five: The Writing on the Wall

Sir Humphrey: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it's worked so well?
Hacker: That's all ancient history, surely?
Sir Humphrey: Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing [the EEC] up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it's just like old times.
Hacker: But surely we're all committed to the European ideal?
Sir Humphrey: [chuckles] Really, Minister.
Hacker: If not, why are we pushing for an increase in the membership?
Sir Humphrey: Well, for the same reason. It's just like the United Nations, in fact; the more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up, the more futile and impotent it becomes.
Hacker: What appalling cynicism.
Sir Humphrey: Yes... We call it diplomacy, Minister.
[The Foreign Secretary explains the Napoleon prize.]
Bill: Yes, it's a NATO award given once every five years: gold medal, big ceremony in Brussels, £100 000. The PM's the front runner this time. It's for the statesman who's made the biggest contribution to European unity.
Sir Humphrey: Since Napoleon, that is, if you don't count Hitler.

Episode Six: The Right to Know

Hacker: Humphrey, do you see it as part of your job to help ministers make fools of themselves?
Sir Humphrey: Well, I never met one that needed any help.
[How to guide ministers to making the right decisions]
Sir Humphrey: If you want to be really sure that the Minister doesn't accept it, you must say the decision is "courageous".
Bernard: And that's worse than "controversial"?
Sir Humphrey: Oh, yes! "Controversial" only means "this will lose you votes"; "courageous" means "this will lose you the election".

Episode Seven: Jobs for the Boys

Sir Humphrey: Bernard, Ministers should never know more than they need to know. Then they can't tell anyone. Like secret agents; they could be captured and tortured.
Bernard: [shocked] You mean by terrorists?
Sir Humphrey: [seriously] By the BBC, Bernard.

Series Two (1981)

Episode One: The Compassionate Society

Hacker: The National Health Service, Humphrey, is an advanced case of galloping bureaucracy!
Sir Humphrey: Oh, certainly not galloping. A gentle canter at the most.
[Sir Humphrey agrees with the union leader that industrial action at St Edward's Hospital would also benefit civil servants.]
Brian Baker: What about the Minister?
Sir Humphrey: The Minister doesn't know his Acas from his NALGO.

Episode Two: Doing the Honours

[Bernard explains to the Minister the honours available to senior Civil Servants.]
Hacker: Well, what has Sir Arnold to fear, anyway? He's got all the honours he could want, surely?
Bernard: Well, naturally he has his G.
Hacker: G?
Bernard: Yes; you get your G after your K.
Hacker: You speak in riddles, Bernard.
Bernard: Well, take the Foreign Office. First you get the CMG, then the KCMG, then the GCMG; the Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, Knight Commander of St Michael and St George, Knight Grand Cross of St Michael and St George. Of course, in the Service, CMG stands for "Call Me God," and KCMG for "Kindly Call Me God."
Hacker: [chuckles] What does GCMG stand for?
Bernard: "God Calls Me God."
[The Master of Bailey College learns why the honourary doctorate of law should not go to a judge.]
Hacker: If judges had to put up with some of my Cabinet colleagues, they'd bring capital punishment back tomorrow! Bloody good job, too!
Sir Humphrey: [tries to interrupt] Well, exactly, Minister...
Hacker: And I'll tell you another thing: I can't send him [points at Sir Humphrey] to prison. Can't send him to prison! Now, if I were a judge, I could whiz old Humpy off to The Scrubs in no time. Feet wouldn't touch. Clang, bang, see you in three years' time! One third remission for good conduct. But I can't do that! I have to listen to him! Oh, God! On and on and on! Some of his sentences are longer than Judge Jeffreys'!

Episode Three: The Death List

Hacker: Ask Walter Fowler of The Express to meet me in the House tonight for a drink. Annie's bar.
Bernard: What for, Minister?
Hacker: First law of political indiscretion: always have a drink before you leak.
[Bernard wheels in a petition from the archives against surveillance, containing 24 million signatures.]
Bernard: Shall I file it?
Hacker: Shall you file it? Shred it!
Bernard: Shred it?
Hacker: No one must ever be able to find it again!
Bernard: In that case, Minister, I think it's best I file it.

Episode Four: The Greasy Pole

[No one at the meeting seems to know anything about chemistry.]
Joan Littler: What does "inert" mean?
Sir Humphrey: Well it means it's not…ert.
Bernard: [to himself] Wouldn't ert a fly.
Sir Humphrey: Minister, a minister can do what he likes!
Hacker: It's the peoples' will. I am their leader; I must follow them.

Episode Five: The Devil You Know

Hacker: Europe is a community of nations, dedicated towards one goal.
Sir Humphrey: Oh, ha ha ha.
Hacker: May we share the joke, Humphrey?
Sir Humphrey: Oh Minister, let's look at this objectively. It is a game played for national interests, and always was. Why do you suppose we went into it?
Hacker: To strengthen the brotherhood of free Western nations.
Sir Humphrey: Oh really. We went in to screw the French by splitting them off from the Germans.
Hacker: So why did the French go into it, then?
Sir Humphrey: Well, to protect their inefficient farmers from commercial competition.
Hacker: That certainly doesn't apply to the Germans.
Sir Humphrey: No, no. They went in to cleanse themselves of genocide and apply for readmission to the human race.
Hacker: I never heard such appalling cynicism! At least the small nations didn't go into it for selfish reasons.
Sir Humphrey: Oh really? Luxembourg is in it for the perks; the capital of the EEC, all that foreign money pouring in.
Hacker: Very sensible central location.
Sir Humphrey: With the administration in Brussels and the Parliament in Strasbourg? Minister, it's like having the House of Commons in Swindon and the Civil Service in Kettering!
[Sir Humphrey claims he would be deeply sorry to see the Minister leave the DAA.]
Hacker: Yes, I suppose we have got rather fond of one another. In a way.
Sir Humphrey: [laughs] In a way, yes!
Hacker: [jokingly] Like a terrorist and his hostage!
Bernard: Which one of you is the terrorist?
Hacker & Sir Humphrey: [each points at the other] He is.

Episode Six: The Quality of Life

Sir Humphrey: Didn't you read the Financial Times this morning?
Sir Desmond Glazebrook: Never do.
Sir Humphrey: Well, you're a banker. Surely you read the Financial Times?
Sir Desmond: Can't understand it. Full of economic theory.
Sir Humphrey: Why do you buy it?
Sir Desmond: Oh, you know, it's part of the uniform.

Episode Seven: A Question of Loyalty

[Standard excuses when faced with serious allegations]
Sir Humphrey: There's the excuse we used for the Munich Agreement: it occurred before certain important facts were known and couldn't happen again.
Hacker: What important facts?
Sir Humphrey: Well, that Hitler wanted to conquer Europe.
Hacker: I thought everybody knew that.
Sir Humphrey: Not the Foreign Office.
[Why has the Minister been invited to Number 10?]
Sir Humphrey: Perhaps it is just for a drink, Minister.
Hacker: Don't be silly, Humphrey. They don't ask you to Number 10 for a drink just because they think you're thirsty!

Series Three (1982)

Episode One: Equal Opportunities

[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".
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!

Episode Two: The Challenge

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 Appleby: [talking about nuclear fallout shelters] Well, you have the weapons; you must have the shelters.
James Hacker: I sometimes wonder why we need the weapons.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister! You're not a unilateralist?
James Hacker: I sometimes wonder, you know.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, then, you must resign from the government!
James 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 Appleby: Russians? Who's talking about the Russians?
James Hacker: Well, the independent deterrent.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: It's to protect us against the French!
James Hacker: The French?! but they're our allies!
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, they might be now; but they were our mortal enemies for centuries, and old leopards don't change their spots.

Episode Three: The Skeleton in the Cupboard

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.
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.

Episode Four: The Moral Dimension

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.

Episode Five: The Bed of Nails

[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.

Episode Six: The Whisky Priest

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.
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.

Episode Seven: The Middle-Class Rip-Off

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?

Christmas Special (1984): Party Games

Sir Humphrey: How are things at the Campaign for the Freedom of Information, by the way?
Sir Arnold: Sorry, I can't talk about that.
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 you had a chance to glance at their MI5 files yet?
Sir Humphrey: No.
Sir Arnold: You should always send for Cabinet Ministers' MI5 files, if you enjoy a good laugh.
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.

Yes, Prime Minister

Series One (1986)

Episode One: The Grand Design

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.
Sir Humphrey: With Trident we could obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe.
Jim Hacker: I don't want to obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe.
Sir Humphrey: It's a deterrent.
Jim Hacker: It's a bluff. I probably wouldn't use it.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, but they don't know that you probably wouldn't.
Jim Hacker: They probably do.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, they probably know that you probably wouldn't. But they can't certainly know.
Jim 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.

Episode Two: The Ministerial Broadcast

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?

Episode Three: The Smoke Screen

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...
Humphrey: Statistics? You can prove anything with statistics.
Hacker: Even the truth.
Humphrey: Yes... No!

Episode Four: The Key

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!
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 on the ingress and egress of senior members of the hierarchy and will, in all probability, should the current deplorable innovation be perpetuated, precipitate a progressive constriction of the channels of communication, culminating 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?

Episode Five: A Real Partnership

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

Episode Six: A Victory for Democracy

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!
Hacker: Who knows Foreign Office secrets, apart from the Foreign Office?
Bernard: Oh, that's easy: only the Kremlin.

Episode Seven: The Bishop's Gambit

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.

Episode Eight: One of Us

[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.

Series Two (1987-88)

Episode One: Man Overboard

[Sir Humphrey wishes Bernard to relay a confidential discussion between the Prime Minister and Chief Whip.]
Sir Humphrey: Bernard, the matter at issue is the defence of the realm and the stability of the government.
Bernard: But you only need to know things on a need-to-know basis.
Sir Humphrey: I need to know everything! How else can I judge whether or not I need to know it?
Bernard: That's another of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I give confidential press briefings; you leak; he's being charged under section 2A of the Official Secrets Act.

Episode Two: Official Secrets

[Lunch with a newspaper editor]
Hacker: So I want you to retract that suppression story.
Derek Burnham: I don't see how I can.
Hacker: Well, of course you can! You're the editor, aren't you?
Burnham: Yes, but an editor isn't like a general commanding an army; he's just the ringmaster of a circus. I mean I can book the acts, but I can't tell the acrobats which way to jump!
Sir Humphrey: Gratitude is merely a lively expectation of favours to come.

Episode Three: A Diplomatic Incident

Hacker: Don't we ever get our own way with the French?
Sir Humphrey: Well, sometimes.
Hacker: When was the last time?
Sir Humphrey: Battle of Waterloo, 1815.

Episode Four: A Conflict of Interest

Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers:
  • The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country;
  • The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country;
  • The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country;
  • The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country;
  • The Financial Times is read by people who own the country;
  • The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country;
  • And The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?
Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

Episode Five: Power to the People

Sir Humphrey: Bernard, if the right people don’t have power, do you know what happens? The wrong people get it: politicians, councillors, ordinary voters!
Bernard: But aren’t they supposed to, in a democracy?
Sir Humphrey: This is a British democracy, Bernard!

Episode Six: The Patron of the Arts

Episode Seven: The National Education Service

Episode Eight: The Tangled Web

[The Prime Minister believes that he gave a clear, simple, straightforward and honest answer.]
Sir Humphrey: Unfortunately, although the answer was indeed clear, simple, and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement, inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated and the facts, insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated, is such as to cause epistemological problems, of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear.
Hacker: Epistemological — what are you talking about?
Sir Humphrey: You told a lie.
Hacker: A lie?
Sir Humphrey: A lie.
Hacker: What do you mean, a lie?
Sir Humphrey: I mean you…lied. Yes, I know this is a difficult concept to get across to a politician. You…ah yes, you did not tell the truth.
Hacker: You mean we are bugging Hugh Halifax's telephones?
Sir Humphrey: We were.
Hacker: We were? When did we stop?
Sir Humphrey: [checks his watch] Seventeen minutes ago.
Bernard: The fact that you needed to know was not known at the time that the now known need to know was known, and therefore those that needed to advise and inform the Home Secretary perhaps felt that the information that he needed as to whether to inform the highest authority of the known information was not yet known, and therefore there was no authority for the authority to be informed because the need to know was not, at that time, known or needed.

See also

External links
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