I'm only half joking when I say that watching every episode of these series (38 in all) will give you a better understanding of government than a four-year degree in political science from any of our undergraduate institutions. This is so because, even though the relationship between politicians and career civil servants, which is the main dynamic driving the plot lines, is different in the United Kingdom and the United States, there are certain tendencies common to people everywhere that manifest themselves in unique ways once those people acquire political power.
YM/YPM follows the ministerial career of the Rt. Hon. James Hacker, MP, a moderate, well-meaning politician of indeterminate party who finds himself appointed to a cabinet ministry when his party regains the majority after years in the political wilderness. He is appointed to helm the fictitious Ministry of Administrative Affairs. This rather superfluous-sounding department with its amorphous brief is a plot device that allows the writers to involve the main characters in stories arising out of the whole range of government activity. Whether the issue of the day is foreign relations, trade, city planning, government secrecy and surveillance, transportation, the arts or sports, the Ministry of Administrative Affairs seems to have its hand in it.
As I said before, the stories in these series arise out of the relationship between the British Civil Service, consisting of non-partisan career bureaucrats, and ministers, Members of Parliament who are appointed by the Prime Minister to head the various cabinet departments. Although the minister is nominally in charge of the department, and in fact is held responsible for its actions, real day-to-day control is held by the Permanent Secretary, a senior civil servant. Because the Permanent Secretary has spent his career rising through the ranks in his department, his knowledge and expertise far exceed that of the minister. This puts the political leadership at a severe disadvantage if it wants to implement policies that are opposed by the permanent bureaucracy.
Hacker is an idealist who believes that government has great potential to improve the lives of its citizens if only it is led by honest well-meaning politicians. He is himself an honest, well-meaning politician so he enters his government post with high hopes for the future. He fancies himself an inspiring national leader, often adopting Churchillian language and cadence when making pronouncements. A former crusading journalist, he is well aware of the faults and failures of government but he is certain that he is the man to correct them. As his career progresses, Hacker will eventually attain the position of Prime Minister, not because the party recognizes his superior talents, but because the party and the civil service together conclude that he lacks the resolve and initiative to be a real threat to either of them.
Hacker is portrayed by the veteran actor Paul Eddington. Eddington has excellent comedic timing and is a master of facial expressions. Watch this clip to see Hacker's reaction upon learning that his predecessor has died, leaving some very embarrassing memoirs unwritten:
And to show that life imitates art, here is another world leader being careful to display an appropriate level of grief at the death of a colleague:
Hacker's main foil is Sir Humphrey Appleby, GCB,KBE, MVO, MA (Oxon), the epitome of a senior civil servant. Humphrey (played by Nigel Hawthorne) begins Yes Minister as the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Administrative Affairs. Shortly before Hacker ascends to the post of Prime Minister, Appelby himself is promoted to the position of Cabinet Secretary, the most senior civil servant in Britain. The relationship between the Cabinet Secretary and the Prime Minister in much the same as that between a permanent secretary and a cabinet minister. Humphrey is supremely competent and supremely arrogant. He believes that the civil service is responsible for the greatness of Britain and that he must protect the civil service from interference by amateurs (politicians). He is a master of bureaucratic maneuvering who knows that he cannot openly oppose his political overlords but must undo their plans through misdirection and subterfuge.
Humphrey's most obvious affectation is his tendency to express simple concepts in the most convoluted and confusing language possible. Watch this representative statement:
The third member of the cast is Bernard Woolley (Derek Fowlds), Hacker's Principal Private Secretary. Woolley is a man dealing with divided loyalties. As a private secretary, he is not primarily concerned with implementing government policy, his job is to assist Hacker personally, keeping his diary and handling his correspondence. His position demands loyalty to his minister but his future career prospects demand loyalty to his permanent secretary and to the civil service. Woolley's attempts to navigate this Scylla and Charybdis provide much of the entertainment in the series. Woolley is in some ways the most cynical of the three. He is young and inexperienced enough to retain some idealistic notions about government, yet he deliberately sets his idealism aside to protect his career. Nevertheless he will occasionally assist Hacker to defeat Appleby's schemes, provided he can do so with complete deniability.
YM/YPM avoids formulaic plots. Sometimes Hacker wins his battles with Appleby, sometimes he loses and sometimes he accepts that it is in his interest, although not necessarily Britain's, to adopt Appleby's position as his own. Through it all the viewer comes to realize that governments are composed of people and that people will always be subject to the temptation to put their own interests ahead of the public trust. Some will persist in the belief that all we need is to find the right people to put into power. These are the people who keep making the same mistake over and over again, expecting a different result. The really astute observer will come to appreciate the wisdom of America's founding fathers in limiting the power of government and keeping its functions as local as possible. Whatever conclusion you arrive at, you are guaranteed to have quite a few laughs along the way.
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