Paul Eddington: A Life Well Lived 1/3

Yes Minister - S02E03 The Death List

Quotes from Yes Minister episode "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.

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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...

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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.

Quotes from Yes Minister episode "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 foughtwith 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.

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[The Foreign Secretary explains the Napoleon prize.]

Martin: 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.