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.