Earn Your Honors | Yes, Minister | BBC 

Civil Servant 1: "Something should be done about this!" Civil Servant 2: "Agreed. So who's the poor bastard that takes the lead?" **crickets chirping**

Yes, many years ago I worked in the public service. One of the key reasons for inaction was that whatever it was hadn't been done before.

Jep, totally agree

@@punkat13 AND---the actors who spoke the script so perfectly. What a dream team. sadly now all dead. we will not see their like again.

And the actors..

George D Lambert Again, go to Parliament. There you’ll find many actors putting on new episodes.

Absolutely

I assume by “highway” you mean The King’s Highway?

[you mean no!]

@TheRenaissanceman65 Not really. Without the Civil Service the government is toothless. They don't work for the government, and they're the ones who actually make sure people are notified of meetings, and have the correct paperwork etc. Bureaucrats have a lot of power.

​@TheRenaissanceman65 The Civil Service works for the Crown, not for the government.

your discussion here is just lovely! from Hong Kong, a former British colony and suppose a standing bureaucratic government

@@John_Smith. enter the digital era. 😌👌🏻

+Szaam that's the conclusion he always reaches :D

A sophist.

Just like any conservative. Proportional representation? Conservatives: AGAINST TRADITION!!!!!!!! WILL NOT WOrk

Szaam The reason that voting systems don't change isn't because of conservative politics. It's because whoever gets in power through the system would want to have it remain as it is since they're currently winning.

You've got it backwards. Conservatives want to keep the status quo, and are against anything constructive.

Topman then I guess!

I am sure you earned all of them.

Reminds me of a Monty Python sketch

Malcolm Abram DSc, MPhil, DipTh, GBE, UFO, BBC, GCSE, AFSE, DPhil, KBE, GBE, TNT, NG, BT, UKIC, MBP, SMB, SAS, CAE, OAE, PO, PhM, DVLA, BTECH and bicycles repaired by appointment. {For reasons unknown your comment reminded me that there was a shop in a village near Bournemouth in the 1960s which was a fishmonger and bicycle repairer.)

Still not as good as the Rt Hon. Jim Hacker, MP, Dlaw (Oxon.). He got a Doctor of Law from Oxford without even needing to read it.

Yes. Fantastic writing and acting. I watched the series back in the 80s, as a teenager. Now I'm watching it on dvd with my 15 year old son who loves it as well.

Well, 30k being a high salary dates it a bit.

@@teh-maxh 'Yes, Minister' ran from 1980 to 1984

@@teh-maxh Money was probably worth more back then, though.

???

Many of the story ideas were inspired by anecdotes told to the creators by current and former politicians. In fact, some story ideas were rejected as being too unbelievable despite being perfectly true.

As it was intended.

Yes. I was part of an advisory committee that proposed several relatively small projects for the local health services executives to consider. Over ten years after we recommended it the least expensive one is still not completely finished. To be fair it is mostly finished but there are many little details that were either overlooked or never got funded. The largest one should have had long-term funding but only received operating funds for one year, and even then only becasue a wealthy individual donated $1M to get it built. Even then the executives funded it by redirecting funding from other programs, something we had advised against. We had to fight to keep the program ongoing after that. I resigned becasue I couldn't take the frustration anymore. The most frustrating part was the never-ending changes to the leadership positions, resulting in a never-ending change in what the priorities were. For all our hard work, all we could do is hope and pray that someone at the top would read our advice and take it seriously.

rumor is that new Ministers are STRONGLY encuraged to watch this show and its sequil and take notes durring (and that fact that that rummor made it to the states even before the internet was a thing says a lot)

Remember in 1980 parliament was not televised, and so MPs didn't care about public image in the Commons chamber. Radio broadcasts had only started in 1978. MPs were not seen on TV often compared to now, where we have a 24 hour station devoted to parliament, so trust was a bit more available.

@@johnking5174 It had also been only 30 some years since the end of the war. Many brits still had the wartime image of Churchill in their mind. It had only been about 20 years since the perspective on WW1 had shifted to that of a useless slaughter. You add the ever present fear of the soviets and the need for some perceived unity in society.

Also goes to show how little has changed in the methods and methodologies of the political structures,

Politics is a shitshow since men decided to raise walls and taxes.

It's shocking how contemporary all of this is! I only started watching clips of this show YESTERDAY!

@MusicManMaurice The line Sir Humphrey said with smile and surprise in his face, "an i-d-ea minister! "

@TheRenaissanceman65 Controversial will lose you votes, courageous will lose you the election.

then there was none--so sad.

All of the three men in this video are dead...

RIP all, thanks for the memories and continuing to give us so much pleasure with your superb performances.

I think in the episode where Humphry talked about parasites "off thw record", it was mentioned that he earned 70k by that point...

najhoant The order of Garter is only awarded to members of the Royal family and few other foreign Royal families. It's not awarded to civil servants on a regular basis only 24 maximum members at any time .. Only a few non royals like Churchill got it .

The appointment of the Knights and Ladies of the Garter is in The Queen's gift, without Prime Ministerial advice. At the moment, 8 "foreign" Royals, 10 British Royals and 23 "non-royals", the 24th place being vacant.

Flagfalls I heard you can now watch it on that new fangled RU-vid thing 😂

No, they do get the boot. The shareholders do not want to see their money wither away. If there's one thing shareholders care about, it's money.

Sorry but most CEO positions could wreck the company and then they would get the golden parachute only hedge fund companies try to get rid of bad management.

@@GerackSerack They might get the boot, but after they screwed up, not before. Then they get Millions so they go away and a few months later they have a nice position in another company.

This was broadcast at a time when a large part of industry was in public ownership. Thats how they were got rid of. Ive neve heard of a shareholders meting ever voting out any board members. Especially not in banking!

@@HDreamer why would someone get the boot for... Not screwing up?

Posh rap 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 best description I've ever heard😂😂😂

Same here

Permanence is power, Humphrey was always there, ministers came and went, the permanent secretary remains. That is why he got more money than the minister. Still happens today.

There's a good reason for that. Institutional memory is important to any system and especially to government. Keeping the people around who built the machine and know how it works is critical if the machine ever breaks down, and that counts for political machines as well as mechanical ones. That much cheaper young hotshot you could replace the old tried-and-trues with will have to reverse engineer everything the old fella already knows how to do, resulting in confusion and inefficiencies that could have been avoided by simply spending a little more money. That's why generational transitions should never be handled lightly and should never be undertaken at all unless an organization is prepared to undergo a full overhaul.

how do you know?

@@MrDaiseymay look at the video title and the uploader

Ah! Thank God, someone noticed that.

It's to get more views because nobody gives a shit how Brits spell.

@@Camcolito Well, the US is litterally the only country that uses US-spelling.

+synth on a plinth Series 2 episode 2 I think

Thanks very much. I purchased it on DVD a couple of months ago. It's not the only time Humphrey gets his arse handed to him! Cheers

synthonaplinth The Key is Real arse giving 😎

@@davidboon5906 how true. Hum[y looks completely off of his rocker at the end of that episode.

Yet they spelt it right in the description which is strange. Worse than being wrong, they were inconsistent!

@@joshebarry Exactly!

@Pirabee its the thin end of the wedge. Where will it end?

@@jamesmccann5644 for the amsricans i think it ended with the abolition of the monarchy

You lot and your precious English language. I also hate it when my mother tongue is messed around with, but with English, I reckon it deserves it for being so ubiquitous.

I've no idea if that will make you fail the examination or pass with flying colors.

Did it work?

@@cynicalskeptic I got one of the highest marks in Essay paper of the Civil Services Examination. I had used those only in essay paper

Humphrey has been running this department for many years while ministers rotate offices and get voted out of office every couple of years. Each one coming in with their hairbrained notions and populist promises. Humphrey has seen them come and go and knows the next one always immediately tries to undo everything the last one achieved. Has your job ever brought in a new manager who knew nothing about the department and yet wanted to change everything?

The whole basis of the show is the civil service is the government. They run the country, and it is these stupid, idiotic MPs who come in every five years who try and change it.

£180,000 to £200,000 per year in 2020

@@johnking5174 in Australia, they are making 500-600k Au dollars

Did you see Bernard's face when Sir Humphrey was talking about the inter departmental committee?

Perhaps spell-check struck.

The 'u' has disappeared from a lot of words... neighbor... labor... color

@@Sunshineat3 Not from the English language it hasn't!!!! And how do you spell the number four, for?

This is the international commercial arm of the BBC and not the home BBC who uploaded this clip.

@@johnking5174 So?

L He wouldn't have got a chance. LKY would have seen through him and put him under ISA! But seriously, under LKY there wouldn't be a bumbling minister like Hacker. LKY's ministers were all good foot soldiers who executed his plans well and helped Singapore be what LKY wanted it to be.

I don't see why not. He also went to the London School of Economy. He must not have been able to afford a university education!

@@andrew7taylor Err, you mean LKY? The guy with a double starred 1st from Cambridge in Law?

@@MichaelGGarry I suspect it's a joke; the series itself (or at least Sir Humphrey) loves to dunk on Hacker for being educated at the LSE. (That said I grant you that Sir Humphrey would have (begrudgingly) respected the Cambridge degree. As an Oxford alum he probably feels obligated to look down on it, but considerably less than he'd look down on anything else.)

In 2017, Permanent Secretaries earn around £180,000 a year.

John King So they have gotten a net increase in their pay even after inflation.

That is pretty acceptable. Humphrey worked 30 years in the civil service to earn half of an average CEO's salary.

This was uploaded by the commercial arm of the BBC and not the home BBC.

Marry Christmas But those books were reintroduced to the Indians by guess who?

No one forced you to use them

i don't think you understand how colonization works.

You've had 70+ years to change things. Time to start taking responsibility for your own state of affairs. Also, who uses the term 'Britishers'?

@@anthonycunningham8116 We take responsibility of our own affairs now. These few youtube morons from india may make you think otherwise who still have colonised mindset. Boris Johnson rushes to congratulate modi on his re-election. ICJ has our judge instead of Brits', we threat to leave commonwealth if things are not done our way,and british govt has no choice but to accept it. Pax Britannica is over and you must come at terms with it.

Published salary figures show that a Permanent Secretary (Humphrey's job) today gets roughly £170,000 - £180,000, though it varies between departments and some get a bit less or a bit more. The Cabinet Secretary (head of the Civil Service, the job Humphrey is promoted to in Yes Prime Minister) gets just over £200,000. £200,000 is just under US$264,000 at time of writing this comment. Cabinet ministers today get about £150,000. The Prime Minister gets about £160,000.

@TheRenaissanceman65 Unelectable = the media don't like him so I won't vote for him because I'm a gullible dupe.

@TheRenaissanceman65 So what does it mean?

@TheRenaissanceman65 But if everyone who wants to vote for him because of the policies votes for him and didn't think about what other people are doing then that wouldn't be an issue.

This was filmed in 1981 just for clarification

You haven't taken inflation into account

+to g Very low? Find an inflation calculator and plug in £30k in 1980. You'll see it's worth over £115k today. Surely that's pretty decent money. And as Hacker points out here, at the end of his government service, a civil servant ends up with an indexed pension, and if a permanent secretary can probably count on corporate directorships or quango board memberships.

Lytrigian No, after inflation it is still only 60,000 pounds. Still very low. The minister got even less. The kickbacks upon retirement are later on. We are talking about current compensation.

to g Oh? I used the inflation calculator at the Bank of England website. How did you get your number? That it wasn't a particularly low salary is self-evident. It was the point of the joke -- Humphrey poormouthing himself -- and the audience laughed as expected.

£23,000 in 1981 when this was made, according to the Bank of England calculator in 2015 is £79,525. £30,000 in 2015 is £103,728. Just to clarify things.

I think most get the Order of the British Empire. The Order of St Michael and St George is I believe mainly FCO and the Royal Victorian Order is in the personal gift of the Monarch and is given for service to the Monarch.

What about The Lord Butler of Brockwell KG GCB CVO PC Former Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service

The knoight of the Garter is an honour in the gift of the sovereign and is not awarded on the recommendation of HMG. In the case of Lord Butler the award was not because he was a former civil servant.

pix046 Order of the Bath?