@@Hositrugun The name escapes me, but it was an interview regarding one of the former Australian MPs criticizing then-exiting PM Julia Gillard in regards to how certain lines of legislation in the federal government were allowed to pass and run policies regarding the degree of criminality of how money and authority were so easy to change hands despite being, in the eyes of the typical man, theft, bribery and all-round illegal. This was in 2012.
No it’s because it’s based on thousands of years of legal presidents stacked on top of each to appease many different stakeholders. Of course every once in a while a great man comes along and makes a major adjustment or two as well.
The government is like a sausage. Everybody likes a good sausage with their breakfast, but most people prefer not to think too much about how sausages are made.
My professor in Public Administration specifically suggested we watch Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister as extracurricular activities, so we'd be ready for public service. Notably, he also thought that establishing law was always, in the end, a question of controlling the armed forces, and that 'pessimist' was just a negative way of phrasing 'knows what is really going on'.
As long as the great British sausage can remain free of the interference from Brussels and any attempt to make it conform to some "Euro-sausage" standards or be labeled as "high fat offal tubes".
I like it when Bernard is in his element. All his goofiness just vanishes. Plus watching him and Humphrey work together like a well-oiled machine is especially pleasing to my inner bureaucrat.
Your "inner bureaucrat"? Sounds very uncomfortable to me! Possibly fatal! Have you considered seeing a psychiatrist? Or a priest - I hear exorcism is back in fashion in the Catholic church.
+DieFlabbergast It's actually surprisingly easy to fall down the bureaucratic rabbit hole when you start doing something that needs to be formally organised and structured. The temptation is always there to foster an infinitely complex system and record every single tiny detail of the daily goings on of whichever kind of operation one is supervising/modernising/reorganising/etc. I myself took a dabble into quality management a while ago and caught myself nearly doing that on more than one occasion. It's easy to blame the bureaucrats, but if someone as disorganised and generally chaotic as myself ends up nearly going down the path of ridiculous bureaucracy where none is needed - imagine how easy it is for a normie to fall for it!
@TheRenaissanceman65 I think he might have said 'CE' as in Common Era. (As if a British statute could be BCE, but I suppose it enhances the officialese.)
@TheRenaissanceman65 I think that's added for comic effect. Statutory Instruments don't normally have letters at the end. If there's more than one they are usually referred to as "(No 2)" or "(No 3)" and soon.
38 years after this aired, the Rhodesia Solution being used so elegantly by Mi6... MI6 failed to make clear to the foreign secretary that a “high risk agent” operating overseas had probably engaged in “serious criminality” until it was pointed out by an independent regulator last year. The spy agency was asking the minister - either Dominic Raab or his predecessor, Jeremy Hunt - to renew authorisation of the agent’s activities despite the apparent criminality without being “expressly clear” as to what had happened. Six months previously the agent, likely to be an undercover informant, had been sent some “red lines” by MI6. The agent was told if they were breached, it would “result in the termination” of the informant’s relationship with the spy agency. But when renewal of the agent’s authorisation was sought from the foreign secretary, MI6 “did not make expressly clear” that the “‘red lines’ had probably been crossed” - until the ambiguity was noted by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Ipco). Many details are withheld from the account, which is highlighted in 2019 annual report of the Commissioner, and it is not clear if approval was ultimately granted by the minister. All the report said was that MI6 responded to the concern about its authorisation request “by updating” the Foreign Office. Spectacular
It was downgraded to a licence to hurt slightly until he retakes a training course. It could have been worse and reduced to a licence to tickle, the lowest grade of licence that is actually granted to all UK citizens automatically (read the fine print in a UK passport).
@@davesy6969 i can't decide whether bureaucrats should be hunted or protected. as sir humphreys said the civil service is about survival to the next century where politicians worry only about the next election. his other speech about serving 11 governments was simultaneously horrifying and hilarious.
"You excel yourself Bernard!" Yes you did. RIP Derek Fowlds. So sad all three are now no longer with us, but their wit and comic timing will keep us smiling for years to come.
More than years. This series has scarcely aged in relevance in over four decades. I predict we'll still be laughing and crying over it when this century draws to a close.
A smudged letter to the Acting PM written in very faint ink: "My attention has been drawn on a personal basis to information which suggests the possibility of certain irregularities under Section 1 of the Import, Export and Custom Powers Defense Act 1939C. Prima facie evidence suggests that there could be a case for further investigation to establish wether or not inquiries should be put in hand. Nevertheless, it should be stressed that available information is limited and relevant facts could be difficult to establish with any degree of certainty." James Hacker, Minister for the Department of Administrative Affairs.
Suuure, you're laughing, but as a law student in the UK I can inform you that the construction of that letter isn't at all dissimilar to actual British legal and political documents.
To make it plain and simple...these guys go to Oxford and Cambridge to learn more of the words in the English dictionary, to basically say simple things in words most never learned because most people didn't go to Oxford and Cambridge. So with this skill they make non-comprehensible documentation basically to "kick" someone's mind off the document if one attempts to read it, so to shield themselves from you looking into their dirty business. Personally in my opinion..if my teacher had Humphrey as a student she would give him very high marks on language but very low on literature. Why is that. Because of his very rich knowledge of English words, but literature is all about placing them in the most aesthetic perfect order to depict a meaning as clearly as possible. But as Jim said in this video., he always makes things as unclear as possible. Funny thing is he knows that, but the uneducated Jim can't tell the difference:P
Yes that's the point of Humphrey's long rambling statements. You can sort of follow what he's saying, but with deliberation his phrasing of the issues causes significant problems in the comprehension of these matters... in other words he's making sure you can't understand what he's talking about.
Derek Fowles ("Bernard") had the most difficult but important part to play, being required to sit and listen to Sir Humphrey and Hacker jousting for long periods before delivering the knock-out line. Sadly Derek Fowles passed away recently (January 2020) aged 82, the last survivor of this wonderful trio who made us laugh and wonder in equal parts at the machinations of British government in the '80s. "We shall never see their like again".
@@diamondaxe4133 Derek Fowlds was younger than the other two but lived to a greater age. Paul was 10 years older than Derek but died of cancer at the age of 68 in 1995. His declining health meant that he was almost always seated in the final two series of this show. Sir Nigel was 8 years older than Derek but died of a heart attack in 2001 at the age of 72.
I do believe we will. The times often make the comedy, and it certainly looks like Britain is headed for the darkest days of the seventies again, but with Johnson reprising the role of Thatcher.
I admired Nigel Hawthorne's ability to rattle off the long, meaningless speeches which so befuddled Hacker. It may be due to great editing but I always felt that his monologues were just as difficult to learn as anything Shakespeare wrote.
@@jonathanfraser321 They say he was accustomed to it because, as someone who had worked in the theatres, he was used to memorizing Shakespearean lines.
This is from near the end of the third season/serries of Yes Minister, he wasn't Prime Minister yet, just the Minister of Administrative Affairs. After this they made a 90 minute special called Party Games in which Humphrey manipulates things so Hacker can become PM, and the following seasons/serries were retitled to Yes Prime Minister.
@@jesseberg3271 oh, now I get this, he's to send a letter to 10 Downing Street and it's to arrive while one PM is leaving and the other is moving in! It can be assumed that the letter (from himself to himself) gets lost in the transition.
Except he didn’t know that the pm was stepping down until an emergency cabinet meeting the very same episode and the pm didn’t have plans of stepping down until then either ( his reason for stepping down is given in the episode as waiting long enough so that Roy the home minister didn’t get the job of the pm. Rob was fired in the episode for drunk driving). So they mention the acting pm as he would be the effective pm as the real pm goes abroad for some sort of conference.
I spent more than 20 years drafting letters for Ministers. Much of them contained medical and scientifc jargon. So it was easy to confuse a minister. This is of great assistance to civil servants as it helps confuse the public too, and let us get on with running the country.
@@sampuatisamuel9785 why would you think so? Ensuring basic public ignorance regarding gov't workings has been a foundational to governance for centuries.
@Spice Boy - It's true that Sir Humphrey often successfully manipulates Jim Hacker but have a look for an episode called "The Key" where he oversteps the mark and is put in his place. It's hilarious.
What I loved about Yes, Minister was the sheer joy and enjoyment you could feel that these 3 had acting together. They really had the most fantastic comedy timing together, absolutely superb😁😁😁😁
Sometimes a group of actors just has _that_ perfect chemistry. These three had chemistry, ample chemistry. Terrific actors, great timing and the x factor.
@TheRenaissanceman65 sometimes you wrire a comment as a video plays and as you press send the autoplayer has loaded up a new video and posts the comment on the wrong video.
ejcmoorhouse Maybe not the show itself, but certainly its reputation. She "requested" that the two leads of the show Hacker (Paul Eddington) and Humphrey (Nigel Hawthorne) do a small impromptu scene with her in front of an audience of mostly press. The whole thing was PR stunt, and a bad one at that. There are debates to this day over who wrote the script to that scene, but it has to be said to be one of the worst comedy scripts in history.
To Eleglas: I saw the sketch and thought it very funny. Then again, I am not prejudiced against her. I lived through the era before and during that of Margaret Thatcher and the miners' strike - the short working week, the power cuts, the shortages. Something had to be done to stop this, and she did it. It's fashionable to 'hate' Mrs. Thatcher, these days, but usually by people who have no idea what they are talking about, and cannot think for themselves.
After an appropriate normalization interval, considering all the points of reference, ex post facto sine qua non, with deliberate and measured progress not exceeding the capability of the machinery of state to manage with due influence and oversight.
My American landlord became a fan of this show while I was living there and loved the inner machinations. Despite the fact that US politics do the same thing but much more bluntly and without finesse, the subtlety of the tactics drew sharp attention to them.
I remember watching this on PBS as a kid. I loved the both shows. I never realized until an adult how realistic it was. These series should be mandatory for government classes.
Almost all the scenes were played in front of a live audience. They were afraid that the government would prevent the show from airing claiming it was 'boring' or 'too complicated' for the average British viewer to understand. By having a live audience they proved that the show was funny enough to air.
@Usuário Sarcástico Well, that might've been the excuse. The British Government is not fond of programs attempting to be clever at their expense, and does have the authority to cancel those that attempt such. It is for this reason, in fact, that footage from the Houses of Parliament cannot be shown on Last Week Tonight.
This show is remarkably well written. One of the best written shows of all time. So well written in fact, that it can cause some people to confuse fiction and reality.
I love Humphrey so much. He completely sums up my ethos of doing quite a lot to do nothing at all, while also exerting himself thoroughly to make other people shoulder all the things that his department are meant to be making someone else do.
Fun fact: Section 1 of the Import, Export and Customs Powers (Defense) Act 1939 (c.69) contains nothing about arms or bomb-making equipment. The closest it gets is declaring that the Board of Trade has the ability to restrict the import of ships and aircraft.
Fun fact. You missed the key purpose of Section 1 being the ability to create secondary legislation to control the import or export of goods. The bit about ships and aircraft was only one of the five clauses in that section. In terms of obfuscation there are thousands of pieces of secondary legislation created each year. As this show was set around 40 years after the Act was made, this letter has directed the reader to hunt through a minimum of 40,000 documents to find what is being referred to.
@@zarabada6125 I am further impressed by your knowledge of this obscure bit of legislation. The full name of the act, you could just look up but this post suggests you actually are familiar with this piece of legislation. How come?
@@joshuarosen6242 No, I wasn't familiar with this particular one but part of my work involves making sure my colleagues are compliant with other UK laws (both Acts and secondary legislation from those Acts). The laws all follow the same style, so once you are familiar with one or two, you can read and understand almost any other Act.
@@zarabada6125 That's interesting and thank you for the explanation. Genuine expertise is so conspicuous on RU-vid because of its rarity so it's a pleasure to read a well-informed comment.
Yes, I watch him too sometimes. But not just in conversations with Sir Humphrey. I was watching him when Mr. Hacker was in an argument with the administrator of a hospital with no patients.
All three are gone now....but they left us a legacy that we can still enjoy and laugh out loud, not at any slapstick, but at the intelligent and witty humour, delivered by excellent comedic timing and pure acting talent.
As a lawyer, I love how Bernard--who studied Classics at one of the two universities in Britain--snaps off the correct statute and section of British law as though his life up to this point had been dedicated to military export law.
"And what's more I could tell she was a spy because when I claimed Oxford, Cambridge and Hull were the country's foremost universities, she failed to spot my deliberate mistake!" "Yes, you're right; Oxford is a complete dump!" -- Blackadder the Fourth.
Unless your thesis is in Political science, you better hope you have a lecturer who does... (If in pol sci, this would be poor for a Masters, but ideal for a Doctorate)
Whenever I see this show I'm quite fascinated how well the role of Bernard Woolley is written. As a supporting actor his time on this show is limited. But when his time comes, his sentences are the cherry on the cake.
One thing I really loved about this show is that it could be enjoyed by all, whether young, old, rich, poor, left, right, tertiary educated or in primary school.
The only little issue I ever had with this masterpiece of a show is that surely exchanges like this would make Jim realise how Humphrey operates I know it's part of the joke that he never does but it always comes to mind
No, Hacker has a pretty solid idea hiw Humphrey operates. The problem is that Humphrey Appleby is useful, and not going anywhere. So you can't just ride roughshod over him beause you might need him later.
Hacker knew from the first episode how Humphrey works, he was told by his predecessor after all. Problem is that knowing is, after all, only half the battle. Finding a way to undo each individual scheme of Humphrey's still takes tremendous effort, even knowing that there are always schemes.
@@NATIK001 Yeah, pretty much. He gets a pretty good tutorial in Episode 4 ('Big Brother') from his predecessor on how Sir Humphrey actually works, and how he uses his techniques to stall and otherwise make things he doesn't like go dead in the water. Even knowing exactly how Humprey works, it matters very little, because Sir Humprey knows how to turn it into a choice between a rock and a hard place, so that when push comes to shove, Hacker has very little choice but to go along with Sir Humphrey, which is the genius bit. Even if Hacker somehow manages to outmaneuver Sir Humphrey, in the earlier series of 'Yes, Minister' there was always the figure of Sir Arnold that could be relied upon to ultimately outmaneuver Hacker if needs be. The only time Hacker actually manages to outmaneuver Sir Humphrey is also in 'Big Brother', which is again done in a pretty good way, and shows the only way to actually outmaneuver Sir Humphrey in such a way that even Sir Arnold cannot really frustrate matters.
From what little I saw of the new show, the cast was the least of its problems. It was the writing that was abysmal. To say that it wasn't even a shadow of the old show's brilliance would be an insult to shadows everywhere.
I suspect that the real trouble with the new show, is that the original is the single best TV-show ever made. It was original as hell, relevant to a degree that is hard to fattom and the cast is arguably one of the most impressive (for its size) any tv-show has ever had, in share quality.
Rather more low key, was my Dad's dealings with Min of Ag in the 1970's... his observation was that this show was pretty accurate in how the show is run. Probably still is.The ties may have changed.
_"And then you smudge it all over."_ It's like he's reciting a damn recipe. A recipe of political doublespeak, and like any sugary dessert its bad for you, but delicious to consume if handled by the right chef. Like Sir Humphrey.
Now! After all these years of watching this amazing series ' with the best actors we have ever had can we not do the same again??? Even Maggie loved this, so at a time when days felt black, it was loved by so many? Oh now its 2019 and things are far much worse, to its shame. I long to be back when Hacker gave the finger.
Hawkeye knows Ah the good old days ten months ago when you could use expressions like ...when days “ felt black....”. Now it’s non PC. ..felt dark? Not too sure about that one either
If you think it's only the British civil service that operates in this way, you know very little about the world out there. Exactly the same thing happens in bureaucracies around the world. The Chinese invented the whole concept, and they could still probably teach the Europeans a thing or two.