He started needling me right away.
‘Chap just been talking about that on the radio,’ he said casually. ‘Saying the trouble with the health and education and transport services is that all the top people in government go to private hospitals and send their kids to private schools . . .’
I laughed it off, though I sounded a little mirthless, I fear. ‘Very good. Comedy programme, was it?’
This egalitarian stuff, though daft, is always a little dangerous if it’s not watched very carefully.
‘And they go to work in chauffeur-driven cars,’ added my chauffeur.
I didn’t deign to reply. So he persisted.
‘Don’t you think there’s something in it? I mean, if you and Sir Humphrey Appleby went to work on a number 27 . . .’
I interrupted him. ‘Quite impracticable,’ I explained firmly. ‘We work long enough hours as it is, without spending an extra hour a day waiting at the bus stop.’
‘Yes,’ said Roy. ‘You’d have to make the bus service much more efficient, wouldn’t you?’
‘We certainly would,’ I said, trying to dismiss the subject quickly.
‘Yes,’ said Roy. ‘That’s what he was saying, see?’ The man should be a television interviewer.
‘Same with the Health Service,’ Roy continued inexorably. ‘You a member of BUPA, sir?’
It was none of his bloody business. But I didn’t say so. Instead, I smiled sweetly and asked if there was anything on the radio.
‘
Yesterday in Parliament
, I think sir,’ he replied, reaching for the switch.
‘No, no, no, don’t bother, don’t bother,’ I shrieked casually, but too late. He switched it on, and I was forced to listen to myself.
Roy listened with great interest. After it got to Second Order he switched it off. There was a bit of an awkward silence.
‘I got away with it, didn’t I?’ I asked hopefully.
Roy chuckled. ‘You were lucky they didn’t ask you about that new St Edward’s Hospital,’ he said jovially.
‘Why?’
‘Well . . .’ he smacked his lips. ‘They finished building it fifteen months ago – and it’s still got no patients.’
‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘the DHSS haven’t got enough money to staff it.’
‘Oh, it’s got
staff
,’ said Roy. ‘Five hundred administrators. Just no patients.’
Could this be true? It hardly seemed possible.
‘Who told you this?’ I asked cautiously.
‘The lip.’
‘The lip?’
[
The slang word used by drivers to describe he who knows the most – Ed
.]
‘My mate Charlie,’ he explained. ‘He knows all right. He’s the driver for the Secretary of State for Health.’
When I got to the office I summoned Humphrey at once. I told him straight out that I was appalled by yesterday’s debate.
‘So am I, Minister,’ Humphrey said. I was slightly surprised to find him agreeing so vehemently.
‘The stupidity of it . . . the incompetence,’ I continued.
‘I agree,’ said Humphrey. ‘I can’t think what came over you.’
I blinked at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘To concede a full
independent
enquiry . . .’
So that was it. I stopped him dead in his tracks. ‘Humphrey!’ I said magisterially. ‘That is not what I am talking about.’
Sir Humphrey looked puzzled. ‘But you mentioned stupidity and incompetence.’
‘Yours, Humphrey!’ I roared. ‘
Yours
!’
Now it seemed to be his turn to be astounded. ‘
Mine
, Minister?’ He was incredulous.
‘Yes. Yours. How could you drop me in it like that?’
To be fair, he personally hadn’t dropped me in it. But his precious Department had. Humphrey, however, seemed disinclined to apologise.
‘A small omission from the brief. We can’t foresee everything.’ Then his face resumed an expression of pure horror. ‘But to concede a full independent enquiry . . .’
I’d had enough of this. ‘I didn’t particularly want an enquiry either,’ I pointed out. ‘But if you’re drowning and somebody throws you a rope, you grab it.’
‘It was not a rope,’ replied Sir Humphrey. ‘It was a noose. You should have stood up for the Department – that is what you are here for.’
That may be what
Humphrey
thinks I’m here for. As a matter of fact, it’s nice to know he thinks I’m here for
something
. But I knew that if I didn’t stop him he would give me a little lecture on Ministerial Responsibility.
The Doctrine of Ministerial Responsibility is a handy little device conceived by the Civil Service for dropping the Minister in it while enabling the mandarins to keep their noses clean. It means, in practice, that the Civil Service runs everything and takes all the decisions, but when something goes wrong then it’s the Minister who takes the blame.
‘No, Humphrey, it won’t do,’ I interjected firmly before he could go any further. ‘I prepared myself thoroughly for Question Time yesterday. I mugged up all the Questions and literally dozens of supplementaries. I was up half Sunday night, I skipped lunch yesterday, I was thoroughly prepared.’ I decided to say it again. ‘
Thoroughly prepared
!’ I said. ‘But nowhere in my brief was there the slightest indication that you’d been juggling the figures so that I would be giving misleading replies to the House.’
‘Minister,’ said Humphrey in his most injured tones, ‘you said you wanted the administration figures reduced, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I agreed.
‘So we reduced them.’
Dimly I began to perceive what he was saying. ‘But . . . you only reduced the
figures
, not the actual number of administrators!’
Sir Humphrey furrowed his brow. ‘Of course.’
‘Well,’ I explained patiently, ‘that was not what I meant.’
Sir Humphrey was pained. ‘Well really, Minister, we are not mind-readers. You said reduce the figures, so we reduced the figures.’
This was obvious nonsense. He knew perfectly well what I’d meant, but had chosen to take my instructions literally. It was because of this sort of Civil Service foolishness and unhelpfulness that this country is literally bleeding to death.
[
We assume that Hacker did not literally mean literally – Ed
.]
‘How did it get out?’ I demanded. ‘Another leak. This isn’t a Department, it’s a colander.’ I was rather pleased with that little crack. Sir Humphrey ignored it, of course. ‘How can we govern responsibly,’ I continued, ‘if backbenchers are going to get all the facts?’ There was another silence. Naturally. There was no answer to that one. ‘Anyway,’ I concluded, ‘at least an enquiry gives us a little time.’
‘So does a time bomb,’ observed my Permanent Secretary.
So I waited to see if he had a disposal squad up his sleeve. Apparently not.
‘If only you’d said we’d have a departmental enquiry,’ he complained, ‘then we could have made it last eighteen months, and finally said that it revealed a certain number of anomalies which have now been rectified but that there was no evidence of any intention to mislead. Something like that.’
I allowed myself to be diverted for a moment. ‘But there
was
an intention to mislead,’ I pointed out.
‘I never said there wasn’t,’ Sir Humphrey replied impatiently. ‘I merely said there was no evidence of it.’
I think I was looking blank. He explained.
The job of a professionally conducted internal enquiry is to unearth a great mass of no evidence. If you say there was no intention, you can be proved wrong. But if you say the enquiry found no
evidence
of an intention, you can’t be proved wrong.’
This is a most interesting insight into one of the Civil Service’s favourite devices. In future I’ll know what is
really
meant by a departmental enquiry. Even a full departmental enquiry. That would presumably mean that an even greater mass of no evidence had been unearthed for the occasion.
However I had to deal with the matter in hand, namely that I had agreed to an independent enquiry. ‘Couldn’t we,’ I suggested thoughtfully, ‘get an independent enquiry to find no evidence?’
‘You mean, rig it?’ enquired Sir Humphrey coldly.
This man’s double standards continue to amaze me.
‘Well . . . yes!’
‘Minister!’ he said, as if he was deeply shocked. Bloody hypocrite.
‘What’s wrong with rigging an independent enquiry if you can rig an internal one, I should like to know?’ Though I already know the answer – you might get
caught
rigging an independent enquiry.
‘No, Minister, in an independent enquiry everything depends on who the Chairman is. He absolutely has to be sound.’
‘If he’s sound,’ I remarked, ‘surely there’s a danger he’ll bring it all out into the open?’
Sir Humphrey was puzzled again. ‘No, not if he’s sound,’ he explained. ‘A sound man will understand what is required. He will perceive the implications. He will have a sensitive and sympathetic insight into the overall problem.’
He
was
suggesting that we rig it, in fact. He just likes to wrap it up a bit.
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘So “sound” actually means “bent”?’
‘Certainly not!’ He was too quick with his denial. Methinks Sir Humphrey doth protest too much. ‘I mean,’ he tried again, ‘a man of broad understanding . . .’
I decided to short-circuit the process by making some suggestions.
‘Then what about a retired politician?’
‘. . . and unimpeachable integrity,’ added Humphrey.
‘Oh I see.’ I paused to think. ‘What about an academic or a businessman?’
Sir Humphrey shook his head.
‘Okay,’ I said, knowing that he had someone in mind already. ‘Out with it. Who?’
‘Well, Minister, I thought perhaps . . . a retired civil servant.’
I saw his point. ‘Good thinking, Humphrey.’ It’s wonderful what years of training can do for you!
‘Sir Maurice Williams could be the man,’ he went on.
I wasn’t too sure about this. ‘You don’t think he might be too independent?’
‘He’s hoping for a peerage,’ said Humphrey quietly, with a smile. He appeared to think he was producing an ace from up his sleeve.
I was surprised. ‘This won’t give him one, will it?’
‘No, but the right finding will give him a few more Brownie points.’
Brownie points. This was a new concept to me. Humphrey explained that they all add up until you get the badge. This seems to make sense.
‘Right,’ I said decisively. ‘Sir Maurice it is.’ Thank God I find it so easy to take decisions.
‘Thank you, Brown Owl,’ smiled Humphrey, and left the room. He’s really quite a pleasant fellow when he gets his way, and perhaps his idea will get us out of the embarrassment of an independent enquiry actually revealing anything – whether it be something we didn’t know ourselves and should have known, or something we knew perfectly well and didn’t want others to know we had known.
Of course, I realise on reflection that there is a third, and more real, possibility – that an independent enquiry would reveal something that Humphrey knew and I didn’t know and that he didn’t want me to know and that I would look an idiot for not knowing.
Like what happened yesterday, in other words.
So perhaps it’s just as well to follow his advice, until the day dawns when I know some embarrassing information that he doesn’t.
March 17th
A long meeting with Bernard Woolley today.
First of all, he was concerned about the Cuban refugees. Naturally. I’m concerned about them too. There’s a whole row brewing in Parliament and the press about the government’s refusal to help them.
I tried to point out that it’s not my fault the Treasury won’t give us the cash.
I can’t beat the Treasury. No one can beat the Treasury.
I’ve decided to do nothing about the refugees because there’s nothing I can do. However, Bernard and I had a more fruitful and revealing conversation about the new St Edward’s Hospital that Roy had tipped me off about yesterday. It seemed at first as though Roy was misinformed.
‘You asked me to find out about that alleged empty hospital in North London,’ began Bernard.
I nodded.
‘Well, as I warned you, the driver’s network is not wholly reliable. Roy has got it wrong.’
I was very relieved. ‘How did you find out this good news?’ I asked.
‘Through the Private Secretaries’ network.’
This was impressive. Although the Private Secretaries’ network is sometimes a little slower than the drivers’ network, it is a great deal more reliable – in fact almost one hundred per cent accurate.
‘And?’
Bernard explained that at this hospital there are only 342 administrative staff. The other 170 are porters, cleaners, laundry workers, gardeners, cooks and so forth.
This seemed a perfectly reasonable figure. So I asked how many medical staff.
‘Oh, none of
them
,’ replied Bernard casually, as if that were perfectly obvious in any case.
I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. ‘None?’ I asked, cautiously.
‘None.’
I decided to clarify a thing or two. ‘We are talking about St Edward’s
Hospital
, aren’t we, Bernard?’
‘Oh yes,’ he answered cheerfully. ‘It’s brand-new, you see,’ he added as if that explained everything.
‘How new?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘it was completed eight months ago, and fully staffed, but unfortunately there were government cutbacks at that time and there was, consequently, no money left for the medical services.’
My mind was slowly boggling. ‘A brand-new hospital,’ I repeated quietly, to make sure I had not misheard, ‘with five hundred administrative staff and no patients?’
I sat and thought quietly for a few moments.
Then Bernard said helpfully, ‘Well, there is one patient, actually, Minister?’