July 23, 2011
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Yes Minister
Re-reading/watching Yes Minister, a classic British political satire by the BBC in the 1980s. I first had the book from my father before entering college to read politics, and rushed to the Universtiy Library to watch through every episode in VHS during my first semister. An all-time favourite of mine, with its wits and wisdom still relevant (and unsurprassed) today.
Finished Chapter 1 this afternoon. To my surprised, I found one of the most earliest draft proposals prepared by the bureaucracy for the Minister, includes a "Proposals for Shortening Approval Procedures in Planning Appeals"... And assuming the following is an accurate description of the then British Whitehall staffing, the current Government Secretariat needs to expand at least 20-fold for a workable government under full democracy.
(when asked by Hacker the new Minister how many people are now under him)Humphrey: "Brifely, 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 Prinicpal Private Secretary, and he is the Principal Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary. Directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, eighty-seven Under-Secretaries and two hundred and nineteen Assistant Secertaries. Directly responsible to the Principal Private Secretaries are plain Private Secretaries. The Prime Minister will be appointing two Parliamentary Under-Secretaries and you will be appointing your own Parliamentary Private Secretary."
Hacker joked: "Can they all type?"
Humphrey: "None of us can type, Minister. Mrs McKay types -- she is your secretary."
