Imagining Politics by Stephen Benedict Dyson;

Author:Stephen Benedict Dyson; [Dyson, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Press (limited)

Diaries of a Cabinet Minister and Your Disobedient Servant

Yes, Minister aimed to take the viewer into the secretive chambers of British government, revealing what had previously been known only to top-level politicians and civil servants. Jay and Lynn wanted to make the scripts as realistic as possible. As they did their research, they were surprised by how little they needed to alter the behavior of the political elite in order to render it ridiculous.

Both Jay and Lynn were fascinated in particular by the revelations in two recent books, one by a former cabinet minister and the other by a top civil servant. Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, by former minister of housing Richard Crossman, was published in 1974 after strenuous government attempts to prevent its release. Crossman had kept a meticulous journal of his life as head of a Whitehall department, and Jay and Lynn found within its pages much of the basis of their new show.12

Crossman’s very first entry gave them their title. Crossman noted that the civil service was, to all outside appearances, profoundly deferential: “Yes, Minister! No, Minister! If you wish it, Minister!” The deference, though, was part of a spider’s web into which Crossman had unwittingly flown. Standing sentry at the center of this web was his department’s Page 76 →permanent secretary, Dame Evelyn Sharp. Crossman had been switched at the last minute from the education portfolio for which he had prepared. Dame Evelyn had completed a decade in her post, and Crossman, a neophyte in housing policy, would be the sixth minister with whom she had worked.

Whereas Crossman understood few of the issues with which his new department dealt, Dame Evelyn was supremely confident. “She sees the ordinary human being as incapable of making a sensible decision,” Crossman wrote. She viewed her role as a daily “battle to save her department from my stupidity and ignorance.” She would work on her hapless new minister, “grooming me . . . well, grooming is the wrong word because she is too tough and granite-like, but she has been watching, measuring, lecturing.”

Whereas Dame Evelyn left Crossman terrified, and his lack of preparation left him confused, the rest of the bureaucracy sought to reassure him that little must (and, indeed, could) be done. Surrendering to the status quo was the only viable option. “I already realize the tremendous effort it requires not to be taken over by the civil service machine,” Crossman wrote. The minister was kept isolated from all but official advice, with his office assuming in his mind the quality of a “padded cell.” He was allowed few visitors, and these were carefully monitored to make sure the minister did not receive dangerous information or ideas.

Rather than requiring Crossman’s informed attention, the mechanism of government operated smoothly without his lifting a finger. Dame Evelyn had the answers to the big questions, and the more prosaic responsibilities of memoranda and correspondence were easily discharged. Daunted on his first day by the volume of paperwork, Crossman asked his new private secretary how he could possibly cope.

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