The Complete Yes Minister полностью

I was still silently fuming about over a hundred Civil Service freeloaders on this trip. The whole lot of them with their trip paid for, and getting paid for coming. Whereas when I’d asked if Annie could come too I’d been told that a special dispensation would be needed from the King of Qumran before she could attend any public functions with me — and that, in any case, I’d have to pay for her fares, hotel bill, everything.

These bloody civil servants have got it all completely sewn up to their own advantage. This trip is costing me hundreds of pounds because Annie really wanted to come. She’s sitting opposite, chatting to Bernard, looking as though she’s having a thoroughly good time. That’s nice, anyway.

Anyway, I digress. I suddenly realised what was in my hand. Humphrey had written a final communiqué before the meeting. I told him he couldn’t possibly do that.

‘On the contrary, Minister, you can’t write the communiqué after the meeting. We have had to get agreement from half a dozen other departments, from the EEC Commission, from Washington, from the Qumrani Embassy — you can’t do that in a few hours in the middle of the desert.’

So I glanced at it. Then I pointed out that it was useless, hypothetical, sheer guesswork — it may bear no relation to what we actually say.

Sir Humphrey smiled calmly. ‘No communiqué ever bears any relation to what you actually say.’

‘So why do we have one?’

‘It’s just a sort of exit visa. Gets you past the press corps.’ Oh, I forgot to mention, the back third of this mighty aeroplane is stuffed with drunken hacks from Fleet Street, all on freebies too. Everyone except my wife, for whom I have to pay! ‘The journalists need it,’ Sir Humphrey was saying, ‘to justify their huge expenses for a futile non-event.’

I wasn’t sure that I liked my trade mission to Qumran being described as a futile non-event. He obviously saw my face fall, for he added: ‘I mean, a great triumph for you. Which is why it’s a futile non-event for the press.’

He’s right about that. Journalists hate reporting successes. ‘Yes, what they really want is for me to get drunk at the official reception.’

‘Not much hope of that.’

I asked why not, and then realised I’d asked a rather self-incriminating question. But Humphrey seemed not to notice. Instead, he replied gloomily, ‘Qumran is dry.’

‘Well, it is in the desert, isn’t it?’ I said and then I suddenly grasped what he meant. Islamic Law! Why hadn’t I realised? Why hadn’t I asked? Why hadn’t he told me?

It seems that we can get a drink or two at our own Embassy. But the official reception and dinner are at the Palace. For five solid hours. Five hours without a single drinkie.

I asked Humphrey if we could manage with hip flasks.

He shook his head. ‘Too risky. We have to grin and bear it.’

So I sat here and read the communiqué which was full of the usual guff about bonds between our two countries, common interests, frank and useful conversations and all that crap. Humphrey was reading the FT.[45] I was wondering what we would do if the talks were so far removed from what it says in the communiqué that we couldn’t sign it. Suppose there were to be a diplomatic incident at the reception. I’d have to contact London somehow. I’d need some way of directly communicating with the Foreign Secretary, for instance, or even the PM.

And then the idea flashed into my mind.

‘Humphrey,’ I suggested tentatively, ‘can’t we set up a security communications room next door to the reception? At the Sheikh’s Palace, I mean? With emergency telephones and Telex lines to Downing Street. Then we could fill it with cases of booze that we’ll smuggle in from the Embassy. We could liven up our orange juice and nobody would ever know.’

He gazed at me in astonishment. ‘Minister!’

I was about to apologise for going too far, when he went on, ‘That is a stroke of genius.’

I thanked him modestly, and asked if we could really do it.

Musing on it for a moment, he said that a special communications room would only be justified if there were a major crisis.

I pointed out that five hours without a drink is a major crisis.

We decided that, as the pound is under pressure at the moment, a communications room could be justified.

Humphrey has promised his enthusiastic support for the project.