The Complete Yes Minister полностью

I think I just gaped at him. Anyway, after a pause he murmured something about the moral dimension. Hypocritical bastard.

I tried to explain that the communications room was not the same thing at all. Completely different, in fact. Drinking is nothing to do with corruption.

But Humphrey would have none of it. ‘Minister, we deceived the Qumranis. I am racked with guilt, tormented by the knowledge that we violated their solemn and sacred Islamic laws in their own country. Sooner or later we must own up and admit that it was all your idea.’

‘It wasn’t,’ I said desperately.

‘It was,’ they chorused.

I would have denied it, but it was their word against mine. And who would ever take the word of a mere politician against that of a Permanent Secretary and a Private Secretary?

Sir Humphrey piled on the pressure. ‘Is it fifty lashes or one hundred?’ he asked Bernard, who seemed to be brightening up a little.

In what seemed like an interminable pause, I contemplated my options. The more I contemplated my options the more they disappeared, until I didn’t seem to have any at all. Finally Bill said that I had to meet the journalist or she would write something terrible anyway.

I nodded weakly. Humphrey and Bernard hovered. I knew that only one possible course was open to me. Attack! Attack is always the best form of defence, especially when dealing with the press.

And after all, dealing with the press is my stock-in-trade. That is what I’m best at.

[That is what Ministers had to be best at. At that time the Minister’s main role was to be the chief public relations man for his Ministry — Ed.]

I sized her up in no time as she came into the office. Attractive voice, slightly untidy pulled-through-a-hedge-backwards sort of look, trousers, absolutely what you’d expect from The Guardian — a typical knee-jerk liberal, Shirley Williams type.

As she came in a rough strategy formed in my mind. I was charming, but cool, and gave her the impression that I was fairly busy and didn’t have too much time to spare. If you don’t do that, if you let them think that you think they are important, it confirms their suspicions that they are on to something.

So I adopted a brisk tone like the family doctor. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’ I asked in my best bedside manner.

‘Two things,’ she said, ‘both of them rather worrying to the public.’

How dare she speak for the public, who know nothing about any of it? And never will, if I can help it!

She started with the French allegation of BES corruption in getting the Qumrani contract.

‘Absolute nonsense,’ I said categorically. If in doubt, always issue an absolute denial. And if you’re going to lie, then lie with one hundred per cent conviction.

‘But they quoted reports of payments to officials,’ she said.

I pretended to lose my rag. I fixed her with a piercing gaze. ‘This is absolutely typical. A British company slogs its guts out to win orders and create jobs and earn dollars, and what do they get from the media? A smear campaign.’

‘But if they won by bribery…’

I talked over her. ‘There is no question of bribery — I have had an internal inquiry and all these so-called payments have been identified.’

‘What as?’ she asked, slightly on the retreat.

Humphrey saw his opportunity to help.

‘Commission fees,’ he said quickly. ‘Administrative overheads.’

He’d given me time to think — ‘Operating costs. Managerial surcharge,’ I added.

Bernard chimed in too. ‘Introduction expenses. Miscellaneous outgoings.’

I thundered on. ‘We have looked into every brown envelope,’ I found myself saying, but changed it to ‘balance sheet’ in the nick of time. ‘And everything is in order.’

‘I see,’ she said. She really didn’t have a leg to stand on. She had no proof at all. She had to believe me. And I’m sure she knew only too well the risk of incurring the wrath of a Minister of the Crown with false allegations and accusations.

[We get the impression that Hacker, like many politicians, had the useful ability to believe that black was white merely because he was saying so — Ed.]

I told her that the allegations she was making were the symptoms of a very sick society for which the media must take their share of the blame. I demanded to know why she wanted to put thousands of British jobs at risk. She had no answer. [Naturally, as she did not want to put thousands of British jobs at risk — Ed.] I told her that I would be calling on the Press Council to censure the press for a disgraceful breach of professional ethics in running the story.