NI politicians agree that '˜Yes Minister' was amusingly real

Sir Antony Jay died in recent days, aged, 86 after a long illness. He penned the cult-classic 1980s BBC television series, starring Paul Eddington and Sir Nigel Hawthorne, with Jonathan Lynn.

The DUP’s Sammy Wilson told the News Letter that the series was “absolutely” true to life.

Mr Wilson, who served as Stormont Environment minister from 2008-09, says he owns the series on DVD and regularly watches them to unwind.

“Demon civil servants – I was surrounded by them,” he laughed heartily, adding that the series had been “a good education” for ministerial office.

He recalls a running battle he had throughout his time as Environment Minister with civil servants who wanted to place a range of restrictions on young drivers for safety reasons.

“They tried everything to convince me, including big long briefings about various subjects, with this issue regularly stuck in the middle.

“They even offered me my own trip to Australia to see how it worked there, on the basis that it would be very difficult to say afterwards you are not going to implement it.”

The East Antrim MP closely identified with the series’ minister James Hacker throughout the “long war of attrition” and at one point lost his cool with the civil servants.

“My private secretary used to say ‘they have come in for their monthly beating’.”

The MP was concerned the driver changes could interfere with young people working shifts if there were night driving restrictions on them.

“But civil servants always had the advantage especially if ministers change on a regular basis. They just resurrected the same bill after the old minister has left and start again with their successor.”

An amended version with some of their proposals was later passed under his successor.

“It just shows you that civil servants do get their way in the end,” he added.

Lord Empey, who was appointed as Minister of Enterprise in 1999 and interim First Minister in 2001, recently enjoyed some re-runs of the series.

“It is still so on the button even though it is 30 years old,” he said. “I think what it did was to set the tone for the public’s appreciation of politicians because people would never have seen things from that perspective before.

“Some people would say it has made the public overly cynical but there is a grain of truth in it.”

It is often said, he notes, that an honest politician who takes an unpopular but necessary decision gets punished for it.

Nigel Hawthorne’s character used to say to ministers who were about to take such a course of action ‘That is a very brave decision minister,’ Lord Empey notes. “There was some substance to it.”

One ‘Yes Minister’ situation he recalls after the Freedom of Information Act came into force, was the permanent secretary who would ask him into the corridor during meetings so that their exchanges would not be recorded in official minutes.

Interdepartmental rivalry was also “quite funny” he said. “If one department did not want to lose responsibility for something or felt they should have a say in a matter rather than someone else, from time to time it ended up with civil servants treating people in another department almost as an enemy.”

• Cult series ran from 1980 to 1988

Yes Minister ran for three series between 1980 and 1984. It followed MP James Hacker, minister for administrative affairs, and his battles against unflappable Whitehall civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby. The subsequent Yes, Prime Minister, broadcast for two seasons between 1986 and 1988, portrayed Hacker’s life after he entered 10 Downing Street. Minister Margaret Thatcher was known to be a great fan of the series.