You’ve said that neither you nor Sir Antony Jay “knew much about government” before you began co-writing Yes Minister, and that The Crossman Diaries were your first source. Do you know what gave Tony Jay the idea to write about the inner workings of government in the first place?
We were both interested in politics. Tony had been a BBC executive for many years and he often remarked on the BBC’s similarity to the civil service. He had recently been on the Annan Committee on Broadcasting and had gained a little insight into Whitehall. I think he wanted to write a situation comedy, realised that successful examples of the genre were institution-based and that this was a subject nobody had ever approached. He had just read Crossman.
Given the extensive research you both then undertook for the show, what was the most surprising piece of Whitehall lore or institutional tactic you uncovered that perfectly encapsulated the civil service?
It is important to put political advisers into offices as far away as possible from the prime minister. Influence diminishes with distance.
What’s your favourite episode of Yes Minister or Yes, Prime Minister – and why?
I don’t really have favourites. I particularly like Party Games, the hour-long episode in which Jim Hacker becomes PM and Sir Humphrey becomes cabinet secretary, because it was hard to engineer a believable plot and maintain the comedy over a full hour.
And your favourite scene?
Hard to choose. But perhaps the scene where Richard Vernon, playing a banker, is confused by the difference between Milton Shulman, Milton Friedman and Milton Keynes. Or the scene when Jim and Humphrey get drunk on an official visit to a Muslim country. Or the scene where Humphrey protests that he is not the Fifth Man in the Burgess, Maclean and Philby Cambridge spy case.
“Previous comedy shows represented civil servants as silly, inconsequential chaps wearing bowler hats and drinking tea. We showed that they are extremely clever people”
You’ve said that life sometimes imitated art – like the NHS hospital with no patients. Were there other moments when reality seemed to echo your fictional scenarios?
There is a crisis when Jim Hacker is on a night train and, one by one, a dozen people cram themselves into his sleeper compartment. I got the idea from the Marx Brothers’ A Night At The Opera, only to be told later that exactly the same thing happened to Harold Wilson on his way to a party conference in Blackpool on the night Ian Smith announced the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Rhodesia.
The Thick of It was influenced by Yes Minister, but with significant differences in tone and style. What did you think of The Thick of It when it first aired?
Very funny.
Do you think satire still has the same power today to illuminate the workings of government, or has the political landscape changed too much?
Satire is always necessary and potentially powerful. But you have to get it right! Previous comedy shows had represented civil servants as silly, inconsequential chaps wearing bowler hats and drinking tea. We showed that, on the contrary, they are extremely clever people who run the country.
Yes Minister is often considered compulsory viewing for those entering government. If you could distil one piece of wisdom from the series for an incoming senior civil servant, what would it be?
“He that would keep a secret must keep it secret that he hath a secret to keep.”
Do you feel in any way guilty for creating the enduring stereotype that senior civil servants are not only master obfuscators, but also there to serve themselves, rather than the democratically elected politicians of the day?
No. Sir Humphrey believes that he and his colleagues are patriotic guardians of the national interest and a necessary bulwark against vote-grubbing politicians who will do anything to get elected. He has a point.
Along with Sir Humphrey, you also created the hapless ministerial and prime ministerial character Jim Hacker, but people always seem to forget that and concentrate on Sir Humphrey. Why do you think that is?
People have seen many hapless politicians, both in fiction and real life. Sir Humphrey was new to them. Most people didn’t even know that there is such a thing as a permanent secretary. He is Jeeves to Hacker’s Bertie Wooster.
You’ve said the programme may have “made the government worse” and that “overall it has not been good for the government of the country”. Could you say more about why you think that is?
If politicians believe that Sir Humphrey is, as you put it, “the master obfuscator, only there to serve himself”, it can make incoming members of the administration over-suspicious and distrustful of their staff. Which is unlikely to be good for government.
Viewed charitably, Sir Humphrey could be described as a custodian of the national interest, protecting the country from foolish and short-term political decisions. Do you think that’s still a fair depiction of the civil service today?
Yes. Civil servants are full time and fully trained to run their departments. Politicians are part time and constantly reshuffled for party-political reasons. When we were writing the series, the average tenure of a minister was about 11 months. Since then, there have been as many as half a dozen prime ministers in eight years. Without the civil servants, there would be no continuity and absolute chaos. As Bernard Woolley said: “Red tape holds the nation together.”
Nothing in government ever really changes, which is what makes Yes Minister so timeless. But if you were writing the series today, what themes or tensions within government would you want to explore?
The themes don’t change. The economy, inflation, unemployment, a Middle East crisis, our relationship with the EU, the aftermath of Brexit, HS2 and problems with the railways, immigration, Russia/Ukraine/Nato, the rise of the far right everywhere, the collapsing NHS, awkward publicity-seeking spads, the appointment of a young and inexperienced cabinet secretary, a turf battle between the Cabinet Office permanent secretary and the cabinet secretary, how to deal with an unpredictable US president, and so forth.
How would a modern-day Sir Humphrey approach the challenge of managing a “disruptor” minister obsessed with radical, rapid change or – for example – AI? Is the institutional resistance you documented still as effective today?
The same way, probably. I don’t know if institutional resistance has lessened but, judging by the last few governments, I hope not.
Your new play I’m Sorry, Prime Minister addresses issues like cancel culture and generational clashes, which are very different from the political landscape of the original series. How did you approach adapting the dynamic between Hacker and Sir Humphrey to remain both funny and relevant while tackling these modern, culturally sensitive themes?
This play is about loss of power. Two elderly men who have no work and feel the loss of friends, loss of family, the loss of any kind of usefulness. This is a universal problem. What is it like to be forced into retirement, ignored and irrelevant after having such power? A bit like King Lear, only funnier.
You’ve dubbed this the final chapter of the Yes Minister franchise. How hard will it be to say goodbye to these iconic characters?
Not hard. It looks as though they’re going to be around for a while.
I’m Sorry, Prime Minister opens on 30 January 2026 at the Apollo Theatre. Tickets are available from www.imsorryprimeminister.com