Yes Prime Minister
Paul Eddington as P.M. Jim Hacker and Nigel Hawthorne as Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Prime Minister
Anyone who thinks that the conversations between Sir Humphrey Appleby and Jim Hacker in "Yes Prime Minister" are removed from reality, would benefit from a careful walk along the white lines of the uncorrected oral evidence of Sir Andrew Turnbull -the Cabinet Secretary at the time the Attorney General's advice (concerning the legality if the Iraq war) popped up in Cabinet. The evidence was given to the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee. The swordplay between the Chairman, Dr. Tony Wright, Gordon Prentice a committee member and Sir Andrew is straight out of a "Yes Prime Minister" script. Questions 202 to 220 are worth reading. After which you may agree with Gordon Prentice that these MP's are "innocents abroad" The whole shooting match can be found at http://tinyurl.com/6nwm8
Cheers
t
posted by Tony @ Wednesday, March 16, 2005
1 Comments:
Tony, well done on a very well-selected sequence, which provoked in me a feeling of despairing, tooth-grinding mirth. How much does Sir Andrew get paid for this relentless high-level evasiveness, I wondered. And was he taught it?(Do they use Samuel Butler's 'Erewhon' as a text at the Civil Service College? I'm going to ask a friend who teaches there.) Newspaper summaries of his defence of the AG's advice just don't do it justice do they? I'm glad you made us plough through the real thing. (But what an effort!)Actually I read further than your recommended paras..(I think I was hypnotised..)and I thought Kelvin Hopkins had it in a nutshell when he said to Sir A : ' Formerly you were the civil servants' man in Downing Street, now you are the PM's man in the civil service.' Bang on. But then, Kelvin is a good socialist MP who probably loathes Blair...
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