I thought so myself until I saw the full context of the quote. In isolation the quote sounds like being too stupid to act. In context it's about deliberately frustrating a policy they don't believe in.
There's another good part in this episode. Earlier part. "But you see the problem? If the PM gets into one of his ghastly patriotic Churchillian moods he might intervene. All that pro-British defending democracy nonsense. He must understand that ONCE YOU START INTERFERRING IN THE INTERNAL SQUABBLES OF OTHER COUNTRIES, YOU'RE ON A VERY SLIPPERY SLOPE. Even the Foreign Secretary's grasped that." Goodness, imagine if the White House watched this TV series at a regular basis. 🤣🤣🤣
Sir Nigel Hawthorne. Probably one of the greatest comedy talents of all time. A master of timing and all delivered with nothing so much as a raised eyebrow.
In case anyone is wondering what the answer to the questions are: 1) The Upper Volta has become Burkina Faso. Located in Western Africa South of Mali and North of Ghana 2) The capital of Chad is N'Djamena 3) French is the official language of Mali. Bambara is the most widely spoken. 13 of the indigenous languages have the legal status of national language. It is estimated there might be more than 80 separate languages spoken throughout the country 4) The President of Peru is currently (as of the 2nd of May 2020 ) Martín Vizcarra. During Yes Prime Minister this was Alan García who served from 1985 to 1990 and then 2006 to 2011. Since the book sets Yes Prime Minister at 1984, the President at the time could be Fernando Belaúnde Terry who served from 1980 to 1985. 5) Cameroon does not have a national religion. However, its three main religions are Christianity (69%), Islam (21%) and Traditionalist (6%)
I got the Cameroun one almost right. Well, not difficult, because almost all of Africa is converted by Islam and Christianity, with a small part sticking to ancestral Paganism.
@Aleksa Petrovic La francophonie est à certains égards une chose fort amusante : on fait tout pour qu'elle soit aussi dénué d'importance que possible, mais les gens comptent sur la France (quand ce n'est point la Russie ou un prétendu sauveur providentiel tel que Donald Trump) pour "sauver le monde" de la période de crise continuelle qu'ils sentent confusément sans pour autant parvenir à l'identifier. :|
Some of the episodes are based on things that have actually happened. The hospital gag or the diplomats drinking alcohol in Saudi Arabia (or wherever it was).
Absolutely, I laugh hard at YM and YPM material that I've viewed a hundred times. A once in a lifetime confluence of elements that contributed to, as you state, 'arguably one of the best...' The best IMO.
Imho nothing comes close. Other sitcoms are based on stupid shit like an office or friends or roomates. YM and YPM are based on politics and internal workings of government. The writing and acting is miles ahead of anything else. 🐐 Comedy
I thought they were joking, until it turned out the US presidential candidates couldn't tell the name of the president of Mexico. You literally only have two neighbors and you forgot one of their names.
That's what happens when information is prioritized. Being ready to tell you who the president of Mexico is at any given time isn't particularly important. Neighbor or not
@@TWE_2000 It may be ok for random citizen to have no idea who Mexico president is. They will most likely never interact with him anyway so they do not need to care. But for people who do, like president, it shows ignorance.
@@TWE_2000your so-called point is absurd... not knowing who the leader of your neighbouring country is shows a shocking lack of concern for what's going on 🤦🏻♂️ nevermind his name, but the fact that you don't know his name OBVIOUSLY indicates you don't know his politics and by extention anything that's going on in said country. to not know or care what's going on in one of only two neighbouring countries is utterly asinine for anyone who intends to be head of state! and it raises serious questions about why they want to be head of state if they don't even care what's happening in bordering nations... it's mindblowing. it also smacks of insanely polarised and partisan politics and their emphasis on image and deception, that the person in question is clearly obsessed with over actual achievements and results.
stage 1 of covid 19 nothing is gonna happen continue life as normal stage 2 somthing might happen but we should not panic and let it ruin our economy and way of life stage 3 okay maybe we should pick up the slack but how much help can we really do at this point not much we can do to solve the problem stage4 we could have massivly cut down on the death rate if we have acted earlier but its to late now
Yeah in the UK the government didn't even try to prevent the spread of covid 19, airports were open with no checks or isolation requirements, insanity, now we have to sit in our houses while the elite carried on flying in and out of the country.
You need a First-class degree from Oxford. That's rather difficult. But you still can try to become a MP, since hacker got a third from LSE. And, avoid the Cambridge, you may will be connected with or defected by Soviet.
@@user-cf8zu1qy3bI know a fair few civil servants - including my sister, who went to Loughborough - and you definitely don't need a degree from Oxford. I mean yes, perhaps that makes it significantly more likley that you'll get to be Cabinet Secretary, but still not necessary. The cabinet Secretary before last went to the LSE.
I read that in the beginning, seeking ideas, the writers went to a major newspaper and asked to review newspaper from 20 years ago. Reading them they were astounded to discover that the things happening 20 years ago were still happening. Today we discover that the things spoken about here are still with us today. In politics little changes other than the names.
@@ookland81 On having live audiences in filming of Yes Minister, the producers later admitted it to be an insurance policy against a likely displeased administration shuting down the production.
The sad thing is, it makes a good point. Sir Humphrey is frequently presented as equally self interested as Hacker though 100 times better at getting his way. But think about whether that's a bad thing. Politicians care the most about the next election (politics is about surviving till friday, government is about surviving the century), which means they can't be expect to consider the longer view. Even worse they have at most whatever experience they've gained while in the office they're in. I mean take Priti Patel, 11 months experience as the exchequer secretary, 15 months as the minister for employment, 17 months as the secretary of state for international Developement, she's only been in her current role for 23 months. Would you consider someone who's been driving a bus for less than two years, experienced? Even if they've had 11 months on a moped, 15 months experience with a boat, and 17 months with a car? Now imagine that in all of them cases they've also had someone in the vehicle trying to make sure they don't fuck up, and yet, inevitably, they still have fucked up multiple times, oh and they were only allowed to drive any of the above because of a popularity contest. Would you feel safe getting onto that bus with them, without someone supervising them? Would you feel safe even if they were supervised? Now imagine that instead of bent lampposts, it's entire economies, it's health funding, it's education, it's country wide effects. Bang that lamppost was water security in Cornwall. Crunch that caused teachers to leave the profession and now there's 40 students per class intead of only 30. Would you be able to trust such a person, unsupervised to not simple do whatever is the thing which makes them survive until friday, even if that thing is outright stupid (whether in the short or long term) to someone with experience of the details?* Would you trust such a person to look after your pension, when they only have to care about it for 4 years? Now that, that's terrifying. The sad thing is, it's kind of necessary to have someone who knows their shit. Doctors do it all the time, informed consent, in order for the patient to make the best decision they have to be informed by the doctor. Often the available courses of action is, let whatever's happening continue, sometimes with symptomatic treatment available, or do this specific thing to treat it**. In government though the doctor can't regularly afford to let the patient make the stupid decision. *Here's a fun fact, if you're on a motorcycle and your handle bars start violently slamming from side to side, what do you do? Take 2 seconds to think about it, no more. If you're instinct was to brake, congratulations, you've just made the situation worse and the likelyhood of you crashing has increased. Running a country is much, much, more complex than riding a motorcycle. What about if someone's having an asthma attack, lots of fresh air right, that's the logical decision to help them isn't it? Are you sure? Was that breath into a paper bag a myth or I mean, surely making someone breath their own co2 over and over again won't help them, right? ** I mean look at chemo. Pretend you don't have any idea what that is. A doctors says, we want to poison you until your nails and hair fall out, until you puke your guts out, and you'll feel so rotten you'll wish you were dead. Without context, would you vote for that? How many Humphrey's do you think it took to get Boris to agree to that first (and subsequent) lockdowns and how many lives did they fail to save because of how the politician, thinking about friday, didn't think it was a vote winner.
The fun of this episode is that Hacker figures out a way to go around the stalling Foreign Office and sir Humphrey. And it also has Luke, their 'plant' in the prime-minister's office. Who I also spotted in the Netflix-serie "The Queen".
@@Samplesurfer The thing is they don't show the after effects of the intervention on the island in the rest of the show. In real life however there are consequences to, as Sir Humphrey put it "interfering in the internal squabbles" of others. Cases in point:- VIetnam, Afghanistan (British, Soviet, and American), and Iraq. Also Ukraine. Make no mistake, the Ukraine War will a much greater impact in much shorter time period than the entire period from WW2 till the start of the Ukraine War. Ironically, it was the American beraucrats that pushed for this war rather than politicians.
@@bilalbaig8586This comedy is from the 1980s. The actual 'event' was the invasion of Grenada, a British Commonwealth member by Ronald Reagan, who "replaced" a more left wing oriented new government there. It was feared the new Grenada government would get closer with Cuba, (Castro), Nicaragua (Sandinistas) and Panama (Noriega). The British and in particular Queen Elisabeth were very unhappy with the American decision to invade Grenada, as they did nothing to put a brake on this arrival of a new 'left wing government' and it's approach to the countries the USA had a beef with. What you hear in this fragment is 'the foreign policy view' and is a joke on the Thatcher government, who didn't intervene in Grenada, as they had been talked out-of-it by the British Diplomats and then, without a warning the USA invaded Grenada. Just to give you a taste of how not close that Special Relationship of UK-USA every time the Americans had a different view.
@@Samplesurfer I did not know that. Thanks for the info. Although considering that this is South America the US stance is not all that surprising. The Monroe Doctrine is alive and well. In the show, it felt a bit jarring that the Americans would keep the British out of the loop especially in the situation of a Middle Eastern country.
@@bilalbaig8586 "The Americans, invading a commonwealth country? The palace will hit the roof!" th-cam.com/video/1gjln4gaeeg/w-d-xo.html It's in the next scene of this episode, also on TH-cam.
_"In practice , this presents no problem. If pressed, the FO looks at the matter again, and comes up with the same view. If the Foreign Secretary demands options, the FO obliges him by presenting three options, two of which will be (on close examination)_ [NOTE TO SELF: such close examination cannot be allowed to happen] _exactly the same. The third will, of course, be totally unacceptable, like bombing Warsaw, or invading France._ [NOTE TO SELF: what if the Foreign Secretary chooses the _third_ option? what is the FO supposed to do then? this plan is obviously needs to be revised in light of recent developments]"
If he chooses option 3 then you topple the government and get a new guy to choose again and repeat until you get the right answer. Simple really. Sir Humphrey would be dissappointed.
I assure you my name is Samuel. I just thought the vitriol with which you approached Mr. Chump was strange. I think it’s even stranger that you use the word defraud. Fraud implies some kind of swindling or financial advantage, but I hardly see what you or me or anyone else who uses their real name loses out on. Unless you wish to familiarize yourself with the real names of the people on this comment page, but perhaps not. I’ll admit I’ve never much been interested in whether or not a thing is childish, that’s your worry I suppose. I don’t really care about strangers. Their choices are their problems. But when I meet them, I think I lose nothing by approaching them with a bit of softness. If that doesn’t make me too much of an infant in your book. I also wonder what you think about history or literature or any other field dating back more than a hundred years where humans have expressed condolences and feelings of kinship for dead people they’ve never met.
@MichaelKingsfordGray I have no idea what you're going on about, but it sounds like you need a doctor. My sudo name is taken from two Laurel and Hardy films- "Chump At Oxford" and "Saps At Sea". With so much to be 'afraid' of in the MSM what with climate change, Brexit, Coronavirus. It's never ending the stuff that is going to kill us so it is nice to watch lighthearted stuff on TH-cam even if we do come across pricks like you making nonsensical comments.
Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister are the two best sit coms ( or were they documentaries ! ) ever made for British tv. Modern day so called comedy leaves me cold.
actually they have been doing this for at least 800 years so it is working haha beside the show is base on the civil service informants that they interviewed and base the satire of
Excellent writing, delivered and timed brilliantly by these great actors. I'm a little bit distracted by how much Donald Pickering looks like Tony Benn here, which makes it all the more surreal. Anyone else see the physical likeness?
Mostly the problem is that they actually PREFER that politicians be that way, because it gives THEM all of the actual power (which Humphrey flat out says in another episode). Rather than trying to help them become different, or sort out the wheat from the chaff, they would rather exploit stupid and short-sighted politicians and undermine or ignore the ones who try and make positive changes. They aren't any better than politicians themselves; they are just smug in their superiority.
Yes and no. They are right about people in general. Every idiot here have an idea about what politicians are all like despite never been one or work closely with one. The same ways politicians does not know all the affairs needed to do the jobs the public voted them for, we, as humans, all made generalizations and overestimation of our knowledge. The technocrats know more about their jobs than the public and the idiots the public voted for. However, the elected idiots are more susceptable for being held accountable for their mistakes. What about these guys? Occasionally, there will be competent politicians and there will be shit technocrats. Which is why absolute monarchy got abolished. An technocrat destroy a country much worse than a politician ever could. Can anyone be certain that the person who rose through the rank is not in the same situation as the politician (knowledge-wise) in the first place?
Upper Volta is now Burkina Faso. They speak French in Mali. Cameroon doesn't have a National religion, there's christianity, islam and traditional beliefs. How am I doing?
They don't have a national religion (very few countries outside of Europe and the Middle East do. Something to do with separating Church/Mosque and the Government.), but they do have a predominant religion and that would be Catholicism.
oh, indeed. Somewhere in the series there is an episode in which Sir Humphry defends the Munich agreement saying it was the right thing to do. According to him- not listening to the FO (Foreign Office) resulted in 6 year war, millions of deaths and destruction of a continent.
Sort of. Geology was a rather insurmountable obstacle, as was needing the co-operation of the [rather ill equipped and badly led] French for a landward offensive in the west. Similar issue in 1945... fighting the USSR as well was called "Operation Unthinkable" for a reason, due to the amount of time and lives required to stop the Germans alone. (that; and using The Bomb wasn't an appealing option either)
@@jimtaylor294 I dont think the Polish would like operation unthinkable to be carried out at all. If the Soviet successfully hold back the western advance at the Oder, and they find out the Polish were collaborating with them, they will face even harsher opression from the soviet. If the soviet have to retreat back to Moscow, they would do another round of scorched earth tactic on Polish soil (on which there were hardly anything left to burn after the Germans retreat)
@@minhducnguyen674 Aye; though I guarrantee there's a fair number of Poles that'd claim it would've been worth it... they having a bit of a Britain & France relationship with Russia; that's roughly as long & even more brutal too.
@@jimtaylor294 Guess it can't get worse given that their country already get razed 2 time over when the front line moved through it. Can't be afraid of losing thing when there isn't much left to burn. But if the Soviet get pushed back just enough, they might get splitted into 2 parts once more. Like they said " be careful what you wish for".
@@minhducnguyen674 Aye. In another timeline; the border between west & east might have ended up in Warsaw, rather than Berlin. At least if the Russian Civil War & the Korean War are any gauge. (Communism having an irritating habit of outlasting western politicians' dedication to destroying them) Poland got a rather large chunk of Germany in ours though; which must have Adolf's ghost seething XD.
If you're suggesting that the UK Government could have extended the treaty post 1997 I'd be interested to know why the Chinese would have acceded to the request?
1:40 All they want to know is: who are the Goodies and who are the Baddies.. Insert „Are we the Baddies?“ sketch th-cam.com/video/hn1VxaMEjRU/w-d-xo.html
The four-stage strategy was how the political class acted every time something obnoxious emanated from Brussels, and would still given the chance. As time goes by this seems less like satire and more like a fly-on-the-wall documentary.
Thatcher tried and she was riding on the success of Falkland. There is a good reason why after the conversation with Deng Xiaoping, she walked out almost with her knees on the ground. China isn't Argentina. But hey, if you don't enjoy to stay in HK, you can always leave and see if UK will actually take you. China certainly won't mind you take the next boat out of the place.
"perish the thought Bernard". One of the finest deliveries of a line ever. amazing
The British are great at insults that don't sound like insults.
"We can't have policy made by yobbos like cabinet ministers" xD
too bad it ain't true anymore XD
@@crazyjarjar4894 lmao. Good joke
Good that we don't have yobbos as cabinet ministers anymore. Only muppets.
that's the deep state / perm bureaucracy in a nutshell
Brexit in a nutshell
Having just seen the governments response to COVID-19, I was immediately reminded of the 4 stage plan stated here at time index 4:30
Guy Simpson I feel the same. Though which countries government are we talking about?
I think it is universal
I thought so myself until I saw the full context of the quote.
In isolation the quote sounds like being too stupid to act.
In context it's about deliberately frustrating a policy they don't believe in.
@@Stadtpark90 i think USA
Same here, the Swedish government may have followed the four stage plan better than any other.
“Well, the PM seems to be completely in the dark.”
“Good!”
“Excellent.”
There's another good part in this episode. Earlier part.
"But you see the problem? If the PM gets into one of his ghastly patriotic Churchillian moods he might intervene. All that pro-British defending democracy nonsense.
He must understand that ONCE YOU START INTERFERRING IN THE INTERNAL SQUABBLES OF OTHER COUNTRIES, YOU'RE ON A VERY SLIPPERY SLOPE. Even the Foreign Secretary's grasped that."
Goodness, imagine if the White House watched this TV series at a regular basis. 🤣🤣🤣
Yes! 40years old and still up to date. Wither Yemen?
"the public interest is not what the public is interested in." - Terry Pratchett "The Truth"
Sir Nigel Hawthorne. Probably one of the greatest comedy talents of all time. A master of timing and all delivered with nothing so much as a raised eyebrow.
In case anyone is wondering what the answer to the questions are:
1) The Upper Volta has become Burkina Faso. Located in Western Africa South of Mali and North of Ghana
2) The capital of Chad is N'Djamena
3) French is the official language of Mali. Bambara is the most widely spoken. 13 of the indigenous languages have the legal status of national language. It is estimated there might be more than 80 separate languages spoken throughout the country
4) The President of Peru is currently (as of the 2nd of May 2020 ) Martín Vizcarra. During Yes Prime Minister this was Alan García who served from 1985 to 1990 and then 2006 to 2011. Since the book sets Yes Prime Minister at 1984, the President at the time could be Fernando Belaúnde Terry who served from 1980 to 1985.
5) Cameroon does not have a national religion. However, its three main religions are Christianity (69%), Islam (21%) and Traditionalist (6%)
Saint George's is an island in the Indian Ocean.
@Aleksa Petrovic Pinoche was in Chile, not Peru.
I got the Cameroun one almost right. Well, not difficult, because almost all of Africa is converted by Islam and Christianity, with a small part sticking to ancestral Paganism.
@Aleksa Petrovic
La francophonie est à certains égards une chose fort amusante : on fait tout pour qu'elle soit aussi dénué d'importance que possible, mais les gens comptent sur la France (quand ce n'est point la Russie ou un prétendu sauveur providentiel tel que Donald Trump) pour "sauver le monde" de la période de crise continuelle qu'ils sentent confusément sans pour autant parvenir à l'identifier. :|
@@malcolmabram2957 St. George's is fictional, isn't it? Was it inspired by an actual country?
This is absolutely brilliant, and scary how accurate.
The depressing thing is that the caliber of bureaucrats has gone down dramatically. Very few people competent people left..
This was ment to be a sitcom not a documentary 😳🤪😂😂
It's too late to complain now.
It was meant to show
people
No, this was meant to be a secret weapon for prime ministers to tame their officials, that's why Thatcher is behind the production team.
... or an instruction manual!
Some of the episodes are based on things that have actually happened. The hospital gag or the diplomats drinking alcohol in Saudi Arabia (or wherever it was).
Arguably one of the best comedies ever written
Absolutely, I laugh hard at YM and YPM material that I've viewed a hundred times. A once in a lifetime confluence of elements that contributed to, as you state, 'arguably one of the best...' The best IMO.
Imho nothing comes close. Other sitcoms are based on stupid shit like an office or friends or roomates. YM and YPM are based on politics and internal workings of government. The writing and acting is miles ahead of anything else. 🐐 Comedy
Not one of the best. The best & certainly the most intelligent.
I thought they were joking, until it turned out the US presidential candidates couldn't tell the name of the president of Mexico. You literally only have two neighbors and you forgot one of their names.
That's what happens when information is prioritized. Being ready to tell you who the president of Mexico is at any given time isn't particularly important. Neighbor or not
@@TWE_2000 It may be ok for random citizen to have no idea who Mexico president is. They will most likely never interact with him anyway so they do not need to care. But for people who do, like president, it shows ignorance.
@@iglidor Except it's usually not the US president it's his ambassadors and state department officials.
Current president doesn’t know his name let alone the name of another human.
@@TWE_2000your so-called point is absurd... not knowing who the leader of your neighbouring country is shows a shocking lack of concern for what's going on 🤦🏻♂️ nevermind his name, but the fact that you don't know his name OBVIOUSLY indicates you don't know his politics and by extention anything that's going on in said country.
to not know or care what's going on in one of only two neighbouring countries is utterly asinine for anyone who intends to be head of state!
and it raises serious questions about why they want to be head of state if they don't even care what's happening in bordering nations... it's mindblowing.
it also smacks of insanely polarised and partisan politics and their emphasis on image and deception, that the person in question is clearly obsessed with over actual achievements and results.
Bernard:...ahmmm...ahmm
Sir Humphrey: you should stand for parliament Bernard. Lol
He'd be a much better one than the current yolk!
I was able to answer one of the questions
stage 1 of covid 19 nothing is gonna happen continue life as normal
stage 2 somthing might happen but we should not panic and let it ruin our economy and way of life
stage 3 okay maybe we should pick up the slack but how much help can we really do at this point not much we can do to solve the problem
stage4 we could have massivly cut down on the death rate if we have acted earlier but its to late now
Yeah in the UK the government didn't even try to prevent the spread of covid 19, airports were open with no checks or isolation requirements, insanity, now we have to sit in our houses while the elite carried on flying in and out of the country.
@@Epicrandomness1111 US is still in the stage1.
Stage 5: China / Russia
One of my favorite episode, the Four Stage Strategy. Brilliant & so true in real life.
What I'm learning from this show is that I need to become a public servant.
That's a rather low opinion of yourself!
@@mchparity why? it`s good to be a high level bureaucrat
You need a First-class degree from Oxford. That's rather difficult. But you still can try to become a MP, since hacker got a third from LSE. And, avoid the Cambridge, you may will be connected with or defected by Soviet.
@C I A in the private sector you have to actually work
@@user-cf8zu1qy3bI know a fair few civil servants - including my sister, who went to Loughborough - and you definitely don't need a degree from Oxford. I mean yes, perhaps that makes it significantly more likley that you'll get to be Cabinet Secretary, but still not necessary. The cabinet Secretary before last went to the LSE.
We offer them every support short of help.
1:08 "Politicians can't be that ignorant."
What color is the sky in his world?
I have watched this since I was a kid with my dad. But now as an adult I can tell you that this series perfectly sums up the Brits & their politics.
4:23-4:47 current US policy in regards to Coronavirus
If only the elected politicians were capable of learning from history.
They did. They learned the four strategies worked. Don’t fix what’s not broken
Most politicians don't think history goes any farther back than their first election campaign.
Politicians only care about re-election. They don't give a fuck about normal folk. All they want is to get re-elected
Or documentary’s such as this.
still seems true in 2020!
Makes the series so great , it is timeless
I read that in the beginning, seeking ideas, the writers went to a major newspaper and asked to review newspaper from 20 years ago.
Reading them they were astounded to discover that the things happening 20 years ago were still happening. Today we discover that the things spoken about here are still with us today. In politics little changes other than the names.
So classic and deep
@@ookland81 On having live audiences in filming of Yes Minister, the producers later admitted it to be an insurance policy against a likely displeased administration shuting down the production.
The sad thing is, it makes a good point. Sir Humphrey is frequently presented as equally self interested as Hacker though 100 times better at getting his way. But think about whether that's a bad thing.
Politicians care the most about the next election (politics is about surviving till friday, government is about surviving the century), which means they can't be expect to consider the longer view. Even worse they have at most whatever experience they've gained while in the office they're in.
I mean take Priti Patel, 11 months experience as the exchequer secretary, 15 months as the minister for employment, 17 months as the secretary of state for international Developement, she's only been in her current role for 23 months. Would you consider someone who's been driving a bus for less than two years, experienced? Even if they've had 11 months on a moped, 15 months experience with a boat, and 17 months with a car? Now imagine that in all of them cases they've also had someone in the vehicle trying to make sure they don't fuck up, and yet, inevitably, they still have fucked up multiple times, oh and they were only allowed to drive any of the above because of a popularity contest. Would you feel safe getting onto that bus with them, without someone supervising them? Would you feel safe even if they were supervised? Now imagine that instead of bent lampposts, it's entire economies, it's health funding, it's education, it's country wide effects. Bang that lamppost was water security in Cornwall. Crunch that caused teachers to leave the profession and now there's 40 students per class intead of only 30.
Would you be able to trust such a person, unsupervised to not simple do whatever is the thing which makes them survive until friday, even if that thing is outright stupid (whether in the short or long term) to someone with experience of the details?* Would you trust such a person to look after your pension, when they only have to care about it for 4 years?
Now that, that's terrifying.
The sad thing is, it's kind of necessary to have someone who knows their shit. Doctors do it all the time, informed consent, in order for the patient to make the best decision they have to be informed by the doctor. Often the available courses of action is, let whatever's happening continue, sometimes with symptomatic treatment available, or do this specific thing to treat it**. In government though the doctor can't regularly afford to let the patient make the stupid decision.
*Here's a fun fact, if you're on a motorcycle and your handle bars start violently slamming from side to side, what do you do? Take 2 seconds to think about it, no more. If you're instinct was to brake, congratulations, you've just made the situation worse and the likelyhood of you crashing has increased. Running a country is much, much, more complex than riding a motorcycle. What about if someone's having an asthma attack, lots of fresh air right, that's the logical decision to help them isn't it? Are you sure? Was that breath into a paper bag a myth or I mean, surely making someone breath their own co2 over and over again won't help them, right?
** I mean look at chemo. Pretend you don't have any idea what that is. A doctors says, we want to poison you until your nails and hair fall out, until you puke your guts out, and you'll feel so rotten you'll wish you were dead. Without context, would you vote for that? How many Humphrey's do you think it took to get Boris to agree to that first (and subsequent) lockdowns and how many lives did they fail to save because of how the politician, thinking about friday, didn't think it was a vote winner.
The fun of this episode is that Hacker figures out a way to go around the stalling Foreign Office and sir Humphrey.
And it also has Luke, their 'plant' in the prime-minister's office. Who I also spotted in the Netflix-serie "The Queen".
@@Samplesurfer The thing is they don't show the after effects of the intervention on the island in the rest of the show. In real life however there are consequences to, as Sir Humphrey put it "interfering in the internal squabbles" of others.
Cases in point:- VIetnam, Afghanistan (British, Soviet, and American), and Iraq. Also Ukraine. Make no mistake, the Ukraine War will a much greater impact in much shorter time period than the entire period from WW2 till the start of the Ukraine War. Ironically, it was the American beraucrats that pushed for this war rather than politicians.
@@bilalbaig8586This comedy is from the 1980s. The actual 'event' was the invasion of Grenada, a British Commonwealth member by Ronald Reagan, who "replaced" a more left wing oriented new government there. It was feared the new Grenada government would get closer with Cuba, (Castro), Nicaragua (Sandinistas) and Panama (Noriega).
The British and in particular Queen Elisabeth were very unhappy with the American decision to invade Grenada, as they did nothing to put a brake on this arrival of a new 'left wing government' and it's approach to the countries the USA had a beef with.
What you hear in this fragment is 'the foreign policy view' and is a joke on the Thatcher government, who didn't intervene in Grenada, as they had been talked out-of-it by the British Diplomats and then, without a warning the USA invaded Grenada.
Just to give you a taste of how not close that Special Relationship of UK-USA every time the Americans had a different view.
@@Samplesurfer I did not know that. Thanks for the info. Although considering that this is South America the US stance is not all that surprising. The Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.
In the show, it felt a bit jarring that the Americans would keep the British out of the loop especially in the situation of a Middle Eastern country.
@@bilalbaig8586 "The Americans, invading a commonwealth country? The palace will hit the roof!" th-cam.com/video/1gjln4gaeeg/w-d-xo.html
It's in the next scene of this episode, also on TH-cam.
_"In practice , this presents no problem. If pressed, the FO looks at the matter again, and comes up with the same view. If the Foreign Secretary demands options, the FO obliges him by presenting three options, two of which will be (on close examination)_ [NOTE TO SELF: such close examination cannot be allowed to happen] _exactly the same. The third will, of course, be totally unacceptable, like bombing Warsaw, or invading France._ [NOTE TO SELF: what if the Foreign Secretary chooses the _third_ option? what is the FO supposed to do then? this plan is obviously needs to be revised in light of recent developments]"
If he chooses option 3 then you topple the government and get a new guy to choose again and repeat until you get the right answer. Simple really. Sir Humphrey would be dissappointed.
Don’t see the problem with invading France tbh
God, I am so happy I found this show.!!!
This is show is both hilarious AND factual
I know people who have served decades in the British foreign office and they wholly and unanimously concur with your comment.
@@murtazaalam8326 and pretty much every other foreign office on the globe
"We give them every support, short of help"
😂
R.I.P. Derek Fowlds.
That’s a bit much, Mr Gray.
I assure you my name is Samuel. I just thought the vitriol with which you approached Mr. Chump was strange.
I think it’s even stranger that you use the word defraud. Fraud implies some kind of swindling or financial advantage, but I hardly see what you or me or anyone else who uses their real name loses out on. Unless you wish to familiarize yourself with the real names of the people on this comment page, but perhaps not.
I’ll admit I’ve never much been interested in whether or not a thing is childish, that’s your worry I suppose. I don’t really care about strangers. Their choices are their problems. But when I meet them, I think I lose nothing by approaching them with a bit of softness. If that doesn’t make me too much of an infant in your book.
I also wonder what you think about history or literature or any other field dating back more than a hundred years where humans have expressed condolences and feelings of kinship for dead people they’ve never met.
@MichaelKingsfordGray I have no idea what you're going on about, but it sounds like you need a doctor. My sudo name is taken from two Laurel and Hardy films- "Chump At Oxford" and "Saps At Sea". With so much to be 'afraid' of in the MSM what with climate change, Brexit, Coronavirus. It's never ending the stuff that is going to kill us so it is nice to watch lighthearted stuff on TH-cam even if we do come across pricks like you making nonsensical comments.
@MichaelKingsfordGray shut up you idiot.
@MichaelKingsfordGray in the words of st greta of thunberg HOW DARE YOU 🖕🤪😂
Enjoyed clip of Yes Prime minister. The 4 stages c x.
Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister are the two best sit coms ( or were they documentaries ! ) ever made for British tv. Modern day so called comedy leaves me cold.
These are the real gangsters
Brilliant!!! ❤❤❤
Like John Nettleton, Sir Arnold (RIP), it was a pity that we didn't see more of Donald Pickering as Sir Richard Wharton, PUS at the Foreign Office.
Agreed. I think he's in two episodes? And he's a highlight in each of them.
I like the Four Stage strategy 🙂
Totally applicable to Russian invasion of Ukraine
In 2014, this was basically what happened when the invasion began.
Once again, this scene is another example of some of the most brilliant writing, dramatic or otherwise, ever seen on television.
Pure genius!
Somebody should have told politicians it was satire, not a goddamn instruction manual!
actually they have been doing this for at least 800 years
so it is working haha
beside the show is base on the civil service informants that they interviewed and base the satire of
Excellent writing, delivered and timed brilliantly by these great actors. I'm a little bit distracted by how much Donald Pickering looks like Tony Benn here, which makes it all the more surreal. Anyone else see the physical likeness?
I thought it was him doing a cameo! It's remarkable.
OMG this is brilliant!
Who is the other actor other than Humphrey and Bernard? A very good actor indeed.
That is Donald Pickering (1933-2009) as Sir Richard Wharton.
He appeared in two episodes of Yes, Prime Minister in 1986.
This is immortal ❤
Some of the best writing in the history of UK television went into YM and YPM. No exaggeration to say we may never see their like again.
Poland was in stage 3, but we though we are in stage 1. Lol
4:30 reminding me of the USA's stance on Israel Palestine crisis
My favourite episode
I say that while watching every episode. :-)
British situation comedy at its very best.
Excellent
We the English peoples can only expect that these people are culled massively to pay the ordinary people’s food bills in light of COVID
0:23
This line is just perfect.
As an American, I couldn't find the Isle of Wight without googling it.
How many Americans couldn't find Hawai'i without Googling it?!
Masterpiece
I often wonder if we should do away with politicians and let the Civil Service rule but- of course - they already do.
I came here after reading Boris' response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Nothing changes.
Does sound rather like the Foreign Office followed those four stages in 1938 and and '39.
LOL , but sadly tell me where those two senior bureaucrats lies or
were fundamentally wrong in their assesment of polititions ?
Mostly the problem is that they actually PREFER that politicians be that way, because it gives THEM all of the actual power (which Humphrey flat out says in another episode).
Rather than trying to help them become different, or sort out the wheat from the chaff, they would rather exploit stupid and short-sighted politicians and undermine or ignore the ones who try and make positive changes.
They aren't any better than politicians themselves; they are just smug in their superiority.
Trump.
Yes and no. They are right about people in general. Every idiot here have an idea about what politicians are all like despite never been one or work closely with one. The same ways politicians does not know all the affairs needed to do the jobs the public voted them for, we, as humans, all made generalizations and overestimation of our knowledge.
The technocrats know more about their jobs than the public and the idiots the public voted for. However, the elected idiots are more susceptable for being held accountable for their mistakes. What about these guys?
Occasionally, there will be competent politicians and there will be shit technocrats. Which is why absolute monarchy got abolished. An technocrat destroy a country much worse than a politician ever could. Can anyone be certain that the person who rose through the rank is not in the same situation as the politician (knowledge-wise) in the first place?
1:14 Above the Lower Volta!
4:30 Australia at the moment.
Oh yes
Where can I download the whole series?
Amazon
I bought in the Great Covid War... and ended up in Colney Hatch...Asylum... So much for British Honor 😮😮
The British government finally introduced mandatory hotel quarantine... but it's too late now.
I think I know 3/5 of those global questions.
Words.
Upper Volta is now Burkina Faso.
They speak French in Mali.
Cameroon doesn't have a National religion, there's christianity, islam and traditional beliefs. How am I doing?
They don't have a national religion (very few countries outside of Europe and the Middle East do. Something to do with separating Church/Mosque and the Government.), but they do have a predominant religion and that would be Catholicism.
The capital of Chad is N'Djamena
You are obviously not ministerial material
this is great 😅
Let’s not forget Thatcher took this as a documentary
Watch this series and you 'know politics' in the Westminster system countries.
4:26 is scarily relevant to now
This pretty much perfectly explains the appeasement politics, and the Munich Agreement… 😂
oh, indeed. Somewhere in the series there is an episode in which Sir Humphry defends the Munich agreement saying it was the right thing to do. According to him- not listening to the FO (Foreign Office) resulted in 6 year war, millions of deaths and destruction of a continent.
Our 3rd actor there looks exactly like Tony Benn. Even talks like he did. Uncanny.
Much much more fruity. He sounds like he went to Eton, which was probably the intention....
Nothing change😂
Polish knew this the hard way
Sort of. Geology was a rather insurmountable obstacle, as was needing the co-operation of the [rather ill equipped and badly led] French for a landward offensive in the west.
Similar issue in 1945... fighting the USSR as well was called "Operation Unthinkable" for a reason, due to the amount of time and lives required to stop the Germans alone.
(that; and using The Bomb wasn't an appealing option either)
@@jimtaylor294 I dont think the Polish would like operation unthinkable to be carried out at all. If the Soviet successfully hold back the western advance at the Oder, and they find out the Polish were collaborating with them, they will face even harsher opression from the soviet. If the soviet have to retreat back to Moscow, they would do another round of scorched earth tactic on Polish soil (on which there were hardly anything left to burn after the Germans retreat)
@@minhducnguyen674 Aye; though I guarrantee there's a fair number of Poles that'd claim it would've been worth it... they having a bit of a Britain & France relationship with Russia; that's roughly as long & even more brutal too.
@@jimtaylor294 Guess it can't get worse given that their country already get razed 2 time over when the front line moved through it. Can't be afraid of losing thing when there isn't much left to burn. But if the Soviet get pushed back just enough, they might get splitted into 2 parts once more. Like they said " be careful what you wish for".
@@minhducnguyen674 Aye. In another timeline; the border between west & east might have ended up in Warsaw, rather than Berlin. At least if the Russian Civil War & the Korean War are any gauge.
(Communism having an irritating habit of outlasting western politicians' dedication to destroying them)
Poland got a rather large chunk of Germany in ours though; which must have Adolf's ghost seething XD.
If only
I bit shite that I went ahmmmm as well
"Questions"
This isn't a satire this is a documentary
Too good🤣
The Swamp
The two bureaucrats have a point: certain things aren't supposed to be subjected to partisan nonsense and abstractions.
"Partisan nonesense"
Are you against democracy
Representative democracy? But of course.
@@TheGrenadier97
Democracy, even your cop-out - "rEpReSeNtAtIvE dEmOcRaCy" is partisan nonesense
@@TheGrenadier97As Sir Humphrey once said, "This is a British democracy!"
They're applying four stage instruction manual with ukraine.
stage 5: CHINA!
More than enough to replace the other four stages and a much simpler solution
Brilliant TV 😂
Foreign Office policy on Hong Kong has gone through exactly the 4stages ....
Have you ever thought why HK is so remote from Britain?
Because they stole HK from us, snatched HK from us.
If you're suggesting that the UK Government could have extended the treaty post 1997 I'd be interested to know why the Chinese would have acceded to the request?
Cleary Boris Johnson watched this show believing it to be a documentary and not a comedy
Was this released pre-Sankara?
I think it was before that little bitch's assassination.
Coronavirus explained.
& Brexit 🤣
Before the civil service became middleaged ‘church goers’ in anoracs and Asda clothes
1:40 All they want to know is: who are the Goodies and who are the Baddies..
Insert „Are we the Baddies?“ sketch
th-cam.com/video/hn1VxaMEjRU/w-d-xo.html
Feb 2020
The fifth stage: China threat theory
LVII? that is odd
Well, Ser Humphrey wouldn't perceive the maniac Trump did choose the "Totally Unacceptable" XD
The four-stage strategy was how the political class acted every time something obnoxious emanated from Brussels, and would still given the chance. As time goes by this seems less like satire and more like a fly-on-the-wall documentary.
Who's in charge of the UK now?
Probably China or the South Asian minority vote bank.
Certainly not Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer. Foreign policy comes straight from Washington DC, which comes straight from Tel Aviv....
They 2:30 they tried that with Trump....
And trump is totally insane, so it doesn’t work out.
There's a mistake in this that it's interesting that they kept in rather than doing another take. 2:50 "it will inevitably ler-lead to world war 3"
It adds an air of believeability to have mistakes. Nobody has perfect diction.
It actually makes it feel more natural. People makes these little mistakes in real life too.
Ill relay the message to ohm i forgot his name 👋 plutonium
Scary how much more relevent this show is today 😉
Laughing... and crying in heart... from HK. The UK should have done what they had done for Falkland for Hong Kong. :((((
China would have been a tougher foe than Argentina.
How are you doing there after 11 months?
Thatcher tried and she was riding on the success of Falkland. There is a good reason why after the conversation with Deng Xiaoping, she walked out almost with her knees on the ground. China isn't Argentina.
But hey, if you don't enjoy to stay in HK, you can always leave and see if UK will actually take you. China certainly won't mind you take the next boat out of the place.
@@qichen85 lol if you are in China, then you are breaking the law using vpn
if you are not in China, which foreign country are you in?? LOL
@@rub9729 lol if you are in China, then you are breaking the law using vpn
if you are not in China, which foreign country are you in?? LOL
Wow... I think this is what happened when Trump decided to bomb Iran positions - they thought it was the impossible 3rd option XD
Yes, and I doubt Trump could point out Iran on a map.
@@user-mo1vx6oq2k yeah the civil servant arent ready for that level of retardness the system seems to be working for decades