I once showed it to a local politician who felt a survey presented by the territorial government couldn't possibly be right but couldn't figure out how. This showed him the questions to ask regarding the methodology of the survey.
It's a comedy series precisely because the best jokes are based on fact. This is likely the best primer on how government really works you will ever get. And it is timeless precisely because the nature of people and bureaucracies remain largely the same.
It's February 2024 and the reputable polling organization, Ipsos, just ran an experiment in which it asked Sir Humphrey's 2 sets of questions regarding national service to a representative quota sample of 2,158 adults. Half were asked the 1st set, the other half the 2d set. Ipsos found that the prior, leading questions yielded a 10% effect on the responses to the last question. These were phone interviews, so the Ipsos experiment does not take into account the additional effect of having a "nice young lady" at your door and the desire to avoid appearing inconsistent in front of said nice young lady
Apparently this can be done with a single question, even when the wording has no obvious bias. According to the 'Interviews and Questionnaires' section of an American book I have on Systems Analysis, in 1940 pollster Elmo Roper asked different groups one of two questions: "Do you think the United States should forbid public speaking against democracy?" and got a 50% yes vote and to the other group "Do you think the United States should allow public speaking against democracy?" and got a 75% no vote. People apparently find different connotations or subtexts in the words 'forbid' and 'allow' which can sway their answers.
@@williambavington5392 I see 'forbid' as taking away something someone already has (whether they do or not is irrelevant), where as 'allow' implies that it's not currently acceptable. It's far easier to not give something away than to take something back at a later date. "It's hard to put a leash on a dog, once you've put a crown on its head".
"The reputable polling organisation Ipsos"? I think you missed what Sir Humphrey said: "Well not the reputable ones. No. But there aren't any of those."
@@DomWeasel TF did I just watch. Why did you have to mention this thing that I had to look it up?! I can't now unwatch this shit. And that's only the trailer. With that said, I'm someone who's always for good remakes but for some reason, I'm against it for this series. I think it would be an insult to the original cast if it was remade.
@@mighty-roman The three of them ARE their characters. Paul, Nigel and Derek were fantastic actors and embody their characters. I can't ever accept a Sir Humphrey who doesn't have Nigel's rather shark-like smile, a Hacker who doesn't have Paul's amazing range of facial emotion or a Bernard without Derek's twinkle. It just can't work. 'Reimagined' shows work very well but when they just try to remake a show by updating it... It never feels right to me.
Well you seem to have the most perfect renewability rate for the superlatives, if you truly had ran out of them at the beginning of your sentence and regained one by the three-fourths of the same, previously mentioned sentence.
When this was first broadcast (more accurately, when its predecessor "Yes, Minister" was first broadcast), it was very quickly said to be the favourite programme for just about everyone connected with Parliament because it was uncannily accurate. And, of course, it was flipping hilarious!
I never watched it in my early twenties when it came out… now I’d watch allll of it! Amazing. I heard it said it was the number one show in Russia at one point
British comic writing was certainly popular in the Soviet Union, they had excellent TV and film versions of things like _Three Men in a Boat, Charlie's Aunt,_ and _She Stoops to Conquer._ Later, in the post-collapse 90's & 00's, I know the localized version of ITV's _Jeeves & Wooster_ was immensely popular, but as far as I know neither YM nor YPM were ever translated.
FYI (almost all) pollsters in the UK, certainly all those anyone cares about, are members of the British Polling Council and have signed up to rules including, among other things, publishing all questions asked in the order they're asked, and complete methodology. So this doesn't actually happen IRL (e.g. with YouGov, Ipsos, etc.) though it's ofc very funny and a masterclass in how to conduct a disreputable poll!
You see guys; what governments have known for ages, it’s not the answers you get but the questions that invite them and still the mind games go on…….but with added buffering & bluster! 😂
Sometimes I wonder if we never give Chamberlain a break. The mess of WW1 was comparable in closeness to him with e.g. 9/ 11 to many people now, its psychological and cultural effects still vivid. It's not like the biased sentiment towards peace was wildly misplaced or unpopular. Not enough people understood the sophisticated savagery of Hitler's ambitions before it was too late, globally.
100% agree. He had the very best intentions and any ordinary person would never have seen the holocaust. It just happened that Churchill was not really normal or sane lol
@@marcvesper I would go further and say WW1 was much bigger in impact - on the European psyche at least - than 9/11 was. It lasted something like 5 years, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers being killed in the meat-grinder of trench warfare every day for most of it.
@@marcvesper Nowadays, Chamberlain is reckoned to have delayed the war by a couple of years - giving us enough time to rearm and defeat the Germans...Which we had done before the French essentially switched sides and gave the exhausted German Army all of their tanks, ammo, supplies, etc.
Humphrey's grin when he snookers Bernard gives me life. It's fairly rare for him to actually play a trick like this on Bernard directly - usually he gives a third-person example or is messing with Hacker, so being overtly smug would be inappropriate.
I would like to think, and see no reason why not, that Lynn & Jay's lines will still be quoted as relevant many years from now, in the same way that Shakespeare is quoted. Damn fine writing, performed by damn fine actors.
Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister are Machiavelli's The Prince updated to early 1980s UK with lots of gags added rather than playing it totally straight. It'll never date because the show never says one politician or political party is better or worse than another. They're referred to as "the opposition", "the government" or "the civil service" in other words, those who want power, those who think they are in charge, those that really pull the strings. Even during WWII or WWI, the places were power really lies weren't touched by it. Monaco, Switzerland, the Vatican, etc
My household members have today each received a survey to complete from the current incumbent PM presumably as a pre-election sweetener to persuade us that he actually cares what the plebs think. I have sent this clip to them all in the hope they will see what the real motive is.
As it was when first broadcast all those years ago apposite and brilliant. Surprised they don't repeat this. It is much better written and acted than the dross on mainstream TV today.
Love reading the comments. Watched this when I lived in UK and was into politics .. but all ilrevelent now come July 4th independent MPs could form a government of a certain political persuasion.
There is an episode for Rishi's smoking ban as well. It's liking he's channelling Jim Hacker whilst ignoring Bernard and Humphrey. That or he is being pranked by one of his advsers.
As a Psychology student, whenever we focus on Survey questionnaire and how they can mislead, I will present this in the class!!
it's a perfect example on how people can be easily manipulated. I think you made the right call to use this
I show it to my students for the same reason!
He's a textbook sociopath.
I once showed it to a local politician who felt a survey presented by the territorial government couldn't possibly be right but couldn't figure out how. This showed him the questions to ask regarding the methodology of the survey.
Ipsos Mori did the poll this hear and found he was correct
And this sketch will be very relevant from today in the UK.
Here, like everyone else, because of Sunak’s promise to reestablish national service
Yep!!
Guilty
Of course!
of course hes sending his kids to usa so they wont go in the meat grinder
@@EdEd-k7q Only the red wall plebs.
This has aged stupendously
Truly life imitating art lol
Please Labour just make this a party political broadcast. No other commentary requiredd
Labour needs this to be every advert
Except for the part where the prime minister felt the need to tell his cabinet colleagues first.
Has it?.
The absolute best BBC comedy ever without question
i`d like to support your theory but ...
Not sure it's actually a comedy series. Looks rather factual these days
It's a comedy series precisely because the best jokes are based on fact. This is likely the best primer on how government really works you will ever get. And it is timeless precisely because the nature of people and bureaucracies remain largely the same.
ohh now i could say yes or i could give my opinion and say blackadder
Comedy? From my experience in the Foreign office in the seventies I'd say it's a training video.
It's February 2024 and the reputable polling organization, Ipsos, just ran an experiment in which it asked Sir Humphrey's 2 sets of questions regarding national service to a representative quota sample of 2,158 adults. Half were asked the 1st set, the other half the 2d set. Ipsos found that the prior, leading questions yielded a 10% effect on the responses to the last question. These were phone interviews, so the Ipsos experiment does not take into account the additional effect of having a "nice young lady" at your door and the desire to avoid appearing inconsistent in front of said nice young lady
we may never know the true effects of not wanting to look a fool in front of a nice polling lady...
Looks like the pm saw the result without the context
Apparently this can be done with a single question, even when the wording has no obvious bias. According to the 'Interviews and Questionnaires' section of an American book I have on Systems Analysis, in 1940 pollster Elmo Roper asked different groups one of two questions: "Do you think the United States should forbid public speaking against democracy?" and got a 50% yes vote and to the other group "Do you think the United States should allow public speaking against democracy?" and got a 75% no vote. People apparently find different connotations or subtexts in the words 'forbid' and 'allow' which can sway their answers.
@@williambavington5392 I see 'forbid' as taking away something someone already has (whether they do or not is irrelevant), where as 'allow' implies that it's not currently acceptable. It's far easier to not give something away than to take something back at a later date. "It's hard to put a leash on a dog, once you've put a crown on its head".
"The reputable polling organisation Ipsos"? I think you missed what Sir Humphrey said:
"Well not the reputable ones. No. But there aren't any of those."
You could reshoot this series and not change a word, it's all still relevant.
Sadly when they made the remake, they got everything wrong. From casting to dialogue.
@@DomWeasel
TF did I just watch.
Why did you have to mention this thing that I had to look it up?!
I can't now unwatch this shit.
And that's only the trailer.
With that said, I'm someone who's always for good remakes but for some reason, I'm against it for this series.
I think it would be an insult to the original cast if it was remade.
@@mighty-roman
The three of them ARE their characters. Paul, Nigel and Derek were fantastic actors and embody their characters. I can't ever accept a Sir Humphrey who doesn't have Nigel's rather shark-like smile, a Hacker who doesn't have Paul's amazing range of facial emotion or a Bernard without Derek's twinkle. It just can't work.
'Reimagined' shows work very well but when they just try to remake a show by updating it... It never feels right to me.
Then why do a reshoot? Re-air is so much cheaper.
@@mighty-roman how bad did they made it
Tldr me
I thought the Eurosausage moment would never be equalled. Rishi just had to pull the most hilarious "hold my beer" move on his way out.
I still remember the phrase 'High fat low protein offal tubing'. Classic.
YM and YPM is still the gold standard for intelligent and timeless comedy writing and acting.
I thought it was a documentary?
But it was and remains gobsmackingly accurate.
It is fascinating just how many comedy programmes end up later, in "real life"!
Yes Minister, The Thick of It, W1A, and so on...
Brilliant. The demonstration of how polls are manipulated is textbook material.
I've run out of superlatives to describe just how brilliant the writing was for this series and the singular most perfect cast assembled.
Well you seem to have the most perfect renewability rate for the superlatives, if you truly had ran out of them at the beginning of your sentence and regained one by the three-fourths of the same, previously mentioned sentence.
I think of this scene any time I hear; "A new poll came out today".
exactly!
Ah Rishi, I thought I'd seen your episode before...
Simply the best scriptwriting of any sitcom ever.
That might actually go to Blackadder. A hard contender though, this one
Excellent and so perfect for the situation after the Tory announcement yesterday about National Service.
Sir Humphrey is soooo good!
You are wrong. He was perfect!
Perfection.
Rarely equalled.
NEVER bettered.
politics ... never directly answer a question or reveal how much money you have whilst steadfastly enforcing the ideal of solution
When I was watching this a few years back I thought the idea of conscription coming back in Britain was unrealistic.
It is! Squishy Rishy will be in California by mid-July!
It still is.
this is so spot on now
Ipos-MORI actually did this survey in 2024 and got exactly the result that Yes Prime Minister said.
Love watching this show great acting and very funny you can’t beat the oldies.
When this was first broadcast (more accurately, when its predecessor "Yes, Minister" was first broadcast), it was very quickly said to be the favourite programme for just about everyone connected with Parliament because it was uncannily accurate. And, of course, it was flipping hilarious!
Unbelievable that most of this brilliant comedy still is current
If it was about VHS players, car-phones, or file-o-faxes, this would have dated, but it's about human nature, which doesn't change.
This is so fresh, it's still got morning dew on it
and yet ... soooo old
the learning process
so rare these days
Humphrey giving a masterclass in how to achieve ones desired political answer by the use of polls.
Very apt for our times!
Absolutely superb comedy, reflecting true politics, and as ever ALWAYS relevant no matter what the current situation!!
My favorite scene from this series. A cautionary tale for us all.
I never watched it in my early twenties when it came out… now I’d watch allll of it! Amazing. I heard it said it was the number one show in Russia at one point
British comic writing was certainly popular in the Soviet Union, they had excellent TV and film versions of things like _Three Men in a Boat, Charlie's Aunt,_ and _She Stoops to Conquer._ Later, in the post-collapse 90's & 00's, I know the localized version of ITV's _Jeeves & Wooster_ was immensely popular, but as far as I know neither YM nor YPM were ever translated.
What a brilliant clip of Yes Prime Minster even the dvd Box Set is worth buying
2024 and it’s come true
Not just including Sunak, but IPSOS (a pollster) literally ran this poll (albeit without a "nice young lady") and found that it actually works.
Nothing has changed in over 40 years this programme is completely relevant today and is just as funny
I show this to my argumentation and debate class every semester.
Spot on.
If only wine aged this well.
Something tells me the Tories have done one of these polls.
This is now the national debate. 😂
I love this show so much. Amazing work.
Brilliant script-writers, brilliant actors. How do you improve on perfection?
FYI (almost all) pollsters in the UK, certainly all those anyone cares about, are members of the British Polling Council and have signed up to rules including, among other things, publishing all questions asked in the order they're asked, and complete methodology. So this doesn't actually happen IRL (e.g. with YouGov, Ipsos, etc.) though it's ofc very funny and a masterclass in how to conduct a disreputable poll!
Sure, they can publish all that info - but the newspapers don't report on them. Methodology of statistics bores tabloid readers.
The polling organisations might have to, but do the newspapers that write about it, or the organisations that commission them, have to mention it?
Horseshit
Still relevant today.
Very much so.
This is not a sitcom. It's a bloody documentary!
I can't believe how relevant this has become. But then, this is 2024 we're talking about.
Watched this show eons ago and never imagined this being strikingly relevant again
And all these years later... the game goes on....
Who is here some 40 years after this clip and the government is still at it? 🤣
We have ALL the series of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister and to say it was years ago it fit the bill today …
You see guys; what governments have known for ages, it’s not the answers you get but the questions that invite them and still the mind games go on…….but with added buffering & bluster! 😂
"It's not how the votes are cast, but how they are counted" - Joseph Stalin
Satirical genius of the highest order ✌️
Poor Neville Chamberlain was so very keen on peace
Sometimes I wonder if we never give Chamberlain a break. The mess of WW1 was comparable in closeness to him with e.g. 9/ 11 to many people now, its psychological and cultural effects still vivid. It's not like the biased sentiment towards peace was wildly misplaced or unpopular. Not enough people understood the sophisticated savagery of Hitler's ambitions before it was too late, globally.
100% agree. He had the very best intentions and any ordinary person would never have seen the holocaust. It just happened that Churchill was not really normal or sane lol
@@marcvesper I would go further and say WW1 was much bigger in impact - on the European psyche at least - than 9/11 was. It lasted something like 5 years, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers being killed in the meat-grinder of trench warfare every day for most of it.
The French referred to Chamberlain as "J'aime Berlin".
@@marcvesper Nowadays, Chamberlain is reckoned to have delayed the war by a couple of years - giving us enough time to rearm and defeat the Germans...Which we had done before the French essentially switched sides and gave the exhausted German Army all of their tanks, ammo, supplies, etc.
Humphrey's grin when he snookers Bernard gives me life. It's fairly rare for him to actually play a trick like this on Bernard directly - usually he gives a third-person example or is messing with Hacker, so being overtly smug would be inappropriate.
I would like to think, and see no reason why not, that Lynn & Jay's lines will still be quoted as relevant many years from now, in the same way that Shakespeare is quoted. Damn fine writing, performed by damn fine actors.
Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister are Machiavelli's The Prince updated to early 1980s UK with lots of gags added rather than playing it totally straight.
It'll never date because the show never says one politician or political party is better or worse than another. They're referred to as "the opposition", "the government" or "the civil service" in other words, those who want power, those who think they are in charge, those that really pull the strings.
Even during WWII or WWI, the places were power really lies weren't touched by it.
Monaco, Switzerland, the Vatican, etc
Sometimes it's difficult to comprehend That Paul, Nigel, and Derek are no longer with us..... 💔
...sadly so... but their legacy sure is.
My household members have today each received a survey to complete from the current incumbent PM presumably as a pre-election sweetener to persuade us that he actually cares what the plebs think. I have sent this clip to them all in the hope they will see what the real motive is.
As funny and insightful, and true, as this undoubtedly is, it is also, on reflection, terrifying. And likely happening as we speak...
"Yes"
Unfortunately it may be if the tories get their way
This needs to be shown again on the BBC before 4th July!
Trouble is that the BBC’s current management won’t do so!
Thinking about it - it needs to be on as many streaming services as possible!
Not even I watch the Beeb very often - except for special events!
I love it when hacker becomes the cynical one
Brilliant!
Sunak should watch this
He did . He is trying to bring conscription
The power of the yes set..
As it was when first broadcast all those years ago apposite and brilliant. Surprised they don't repeat this. It is much better written and acted than the dross on mainstream TV today.
Sir Humphrey, Master of Darkness
Yes…the lighting often creates dark areas where his eyes are, adding to the gentle suggestion of menace.
All hail the algorithm
So accurate
I like how this was recommended 😂😂
Possibly the best bit of video ever.
Brilliant writing.
Brilliant.
The power of suggestion you see
Good algorithm 😂
Such a clever series, would be great to see a well done remake
🤨 Bot...
This clip has given me a good example to look for in regards to Statistical fallacy
Even more true today
It's happening again...
Superb comedy 😂👍😂
Masterful!
I'd forgotten about this episode. The writers didn't miss a thing...
Well well well, if irony were a video
"Not the reputable ones"
For those wondering, its Gallup, among others.
Hgreed. Spot on
awesome
Absolutely brilliant😂😂😂
I use a series of opposite questions to my son in order for him to say no and why his request is a bad idea :)
Someone at the BBC should be watching this show while looking at their own organization... and Gov't.
"W1A" and "The Thick of It" are what you need!
Love reading the comments. Watched this when I lived in UK and was into politics .. but all ilrevelent now come July 4th independent MPs could form a government of a certain political persuasion.
This is the Conservative plan for the next election lol 😂
Did Britain's premier un-elected oligarch, Rishi Sunak, who has never done a day's hard work in his life, watch this episode?
Muppet
He is what i imagine Mycroft holmes is
Dry dated political British humor not sure I would like this… Watches show… This is freaking brilliant!
It's all in the facial expressions...........
Les Griffiths
Genius
Penny Mordaunt 😊😂
Looking forward to 4.7.2024!
There is an episode for Rishi's smoking ban as well. It's liking he's channelling Jim Hacker whilst ignoring Bernard and Humphrey. That or he is being pranked by one of his advsers.
YM/YPM are public service announcements on politics.
This was first time I realized what a push poll is.
As relevent today as it was then.
Brilliant back then and maybe even more so today.
This scene may have been edited out of some U.S. broadcasts since I don't remember it.
It's still hard to equate Bernard Wooley with Sgt Oscar Blaketon on Heartbeat. That's acting for you.
Current Australian series Utopia is heavily influenced by Yes Minister/Prime Minister but doesent slavishly copy it.
Utopia? You mean the book by Machiavelli!