S1E1

“Always dispose of the difficult bit int the title. Does less harm there than in the text. “
“The less you intend to do about something, the more you have to keep talking about it. “

“You can be open or you can have goverment.”
“But surely the citizens of a democracy have a right to know.”
“No. They have a right to be ignorant. Knowledge only means complicity and guilt. Ignorance has a certain dignity.”

S1E2

“We have the usual six options. One, do nothing. Two, issue a statement deploring the speech. Three, lodge an official protest. Four, cut off aid. Five, break off diplomatic relations. And six, declare war. “
“Which should we do?”
“If we do nothing, we implicitly agree with the speech. Two, if we issue a statement, we just look foolish. Three, if we lodge a protest, it will be ignored. Four, we can’t cut off aid because we don’t give them any. Five, if we break off diplomatic relations, we can’t negotiate the oil rig contracts. And six, if we declare war, it might just look as if we were overreacting. “

S1E3

“Politicians like to panic. They need activity. It’s their substitute for achievement. “

S1E4

“They’re the opposition in exile. The Civil Service are the opposition in residence.”

S1E5

“I wouldn’t call Civil Service delays ‘tactics’, Minister, that would be to mistake lethargy for strategy.’”

“Where one stands, Minister, depends upon where one sits.”

“You should never let Ministers get so deeply involved. The next thing you know they’ll be dictatig policy.”

“Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. We have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the German against the French and with the French against the Germans and the Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it’s worked so well?”

“We had to break the whole thing up, so we had to get inside. We tried from the outside, but it wouldn’t work. Now, we can make a complete pig’s breakfast of the whole thing.”

“Why are we pressing for an increase in the membership?”
“For the same reason. It’s just like the United Nations. The more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up, the more futile and impotent it becomes.”
“What appalling cynicism.”
“Yes. We call it diplomacy, Minister.”

“The Germans will love it, the French will ignore it, and the Italians and the Irish will be too chaotic to enforce it. Only the British will resent it.”

“It’s top secret.”
“You mean everyone.”

“When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”

S1E6

“It is folly to increase knowledge if it’s at the expense of your authority.”

“A Minister has three functions. First, as an advocate, making the Department’s actions seem plausible to Parliament and public, he is our public relations man. Second, he is our man in Westminster, steering our legislation through Parliament. And third, he is our breadwinner. He has to fight in Cabinet for the money we need to run our Department. But, he is not here to review departmental procedures with Principals and Assistant Secretaries.”

“Almost anything can be attacked as a ‘loss of amenity’, and almost anything can be defended as ‘not a significant loss of amenity’. One should appreciate the significance of ‘significant’.”

“Actually it’s only the urban middle class who worry about the preservation of the countryside, because they don’t have to live in it.”

“Those Civil Servants may be always kowtowing to Daddy, but they never take any notice of him.”

“Yes, but Daddy’s in politics. He has to be ingratiating.”

“Bernard, this country is governed by Ministers making decisions from the various alternative proposals tahe we offer them, is it not?”
“Oh, yes.”
“If they had all the facts, they’d see all sorts of other possibilities. They might even formulate their own plans instead of choosing between the ones that we put up. As long as we can formulate our own proposals, we can guide them to the correct decision.”

“There are four words if you want a Minister to accept a proposal. Quick. Simple. Popular. Cheap. And there are four words for a proposal if you want it thrown out.”
“Complicated. Lengthy.Expensive. Controversial.”
“And to be really sure the Minister doesn’t accept it, you say the decision is courageous.”
“And that’s worse than ‘controversial’?”
“‘Controversial’ means ‘this will lose your votes’. ‘Courageous’ means ‘this will lose you the election’.”

S1E7

“The Official Secrets Act is not to protect secrets, but officials.”

S2E1

“After the sacrifice is made, nobody questions what happened to the offering.”

“Nobody was concerned what was being done with their money. What outraged them was being told.”

S2E2

“Many many things must be done, but nothing done for the first time.”

S2E3

“Ministers, unlike civil servants, are selected completely at random by prime ministerial whim, in recognition of dubious services rendered, or to avoid appointing someone of real ability.”

“You might almost be a civil servant yourself.”

“First law of political indiscretion: always have a drink before you leak.”

S2E4

“Suppression is the instrument of dictatorships. We don’t talk of that sort of thing in a free country. We simply take a democratic decision not to publish.”

“There’s a Government procedure for suppress…… for deciding not to publish reports. You simply discredit them. In stage one, you give your reasons in terms of the public interest…… In stage two, discredit the evidence that you’re not publishing…… In stage three, you undermine recommendations…… In stage four, you discredit the man who produced the report. Off the record, of course.”

“The people are ignorant and misguided.”
“Humphrey, It was the pople who elected me!”

“A week is a long time in politics.”
“A year is a short time in goverment.”

“‘Restricted’ means it was in the papers yesterday. ‘Confidential’ means it won’t be in the papers until today.”

“Ministers are not experts. They’re chosen because they know nothing.”

“It’s the people’s will. I am their leader. I must follow them.”

S2E5

“The problem with Brussels isn’t internationalism but too much bureaucracy.”
“The bureaucracy is a consequence of the internationalism.”

“A Common Market official has the organising of the Italians, the flexibility of the Germans, the modesty of the French, the imagination of the Belgians, the generosity of the Dutch and the intelligence of the Irish!”

S2E6

“ When we want Ministers to sign without asking questions, we wait until they’re in a hurry, and their concentration is weakest. That’s why we keep them on the go.”

S2E7

“A good speech isn’t one in which we can prove he’s telling the truth. It’s one in which nobody else can prove he’s lying.”

“Minister’s speeches aren’t written for the audience they are speaking to. Delivering a pseech is just a formality you have to go through in order to get into the papers.”

“The point is the speech said the right things. Once printed, the Minister defend us in select committees…… Once something goes wrong, the Minister’s first instinct is to rat on his department. We must nail his trousers to the mast.”

“He that would keep a secret must keep it secret that he has a secret to keep.”

“Blurring the issue is one of the basic ministerial skills.”
“And the others?”
“Delaying decisions, dodging questions, juggling figures, bending facts and concealing errors.”

“We choose one of the five standard excuses to deal with each one of the allegation. First, there’s a perfect explanation for everything, but security forbids its disclosure. Second, because of budget cuts, supervisory resources went beyond their limits. Third, a worthwhile experiment, now abandoned, but it had provided much valuable data and employment. Four, it occurred before important facts were known and couldn’t re-occur. Five, it was an unfortunate lapse by an individual which has been dealt with under internal disciplinary procedures.”

S3E1

“Principles are excellent vote winners.”

“The three articles of Civil Service: it takes longer to do things quickly; it’s more expensive to do them cheaply; and it’s more democratic to do them in secret.”

S3E3

“Government figures are a nonsense.”

S3E4

“The press office can devise something convincing and meaningless. After all, that’s what they’re paid for.”

“A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist.”

S3E5

“In the meantime, formulating policy means making choices. Once you do that, you please the people that you favour, but infuriate everybody else.”

“Every department acts for the powerful interest with whom they have a permanent relationship.”

“The ship of this state is the only ship that leaks from the top.”

S3E6

“A rule of government is never look into anything you don’t have to, never set up an enquiry unless you know in advance what its findings will be.”

“Government isn’t about morality.”
“Really? What is it about?”
“Stability. Keeping things going. Stopping society falling to bits. Still being here tomorrow.”
“What for?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What is the purpose of government if not for doing good?”
“Government isn’t about good and evil. It’s about order or chaos.”

“The golden rule is don’t lift lids off cans of worms.”

“Just because you’ve caught something nasty, why do you have to breathe over everyone?”

“The thing about government is principle, and the principle is you mustn’t rock the boat.”

S3E7

“Subsidy is for art, for culture. It is not to be given to what the people want! It is for what the people don’t want but ought to have!”

“Bernard, have you ever thought of gong into politics?”
“Oh, no, Minister.”
“Why not?”
“I once looked it up in my thesaurus.”
“What did it say?”
“Manipulation, intrigue, wire-pulling, evasion, graft, rabble-rousing…”

S3E8 (Christmas Special)

“First rule of politics: Never believe anything until it’s officially denied.”

“Poliics is about presentation.”

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