Yes Minister (for investment)

Enthusiasts of that wonderful BBC series of yesteryear Yes Minister - still being shown on BBC Prime - will instantly recognise the provenance of The Times' problems with the Ministry for Investment (and so forth) over the attempt to publish an...

Enthusiasts of that wonderful BBC series of yesteryear Yes Minister - still being shown on BBC Prime - will instantly recognise the provenance of The Times' problems with the Ministry for Investment (and so forth) over the attempt to publish an interview with the Film Commissioner.

The attitude of the Ministry for Investment (and so forth) on this issue bears an uncanny, and hysterical, resemblance to the episode in which Sir Humphrey Appleby, the ever-unhelpful civil servant, totally baffles the hapless minister, Jim Hacker, with a convoluted debate on the allocation of responsibility between the administration of policy and the policy of administration.

Sir Humphrey and Mr Hacker are, sadly, no longer with us - except for the repeats - but it is, somehow, encouraging to learn that deep in the bowels of the Ministry for Investment (and so forth) their spirit lives on in public servants (?) who are still brandishing the standard of Sir Humphrey's mission statement that this government of the bureaucrat, by the bureaucrat, for the bureaucrat, shall not perish from the earth.

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