Yes Minister

- Season 3

(1982)

With his wife's encouragement, Minister Hacker decides he should focus on accomplishing 1 or 2 significant achievements while in office. He decides the time has come to promote more women into the senior ranks of the civil service. Needless to say, Sir Humphrey very much wants to maintain the status quo and arranges for his fellow permanent secretaries to brief their own Ministers accordingly. Hacker nonetheless insists on promoting a woman in his own department, but things don't quite work out as planned.

Following a re-alignment of responsibilities, Jim Hacker now finds himself the Minister responsible for local government authorities in addition to his existing duties. As one can expect, he wants to reform local government. Following the advice of Sir Arnold Robinson, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Humphrey gets the Minister to focus on civil defense but even at that, he manages to get himself into trouble when interviewed on television. Sir Humphrey saves the day when he manages to convince the BBC to pull the interview.

The Minister is once again locking horns with Sir Humphrey, this time over a local Council's inability, or refusals, to submit its statistical reports. The local Council government belongs to Hacker's party and he doesn't want to make waves but Sir Humphrey is insistent. The Minister gains the advantage when a Daily Mail reporter put him on to a story. The 30-year lease on a military base in Scotland is about to expire and the government will lose a fortune it has spent building it up. It would seem that some junior bureaucrat at the time made a grievous error in ...

While on an official visit to a Middle East sheikdom to finalize a major contract for a UK firm, the Minister manages to get himself into trouble on several fronts. Learning that the country is dry, he arranges for liquor to be available on the sly. When they are presented with an expensive 17th century antique bowl, Mrs. Hacker gets Bernard Woolley to get the object valued at less than £50 allowing her to keep the gift. When the Minister learns that bribes were likely paid to obtain the contract, he insists that there be a full public inquiry. A little reminder from ...

The Minister yet again finds himself in it when the Cabinet Secretary and the Prime Minister's senior advisor con him into taking responsibility for developing a national transportation policy. The whole thing has been tried before and with little success. Sir Humphrey is aghast that the Minister took this on without first discussing with him and at the first meeting of officials, the Minister also realizes that he has made a grievous error. Their first attempt to rid themselves of the commitment fails but their second attempt proves somewhat more successful.

The Minister finds himself in a bit of a bind when an army officer tells him privately that British-made weapons are finding their way into the hands of Italian Red terrorists. Hacker is very keen to do something about this and despite Sir Humphrey's view that this is not their problem, decides to inform the Prime Minister. The PM's office doesn't want to hear about it, but the Minister has now painted himself into a corner as the only member of the government who knows about this situation. Bernard Woolley's suggestion of using the "Rhodesia Solution" provides him ...

When the Minister is approached by a group of local constituents seeking government funding for their nearly bankrupt local football club, he suggests that they sell the local museum to private interests and use the proceeds for their sports team. Sir Humphrey - a patron of the arts and an avid opera-goer - is aghast at the prospect of taking funds from the arts and transferring it to sports. He and his fellow permanent secretaries come up with an ideal solution - make Jim Hacker the Minister responsible for the arts.

Sir Humphrey Appleby receives his just reward when he's told by Sir Arnold Robinson that he is to be his successor as Cabinet Secretary. Jim Hacker has mixed feelings about the whole thing and while he appreciates all of the advice he's received from Sir Humphrey over the years, they have also had their fair share of disagreements. When the Prime Minister suddenly announces his resignation, Hacker decides to take a run at the party leadership. His primary campaign issue is new regulations from Brussels on the content of sausages which point to the demise of the ...