Yes Minister

On the day after the General Election, Jim Hacker MP receives the anxiously awaited call from Number 10 Downing Street with his new ministerial appointment. He has landed the job of Cabinet Minister to the Department of Administration and he has revolutionary plans for Open Government.

The Minister has a plan to turn an official visit by the President of Buranda to party political advantage. He wants to move the President's meeting with the Queen to Scotland to coincide with the local elections. The Permanent Secretary dislikes the plan, especially when it precipitates an unforeseen crisis.

Pruning the civil service is a great political platform for the Minister but the idea is deeply upsetting to Sir Humphrey Appleby. He explains that the civil service measures its success by the size of its staff and budget. Perhaps he can find a way to make the Minister abandon the policy.

Jim Hacker is having some problems with decision making at the same time as he sets out to protect people's right to privacy. He meets with stiff resistance from Sir Humphrey and learns that secrecy is as sacred an observance for civil servants as silence is for Trappist monks.

While battling one another on the civil service reduction issue, the Minister and Sir Humphrey learn of a plan that would adversely affect them both. Their own department is now facing closure. They must work together for the first time if they are to prevent it.

Are there occasions when a Minister should be kept in the dark? Sir Humphrey seems to be holding back important information about how the department operates. The question takes on new meaning when the Minister's daughter joins a group protesting his plans for administration of the countryside.

The Minister is puzzled by Sir Humphrey's evasion of questions about a departmental construction project in the Midlands. When the awful truth is revealed, the Minister finds himself implicated as well. Sir Humphrey must try to rescue the project without attracting publicity.