Talk:Yes Minister

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Former featured articleYes Minister is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on February 25, 2009.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
September 7, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
September 27, 2006Good article nomineeListed
September 28, 2006Featured article candidateNot promoted
September 11, 2007Featured article candidatePromoted
December 28, 2014Featured article reviewDemoted
Current status: Former featured article

Comma[edit]

Why is it Yes Minister (no comma) but Yes, Prime Minister (comma)? Grammar would suggest the comma belongs in both titles. Consistency would suggest it belongs in both or neither, but not just in one. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Most official source punctuate the two shows that way, for whatever reason ... although on occasion you can find "Yes, Minister" - presumably using the drawing of Big Ben as a sort of ersatz comma in the title screen. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 22:17, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why was the show cancelled?[edit]

Is there no information about why there was no third series of Yes, Prime Minister?

I understand that the talk page is not to discuss the topic, but I'm sure this information would be useful to viewers of the page. I have just finished watching the last episode of the second series of Yes, Prime Minister and was surprised that it didn't tie things up, it was just a regular episode, so it seemed like a third series was planned.

Why a show was cancelled (if known) is often part of a Wikipedia article.

Spiritedwolf (talk) 21:58, 22 January 2011 (UTC)Spiritedwolf[reply]

I've never seen any sources that state why the series finished, but I suspect it may have been simply that the writers had said all they wanted to say and the actors wanted to go and do other things. I don't think it was "cancelled" by the BBC as such, as it was critically acclaimed and a big ratings success. It's true that there isn't a big finale, but if you're interested in what the characters did next, the three tie-in books (The Complete Yes Minister and the two Complete Yes Prime Minister volumes) detail what happens later in their careers. I think they're still fairly available second-hand on places like Amazon, etc. Bob talk 21:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I saw a program about Yes Minister/Prime Minister, with people involved with the show (including the writer I think) talking about it. Paul Eddinton being ill was mentioned, along with him being sat behind a desk towards the end of the show (less of a strain on him). I don't remember is this had anything to do with there not being another series. Dannman (talk) 14:52, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Addition of "original research" tag[edit]

I noticed User:Lihaas added an "original research" tag to the "Situation" section. I dislike these boilerplate tags when they've been applied without making the effort to add a clarification on the talk page (especially when this is an FA), so I've removed it. However, I guess he has a point that the section is largely unreferenced. I assume a suitable way for citing this would either be to reference particular episodes to confirm a point, or perhaps the spin-off "Hacker's Diaries"? Bob talk 15:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Redadded to the article as there are several section unsourced an dother passage unsourced. In particular the other characetes bit comes off as wholly OR. How on earth did this become FA?Lihaas (talk) 12:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The "Other Characters" section doesn't seem like the worst part as it is just a fairly simple factual list. "Situation" (still) has a lot of unsourced interpretation which would be far less easy to verify. Halsteadk (talk) 12:29, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the generic boilerplate tag, per my previous post. Please list individual concerns here and myself or other editors will be able to know which parts you feel should be referenced. Incidentally, the "other characters" section wasn't in this bulletpoint style when it passed FA, so it may be wise to revise it back into a paragraph style. Thanks. Bob talk 22:55, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

someone add this, please[edit]

  • It says under the section 'Characters' that Sir Humphrey Appleby graduated with a First in Classics from 'Baillie College'. He himself says that he graduated with an Upper Second from Oxford, which is considered the equivalent of a First. Moitraanak (talk) 13:25, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this needs to be corrected. In the episode "Earn Your Honors," Appleby claims to have "a first at Oxford." The confusion regarding Seconds may be from a later episode in which Appleby asks whether Oxford grants Lower Seconds, to which Sir Arnold replies that all Oxford seconds should be regarded as Upper Seconds.
  • Richard Prebble said the show is a documentary for the civil service. ISBN 0847681874, page 245.
  • David Cameron said the series is "true to life".
  • Comparison with actual politics: Evaluating the Impact and Influence of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister (requires access) . TGCP (talk) 23:37, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Future of Yes, Prime Minister (2013)[edit]

I really enjoyed the 2013 revival of Yes, Prime Minister. I'd really like to see the Wikipedia article indicate whether further episodes of the series are in the works or definitely not going to happen. I understand that there were a lot of people that were highly critical of it and I will not be terribly surprised to find that further series will not be commissioned but I'd like to hear one way or the other if this is known. I realize that it may not be known, given that negotiations between the writers and the TV executives could come to an agreement at any time, even after a show is - apparently - dead. Still, if something is known, I'd really like to know, even if it bad news.

184.175.48.100 (talk) 23:15, 9 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/12/david-cameron-yes-minister-true

Malaysian PM admitted he is a fan of this show, and David Cameron admitted Yes Minister is true to life.--王小朋友 (talk) 20:32, 5 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The fictitious PM[edit]

Should the fictitious Prime Minister, under whom they all work, (in Yes Minister) be listed as one of the characters? The fictitious Prime Minister is not only never shown or named, but also is never referred to with a pronoun (other than "P.M.") which results in some awkward dialogue. I assume the reason for this is, referring to the Prime Minister as "she" would imply the show is satirizing Margaret Thatcher specifically, and "he" would imply male chauvinism, refusing to admit that the current real world Prime Minister at the time was a woman. Should a mention of this be added to the "Politics" section?67.119.15.97 (talk) 00:59, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, I think it would be overkill to add material about the never-heard, never-seen PM. The "Politics" section already addresses the series' avoidance of identifying characters with specific political parties, and I think it does the job. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 01:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Article issues[edit]

This article may still have issues. The "Situation" section is tagged as "original research", and "Other countries" section is unreferenced. Some others may be unreferenced. --George Ho (talk) 16:48, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Potentially useful material[edit]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Official Visit closed with a delete for episode 2 of series 1 for WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:NOTABILITY, and I am going through the other ep articles to soft-delete them via redirection for the same reasons. However, some episode articles, while still failing said policies and guidelines, have some trivial (or not so trivial?) real-world information that may be useful elsewhere, e.g. here. I am copying the material here so that editors can decide if it should get incorporated. – sgeureka t•c 21:27, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Compassionate Society: Although it was written from the imaginations of Lynn and Jay, they later discovered that "there were six such hospitals (or very large empty wings of hospitals) exactly as we had described them in our episode, notably one in Cambridgeshire in which there was only one patient: the Matron (head of nursing staff) who had fallen over some scaffolding and broken her leg."[1] There was also a large new hospital at Derriford near Plymouth which lay unopened for a significant period.[citation needed] Billy Fraser—the uncompromising Scottish trade unionist who calls the hospital out on strike—is a fictionalised depiction of Jamie Morris, who was the NUPE shop steward at the Westminster Hospital during the Winter of Discontent in early 1979.[2]
  • The Devil You Know (Yes Minister): In his published diary for 22 March 1976, then-Cabinet Minister Tony Benn records that he has told the outgoing Prime Minister Harold Wilson that the secret of his resignation had been worked out by the drivers of the Government Car Service when Wilson had made a decision that all former Prime Ministers should get a government car: "Well, the word went round the Government Car Service that the reason you'd done this was because you were going to retire".[3]
  • The Moral Dimension: The communications room was based on a real incident in Pakistan. In an interview, co-writer Antony Jay stated: "I can't tell you where, I can't tell you when and I can't tell you who was involved; all I can tell you is that we knew that it had actually happened. That's why it was so funny. We couldn't think up things as funny as the real things that had happened.[4]
  • The Challenge (Yes Minister): Armando Iannucci wrote in the Daily Telegraph that "it was in an episode from Series 3 called The Challenge that we saw how the Government succeeds in exerting pressure on the BBC by applying the best twisted logic the executive machine can deliver... If all that seems depressingly relevant, it's easy to forget how revolutionary the programme was when it first went out."[5] The character of Ben Stanley is, in both name and appearance, a thinly veiled reference to Ken Livingstone, who himself attracted criticism for his left-wing views and generally being a thorn in the side of Britain's Conservative government.[citation needed]
  • Party Games (Yes Minister) - Real life inspiration: Jim Hacker refers to Ludovic Kennedy as "Sir Ludovic" before correcting himself. Margaret Thatcher had vetoed Kennedy's knighthood in the early 1980s. although he did eventually receive a knighthood in 1994 on the recommendation of John Major.[6]
  • The Grand Design (Yes, Prime Minister) - Production: As this was the first instalment of Yes, Prime Minister, the opening and end title sequences was updated from the one used in Yes Minister. It was again drawn and animated by Gerald Scarfe, and unlike the previous series, each episode featured a different cartoon on its title card and only the caricature of Jim Hacker is used at the end credits in instead of all three characters. Starting with this episode, Series One Yes, Minister director Sydney Lotterby returns as producer and director for the entire run of Yes, Prime Minister. This episode and the third episode The Smoke Screen are the only episodes that has Scarfe and show composer Ronnie Hazlehurst near the end of the credits. The following episode The Ministerial Broadcast and the rest of the entire run of the show, Scarfe's and Hazlehurst's credits comes right after the actors credits.
  • The Key (Yes, Prime Minister): The Key marks a defining moment in the Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister story arc. Throughout the series, Sir Humphrey has been largely unbeatable, which may have made his character somewhat tedious. In this episode, Sir Humphrey is driven to the lengths of having to break into Number 10 due to Hacker and Woolley standing up to him, and much of the bureaucratic inertia which has been felt throughout the series is lifted. The greater pressures on Sir Humphrey become more recurrent in the remaining Yes, Prime Minister episodes.[7] Real life inspiration: The defining event of the episode, the locking of the internal door between the Cabinet Office and 10 Downing Street, was partly based on reality. The internal connecting door was created in 1963 during renovations to Downing Street, and the new access and proximity to the Prime Minister improved the power of some senior civil servants in the Cabinet Office.[8] Access to the door was periodically restricted. During the Second Wilson Ministry, on occasions then Cabinet Secretary Sir John Hunt (whose tenure in office was an inspiration for the character of Sir Humphrey Appleby) was periodically refused immediate access to Downing Street by the Prime Minister's adviser Bernard Donoughue, who relished taunting Hunt, who was one of the more powerful cabinet secretaries, with this ability to refuse access.[9]
  • A Victory for Democracy: This episode was inspired by the 1983 Invasion of Grenada by the United States. The name of the fictional St. George's Island derives from St. George's, the capital of Grenada.[citation needed] In addition, the parody of the defence of an island about which many British citizens (including even government ministers) know little, is a reference to events surrounding the Falklands conflict which had taken place in 1982, just four years prior to the airing of the episode.[citation needed] The Israeli storyline was based on an incident told to writer Jonathan Lynn by his uncle Abba Eban, a former Foreign Minister of Israel.[citation needed] This is the only episode of Yes, Prime Minister that has a different end title of the Jim Hacker caricature drawn and animated by Gerald Scarfe which portrays him as the British Lion.
  • One of Us (Yes, Prime Minister): The revelation that a 1960s-era director of MI5 had been a Soviet mole is inspired by suspicions regarding Roger Hollis, who was director from 1956 to 1965.[citation needed] In speaking with Jim Hacker, the head of MI5, Sir Geoffrey Hastings makes references to a number of real world spies who had passed information to the Soviet Union deemed more important, and thus rendering the information central to this incident moot, in terms of security. These include: Burgess, Maclean, and Philby (of The Cambridge Five) as well as Blake, Fuchs, and 'The Krogers' (The British names for Morris Cohen and his wife Lona Cohen).[citation needed]
  • Official Secrets (Yes, Prime Minister): The theme of a civil servant leaking information which contradicts the version given by ministers (the unnamed official at the Energy department) and the desire of the civil servant for a "clear conscience" (Bernard Woolley) is similar to the case of Clive Ponting. Ponting was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act 1911 for leaking information which indicated that when the British sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano during the Falklands War she was sailing out of the exclusion zone.[10]
  • A Diplomatic Incident - Connection to real life events: When the cabinet papers from 1984 were made public in January 2014, it was revealed that a French security officer had smuggled two canisters of high explosive into the French Embassy in London, in advance of a state visit by President Mitterrand, intending to test whether British security would detect them.[11] The two small containers of high explosive were discovered in the grounds of the Ambassador's residence, and more explosives were discovered in the Grosvenor House Hotel where the security officer was staying. The British government was infuriated (the incident happened a few days after the Brighton hotel bombing) but decided not to publicise it.[12]
References
  1. ^ "Yes Minister Questions & Answers". Jonathan Lynn Official Website. Archived from the original on 19 November 2014. Retrieved 6 September 2007.
  2. ^ Andy Beckett, "When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies", Faber & Faber, 2009, p. 477.
  3. ^ Tony Benn, "Against the Tide: Diaries 1973-76", Hutchinson, 1989, p. 543.
  4. ^ Prod. Paul Tilzey (August 2006). "Modern Times". Laughter in the House. BBC. BBC Two.
  5. ^ Iannucci, Armando (7 February 2004). "Yes, Minister: nothing changes". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2 October 2009.
  6. ^ "Sir Ludovic Kennedy". Daily Telegraph. 19 October 2009. Retrieved 19 October 2009.
  7. ^ "Yes, Prime Minister". BBC Entertainment. Retrieved 7 November 2009.
  8. ^ Seldon, A. (2016) The Cabinet Office, 1916-2016, London: Biteback Publishing, pp. 150-151
  9. ^ Seldon, A. (2016) The Cabinet Office, 1916-2016, London: Biteback Publishing, pp.190-192
  10. ^ "Troubled history of Official Secrets Act". BBC News. 18 November 1998.
  11. ^ "French planted bomb in London embassy to test security for state visit". The Times. 3 January 2014. p. 26.
  12. ^ Bowcott, Owen (3 January 2014). "French bomb in London in 1984 left Margaret Thatcher 'astonished'". The Guardian.

Title credits variance questioned[edit]

This post throws into question whether the non-standard credits were indeed aired on the original showing of the first episode, as this article currently claims. (It also provides creative information for the music used on the non-standard version.) I'll leave it to someone more involved with the page to address if possible. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:47, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this, I've amended the article in line with the Dirty Feed research (which is by somebody who has access to the original paperwork, so a reliable source.) Bob talk 22:13, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sir Nigel Hawthorne?[edit]

We have this: " . . . his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, played by Sir Nigel Hawthorne." Hawthorne wasn't knighted until well after the demise of the show. There must be a Wikipedia policy on this and I do not know what it is, but wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Appleby was played by Nigel Hawthorne? Cross Reference (talk) 21:08, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Accuracy?[edit]

I would suggest adding an accuracy section to the article, listing Yes Minister policies that have become real. DParkinson1 (talk) 17:37, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Split proposal[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was to split out the Yes, Prime Minister (2013 TV series) article, but leave the proposed Yes, Prime Minister article as is. Thanks for the feedback, everyone, I have really appreciated it. Lotsw73 (talk) 03:08, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@DParkinson1 @Cross Reference @Bob Castle @Chris 42 @The JPS... and anyone else who is interested...

I propose that this article, Yes Minister, be split into three separate articles titled Yes Minister, Yes, Prime Minister, and Yes, Prime Minister (2013 TV series). The reason being: they are three separate programmes with different plot situations, produced years apart, and the three series have enough information to warrant their own separate article.

Just testing the waters here... what do we all think of this proposal? Lotsw73 (talk) 06:05, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Split. Why is the 2013 series included in the second series and not in its own article? Gonnym (talk) 21:13, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very good point. I have now edited the split proposal to include the 2013 series as a separate article also. Lotsw73 (talk) 06:35, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say it's a good idea to split out the 2013 series, as that really is a completely separate production with an entirely different cast made many years after the original. As for the original series, there are arguments on both sides, but really other than Dorothy Wainwright, new titles and set changes, in terms of production they're essentially a continuation. You'd need to make sure that a sequel series article has something new to say in terms of production changes and so forth as the current article is very much written as an overview of both series. Bob talk 10:26, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand the topic, keeping Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister as one article will be more helpful for readers than splitting them. /Julle (talk) 00:55, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Would spin out the 2013 series as non-canonical, and keep the article otherwise intact - agree with bob that the two original series are "essentially a continuation", while Julle is spot on in saying that "one article will be more helpful for readers". Ceoil (talk) 02:10, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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