Plot

The Right Honorable James Hacker has landed the plum job of Cabinet Minister to the Department of Administration. At last he is in a position of power and can carry out some long-needed reforms, or so he thinks.

James Hacker is the British Minister for Administrative Affairs. He tries to do something and cut government waste, but he is continually held back by the smart and wily Permanent Secretary of the Department, Sir Humphrey Appleby. Private secretary Bernard Woolley is caught in the middle, between his political master, and his civil service boss.—Tony Lammens <lammens@connexus.apana.org.au>

Jim Hacker is a Member of Parliament and his party has just won the election. He is appointed Minister of Administrative Affairs, with power over the Department of Administrative Affairs (DAA). The Head of the DAA is Sir Humphrey Appleby, a wily customer, very experienced in the ways of government and how to bend them to his own ends. Mr Hacker soon discovers that politicians' aims and those of the civil service are not necessarily the same, and that Sir Humphrey will often try to thwart him at every turn.—grantss

After years in opposition a new party is in power. The new Minister thinks he is the government. Sir Humphrey Appleby, Permanent Secretary, knows that it is he and his civil service colleagues who run the country. An inexperienced and gullible Minister puts forward plans in English, and is frustrated by his chief civil servant, who speaks Red Tape. With help from Bernard Woolley, stuck between his political boss and the master of his career, the Minister gradually learns to master the situation ... or does he?—garryq