Yes Minister (TV Series)

The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1982)

Paul Eddington: James Hacker

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Quotes 

• Sir Humphrey Appleby : The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume, but, not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.

  James Hacker : I beg your pardon?

  Sir Humphrey Appleby : It was... I.

• [Sir Humphrey has shooed Hacker out of the office of a colleague] 

  James Hacker : Bernard, how did Sir Humphrey know I was with Dr. Cartwright?

  Bernard Woolley : God moves in a mysterious way.

  James Hacker : Let me make one thing perfectly clear: Humphrey is not God, OK?

  Bernard Woolley : Will you tell him or shall I?

• [last lines] 

  James Hacker : How am I going to explain the missing documents to "The Mail"?

  Sir Humphrey Appleby : Well, this is what we normally do in circumstnces like these.

  James Hacker : [reads memo]  This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, some correspondence lost in the floods of 1967...

  James Hacker : Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?

  Sir Humphrey Appleby : No, a marvellous winter. We lost no end of embarrassing files.

  James Hacker : [reads]  Some records which went astray in the move to London and others when the War Office was incorporated in the Ministry of Defence, and the normal withdrawal of papers whose publication could give grounds for an action for libel or breach of confidence or cause embarrassment to friendly governments.

  James Hacker : That's pretty comprehensive. How many does that normally leave for them to look at?

  James Hacker : How many does it actually leave? About a hundred?... Fifty?... Ten?... Five?... Four?... Three?... Two?... One?... *Zero?*

  Sir Humphrey Appleby : Yes, Minister.

• Sir Humphrey Appleby : If local authorities don't send us the statistics that we ask for, then government figures will be a nonsense.

  James Hacker : Why?

  Sir Humphrey Appleby : They will be incomplete.

  James Hacker : But government figures are a nonsense anyway.

  Bernard Woolley : I think Sir Humphrey want to ensure they are a complete nonsense.

• Bernard Woolley : Well it is understood if Ministers want to know anything it will be brought to their notice. If they go out looking for information they might... oh well, they might...

  James Hacker : ...find it?

• Bernard Woolley : He's coming round now.

  James Hacker : Why, did he faint?

• Bernard Woolley : Sir Humphrey doesn't like ministers dropping in on Undersecretaries; "Going walkabout" he calls it.

  James Hacker : The Queen does it?

  Bernard Woolley : I don't think she drops in on Undersecretaries. Not in Sir Humphrey's department...