2016.6.25 1980年代英國電視幽默劇《Yes Minister》此刻被翻炒，正好讓大家回顧一下英國外交政策，作為註腳。 Mark Twain — 'Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.'
Yes, Prime Minister 這是Hans 20幾年前在香港買的書。 讀一篇，就覺得應該讀完它，才算最起碼的了解英國人士。
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M
Who reads the papers? - Yes, Prime Minister - BBC comedy
Hacker: After 500 years has Britain's policy on Europe changed? Sir Humphrey: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it's worked so well?
Hacker: That's all ancient history, surely? Sir Humphrey: Yes, and current policy. We 'had' to break the whole thing [the EEC] up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch... The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it's just like old times.
Hacker: But surely we're all committed to the European ideal? Sir Humphrey: [chuckles] Really, Minister. Hacker: If not, why are we pushing for an increase in the membership? Sir Humphrey: Well, for the same reason. It's just like the United Nations, in fact; the more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up, the more futile and impotent it becomes.
Hacker: What appalling cynicism. Sir Humphrey: Yes... We call it diplomacy, Minister.
Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn's superb sitcom Yes, Prime Minister entered 10 Downing Street with Jim Hacker now Prime Minister of Britain, following a campaign to "Save the British Sausage." Whether tackling defense ("The Grand Design"), local government ("Power to the People"), or the National Education Service, all of Jim Hacker's bold plans for reform generally come to nothing, thanks to the machinations of Nigel Hawthorne's complacent Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey (Jeeves to Hacker's Wooster) who opposes any action of any sort on the part of the PM altogether. This is usually achieved by discreet horse-trading. In "One of Us," for instance, Hacker relents from implementing defense cuts when he is presented with the embarrassingly large bill he ran up in a vote-catching mission to rescue a stray dog on an army firing range. Only in "The Tangled Web," the final episode of series 2, does the PM at last turn the tables on Sir Humphrey. Paul Eddington is a joy as Hacker, whether in mock-Churchillian mode or visibly cowering whenever he is congratulated on a "courageous" idea. Jay and Lynn's script, meanwhile, is a dazzlingly Byzantine exercise in wordplay, wittily reflecting the verbiage-to-substance ratio of politics. Ironically, Yes, Prime Minister is an accurate depiction of practically all political eras except its own, the 1980s, when Thatcher successfully carried out a radical program regardless of harrumphing senior civil servants. --David Stubbs
Product Description
In an unlikely chain of events, Jim Hacker emerges as the most viable candidate for his party's next Prime Minister. Now that he gets his own car and driver, a nice house in London, a place in the country, endless publicity and a pension for life, what more does he want? Bernard: I think he wants to govern Britain. Sir Humphrey: Well, stop him, Bernard! Named one of the Top Ten TV programs of all time by the British Film Institute, this brilliantly observed comedy of manners pits the well-meaning Prime Minister Jim Hacker against the machinations of the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, in the ultimate political marriage of inconvenience. Paul Eddington (Good Neighbors) stars as Jim Hacker and Academy Award nominee Nigel Hawthorne (The Madness of King George) first drew wide notice in the role of Sir Humphrey Appleby.
Antony Jay, a Machiavelli Scholar and a Creator of ‘Yes Minister,’ Dies at 86
Antony Jay
Antony Jay, whose keen appreciation of Machiavelli and corporate behavior helped make the 1980s British television series “Yes Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister” instant classics of political satire, died on Aug. 21. He was 86.
His death was announced by a family spokesman, who did not state where Mr. Jay had died or the cause.
Mr. Jay, a producer at BBC Television and a writer for the satirical news program “That Was the Week That Was” in the 1960s, was a close student of complex organizations and the behavior of the people who ran them.
In his books “Management and Machiavelli: An Inquiry Into the Politics of Corporate Life” (1967) and “Corporation Man” (1972), he drew parallels between kings and business leaders; as a writer and producer of management training films for Video Arts, a company he founded with the comic actor John Cleese, he was practiced in mining corporate culture for comedic effect.
With Jonathan Lynn, a colleague at Video Arts, Mr. Jay decided to shine a bright light on the dark machinations of government and the relationship between public officials and civil servants, a strange codependency in which the nominally powerful ended up as putty in the hands of their ostensible inferiors.
In “Yes Minister,” which ran from 1980 to 1984, audiences delighted in the weekly predicaments faced by the Right Honorable James Hacker (Paul Eddington), the well-meaning head of the fictional Ministry for Administrative Affairs; his wily, smooth-talking permanent under secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne); and Sir Humphrey’s whipsawed private secretary, Bernard Woolley (Derek Fowlds).
In “Yes, Prime Minister,” the same cast returned, with Hacker elevated to prime minister. Both series were broadcast in the United States by PBS.
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Paul Eddington, left, and Nigel Hawthorne in the British TV series “Yes Minister,” which ran from 1980 to 1984.CreditBBC, via Everett Collection
The series addressed, Mr. Jay told The New York Times in 1988, “the great undiscussed subject of British politics,” which he defined as “the tension not of left and right, not of Conservative and Socialist, but of all civil servants and all ministers.”
Audiences enjoyed the scrupulously nonpartisan skewering of narcissistic politicians and obstructionist bureaucrats. Ministers, members of Parliament and civil servants laughed or squirmed, depending on the joke.
“I suppose you could say that the fun of the series comes from showing civil servants as politicians see them and politicians as civil servants see them,” Mr. Jay told The Guardian in 1986. “I can tell you without any doubt that if you showed politicians and civil servants as they see themselves, you would have the most boring series television ever encountered.”
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared “Yes Minister” her favorite program. “Its closely observed portrayal of what goes on in the corridors of power,” she told The Daily Telegraph, “has given me hours of pure joy.”
Antony Rupert Jay was born on April 20, 1930, in London. His father, Ernest, and his mother, the former Catherine Hay, were actors. He attended St. Paul’s School and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he earned a degree in classics and comparative philology in 1952.
After serving two years with the Royal Signal Corps, he joined the current affairs department of BBC Television, where he developed the current affairs program “Tonight.” He became editor of the program and head of the television talk features department.
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Antony Jay’s “Management and Machiavelli” (1967).CreditPrentice Hall Press
In 1957 he married Rosemary Watkins, who survives him, along with their four children: Michael, David, Ros and Kate.
Mr. Jay left the BBC in 1964 to become a freelance writer and producer. David Frost, with whom he worked on “That Was the Week That Was,” hired him as a writer for “The Frost Report,” and the two collaborated on a book, “To England With Love” (1967), a sendup of their countrymen published in the United States as “The English.”
He wrote the documentary “The Royal Family” to celebrate the investiture of Charles as Prince of Wales in 1969 and, with the director Edward Mirzoeff, wrote another royal documentary, “Elizabeth R.: A Year in the Life of the Queen” (1992), to mark the 40th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession. In 1988 he was made a bachelor knight of the realm.
In addition to “Management and Machiavelli,” which Forbes magazine called “among the most provocative and perceptive books ever written on the subject of management,” he wrote “Effective Presentation: The Communication of Ideas by Words and Visual Aids” (1970) and “The Householder’s Guide to Community Defense Against Bureaucratic Aggression” (1972).ading the main story
While writing on corporate culture and politics, Mr. Jay became interested in public choice, a branch of political theory that treats voters, politicians and civil servants as self-interested agents and analyzes their behavior accordingly. He was also influenced by the anthropological works of such writers as Robert Ardrey.
“I am fascinated by how organizations behave and how people behave in organizations,” he told The Daily Telegraph in 2005. “During my own experiences I saw how an awful lot of animal behavior, particularly primate behavior, comes up in the modern corporation.” All of this fed directly into his scripts for “Yes Minister.”
Mr. Lynn joined Mr. Jay in writing “The Complete Yes Minister,” presented as the edited and annotated diaries of James Hacker. It was published in 1984, and a sequel, “Yes, Prime Minister,” appeared in 1986. The two later collaborated on a stage version of “Yes Prime Minister.” Directed by Mr. Lynn, it opened at the Chichester Festival Theater in 2010 and later transferred to the West End in London. Correction: August 31, 2016 An obituary on Tuesday about Antony Jay, a creator of the British television series “Yes Minister,” no comma is cq misstated the name of the fictional government agency depicted in that show. It was the Ministry of Administrative Affairs, not the Ministry of Administrative Public Affairs.
