Now Jim Hacker has become Prime Minister, and his conflict with Sir Humphrey Appleby, the new Secretary of the Cabinet, has moved into 10 Downing Street. Hacker’s promotion doubled the size of the television’s wittiest comedy, but partly also because of the authors’ meticulous research and original insights. Most viewers realised that the programme, for all its hilarity, painted a truer picture of the internal tension and confusion at the heart of government than could be revealed by ‘factual’ programmes.
This combination of comedy and revelation has now been given a more permanent and portable form in Yes Prime Minister, Jim Hacker’s Downing Street diaries. These are supplemented by Sir Humphrey’s papers and a good helping of new material, to provide an irreverent and indispensable guide to collision and collusion in the inner sanctum of British government.
