A Small Bet | Yes Minister | BBC Comedy Greats

have you enjoyed having your minister out of the office for a week oh not very much haven't you why it makes things very difficult oh burner the minister's absence is a godsend you can do the job properly for once no silly questions no bright ideas no fussing about what the papers are saying you know bernard i sometimes think our minister doesn't believe that he exists unless he's reading about himself in the papers i'll bet you the first thing he says when he gets into the office is any press reports on my washington speech uh how much do you bet a pound done uh he won't because he's already asked in the car on the way back from heathrow you're learning better thank you so you see why our minister's absence is a good thing oh yes but so much work piles up spend it out what with a couple of days briefing before he goes and the debriefing and backlog when he gets back we can keep him out of the department's hair for a fortnight then for the next six months whenever he complains about not being informed about something we can tell him he came up while he was away is this why we're having so many uh summit conferences well of course that's the only way the country works concentrate all apart at number 10 then send the pm away to the ec summits nato summits commonwealth summits anywhere then the cabinet secretary can get on with running the country properly anyway we ought to be seeing him now what do you think of the minister's washington's speech that peter wrote british government administration is a model of loyalty integrity and efficiency there's a ruthless war on wastewater cutting bureaucracy to the bone listen britain could teach the world and is it true can we prove it oh bernard a good speech isn't one where we can prove the minister is telling the truth it's one in which nobody else can prove that he's lying oh yes but uh even so i uh yeah uh well i'm sure peter did a frightfully good job on it and everything but i just uh wondered whether perhaps it might have been a bit boring for the audience well of course it was boring brought the pants off them ghastly they have to sit through it i should think well well then i mean minister speeches aren't written for the audience they're speaking to bernard oh delivering a speech is just a formality you have to go through in order to get the press release into the papers we can't worry about entertaining people we're not scriptwriters for a comedian well not a professional one anyway no the point is that the speech said the right things but why does it have to be said in public but it's vital once the speech is printed the minister is committed to defending us in front of select committees and things but he defends us anyway well only to a point bernard once something goes wrong the minister's first instinct is to rat on his department so we write him a speech that makes him nail his trousers to the mast oh you mean his uh colors to the mask no nails trousers to the mast then he can't climb down come on ah welcome home minister bernard didn't you say there were some press cuttings on my washington speech somewhere oh yes yes i put them in the box you

Channel: BBC Comedy Greats

Views: 407,514

Keywords: bbc, bbc comedy greats, bbc comedy, comedy greats, british comedy, stand up, Comedian, Comic, Sketch show, yes minister, yes prime minister, yes minister season 3, yes minister jim hacker, jim hacker, paul eddington, nigel hawthorne, sir humphrey appleby, derek fowlds, bernard woolley, weisel, yes minister A Quality of Life, A Quality of Life, classic comedy, James Hacker, Yes Minister, yes minsiter a small bet

Id: yAzAL0KCyH8

Length: 3min 50sec (230 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 05 2020