Yes, Prime Minister: School choice and its opponents

A 1988 episode of the BBC political sitcom Yes, Prime Minister provides an humor-laden insight into the motivations and methods of the forces that seek to squelch educational reform. Last December, EdChoice CEO Robert Enlow and Director of Policy Jason Bedrick commented on key clips from the episode and how the same motivations and methods are in use today to get between children and educational opportunity.

A full transcript of the podcast, including the Yes, Prime Minister excerpts, is available on the EdChoice website.

One of the treasures I brought home from a recent trip to England was the DVD box set of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, and we have been watching the episodes as a family. This show ought to be part of everyone's civics education, and ought to be mandatory viewing for newly elected or appointed public officials.

Antony Jay, who wrote the program with Jonathan Lynn, said that the long production schedule for each episode meant that they couldn't use topical humor as a crutch, so they opted instead for timeless themes of the inner workings of government.

"I'll tell you why it still works," says Jay. "The BBC paid us so little we couldn't afford to take an expanse of time to write the episodes. We had to fit writing in when we weren't too busy. That meant we often had to write months ahead of transmission. If you're doing that, it means you can't put in little topical jokes, like Drop the Dead Donkey did, jokes that will be funny tomorrow but meaningless months later. It meant that all our jokes were about the permanent things rather than the temporary things and they stayed relevant."

The show is centered on the relationship between Minister Jim Hacker, the elected representative of the people and nominally in charge, and Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, the chief bureaucrat, who sees his job as placating the minister while ensuring that the experts in the civil service, insulated from the meddling of the politicians, are really running the show.

Some highlights from the episode as excerpted by EdChoice. In this scene, Prime Minister Hacker, with the help of his political adviser, Dorothy, is pitching the idea of school choice to Sir Humphrey.

Prime Minister: I've realized how to reform the education system.

Humphrey: Excellent, Prime Minister.

Prime Minister: I'm going to let parents take their children away from school, and move them to any school they want.

Humphrey: Well you mean, after application, scrutiny, tribunal hearing and appeals procedures ...

Prime Minister: No, Humphrey, just move them. Whenever they want to.

Humphrey: I'm sorry, I don't quite follow.

Dorothy: This government is going to let parents decide which schools to send their children to.

Humphrey: Prime Minister, you can't be serious.

Dorothy: Why?

Humphrey: Well, you can't expect parents to make these choices. I mean how on earth would parents know which schools are best?

Prime Minister: Which school did you go to Humphrey?

Humphrey: Winchester.

Prime Minister: Was it good?

Humphrey: Oh, excellent, of course.

Prime Minister: Who chose it?

Humphrey: My parents, naturally. Now that's different, Prime Minister. My parents were discerning people. You can't expect ordinary people to know where to send their children.

Dorothy: Why not?

Humphrey: Well, how could they tell?

Dorothy: Well, they could tell if their kids could read, write and do sums, they could tell if their neighbors were happy with the school, and they could tell if the exam results were good.

Humphrey: Exam results aren't everything, Prime Minister.

Dorothy: That's true. And those parents who don't want an academic education for their children can choose progressive schools.

Humphrey: But ... parents have no qualifications to make these choices. I mean, teachers are the professionals. Parents are the worst people to bring up children. They have no qualifications, no training. You don't expect untrained teachers to teach. The same should apply to parents....

Later Sir Humphrey, in a discussion with a fellow high-ranking bureaucrat, concludes that the school choice needs to be blocked, and they discuss the tactics they'll use.

Humphrey: But it's hard to get the Prime Minister to see that it's a bad idea.

Civil Servant: Of course. It's actually a very good idea, it just mustn't happen.

Humphrey: I wonder whether we oughtn't to play along with it. In the interests of the nation's children.

Civil Servant: Nevermind the nation's children. What about our colleagues at the Department of Education?

Humphrey: Yes of course. Sorry.

Civil Servant: Humphrey, let's be clear about this. The only people who will like this idea are the parents and the children. Everyone who counts will be against it.

Humphrey: Teacher's unions ...

Civil Servant: The local authorities ...

Humphrey: Educational press ...

Civil Servant: And of course, the DES [Department of Educational Services]. So ... what's the strategy?

Humphrey: Well the unions can be counted on to disrupt the schools ...

Civil Servant: And go on television saying it's the government who are causing the disruption.

Humphrey: Good, yes ... And the local councils will threaten to turn the constituency parties against the government.

Civil Servant: Fine ... or the Department of Education will delay every stage of the process, and leak anything that embarrasses the government.

Yes, Minister communicates public choice economics in an intuitive way that no op-ed or textbook ever can:

The fallacy that public choice economics took on was the fallacy that government is working entirely for the benefit of the citizen; and this was reflected by showing that in any [episode] in the programme, in Yes Minister, we showed that almost everything that the government has to decide is a conflict between two lots of private interest - that of the politicians and that of the civil servants trying to advance their own careers and improve their own lives. And that's why public choice economics, which explains why all this was going on, was at the root of almost every episode of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.

MORE:

The Telegraph offers the ten funniest ever Yes, Minister moments.

In 1972, Antony Jay wrote The Householder's Guide to Community Defence Against Bureaucratic Aggression. The Reason Magazine review at that link calls it "a practical well written little handbook which suggests an organizational structure and the tactics to use against planners and their projects.... Jay's brief is studded with sound advice. For example: 'hit first and hit hard,' because, he explains, you have your best chance at the very beginning of a project. Jay states the first rule of protest as: 'know precisely who your true enemies are.' While the organization charts are overly complex, this is a manual for protesters who mean business. Jay suggests 'cells' for grass roots action, funds, legal, influential allies, experts (for the attack on the concept), publicity and campaign headquarters. There is an excellent section called the 'attack on the facts'; inaccurate facts--the author claims--are the weak point of all planners' documents."

Twenty-five years later, Antony Jay updated and rebranded his advice in the book How to Beat Sir Humphrey: Every Citizen's Guide to Fighting Officialdom. The audio book is read by Derek Fowlds, who played Bernard Woolley in the series, the civil servant usually caught in the middle between the minister and Sir Humphrey.