[kartik]

I've been rereading the Yes Prime Minister book. I always thought that Hacker was a conservative, now I'm starting to think the authors may have intended him to look more like a Labour PM. (Probably to avoid getting in to trouble with the Iron LAdy). Any thoughts.

 

[Big D]

I thought that the main point of it was that Whitehall ran the government while the Ministers were just public figures to provide a voice to those that did make the policy decisions.

Maybe I missed something?

I would agree that today he might be seen as a Labour PM, because let's be honest New Labour has done to the Conservatives what Oasis did to the Beatles!!

 

[plainsong]

Did this end up Outside because someone thought these were real people?

 

[Tuberoller]

Hmmmm! This is a book discussion? My bad. I'll knock it back.

 

[plainsong]

I'm not in the UK, but we get 2 UK news channels.. and as someone who thought Oasis had promise at first..

That was too classic!

Tuberoller, yeah it was also a tv series, Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. I think it also ran on some PBS channels in the US as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big D I thought that the main point of it was that Whitehall ran the government while the Ministers were just public figures to provide a voice to those that did make the policy decisions. Maybe I missed something? I would agree that today he might be seen as a Labour PM, because let's be honest New Labour has done to the Conservatives what Oasis did to the Beatles!!

 

[kartik]

My intial theory that he was a tory sprung from the backdoor route and extreme boringness that he and John Major shared. Moreover he is often a bitter critic of the unions and quite ambiguous to industry. In contrast, most of his upbringing seems far less egalitarian and at times clearly lacks sophistry that I'd expect from a Tory PM. Maybe the authors had him be a PM from a party while being ambiguous to his political affiliations to make sure the book stayed relevant irrespective of the dominant party at any given time.