Yes, Prime Minister

- Morning. - Morning.

You have to leave for the TV studios in five minutes.

- Do you remember what the interview's about? - Local government.

The one thing I can do nothing about.

These wretched councils are run by a bunch of corrupt morons who are too clever by half.

The most a moron can be is less clever by half. These councillors are democratically elected.

Depends how you define democracy. Only about 25% of people vote in a local election.

Those who do regard it as a popularity pole for the real leaders in Westminster.

- But councillors are still representatives. - Who do they represent?

Nobody knows who their councillor is. Do you know who yours is?

- No. - Well, no, of course you don't.

The councillors know this,

so they spend four totally unaccountable years on a publicly subsidised ego trip.

They ruin the inner cities, let the schools fall to bits,

they demoralise the police and undermine law and order, then blame me.

- Will you say that? - I've just said it. Didn't you hear me?

- No, I mean on television. - Of course not. It'd make me sound intolerant.

Houndsworth Council leader, Agnes Moorhouse,

threatens to withhold police funds and ban them from council property.

She can't do that. Section 5 of the Police Act, 1964.

Councils must provide an adequate and efficient police force.

She says that until the police force is 50% black, it can't be adequate or efficient.

- She can't prove that. - Unfortunately, her own police force

is the most inadequate and least efficient in the country.

Everybody's terrified that she will prove it.

Humphrey, we've got to do something about Agnes Moorhouse.

- Her borough's practically a no-go area. - Indeed.

- What? - How about a strongly worded letter?

And get a more strongly worded letter in reply, copied to the newspapers? Asking for trouble.

- Draw her attention to the law. - She is a lawyer.

- Getting round the law is what she's paid for. - Why not just ignore her?

Have everyone say I'd handed over control of the inner cities to the militant loonies?

She's a wild woman, Humphrey. No, someone's got to have a word with her.

- Point out the security implications. - A law officer?

No. Can't be a political confrontation. Has to be an official.

Somebody with responsibility for security.

Somebody with responsibility...

No, no, no, no, Prime Minister, no! She's a monster!

No, i-i-it's up to Scotland Yard, the Home Office, the Security Branch, er, Special Branch, I mean,

the... the Ml5, the Lord Chancellor, Department of the Environment...

- The White Fish Authority? - White Fish... No, no, no!

- Don't you coordinate the security services? - Yes, yes...

- Or should we give that job to someone else? - No, no, no, no, no.

That's agreed, then. A quiet word. Come to a gentlemen's agreement.

But she's not a gentleman!

She's not even a lady!

I want YOU to handle her. Come on.

Handle her?

- Agnes Moorhouse to see you, Sir Humphrey. - Right.

Oh, my dear lady, how very nice to meet you. Come in. Won't you come and sit down? Now...

Um... right... Would you get Miss Moorhouse a cup of tea. Or is it Mrs Moorhouse?

- Is my marital status really your concern? - Er, no, no.

It's just... You know, I was just... worried about whether the... er...

Er, would you get... her a cup of tea?

- What should I call you? Ms Moorhouse? - Call me Agnes. What shall I call you?

Um...

...well, you can call me Sir Humphrey.

Now, my dear lady...

I'm not your "dear lady". Don't patronise me and cut out the sexist crap, OK?

Er... OK, Agnes.

I wanted us to have this meeting so we could try and understand one another.

- I'm sure we're in agreement. - Really?

You have your own views about how Britain should be run,

but I'm sure we agree on a fundamental basis of order and authority.

- That's half true. - Half true?

- You agree, I don't. - But it's obvious!

Yes, if you've got it made under this system, you use authority to preserve your privileges.

What about the homeless, the unemployed, the poor?

I know all about them.

Really? What do you know?

I've read all the published papers. I've seen all the statistics.

Believe me, dear lady... Agnes, I... I...

- I do know all about them. - Fine.

What does half a pound of margarine cost?

- What? - What does half a pound of margarine cost?

Oh... er... How should I know? Er... 20p.

- 20p?! - ?2.40! I don't know!

Right. Why should you? What time do Social Security offices open?

How long can you run a one-bar fire with 50 pence in the meter?

I'm not entirely sure I follow.

If you knew that, you wouldn't agree about using authority to support the system.

I do understand. I do sympathise. It'd be marvellous if there was no poverty.

- But we haven't the resources to achieve that. - Who hasn't?

- The nation. - Really?

Does this desk belong to the nation? This china?

- Porcelain. - Porcelain.

- These portraits? Or are they your own? - They're government property.

Oh, good. They should fetch about - what? - 80,000.

That'll keep 20 one-parent families for a year. What about your salary?

- That has nothing to do with it! - Good, then we'll have that, too.

Leave you ?100 a week. That's 70,000 a year for the needy.

My salary is merely part of a complex economic structure.

We'll simplify it.

After all, you don't want to make a profit out of serving your country, do you?

Ah, tea.

Over here, Eileen. Um...

How very nice. Thank you so much. Shall I be mother?

Tell me, um... Agnes...

...this policy of yours of only allowing free-range eggs

to be sold in your borough, how does this help poverty?

Animals have rights too, you know. A battery chicken's life isn't worth living.

Would you want to spend your life packed in with 600 other squawking, smelly creatures,

unable to breathe fresh air, unable to move, unable to think?

Certainly not. That's why I never stood for Parliament.

- Sugar? - No, thank you.

Now, let's turn to this matter of the police.

You want to withhold funds from the police, ban them from council property,

sack the Chief Constable, and allow several no-go areas.

- That's it. - But can't you see

that an adequate police enforcement is in all our interests?

And it is especially in the interests of all those poor, ordinary folk

who dwell in the high-crime housing estates.

- I don't accept that. - Oh.

You want them to be in danger of being mugged and raped and bombed?

- Can't be helped. - But this could lead to the overthrow

- of our system of government, our way of life! - Yours, not theirs.

- You would be happy to abolish Parliament? - Yes.

- The courts? - Yes.

- The monarchy?! - Of course.

Perhaps you'd like to burn down my office! That matches are over here!

- No, certainly not. - Why?

I may need it.

- You know that Agnes Moorhouse woman? - Yes?

- I told Humphrey to have a word with her. - Interesting experiment.

He says it went well, but he didn't want to talk about it and had four whiskies in ten minutes.

What is it about local government?

I've had trouble with the town hall. They've cancelled the old people's Christmas party.

- Why? - New staff overtime agreements.

"It's your husband's fault. Tell him to give us the money and you can have the party."

Every piece of stupidity and incompetence in every town hall in Britain is blamed on me.

That'll be Dorothy.

I asked her up here to have a word about that very thing. Dorothy, come in.

Come and sit down. Now, tell me, what is wrong with local government?

Well, it's a them-and-us situation.

- The local authority ought to be us. - Us the people or us the government?

- In a democracy that ought to be the same thing. - We all know it isn't.

I mean us, the people. They ought to be running things for us.

But they're running things for them. For their power, their convenience and their benefit.

- I know that. - So what's the answer?

- Fight them. - No. Make them us.

- How do you mean? - How do you stop a major government project?

Join the Civil Service.

If you're an ordinary person.

- I can't remember what that was like. - Judging from opinion polls, you'll soon find out.

- Just imagine you're an ordinary person, Jim. - Well, I'll try.

Imagine you want to stop a road-widening scheme or an airport being built. What do you do?

- Write to your MP. - That does the trick?

Of course not, but that's what ordinary people do 'cause ordinary people are stupid.

- Is that why they elected you? - Stop barracking, darling, please.

I'm trying to understand what Dorothy's driving at.

Ordinary people form a group to fight official plans they don't want

and this group represents the local people.

This group is different from the local authority

because the local authority doesn't really represent the local people.

- Why not? - Councillors are all drawn from tiny local parties.

When a local community really cares about an issue, they form a committee,

and then they talk to people in the supermarkets and on the doorstep.

They drum up support and raise money.

And this money isn't like the rates. It's spent on what people actually want it spent on.

I bet ordinary people would like the old folks to have a Christmas party.

The town hall would rather have a new town hall

or a councillors' fact-finding mission to the Bahamas.

- What do you do? - It's obvious. Abolish them.

Invest all power in the central government.

- That's exactly what Humphrey would say. - See? What?

Jim, you've completely missed the point of everything I've been saying.

The idea is to return power to ordinary people and take it away from the town-hall machine.

- Make local government genuinely accountable. - Yes, but how?

It's all in an article in this month's "Political Review" by Professor Marriott.

Now, you create little voting districts.

200 or so households electing their own little parish council, a city village.

The chairman of this little parish council is their representative on the local authority.

You'd have about 500 councillors to each borough.

That's right. So they'd elect an executive council.

The local authority would have a parliament and a cabinet.

Parliament don't elect the Cabinet. We don't want that.

- That'd be taking participation to extreme lengths. - These councils would.

Each councillor would be in door-to-door contact with the people who voted for him.

Dorothy, this could be like the Great Reform Act of 1832.

These councils are like old rotten boroughs.

Half a dozen people deciding who'll be in the town hall for the next four years.

- Precisely. - And I shall be the great reformer!

Hacker's Reform Bill. I shall introduce it myself.

The power of this country does not lie in offices and institutions,

it lies in the stout hearts and strong wills of the yeomen of Britain!

Women have the vote, too!

The yeowomen of Britain.

Yeopersons. Yeopeople? No.

...the people of this island race.

On their broad and wise shoulders...

You can't have wise shoulders.

On their broad shoulders and wise hearts... heads...

In their wise heads lies our destiny.

We must give back power to the people!

And I shall be the one to introduce this... um...

What shall I call this new scheme?

Democracy?

- You wanted to see me? - Oh, yes, Bernard.

Bernard, I want to have a word with you about Professor Marriott's article.

- I think it's time we reformed local government. - Do you?