How the Media and Literati Class Determines the Politics of a Nation
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
- From Yes Prime Minister S02E05 Power To The People
The prime minister intends to introduce a professor's scheme for enacting bottom-up government. The civil service and reformists reacts to this scheme.
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Literally centuries from now, Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister will still be remembered among the great works of political satire.
I'm honestly not sure it's satire. I think at this point it's more documentary.
I think we just witnessed an act of administrative love making
😄😄😄
You mean administrative affairs
@@usernamefreaks damnn
@@usernamefreaks you need more likes damn it
@@usernamefreaks My god... So you are implying that the DAA is just a glorified bureaucratic dating centre?
The thing about "courageous" refers back to an episode where Sir Humphrey explains the difference between "controversal" and "courageous" to Bernard with the following:
"Oh, yes! 'Controversial' means 'this will lose you votes'. 'Courageous' means 'this will lose you the election'!"
my boss wanted to take away a printer used by this firey woman, I told him it was a courageous decision.
@@darylcheshire1618 😂😂😂
Nigel Hawthorne, what a superb actor, you could tell he thoroughly enjoyed portraying Sir Humphrey, brilliant actor.
I'm no fan of the BBC, but have to say their casting department is brilliant.
@@rogerbarton497 they were. A long time ago.
@OriginalYithian Good to know. And yet it often seems like the actor has to stop and laugh.
@@rogerbarton497 used to be. The comedy department now is awful
@OriginalYithian That being said, Both Nigel and Paul were very happy to finally get the fame they deserved. While the job was hard it also put them on the map.
Greatest documentary ever.
Yes, the best source of information I've ever seen on a mainstream outlet.
Documentary?
heavenlymonkey my political parents watched this with baited breath when it was first aired. What comes around goes around lol
@@ananthagastya2152 Yes it may aswell have been. They got their storylines from inside information! Thats why the real politicians all loved it, becuase it showed things how they really are
Have you never watched David Attenborough
I'm sitting here in 2020, reading comments from 2018 and 2016 about the 'current' (quoted as at time of writing they are in the past) political system and knowing they are the same observations as when this show was made, the 1980s. What upsets me most is I will be able to come back to this comment in a decade and nothing will have changed.
isn't it beautiful?
So am I. It's scary, funny and so true it's mind boggling.
The UK is set up in a way so that nothing can change. Just look at the general election outcomes. Regardless of who wins a majority nothing ever changes. The judiciary, Civil Service and a handful of other powerful people really run the country.
Martin
And thanks to YM, we all know what papers they read!!
It's something I've come to notice. Politicians like to talk a lot, but when do actually see any real change? Boris Johnson is a shining example of that currently. I wouldn't be surprised if he used Covid to cancel Brexit at this point....
It's always funny when one of the characters suggests a sudden idea and then produces a pre-written note to give to his target.
You do know how civil servants work? There are no ad libs, no sudden ideas, everything is planned, even the unplanned events are planned for. I know for a fact the civil service had plans in place to deal with a pandemic in Britain since the Thatcher government.
@@johnking5174 I know, I just said it's funny.
@@johnking5174 And that's the interesting part, every so called plot twist in the show might be planned, just as why Sarah decided to leave the service, surely Humphrey was shocked in the eyes but he probably persuaded some merchant bank to give Sarah a directorship, so in fact Humphrey might even be a better actor than Hacker, just that he would never allows himself to fall into the ranks of politicians.
This is still the best political drama ever No one on either side of the Atlantic has ever been able to come any where near this Brilliant plots brilliant screen play brilliant actors
Apart from the hand drawn title sequences, the overall production values were actually quite terrible even for an early-80's television series, with inconsistent sound, bad lighting, and muddy picture quality. And yet the show remains one of my favorites, and it's all due to the writing and acting. Heck, you could have put these actors with the same scripts on an empty stage lit by a single 100-watt light bulb, and it would still outshine every low-brow sitcom that has come and gone over the decades.
The best political drama is The West Wing
Thats because half the things that happened in the show actually happenes in realife. This show was as much documentary as it was a sitcom.
UK House of Cards (S1] was epic. What added to the drama was the real-life downfall of MaggieT which unfolded at the same time.
Swarna Fernando This was no drama, this whole programe was based on unbelievable facts, as we all found out many years later!
"The ordinary voters are simple people, they can't see their needs, they can't analyse problems!" - Problem with politics is politicians think like this, and the elecorate are just exactly what they think they are. It's actually a really good point.
Mother of God this is politics 101. It’s every party’s faction for power
The trouble with politics is that that statement is true and the simple people bugger up everything.
"The greatest argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter"
People don't have that much time to keep track of what govt is doing and objectively judge the govt.
Unfortunately very often the politicians deciding the solutions to the problems are every bit as simple as the people they want to avoid having any say on the matter. Sometimes even more so.
I'm afraid it's true though. Look at what's happened in countries that have rejected the traditional political class. We've seen narcissistic rich conmen like Trump and Berlasconi take advantage. In Britain we've had Brexit.
Look at the ludicrous conspiracy theories that have gained traction since social media took off.
Organised religion has taken advantage of this fact for centuries:
Most people are stupid.
"I tell him it will be the most courageous thing he has ever done." Love it.
Love how Agnus and Humphrey realize what they have in common.
Agnes. Not Angus. Angus is a breed of bovine.
your right that was a type-0
Angus is a Scottish personal name - for male humans, not cattle.
Agnus is the Latin word for lamb. It is also not Angus.
Sorry but I have to say well done- It is wee things that make me smile
"No government is going to reform the system that put it into power." -- J. Trudeau.
Bullshit... JT by saying this (if he really did) proves he is a sold-out.
"How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read if they can't even fit inside the building?" -- J. Trudeau.
That's too smart to be trudeau.
@@oshizone It's a reference to how Trudeau promised to introduce alternate voting if elected then quietly backed down & never mentioned it again
@@kroggy8463 His reasons were obvious. No Liberal or Conservative majority ever again. Both parties have gained majorities with less than 40% of the vote. I think you'll find the idea of proportional representation is something that the Liberal and Conservative party are both equally opposed to.
Did nobody tell Cameron that he was incredibly “courageous” when he promised a binary referendum? I guess sir Humphrey was on holiday or something.
D'oh!! o_O
that what happen to a prime minister when they says thing without clearing with there official first
I suspect the people who are really in charge already prepared themselves for both outcomes. They allowed Cameron to carry out his public stunt, and that's how he was able to do it.
@@MrNPC not quite a predetermined as they thought
@@MrNPC OBVIOUS TO A CHILD, ESPECIALLY AS HIS TOUR OF EUROPE WAS CLEARLY, JUST A SHAM.
I love how the authors of Yes Minister so despised the civil service and advocated so hard for the New Public Management - and when “reform” finally came, it actually made things worse. As very well illustrated by The Thick of It.
You mean Thatcher?
blair @@pyrrhicvictory6707
@@pyrrhicvictory6707 Thatcher is long gone and nothing whatsoever to do with this now. The rest is theatre.
He means New Labour. The complete uprooting of old body civil servants and replacing tenure and peerage old man systems of process, with stats obsessed performance indicators.
@@JamesVanDeWaalor rather narcissistic managers and Thier sycophants...
It's great watching two hardworking and talented professionals doing their job. I mean the actors, of course.
when Humphrey and Agnes are talking, it almost feels like they figured out they are compatible, not just aligned for a political goal. I wish Agnes had returned for other episodes.
This was a couple of episodes before the end of the run. Paul Eddington was already severely ill with the skin cancer that eventually killed him.
This is so so relevant even in a former British colony like India .
Still fresh, still true ... how I miss these series!
Back when the BBC had comedies that spoke truth to power rather than enforcing it.
Yeah, The Thick of It was truly propaganda in favour of the status quo...
Which comedies did the BBC make that enforced truth to power rather than speaking truth to power? I am confused.
Well said. People must hold the media criminally complicit for the lies and attacks on freedom occurring globally. Take care.
@@chrisweidner4768 What? You are saying that to protect freedom we should attack freedom of speech? That we should blame those who tell us about the attacks on democracy, for those very attacks on democracy? This is some confused thinking. It is like blaming the fire service for the fire that burnt down your house.
When evil forces assemble and begin to undermine all our freedoms I for one am grateful that there still some voices pointing this out. Even the boring old, often reactionary and cautious, BBC.
@@markhosking1882 Yes, your thinking is quite confused. Unless your comments were based on a misunderstanding of what I said, or I was not clear. The MSM has devolved into a propaganda tool for the criminals running the world. Nothing more. They should be called out in their lies.
Brilliant , and this was 40 odd years ago !
I love how Humphrey stands for dramatic effect.
You could almost hear the funk guitar in the background as Sir Humphrey and Agnes start clicking. Though knowing Sir Humphrey, he'd prefer something more "dignified", like a soprano libretto.
I think you mean "a soprano aria": a libretto is simply words on paper - you can't hear it.
@@DieFlabbergast I appreciate the accuracy.
@@eddievhfan1984 - well, the rest of us got the point!
I have both Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister DVD sets and watch them every other year or so. A regular reminder of how political systems work. It is also by far the best TV dialogue written anywhere. I live in the US now and I am always amused when they keep calling it a democracy. Stay realistic everyone.
WHO is this "they" who refers to it as a "democracy"? The USA is a Constitutional Federal Republic. The people do not directly vote on the laws to be enacted, as would happen in a pure Democracy, but elect representatives who enact laws on behalf of the electorate. Ther are many democratic elements to the US system...but to describe it as a "Democracy" is simply inaccurate.
@@trooperdgb9722 Thankyou Sir Humphrey!
@@trooperdgb9722 all democracies in the world work like that, if USA isn't a democracy then no country in the world is either
You don’t want a democracy.
@@billfarlo3366its gerrymandered to fuck.
And it has the electoral college which means that the candidate with the most votes might not win.
It’s far from democracy.
I get the feeling that if you ever put these two in charge of a fictional evil organization like HYDRA, then not only would they have the world in their palm within a week, we'd be thanking them for doing such a good job.
112steinway Already done
“You need a dictator to make the trains run on time”
@@richardlloyd2589 to an extent this is true.
If you strip it of its unpleasant political connotations what it really means is "at the end of the day any effective large organization must come down to unitarian decision-making for it to function."
You've thought this far, did you ever just take the next step and think the world was taken over by people like this a long time ago?
@@tonyrichengod9280 Exactly, only call it illuminati and ridicule anyone who even says that name
When he talks to Agnes - this beats every dialogue since Hitchcock's to catch a thief - the smooth execution 😂🤗
“That always does the trick” smirk 😏, love it.
I love this scene, how Humphrey finds a soulmate. 😍
Hasn't anybody else noticed yet the contrast in Sir Humphrey's oratorical/rhetorical style when speaking with his mentor and when he talks down to his political superior, the Minister in the series? That is, he speaks more direct(ly) and plainly with the one whom he obviously looks up to than he does to the Prime Minister, Jim Hacker, former MP, the one he should genuinely be serving but to whom he instead elects to speak in deliberate obfuscations and in a labyrinthine delivery of polished, yet super-inflated academic English befitting more a byzantine politician than a true civil servant? Just curious.
It's part of the long-running joke... Sir Arnold is the political equivalent of an undefeated chess grandmaster, with Sir Humphrey his most accomplished student/accomplice. PM Hacker, on the other hand, is barely literate by comparison, hence the difference in delivery.
Doyle Perkins After a significant, if not prolonged period of meandering for the purpose of deliberation on this most important of matters: I have to say that "i am undecided "
Doyle Perkins The Prime Minister is still a sitting MP, not a former one, as you have stated. There are occasional references in YPM to "my/his constituency". If he wasn't an MP, he (or she, in the case of Teresa May) wouldn't be able to take a place in the House of Commons, which would make it difficult to have PMQs every week.
Thank you, Doyle, for pointing out the obvious in the most pretentious way possible.
@@gothicpagan.666 I read this in Sir Humphrey's voice.
_"Of course they would want our policies if they could understand all the implications. But ordinary voters are simple people, they don’t see their needs, they’re not trained to analyse problems. How can they know what’s good for them? They need proper leadership to guide them the way they ought to go...The people don’t always understand what’s good for them...We know what’s right for the country. The principal necessity is to have a small group in charge and just let the people have a mass vote every few years...Secondly, it is not advisable for the voters actually to know the people they’re voting for, for if they were to talk to them they could fall for all sorts of silly conventional ideas."_
At some point we lost track of what makes democracy work: to keep the actually democratic part of the system as abstract as possible and leave the rest to the people who actually know what they are doing.
That’s the fun part of a democracy, it doesn’t work.
then you'll just have the same issue as the Athens in Greece after their fall.
If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.
Government means stability, that's why civil services are so important to save the day from regular political disturbances
Love how Sir Arnold says 'photo opportunities'
This show truly feeds my hatred of government so much. I love it
It's a Programme. Shows are for the dumb. And yankee sycophants.
@@GoteeDevotee documentary, more like
@@GoteeDevotee Sycophants to the Yankees, or sycophants of Yankee origin?
A las barricadas, comrade. Change will not come from above.
@@TheLostArchangel666 Our numbers grow daily, brother. Soon we will be ready to act.
"Something like this" while picking it up was just the right timing.
unrelated note but I love when Hacker and Bernard team up (secretly) against Appleby. Those are the best episodes. Nice to see some “good” win against the blistering cynicism / self aggrandizement of civil servants. Lol props to Hawthorne for playing him so well.
Oooo No! The very best episodes are when Humphrey and Hacker team up!
Aka Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent.
Gwen Taylor (Agnes) is drop-dead gorgeous! I wish the BBC would re-run this series. We get constant "Dad's Army" but "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister" seem to be forgotten, which is a shame because they are as relevant today as they were when first produced,
They wanted people to buy the DVDs. Now only a few people have DVD players. Buy the Books!
I wonder why (and I'm not talking DVDs...)...
@@mellowfellow6816 Since my comment they have recently aired a few episodes of "Yes Minister".
She really is gorgeous!
@@JoseOliveira-kc4tr Hard to believe she was 49 here and is now 82!
Different time and reality but politicians and politics hasn't changed at all.
Half the people in power when this show was made are still in power.
One of the best intelligent written shows in history.
Arnold is my spirit guide.
I love the fact you can't tell whether Humphrey agrees with Agnes or like with Hacker is just trying to push her into doing his bidding.
Both, they have a common enemy
This is so outlandish and so close to the truth , as far as the electorate choose who they vote for; it is frightening !
The scene with Agnes and Sir Humphrey is a pretty accurate portrayal of how the middle class, metropolitan intelligentsia view the electorate and democracy. The average voter is treated with sneering contempt and loathing and this scenario is even more relevant today than it was decades ago when it was written.
I mean, let's be honest. While the ideal of everyone having an equal vote sounds lovely, there is some truth to their words. People, myself included I assure you, are easily swayed this way and that. How many of us can really look at things long term? How many can look past temporary loses for the greater gains in the future? How many would accept loses to themselves if it benefits the masses as a whole?
When choosing a leader, how do we truly know they will do a good job? Sure, we can judge them on their public speaking skills, plus whatever skills their background suggests, but it's not like there is much frame of reference for how they will deal with governing, aside from those that already have been elected before.
RIP, Sir Arnold.
Yip, passed in last week.
The Agnus Moorehouse scene was pure genius and horseshoe theory at work. A supposed left-wing radical MP wanting to shake up the system finds common ground with a bulwark of orthodoxy, elitism and status quo- Sir Humphrey. Different motives, same goals. Perhaps the most enlightening moment in a show full of enlightening moments.
not really sure it's horseshoe theory, but still genius. I mean horseshoe theory is more about how the far right, and far left often appear similar in many attributes. For example if you compare a far right nazi state, with a far left communist state you will often find many more similarities between them than with an on paper more center ground liberal, democratic state that should be in the middle between the two extremes.
Humphrey is definitely not Representative of the far right
@@shatter382 This ain't left right, Angus Moorehouse believes in anarchy and a rejection of orthodoxy. Humphrey believes in order and IS the orthodoxy. But for both the methods to achieve this and their opinions are surprisingly similar, hence the horseshoe theory.
Dan Regers I’m often struck by how people use the term Nazi as right wing when it stands for National Socialist. Remember how Hitler’s party styled themselves as leftist & how contemporary left wingers like to distance themselves from this fact by using Nazi as a distancing technique.
@@chrishoo2 Both Nazis and Communists used the Marxist notion of oppressed/oppressor to rewrite history, stigmatize social groups and justify authoritarians rule. The Nazis decided to rewrite history by saying the Aryans were historically oppressed and that the Jews and Zionists were the oppressors. The Communists decided to rewrite history by saying the working classes were historically oppressed by factory owners and the rich.
Swap factories owners and the rich for Jews and Zionists, swap also Aryans for the proletariat, and it becomes abundant how Nazism and Communist shared parts of Marxist philosophy. AND the Nazis had a command economy and a police state to control market prices on a local level (classic socialism).
@@chrishoo2The Nazis were influenced by Mussolinis fascists. They copied his oligarchic method of gaining power in that they used private contracts with leading industrialists who were also members of the party to control the state. Those industrialists that supported the party got the contracts. They certainly werent left wing economically. They also were extremely nationalistic and racist with goes against the left wing ideal that it is the proletariat and borgouise divide that seperates us not nation states or race.
Much like how the Democratic party which had been Americas right wing switched to liberal with Roosevelts new deal, Hitler changed the National Socialists platform to copy the populist fascists that had gained control in Italy.
What you are confusing is the political positions of populism and libealism with economic positions of capitlaism and socialism. Both fascism and communism share the political populist position of portraying they represent the majority, be that strata or racial, you still end up with a minority that become victims. Theres is no horseshoe, the political compass is a much better method of defining positions. The Nazis supported a capitalist system which is why much of Europe and America celebrated Hitlers rise to power as a victory against Communism.
"Many a true word said in jest."
ruclips.net/video/hWRl52NlHQ4/видео.html
Wonderful- and still very relevant over 30 years later. One comment- you didn't include the next bit when Sir Humphrey broke the news to P M Hacker (one of Sir Humphrey's finest 'long speeches ['We did a deal'])
Stephen Phillip Which shows we haven’t moved on, or to put it another way - Sir Humphrey won.
this conversation between agnes and sir Humphrey is so typical and informative. =) I was surprised he did not offer her a job in the civil service ;) possibly under him =)
The actor of Sir Humphrey is gay actually
@@ahcokris Clearly he assumed a double entendre.
Probably would have been if they had another season. :)
@@hkchan1339 *was
Political Satire at its finest
Satire? Are you sure?
Hardly satire now
This old BBC 2 comedy which is one of those that won't ever be repeated again is so true and to the point, more so today, showing that our politicians really don't give a toss about the people. Written by a politician too.
Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister is repeated on the GOLD channel, owned by the BBC commercial arm BBC Studios. Recently in 2021, Yes Prime Minister has been repeated on BBC Four.
@@johnking5174 used to be owned by the bbc itself but as usual they move the good stuff over to Studios so they can charge the bbc for the reruns and world wide licenses. bbc studios is a complete con game..
@@barrykirkby9626 BBC Studios is fully owned by the BBC. BBC Studios is a commercially subsidiary but it is fully owned and operated by the BBC.
@@barrykirkby9626 BBC Studios sells the broadcasting rights of these sitcoms to international broadcasters, on demand platforms etc. The profit made from this selling, is then returned to the main BBC to support the licence fee. £200 million of profit returned annually according to the financial reports I have seen up to the financial year 2019-2020. Star salaries are paid for out of this commercially generated revenue source. Graham Norton is paid £2 million a year for hosting The Graham Norton Show. That £2 million comes from the commercially sourced income BBC Studios generated, and not from the BBC licence fee sources, and technically saving licence fee money. Unlike Gary Lineker, whose whopping £1.7 million is solely funded from the licence fee. Hope this clears things up?
It's currently being repeated on BBC1.
We need Sir Humphrey as Cabinet Secretary and the script writers as his advisors. Someone malleable as Prime minister.
What could possibly go wrong?
So good to see sir Humphrey being the student 😊😊
"And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people" - From Sir Terry Pratchett's Night watch
This is actually true. People do not know what they want and how to deal with it. They dont even have any idea of what could really happen if things happened as they wanted.
An eg:
People said that every village should have electricity. Everyone supported it. Govt. Got forced to do it. Now the people from villages got electricity but now they have to pay the bills.
The jobs in villages are low earning wages. And spending on electricity is a considerably big amount which goes from the salaries.
So the govt or the private electricity providers have no profit.
Now the villagers got electricity for 8 hours a day..then 8 hours in 4 days until it reduced to just a few hours a day.
It was too much to pay even the compulsory amount for the bill whether one uses it or not.
The people who supported for electricity were from cities. The villagers had no say. Not planned. Nor the costs nor any consequences thought of.
Now city people do not want to pay for villagers electricity from their pockets as they think that whole world comes with millions in their bank account.
People do not know what they need. Only by working on ground does one get to know issues that need to be truly resolved and they have become so complicated that elected ones feel it is better to continue with what one has rather than opt for a change.
It isn’t the point of government to make a profit.
@@jgmediting7770 Govt. needs taxes. The treasury requires to have some amount to be able to provide for people.
@@sureshbangare1528 there are many reasons for taxes. A government raising money to spend isn’t one of them.
And one of the most important functions of a government is to run a budget deficit when required.
I really love the second meeting between Agnes Moorhouse and Sir Humphrey. The firs time he was patronising and lost...the second time he was respectful and won...
1st time he was afraid and worried hence confused. 2nd time he knew what he wanted and how to get it, hence he was confident and in control. He was patronising even the 2nd time.
RIP, John Nettleton, a.k.a. Sir Arnold Robinson - perhaps the only individual who Sir Humphrey was never able to get the better of.
"These are simple farmers. People of the land. The common clay of the New West. You know. Morons." Agnes channels the Waco Kid.
Sir Arnold is still alive at 92.
"The people doesn't understand what's good for them"
The worst part is they actually don't, or we wouldn't have this handful of nuts refusing to wear basic protection in the middle of a pandemic.
What? The people do not understand is the Appleby correct grammar.
Ministers n MPs should be made to watch the 2 classics before taking office!
The Russian jurist and statesman, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, referred to democracy as the "insupportable dictatorship of the vulgar crowd". Another of his quotes which is highly relevant to this video is:
"In a Democracy, the real rulers are the dexterous manipulators of votes, with their placemen, the mechanics who so skillfully operate the hidden springs which move the puppets in the arena of democratic elections. Men of this kind are ever ready with loud speeches lauding equality; in reality, they rule the people as any despot or military dictator might rule it."
And Pobedonostsev's role in Russia's imperial government was, not to put too fine a point on it, quite similar to that of Sir Humphrey!
sounds like something an imperial apologist. convince the people they dont want their freedom!
@@ThePurple1968 Not really. He was a highly conservative firebrand.He firmly believed that the Tsar had a God given right to retain absolute rule over Russia and opposed the idea of a constitutional Monarchy. He lso opposed the idea that the Tsar should give up any of his inherited powers to a parliament. He was also widely regarded as one of the best jurists of his time. I'd wager that most governing bodies attract the type of person that Pobedonostsev described. Even under the Tsar, there were people jockeying to control access to the Tsar and manipulate his opinions. The Imperial Palace was a hive of intrigue. Unfortunately, Tsar Nicolas II was a short quiet man (by all accounts a really nice gentle man) whose head wasn't fit to wear the crown he'd inherited from his father. To be an Emperor, you also need to have a bit of mongrel in you. As a contrast, his father Tsar Alexander III was a tall imposing figure.
How little things change in order to stay the same
This is simply brilliant - an indictment of ‘representative democracy’ such as I have rarely heard. And hilarious as well!
This is so true. Every kid should be made to watch this and they'll understand better the dirty world of politics....
And by listening to Humphrey they'd learn english.
When the Shah of Iran had that great big party in the desert someone said the communist leaders hit it off with the monarchs who were present.
Greatest fly on the wall documentary ever, surprised they let it be shown..
Thatcher loved the show.
RIP John Nettleton.
'I would go further than the narrow focus of the title. 'The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, '' - Karl Marx, German Ideology (1845)
This is still as relevant now as it ever was
Judging by the comments, this clip is apparently a Rorshach test.
Follow up this excellent exposure of how bureaucrats and social reformers share similar agendas by reading Tom Wolfe's "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers"
is this how edward bernays and walter lippmann chatted about manufacturing content to give an illusion of a informed electorate? manufacturing content/manufacturing consent.
the funny thing is, im actually agreeing with humphrey
You should see California, where there so many propositions and measures and constitutional amendments and charter amendments every four years that it takes me a couple hours to do enough research to even try to cast an informed vote. I'd much rather elect legislators and let them handle government; they're paid enough and they have offices with staff.
The thing is, the propositions brought forward from outside the political system are necessary as a means of reforming the political system to make it better for everyone, as opposed to making it better for the legislator’s personal lobbyists they used to build the coalitions that got them elected.
These series are full with wise political quote
I love Sir Arnold.. 😄 He is gangsta civil service mafia
Sickeningly realistic
The scene ended with those perfect lines .. Oh ! Agnes ..you are a great loss to the civil service
Christ, that guy was right. It was a fucking documentary. The first documentary with a laugh track.
"Common sense is not so common"
- Voltaire
sir arnold needed a show
60,000? Try 600,000 in the US!
John Paul Sylvester 6,000,000 in India. Also, a constitutional union democracy. So more chaotic.
John Paul Sylvester Well it depends. for the US senate, it can be up to 3 million. for state elections it can be a lot less.
@@summushieremiasclarkson4700 always an indian bragging about.
@Infinite Plain let’s not get federalism involved
@@knightf8648 I would hardly interpret a description of something as "more chaotic" as rodomontade.
Just brilliant 👌
To our credit, we tired those reforms in the USA. We have regional (State) government with substantial power, and local governments that are not subject to national control. Inspite of our two party system, our legislators run on their own reputation and often stand against their own party in ways that wouldn't be tolerated in Westminster. We've always had mavericks in both parties, and even now, in the age of Trump, we have a small number of anti-Trump Republicans in Congress.
Debited against that credit is the fact that it hardly fixes everything thing. People can rig any kind of system, and human apathy can undermine any amount of democratic control.
Our federalism in government has revealed our levels of bureaucracy is erosive for the people.
Agnus has a beautiful voice.
Gwen Taylor, who plays Agnes in this clip, was also the one who played Mrs. Big Nose in Monty Python's Life Of Brian. It was she who, after the crowd had established that Christ had just uttered the words "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" said "Oh I'm glad they're getting something".
How 'insightful' of Sir Humphrey. Using the term 'social media' a decade or so before it was coined. If I hadn't watched the original series, probably wouldn't have noticed.
Great clip. John Nettleton and Nigel Hawthorne are marvelous in the series.
The earlirst description of the cathedral in modern media
Sir Arnold the unsung wit of YM/YPM!
Sir Arnold - god calls me god
I wish this was on tv now....
Indeed, should be mandatory in schools, globally.
Boris and pratti Patel need to watch this......
...ah yes, the Main Stream Media as it stands today as it did then.
Am I the only one who gets creeped out by this show years later? It's so timeless it isn't even funny. Lol.
I love Sir Arnold. So bright
1:42 American Politics in a nutshell
So true today [and in all times] how they think of us!
Utter perfection.
beautiful stuff
The masterful Sir Arnold Robinson should have become PM 🙂
Oh no, he wouldn't have wanted that. He had much more power as a civil servant.😄
Also with no chance of losing his job at the next election. These civil servants know when they're on to a good thing.