The number of about faces that Humphrey does during this scene in order to not antagonise Jim are hilarious brilliant and well executed facial expressions of shock and about turn.
I grew up in the shadow of this British comedy great as a pre-teen in the early 1980s far too young to appreciate it's deliberate slow pacing, witty dialogue, dry humour complicated life as Westminster politics. Not when the zip bang action of the likes of Doctor Who, Buck Rogers and Dukes of Hazard TV shows were on. Never understood why my parents loved Yes Prime Minister until I was much older and life got serious and the cost of living on my own was very real. Then catching this legendary TV show on reruns and marveling at these great British actors at the top of their game reminding me that TV was best in the 1970s and 1980s by far.
Mr Jones where's Smith🤣 Yeah definitely 70s and 80s were the best i watched all the things you mentioned and loved it but the 90's were also 👌 great sorry about the joke 😐 but that's just my sense of humour.
@@mauricebrocklehurst2358 I get it lol. The 1990s tv was still good but by then it was dominated by all time great American tv shows that captured my appeal once I started college.
@@mrjones29 yeah I did like the American tv I'm still stuck in the 90's watching friends haha quantum leap as well. Phaps sam could drag me back to the present. I also absolutely love blackadder that's where i get my sense of humour from wasn't to into the first one though i liked the sarcastic witty retorts he uses
I'd agree, but it is far too intelligent for modern politics. To think a conversation like this would ever happen in modern day is, in my opinion, laughable.
@@Gastel It is also too intelligent for past politics, because it was written by genius writers (which is why it is so incredibly entertaining and illuminating ofc). Although I agree with you that we're currently in a populism crisis in politica and media, there's no way politicians and government talked like this in the 70s. Perhaps the top cleverest people...
I remember the 1996 statistics (okay a long time ago). It cost the NHS £965 million to treat smoking related illnesses. The tax on tobacco was about £4,500 million. That is before savings on state pension due to premature death.
Though that doesn't include loss of productivity in the economy related to smoking related illnesses or associated social care bills. As they say in the video, you can prove anything with statistics. It all depends on what you choose to leave in or out of your considerations.
@@Bialy_1 I've read it, understood it and pointed out some of the factors that are missing. Is there any particular point you wish to make about the "truth" (whichever truth you intend to promote)?
That would only be a problem if people aren't going to spend their money on something else if they don't smoke. They will. Those £4,500 million will come back in some other avenue.
Indeed we should be thankful to those smokers, who heroically shorten their lives to fund our social medical services. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten!
Every time I see snippets from this show, I just look at Sir Nigel Hawthorne and cannot believe the same actor played Georgie in Mapp and Lucia. What an incredible range he had. It's just amazing to me.
@Sunshine Absolutely right. And to think the man spent his early years, up to his 20's in South Africa, too! I think a great example of the importance of casting, is that the show was revamped in 2013 starring Henry Goodman as Sir Humphrey and David Haig as Hacker. It was a disaster. About as funny as getting an eviction notice handed to you...and then getting a paper cut off it. Goodman and Haig are outstanding actors... but completely miscast in YPM. However, if the original had never happened, it might have been ok. Perhaps the comparison between the two, contributes to the downfall of the latter.
I knew a smoker many years ago. who in the early 80's said it was his patriotic duty to smoke and theraby provide taxes for the govt to help prop up an ailing economy. I now apply that arguement to drinking.
...and 30 years later, tobacco advertising & sports sponsorship was banned by the government of the day. Prescient methinks... Yes Prime Minister was *way* ahead of time.
I only just remember when Australia banned cigarette advertising in 1993 so I was a bit surprised to find UK took until 2003-2013 while the USA seems to have been in the process of banning it from 1971 to ? I'm a bit surprised that the UK was so slow
@@ribbonsofnight in the US I think you'll only see cigarette advertisements at point of sale. Maybe on the windows of a 7 11. But our government isn't really out to eliminate smoking. I don't think our public is really interested either. Most people in the US are more interested in legalizing prohibited substances than stopping people from using legal ones.
Interesting how 30 years after this episode was broadcast, (Dec 2012), the Australian government implemented exactly the same policy. With even no branding allowed on cigarette packets, just plain paper packaging, that's embellished with a photo of a person's ulcerated gums. And at this point in time in 2021, a packet of 25 cigarettes inc tax, costs $30 Australian dollars = (GBP £16 or USD $22). So someone who smokes a packet per day would be spending every week: AUD$210 = (GBP £112 or USD$154). And twice that for heavy smokers that smoke two packs a day, AUD$420 = (GBP £224 or USD$308) per week. This has taken smoking outside the affordability of kids and low income earners. And smoking is no longer allowed inside public buildings. You can't smoke inside pubs, restaurants, shops, office buildings, or pretty much no where. And as for outdoor areas, you can't smoke on railway station platforms, or where people congregate, like bus stops, etc. The health minister at the time faced exactly the same attacks against her, by tobacco industry lobbyists and supporters of smoking. The Conservative federal opposition at the time, had branded it a tax on battlers (i.e. on the working class); and they promised to repeal these new purportedly draconian laws, should they win the next election and come back into government. However, the public had become strongly supportive of these anti-tobacco policies, so the laws remained in place, even after there was a change of government. And within a decade, rates of cigarette smoking have halved from 30% of the population to 15%, as the next generation of school age smokers, (and budget-constrained existing smokers), simply do not get or remain addicted, due to the expense and unaffordability of the product. This has saved Australians billions of dollars in healthcare costs. And compulsory worker's superannuation contributions (50% paid by the employer and 50% by the government) which began in 1992, has meant that these longer living and healthier Australians will not be overburdening the government's pension system when they become elderly.
We have exactly the same in Europe, where this process started around 2011 (depending on the country). As a non-smoker, this makes life a LOT more pleasant, as I can now smell the wine at a restaurant instead of someone else's burnt leaves.
@@janickpauwels3792 Alcohol is the next legalised poison we need to ban. In England and Wales, smoking in enclosed public places, which includes restaurants, has been banned since 2007, 2006 in Scotland.
@@gio-oz8gf bollox to that. The Jocks are pi££heads so They need to curb their drinking : ) Ban this, ban that...state control of this and that....stuff that and stuff socialism.
@@fifthof1795 I agree, get rid of the socialist NHS and the socialist state pension for a start. While we're at it we can get rid of all state benefits, all state sponsored education, the state sponsored police force, fire brigade and ambulance service. If you won't work or are too ill to work tough, you'll just have to starve. if you're attacked you'll just have to be hard enough to look after yourself or die. You should be careful what you wish for but first, learn what socialism actually means.
An actuary once told me that, overall, UK smokers contribute more through taxes than cost the government because of related healthcare costs. Same for alcohol. Mad.
It's astonishing when you go to Europe and buy alcohol that doesn't come with a 50% plus mark-up. Lorries carrying cigarettes in the UK are unmarked because the cargo is too valuable. Even a small lorry can have over half a million pounds worth on board. That same cargo is barely worth anything in Europe.
It's hard to add up all their costs to the government let alone their cost to society. If you add the value of the people that die as a result of second hand smoking it's hard to say anyone is coming out ahead.
@@pi4t651 Eh, I'm 20 and I smoke and so do most of my friends. Despite the ridiculous prices and health campaigns and supposed social stigma loads of us still smoke, we just can't do it inside anymore and we have to pay £10+ for a brown pack of ciggies with a stock image of sad people on it. Still pissed that I can't buy clove cigarettes or menthols anymore though.
@@pi4t651 The policy they end up taking in this episode is the one used in real life by the various British governments. Instead of banning smoking outright and losing the massive tax revenue from it, they instead discouraged it, first by banning the advertising, raising the age you can buy tobacco, the warnings on the packaging etc, all to slowly decrease the number of smokers so that the cost to the nation from smoking related illnesses would continue to be paid by the revenue from it. Both would shrink over time but together. Basically, instead of enforcing cold turkey on the nation, they've been weaning people off them for decades and will keep on doing it until smokers become an absolute minority. Quite clever really.
This is an interesting one. Hacker's moral arguments usually come across as genuine, seeing that he sounds just the same when he makes them just for show without commitment demonstrates his skill and untrustworthyness as a politican. He fools Humphrey into thinking he is sincere and he might have fooled the audience on other occasions.
Despite his apparent lack of witb and constant need for approval, hacker does often shows a savvyness with public communications, more exactly knowing what other people want to hear.
I’d argue that Hacker’s moral arguments were sincere. Just because you know something is the morally right thing to do doesn’t make it the most practical thing to do, after all, and he’s a politician, not a priest. He has to keep an eye on what’s practical and achievable, even as much as he might want to do the moral thing. So in this case? It’d be that he agrees that smoking is something that should be stamped out and curbed, but knows he can’t do anything about it… but he can use that as a lever to get something else he wants, so he speaks the truth about the morality. It can be viewed as hypocritical, and perhaps it is, but I’d rather have those in power who know what the right thing to do is but can’t do it yet, than those who only know what the wrong things to do are and go to great lengths to do them.
It's fascinating that the policies mentioned in this episode, which were considered impossible in the 1980s, are now well-established policy in at least Australia. Cigarette advertising is banned, all cigarettes are sold in drab olive boxes plastered with gruesome health warnings, and a pack of 25 Peter Stuyvesants costs "about the same as a bottle of whisky" thanks to massive tax increases over the last 15 years or so.
Back in the 70's my cousin's cousin, a pathologist, used to graffiti smoking billboards in Perth. He was a member of a goup who called themselves BUGA UP - Billboard Using Gaffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions.
@@kenchristie9214 I remember BUGA UP! At least, I remember knowing about them. Our family went to Sydney once for a holiday and we saw a billboard they'd graffiti'd. My mum, who wasn't a fan of most lawbreaking, liked it because it was witty and she didn't smoke.
It's more or less the same in the UK and Ireland. The next generation won't even understand this clip. "Cigarettes used to be smoked indoors and advertised on TV???"
This was one of Margaret Thatcher’s favourite shows, I heard her say in an interview, of how scarily real this programme portrayed the goings on at number 10 Downing St! The writer’s were genius!
What depresses me is that I can see both sides of this logic! The phrase “necessary evil” keeps rattling around in my head. I wonder if this makes me a “moral vacuum” like Humphrey?
think of it this way: what the government saves in healthcare and pensions because of smokers dying young would be significantly counterbalanced by medical spending and lost productivity, *both from smokers and the people around them.* second-hand smoke and so on. in any case, eliminating preventable diseases as much as one humanly can-in other words, making your people as healthy as possible-would drastically reduce the cost of national healthcare. at that point you'd really only be needing to treat those who get sick either out of sheer bad luck or old age.
@@DieFlabbergast Apart from cigars. He used to do an outrage piece about that; the woman in the hotel bar who started coughing the moment he unwrapped one.
He did a wonderful bit about the white bread vs brown bread crowd, pointing out that at best you get an extra two weeks to your life and not your young life when 'you're shagging everything that moves'. No, at the other end of your life when you need help being fed and taking a shit.
Brilliant that Australia's Nicola Roxon, as Health Minister and then Attorney General, actually managed to do this and more. No-one thought it was remotely possibly to take on big tobacco. Now most countries around the world have same rules.
Good thing financial incentives would never affect the relationship between Public Health Policy and Pharmaceutical companies in the event of a major health crises like a pandemic.
Dominic Lawson wrote in the Sunday Times along similar lines. Smoke like a chimney, drink alcohol, drive everywhere,pay your taxes and NI stamp,:pop your clogs at 65 and the country is sound fiscally.
@Zara It was marvellous to see Paul Eddington get a starring role and to be lauded for it. He usually played "second fiddle" on telly and despite being excellent in those roles, he never truly got the credit he deserved...until YM and YPM, anyway. The man was very cultured and thoughtful, too. He was a Quaker and regarded by all as a truly lovely man.
Not entirely in the same vein as this hilarious sketch, but back in the early 00's I was working in part of the MoD. One of the regular publications that crossed my desk was Civil Service News (or something similar). One edition had a lengthy & very detailed letter from an unnamed civil servant working out that smokers who were entitled to smoking breaks during office hours worked x% less over their full working lives than non-smokers. The writer was dead serious - it certainly was not a joke !! 😎😱
Today on 05/10/2021 the home Secretary announced a public enquiry, Sr Humphrey used to say, If you don't want anything done, hold a public enquiry. Makes you wonder
It's good, in itself, that fewer people smoke, but it's probably also responsible for the fact that so many people are obese or overweight, because smoking used to kill people's appetites.
Humphrey justifying the death of smokers is pretty bold and pretty cold at that, assuming that the dead smokers would of been a burden on society if they lived healthy lives
About 20 years ago, the Norwegian government decided to get a "tobacco accountancy", meaning they wanted to calculate all of the financial pros and cons of tobacco. When this paper was finally delivered, it turned out that the society made more money from tobacco than tobacco cost the society. This was of course unacceptable, so the government started reading all of the details. Then they found out that part of the reason was that smokers dies about 10 years earlier than non-smokers. And those years were of course after retirement. Meaning that they saved about 10 years of pensions per smoker. The government then decided that the fact that smokers died earlier, should not be included in this calculation. And then they got the result that they wanted, namely that smokers cost society a lot of money. So yes, you can make statistics say whatever you want.
I truly l,oved this programme and what made it so much nicer was to read the pm and sir Humphrey both insisted on Bernard been given better lines so there was the three of them not the two plus Bernard.
I'm so glad i have the complete box set of this series. I just have to make sure i have a big box of tissues when I watch it for the tears of laughter! A brilliant cast 💖 😂👋💕😂💖😂💕👋😂 👋......Yes.Minister......👋 💖..............&.................💖 👋.Yes.Prime.Minister👎 😂👋💕😂💖😂💕👋😂
I was just 24 when this show first appeared. It was on the ABC and so it didn't receive the promotion that the commercial networks gave their new programs. The critical acclaim it received was, from my perspective, unprecedented. But it mainly spread through word of mouth. It aired on Monday and every Tuesday you would here people talking about this astonishing new comedy/political satire/documentary/ tragedy. The shows reputation spread and eventually it became a sensation. Soon, our Monday nights were dedicated to Yes Minister.
@Noel Coward Indeed. I recall seeing an interview in which Thatcher said that if you want to see an accurate portrayal of what occurs in the corridors of power, your best option is to watch Yes Minister.
New Zealand’s revolutionary anti-smoking law, which drew headlines around the world when it passed last year1 and was widely credited as the inspiration behind the UK’s recently announced smoking bill, will be repealed in its entirety by the incoming coalition government, new prime minister Christopher Luxon has said.
"You can prove anything with statistics."
"Even the truth."
I'm going to remember that line.
2:02
+ "You can prove anything with statistics."
- "Even the truth."
+ "No!"
I think 9 out of 10 people would agree and I'm 75% inclined to agree with you.
The number of about faces that Humphrey does during this scene in order to not antagonise Jim are hilarious brilliant and well executed facial expressions of shock and about turn.
There are not enough superlatives to describe just how good the writing was for this magnificent series.
Can you save one superlative for the fact that this video is exactly 4:20 long...?
@@TPRM1 Absolutely. That's now become 'not enough + 1' 👌🏼
@@TPRM1 What is the significance of 4.20? Please elaborate.
Edit. Is it related to cannabis day?
@@michaellavery4899 Correct.
And the ACTING
Brilliant and current. " your statistics are truths and my truths are merely statistics" Love it
Facts
@@Konstantinos1648 stats* :P
@Jorn Zwaagstra That's a statistic.
The one with Russia and the BOMB!, in the words of Mercury “send shivers to my spine “!
🤢😩😩😩🙄🪳
@@JonatasAdoM i rhink he meant the truths, which he says facts not truths
_"Thank you very much for your cigarette paper... I mean, your paper on cigarettes."_ 🤣🤣
i just discovered this show for myself a few days ago and can't stop watching clips - this is better than any government class
Start with Yes, Minister the prequal series. It is a genius show all the way through. Both are excellent
Start with Yes, Minister the prequal series. It is a genius show all the way through. Both are excellent
@@jayone8891 And after you've finished Yes Minister & Yes Prime Minister, get stuck into The Thick Of It
@@RhysOlwyn I still need to watch that.
The one about national service and polling is one of the most important things I’ve ever learnt.
I grew up in the shadow of this British comedy great as a pre-teen in the early 1980s far too young to appreciate it's deliberate slow pacing, witty dialogue, dry humour complicated life as Westminster politics. Not when the zip bang action of the likes of Doctor Who, Buck Rogers and Dukes of Hazard TV shows were on. Never understood why my parents loved Yes Prime Minister until I was much older and life got serious and the cost of living on my own was very real. Then catching this legendary TV show on reruns and marveling at these great British actors at the top of their game reminding me that TV was best in the 1970s and 1980s by far.
We are kindred spirits of a sort.
@@nicholashylton6857 Cool 😎
Mr Jones where's Smith🤣 Yeah definitely 70s and 80s were the best i watched all the things you mentioned and loved it but the 90's were also 👌 great sorry about the joke 😐 but that's just my sense of humour.
@@mauricebrocklehurst2358 I get it lol. The 1990s tv was still good but by then it was dominated by all time great American tv shows that captured my appeal once I started college.
@@mrjones29 yeah I did like the American tv I'm still stuck in the 90's watching friends haha quantum leap as well. Phaps sam could drag me back to the present. I also absolutely love blackadder that's where i get my sense of humour from wasn't to into the first one though i liked the sarcastic witty retorts he uses
Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister the most realistic, meaningful and accurate way to learn about politics and Government.
I'd agree, but it is far too intelligent for modern politics. To think a conversation like this would ever happen in modern day is, in my opinion, laughable.
@@Gastel Yes, you are right, my mistake.
We all have our 'senior' moments every now and again !
That's cause these things happened
The Thick of It too
@@Gastel It is also too intelligent for past politics, because it was written by genius writers (which is why it is so incredibly entertaining and illuminating ofc). Although I agree with you that we're currently in a populism crisis in politica and media, there's no way politicians and government talked like this in the 70s. Perhaps the top cleverest people...
This documentary series gets more relevant with every passing year.
Absolutely, people will never stand for a euro passport 🙄 the British people will never put up with showing their papers to get into a pub 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
So right..
Especially in India
In what way?
Be specific.
How is it “more relevant” now than 5, 10, 20 years ago?
This is clearly a work of fiction. Just take into account how the Prime Minister is shown to be, in general, well meaning and moral.
I remember the 1996 statistics (okay a long time ago). It cost the NHS £965 million to treat smoking related illnesses. The tax on tobacco was about £4,500 million. That is before savings on state pension due to premature death.
Though that doesn't include loss of productivity in the economy related to smoking related illnesses or associated social care bills.
As they say in the video, you can prove anything with statistics. It all depends on what you choose to leave in or out of your considerations.
@@zarabada6125 You need to read it few times then maybe you will be able to accept the truth...
@@Bialy_1 I've read it, understood it and pointed out some of the factors that are missing.
Is there any particular point you wish to make about the "truth" (whichever truth you intend to promote)?
That would only be a problem if people aren't going to spend their money on something else if they don't smoke. They will. Those £4,500 million will come back in some other avenue.
@@zarabada6125 Trolls gonna troll. Rock on with your bad self.
Indeed we should be thankful to those smokers, who heroically shorten their lives to fund our social medical services. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten!
That's why they will never totally back prohibition
😅
@@lsd8497 You can't smoke LSD. You put in on blotter paper. Lol
@@Tht1Gy Actually, these are the initials of my name. :))
@@Tht1Gy And then smoke the blotting paper.
Every time I see snippets from this show, I just look at Sir Nigel Hawthorne and cannot believe the same actor played Georgie in Mapp and Lucia. What an incredible range he had. It's just amazing to me.
@Sunshine Absolutely right. And to think the man spent his early years, up to his 20's in South Africa, too!
I think a great example of the importance of casting, is that the show was revamped in 2013 starring Henry Goodman as Sir Humphrey and David Haig as Hacker. It was a disaster. About as funny as getting an eviction notice handed to you...and then getting a paper cut off it. Goodman and Haig are outstanding actors... but completely miscast in YPM. However, if the original had never happened, it might have been ok. Perhaps the comparison between the two, contributes to the downfall of the latter.
The Madness of King George anyone? A magnificent performance.
@Ken Fullman
foWlds.
SERGEANT Blaketon.
Carry on.
@Ken Fullman Yeah. I really ought to get out more, don't I Ken?
Also he was Dr Raymond Cocteau in Demolition man.
This show was and is timeless in its genius..grom writing to acting to directing...absolutely brilliant
I knew a smoker many years ago. who in the early 80's said it was his patriotic duty to smoke and theraby provide taxes for the govt to help prop up an ailing economy.
I now apply that arguement to drinking.
I salute both of you for selflessness and devotion to your country! 🖖👍
So glad I discovered the series. Better late than never.
...and 30 years later, tobacco advertising & sports sponsorship was banned by the government of the day. Prescient methinks...
Yes Prime Minister was *way* ahead of time.
As they would say in the show, such a thing would have been a 'courageous decision' back in the 80s. By the 10s, merely 'controversial'.
I only just remember when Australia banned cigarette advertising in 1993 so I was a bit surprised to find UK took until 2003-2013 while the USA seems to have been in the process of banning it from 1971 to ?
I'm a bit surprised that the UK was so slow
And tobacco advertising seems to have been replaced with advertising for gambling…
And in Australia- plain packaging and packs are in a cabinet so you can’t see them at point of sale
@@ribbonsofnight in the US I think you'll only see cigarette advertisements at point of sale. Maybe on the windows of a 7 11. But our government isn't really out to eliminate smoking. I don't think our public is really interested either. Most people in the US are more interested in legalizing prohibited substances than stopping people from using legal ones.
Interesting how 30 years after this episode was broadcast, (Dec 2012), the Australian government implemented exactly the same policy. With even no branding allowed on cigarette packets, just plain paper packaging, that's embellished with a photo of a person's ulcerated gums.
And at this point in time in 2021, a packet of 25 cigarettes inc tax, costs $30 Australian dollars = (GBP £16 or USD $22). So someone who smokes a packet per day would be spending every week: AUD$210 = (GBP £112 or USD$154). And twice that for heavy smokers that smoke two packs a day, AUD$420 = (GBP £224 or USD$308) per week. This has taken smoking outside the affordability of kids and low income earners.
And smoking is no longer allowed inside public buildings. You can't smoke inside pubs, restaurants, shops, office buildings, or pretty much no where. And as for outdoor areas, you can't smoke on railway station platforms, or where people congregate, like bus stops, etc.
The health minister at the time faced exactly the same attacks against her, by tobacco industry lobbyists and supporters of smoking. The Conservative federal opposition at the time, had branded it a tax on battlers (i.e. on the working class); and they promised to repeal these new purportedly draconian laws, should they win the next election and come back into government. However, the public had become strongly supportive of these anti-tobacco policies, so the laws remained in place, even after there was a change of government.
And within a decade, rates of cigarette smoking have halved from 30% of the population to 15%, as the next generation of school age smokers, (and budget-constrained existing smokers), simply do not get or remain addicted, due to the expense and unaffordability of the product.
This has saved Australians billions of dollars in healthcare costs. And compulsory worker's superannuation contributions (50% paid by the employer and 50% by the government) which began in 1992, has meant that these longer living and healthier Australians will not be overburdening the government's pension system when they become elderly.
We have exactly the same in Europe, where this process started around 2011 (depending on the country). As a non-smoker, this makes life a LOT more pleasant, as I can now smell the wine at a restaurant instead of someone else's burnt leaves.
@@janickpauwels3792 Alcohol is the next legalised poison we need to ban. In England and Wales, smoking in enclosed public places, which includes restaurants, has been banned since 2007, 2006 in Scotland.
@@gio-oz8gf bollox to that. The Jocks are pi££heads so They need to curb their drinking : ) Ban this, ban that...state control of this and that....stuff that and stuff socialism.
@@gio-oz8gf Yeah, let's ban alcohol. What a fun world we'll live in.
@@fifthof1795 I agree, get rid of the socialist NHS and the socialist state pension for a start. While we're at it we can get rid of all state benefits, all state sponsored education, the state sponsored police force, fire brigade and ambulance service. If you won't work or are too ill to work tough, you'll just have to starve. if you're attacked you'll just have to be hard enough to look after yourself or die. You should be careful what you wish for but first, learn what socialism actually means.
I loved this series. Especially Sir Humphrey's ability with the English language. His ability to lie while being factual
Brilliant. That's the first word that comes to my mind whenever I re-watch these. Just brilliant.
Humphrey's laughter should have its own award category
🏅🏅🏅
An actuary once told me that, overall, UK smokers contribute more through taxes than cost the government because of related healthcare costs. Same for alcohol. Mad.
It's astonishing when you go to Europe and buy alcohol that doesn't come with a 50% plus mark-up.
Lorries carrying cigarettes in the UK are unmarked because the cargo is too valuable. Even a small lorry can have over half a million pounds worth on board. That same cargo is barely worth anything in Europe.
It's hard to add up all their costs to the government let alone their cost to society.
If you add the value of the people that die as a result of second hand smoking it's hard to say anyone is coming out ahead.
that's highly improbable. that actuary seems to have got the numbers wrong
Boris: "Write that down, write that down"
Lackey: "Yes Prime Minister."
What got turetts
Perfect writing. Impeccable acting. Ages deliciously.
Absolutely fantastic. Timeless comedy and satire of the finest!!! 🤣🌟🤣🌟🤣
And the latest smoking ban announcements prove how timeless this series is.
Brilliant writing, brilliant performances, proper comedy. Now we get …..gogglebox
Watching lazy people watch tv… brilliant😣
@@silentdogfart4892 you must be a fan
Of?
What is a gogglebox?
@@warnpassion it is a TV programme where miscellaneous people are filmed watching TV in their own living rooms.
The funny thing is that Hacker’s suggestions are all used by Australia to fight smoking.
They're used by the UK too. There's been quite the social shift since the days of yes minister.
@@pi4t651 Eh, I'm 20 and I smoke and so do most of my friends. Despite the ridiculous prices and health campaigns and supposed social stigma loads of us still smoke, we just can't do it inside anymore and we have to pay £10+ for a brown pack of ciggies with a stock image of sad people on it. Still pissed that I can't buy clove cigarettes or menthols anymore though.
@@marmite8959 yes, just like the anti drug campaigns didn't change a thing either. For what ever reason people pick these habits up
@Noel Coward rates of smoking in aus are going up lol
@@pi4t651
The policy they end up taking in this episode is the one used in real life by the various British governments. Instead of banning smoking outright and losing the massive tax revenue from it, they instead discouraged it, first by banning the advertising, raising the age you can buy tobacco, the warnings on the packaging etc, all to slowly decrease the number of smokers so that the cost to the nation from smoking related illnesses would continue to be paid by the revenue from it. Both would shrink over time but together.
Basically, instead of enforcing cold turkey on the nation, they've been weaning people off them for decades and will keep on doing it until smokers become an absolute minority.
Quite clever really.
All I've seen of this show are the short YT clips, and not one has failed to amuse. I'm going to have to binge this series eventually! 😁
This is an interesting one. Hacker's moral arguments usually come across as genuine, seeing that he sounds just the same when he makes them just for show without commitment demonstrates his skill and untrustworthyness as a politican. He fools Humphrey into thinking he is sincere and he might have fooled the audience on other occasions.
Despite his apparent lack of witb and constant need for approval, hacker does often shows a savvyness with public communications, more exactly knowing what other people want to hear.
A while since I last properly watched, but he does seem to be more proactively devious once prime minister than when he was a minister.
@@malcolmrowe9003 yeah. Hacker does get less helpless once he is PM. All that time with Humphrey teached him a trick or two
I’d argue that Hacker’s moral arguments were sincere. Just because you know something is the morally right thing to do doesn’t make it the most practical thing to do, after all, and he’s a politician, not a priest. He has to keep an eye on what’s practical and achievable, even as much as he might want to do the moral thing.
So in this case? It’d be that he agrees that smoking is something that should be stamped out and curbed, but knows he can’t do anything about it… but he can use that as a lever to get something else he wants, so he speaks the truth about the morality. It can be viewed as hypocritical, and perhaps it is, but I’d rather have those in power who know what the right thing to do is but can’t do it yet, than those who only know what the wrong things to do are and go to great lengths to do them.
3:12 "No! They're government stat..... they're facts" Jesus Christ! I whish I could go back in time and give him a kiss on the cheek for that one!
Humphrey's microsecond pause kills me every time! 😂
Some of the best comedy actors the BBC ever had 😊
This was such a brilliant show with razor sharp writing.
It's fascinating that the policies mentioned in this episode, which were considered impossible in the 1980s, are now well-established policy in at least Australia. Cigarette advertising is banned, all cigarettes are sold in drab olive boxes plastered with gruesome health warnings, and a pack of 25 Peter Stuyvesants costs "about the same as a bottle of whisky" thanks to massive tax increases over the last 15 years or so.
Back in the 70's my cousin's cousin, a pathologist, used to graffiti smoking billboards in Perth.
He was a member of a goup who called themselves BUGA UP - Billboard Using Gaffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions.
@@kenchristie9214 I remember BUGA UP! At least, I remember knowing about them. Our family went to Sydney once for a holiday and we saw a billboard they'd graffiti'd. My mum, who wasn't a fan of most lawbreaking, liked it because it was witty and she didn't smoke.
It's more or less the same in the UK and Ireland.
The next generation won't even understand this clip. "Cigarettes used to be smoked indoors and advertised on TV???"
Same in England, 20 pack of cigarettes is more expensive than a 70cl standard whisky.
Just started watching yes Minister again. It’s great to see how their relationship evolves.
I remember watching this on UHF. One of the best TV series ever made.
Definitely 😂
This is political business education for the public in light-hearted form
This was one of Margaret Thatcher’s favourite shows, I heard her say in an interview, of how scarily real this programme portrayed the goings on at number 10 Downing St! The writer’s were genius!
"Thank you for your cigarette paper" 🤣😁 that's so brilliantly slipped in!!
We have all this in Australia, tax is sky high , no advertising , plain packaging etc its worked quite well .
Yep and it works.
Oh same here. It’s one of those lovely antiquated scenes that looks a bit insane nowadays considering how much of a hammering tobacco firms took.
It grew a multi-million chop chop business that invested in narcotics, shame they swallowed the lies about vaping but then again, only the UK didn't.
The insane part is that plain packaging took so long and a ban on advertising took so long in some countries like the UK
Replaced by vap
What depresses me is that I can see both sides of this logic! The phrase “necessary evil” keeps rattling around in my head. I wonder if this makes me a “moral vacuum” like Humphrey?
I do hope so.
think of it this way: what the government saves in healthcare and pensions because of smokers dying young would be significantly counterbalanced by medical spending and lost productivity, *both from smokers and the people around them.* second-hand smoke and so on.
in any case, eliminating preventable diseases as much as one humanly can-in other words, making your people as healthy as possible-would drastically reduce the cost of national healthcare. at that point you'd really only be needing to treat those who get sick either out of sheer bad luck or old age.
The writing was absolutely brilliant on this show!
Man...the writers had a field day with this one.
Well done.
☮
As Billy Connoly once said smoking takes 10 years off your life ,The Worst 10 Years.
It's actually an even spread. You simply age quicker.
Yeah: but Billy gave up, at an early age.
@@DieFlabbergast Apart from cigars. He used to do an outrage piece about that; the woman in the hotel bar who started coughing the moment he unwrapped one.
He did a wonderful bit about the white bread vs brown bread crowd, pointing out that at best you get an extra two weeks to your life and not your young life when 'you're shagging everything that moves'. No, at the other end of your life when you need help being fed and taking a shit.
I assume he's dropped that because his audiences have started to think he's got it terribly wrong
What a spin! I am surprise Humphy didn’t fall flat on his back. How I love him
Brilliant that Australia's Nicola Roxon, as Health Minister and then Attorney General, actually managed to do this and more. No-one thought it was remotely possibly to take on big tobacco. Now most countries around the world have same rules.
Clearly Starmer hasn’t had this conversation with his civil servants
British humour at its long gone best.
I love it when the minister is so onto Humphrey he gets backed into a corner
Good thing financial incentives would never affect the relationship between Public Health Policy and Pharmaceutical companies in the event of a major health crises like a pandemic.
@Johann Sebastian Bach While it certainly was developed quickly, I believe the jury is still out on how effective, or safe, it is.
Dominic Lawson wrote in the Sunday Times along similar lines. Smoke like a chimney, drink alcohol, drive everywhere,pay your taxes and NI stamp,:pop your clogs at 65 and the country is sound fiscally.
What Hacker suggested, raising tax sky high, banning advertising, especially at point of sale, is exactly what Australia did to great effect.
Genius writing and comic timing
Bless their souls those two were perfect.... RIP
@Zara It was marvellous to see Paul Eddington get a starring role and to be lauded for it. He usually played "second fiddle" on telly and despite being excellent in those roles, he never truly got the credit he deserved...until YM and YPM, anyway.
The man was very cultured and thoughtful, too. He was a Quaker and regarded by all as a truly lovely man.
@@TheRealist2022 So True
Even the minute things "Thank you for your cigarette paper" cracks it.
It’s scary how real this is
I watched these series in the 80s and am still watching then in 2022.
Not entirely in the same vein as this hilarious sketch, but back in the early 00's I was working in part of the MoD. One of the regular publications that crossed my desk was Civil Service News (or something similar). One edition had a lengthy & very detailed letter from an unnamed civil servant working out that smokers who were entitled to smoking breaks during office hours worked x% less over their full working lives than non-smokers. The writer was dead serious - it certainly was not a joke !! 😎😱
Today on 05/10/2021 the home Secretary announced a public enquiry, Sr Humphrey used to say, If you don't want anything done, hold a public enquiry. Makes you wonder
Well yea, a public enquiry gives people time to forget about what ever the enquiry is about while creating the image something is being done
They can always agree on principal but then do nothing about it.
It's good, in itself, that fewer people smoke, but it's probably also responsible for the fact that so many people are obese or overweight, because smoking used to kill people's appetites.
Great old Humpy must be laughing now
Humphrey justifying the death of smokers is pretty bold and pretty cold at that, assuming that the dead smokers would of been a burden on society if they lived healthy lives
What just like the jolly pple
They could talk about anything in those days. The good old days!
Anti-smoking was pretty popular back then. And truthfully, less people do smoke now.
@@clovermark39 Of course they couldn't talk about anything. They could just talk about different things.
Hunphrey in this scene is absolutely brilliant
Why is this so perfectly accurate decades on?
The values it explores are universal, aren't they... timeless.
Loved this show; I used to watch the reruns every weekend on PBS twenty years ago up in Maryland when I was a student there
British comedy at its best 😂😂
Comedy? This is a documentary!
👏 Brilliant comedy
I have Yes Minster and Yes Prime Minister on DVDS
About 20 years ago, the Norwegian government decided to get a "tobacco accountancy", meaning they wanted to calculate all of the financial pros and cons of tobacco.
When this paper was finally delivered, it turned out that the society made more money from tobacco than tobacco cost the society.
This was of course unacceptable, so the government started reading all of the details. Then they found out that part of the reason was that smokers dies about 10 years earlier than non-smokers. And those years were of course after retirement. Meaning that they saved about 10 years of pensions per smoker.
The government then decided that the fact that smokers died earlier, should not be included in this calculation.
And then they got the result that they wanted, namely that smokers cost society a lot of money.
So yes, you can make statistics say whatever you want.
... by omitting some of the statistics. i love democracy 😊
@@antadhg I think is more a case of bureaucracy than democracy.
@Tjalve70 yeah of course but my point is it's not democratic, nor truthful
Check the video's length.
Very nice.
2024 - Keir Starmer makes this a reality
Merely following the lead of Sunak 😅
Desert island 🏝 This makes my Top 10 dvd 📀 list. Yes Minister was arguably even better!!
I love how this is 4min and 20sec long, perfection👌
Oscar from heartbeat 🥺 ❤️
This is the best Anti Smoking ad I have ever seen.
Same now here in Australia, but swap out the tobacco industry with the mining industry.
Simply brilliant!
It sounds like an arguement with your mother.
When you have reasons, they are 'excuses'
When *she* has reasons, they are iron-clad facts.
I truly l,oved this programme and what made it so much nicer was to read the pm and sir Humphrey both insisted on Bernard been given better lines so there was the three of them not the two plus Bernard.
Why these british sitcoms are making me feel cozy watching them bedtime?
Look up the yes minister and yes prime minister radio adaptations
These very points are now current in NZ
I've been trying to think about where I recognise the Humphry guy and I finally got it. He's the bad guy in Demolition Man other than Wesley Snipes.
3:10 - I died.
So did all the smokers
I'm so glad i have the complete
box set of this series. I just have
to make sure i have a big box of
tissues when I watch it for the
tears of laughter! A brilliant
cast 💖
😂👋💕😂💖😂💕👋😂
👋......Yes.Minister......👋
💖..............&.................💖
👋.Yes.Prime.Minister👎
😂👋💕😂💖😂💕👋😂
I have the books.
These should be subtitled in every language possible.
I need a brain like Humphrey's 🤣🤣🤣
Intentional 420. Genius move
I agree it’s so like today’s Canadian Circus of a government.
I wish I was around when this show was new
ahh, life before 900 channels to surf. You would like that
I was just 24 when this show first appeared. It was on the ABC and so it didn't receive the promotion that the commercial networks gave their new programs. The critical acclaim it received was, from my perspective, unprecedented. But it mainly spread through word of mouth. It aired on Monday and every Tuesday you would here people talking about this astonishing new comedy/political satire/documentary/ tragedy. The shows reputation spread and eventually it became a sensation. Soon, our Monday nights were dedicated to Yes Minister.
@Noel Coward Indeed. I recall seeing an interview in which Thatcher said that if you want to see an accurate portrayal of what occurs in the corridors of power, your best option is to watch Yes Minister.
The downside would be that today you would be my age. Maybe we can do a swap?
too many smokers back then
2022 and we're still having this very debate in Switzerland about banning tobacco advertising... With the same arguments, to boot!
Such beautiful acting.
As being a smoker, Excellent!
Class writing and superb delivery
It's so laughable an idea it's now government policy! 🤣🤣
Amazing how times have changed
....The Larry Sanders Show! Genius
New Zealand’s revolutionary anti-smoking law, which drew headlines around the world when it passed last year1 and was widely credited as the inspiration behind the UK’s recently announced smoking bill, will be repealed in its entirety by the incoming coalition government, new prime minister Christopher Luxon has said.
This is brilliant.
I love it because Humphrey says exactly what the tea party is thinking
Sunak did this... Man this just a documentary
The best debate ever!
One of my favourite british shaw, the other ones are "are you being served" and " some mothers do have 'em".