The Complete Yes Prime Minister

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Hackers unexpected elevation to the Premiership, which occurs at the end of the first chapter of this volume, created almost as many problems for his editors as it did for Britain. He was determined that his diaries should portray his period in office as a series of triumphs, even though the task would have defeated a far more skilful diarist. History dealt somewhat roughly with Hacker as Prime Minister; but readers of his full diaries will see some justice in this, since Hacker as an author dealt even more roughly with history. It may be that the office of Prime Minister encouraged him -- as in others -- a progressive separation from reality, and a breaking down of the barrier between fact and imagination as he dictated, alone with his customary glass of Scotch and his cassette recorder, a version of the days events in which he relived his successes and reinterpreted his failures.

Grateful though we are for the honour of editing and transcribing these extensive tape recordings, we were astonished to discover that, at times, Hacker seems to have decorated and rearranged past events in order to present himself in a favourable light. Indeed, surprising though it may be to a modern reader, he seems positively confident that this goal can be achieved. We cannot believe that any politician would rearrange past events deliberately in order to distort the historical record, and so we have had to assume that Hacker had some strange defect of mind that frequently led him to ask not What did I do? but What is the most impressive explanation of my actions that cannot be disproved by published facts?

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