Interviewer
Prime Minister, assume for an idle moment, that you had time to watch television, what would induce you to switch the set on to watch? What sort of things would you watch and enjoy watching to relax?
Prime Minister
Well, looking back, I can tell you several things. We never missed one edition of “Forsyte Saga”. I cannot remember when anything gripped the British public quite as much as that. We loved “Shogun”. We would always try to watch “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”. We loved the nature programmes, either the “See Around Us” or “The Sky” or things like the Brazil Rain Forests, or you did the other day the Borneo Rain Forests. You did a marvellous one about polar bears. I think that the David Attenborough Attenborough series of “The World Around Us” has been wonderful and then, just for sheer joy and delight, we always tried to watch Eric Morecombe Morecombe and Ernie Wise Wise. It was so sad when the partnership was broken by death. And [Ronnie Barker Ronnie Corbett] the Two Ronnies we love, especially the bits at the end of their shows, you know, where they do something with music. So that is quite a lot of things.
[end p1]Interviewer
If you had to take … to choose one of those things to have in your library, so to speak, which one would you like to choose?
Prime Minister
In my library, that is different! In my library, I would have “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister” because they really are classics and they mean so much to me. In a way, people say to me: “Is Government like that?”. The answer is yes and no. There is just, as in most good things … they are caricatures of government and, of course, caricatures succeed, because there is a grain of truth in them, and they are such fun. We roar at them. We just sit and laugh and we love them and we discuss them in the office next day.
I think perhaps we like most of all, we like Sir Humphrey. He is very good, Nigel Hawthorne and we adored seeing him in “Barchester Towers” too. He is absolutely terrific, and so I always at Christmas or in Recesses you very kindly let me have tapes of those and I look at them again.
Interviewer
Whilst we are on that particular programme, “Yes, Minister” or “Yes, Prime Minister!”, if your Cabinet Secretary was Sir Humphrey, how would you deal with him?
Prime Minister
Well, he would also have to consider how he would deal with me as well! I think we would get on rather well, because I think that we would both sort of see through one [end p2] another and we might sort of have one of those debates which is a sort of verbal minute and both know what the other wanted. And I think that I might get my way!
Interviewer
Given that seven million people watch each episode of that, do you think those people get a rather distorted impression of the way government is organised?
Prime Minister
Oh no, I think there is an enormous sense of humour. I think that British people love it for its fun but they know that there is just a hint of truth in it somewhere and that is what makes it so pointed. I remember a number of them. I just wonder which one I enjoyed most. You know, we did a take-off ourselves when I was presenting awards to the Viewers Association. I thought I could not make a dead-pan speech, so we wrote a little script and they very kindly acted it with me, and that was enormous fun.
I remember very vividly the one where they were giving a party in the Foreign Office to diplomats who did not drink because of their religion and I remember very vividly that they had arranged it so that people came in to give messages to the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister and the Minister to enable them to go and have a drink, and all sorts of messages came in: messages like this: “The VAT Man has arrived, wants to know about your 1969 VAT!” “A man called Johnny Walker has arrived!” “There are some beefeaters downstairs wanting to know about ceremonial!” “Someone has arrived with two dogs, black and white!” [end p3] You know, it was just enormous fun. It went on and on, and we were in stitches. And then there was another one on the “Yes, Prime Minister!” and it was about the Prime Minister could not understand why a cook was not provided in No. 10 and, of course, we just looked at one another, Denis and I, because we still do not have a cook—and we would not have one on the tax-payer. And then they went on and there was a visit to the United States, and the way in which he was manoeuvred there was just very very funny indeed. But they are all good. How they do it! Those script-writers are fantastic. It took us ages to try to write two and a half minutes of script. How they manage to do half an hour … I can understand why we do not have many in that series.
Interviewer
Changing the subject slightly, do you remember … is it possible for you to remember one of the first things that you saw on television from the very early … .
Prime Minister
Well, I think it must have been … we did not have a television until we had children and the children, we found after a time, because we had not got a television, went to play with children who had and always stayed to tea there, so we just eventually had to have a television, and I think it was probably things like “Sooty and Sweep”. We still love “Sooty and Sweep”. They are absolute darlings. You did a repeat the other day on television, and we enjoyed that tremendously. But, of course, it is really for the great ceremonial occasions that television is a [end p4] must. We do those in a way no other country in the world does them and we are all very proud of them and we all watch things like Wimbledon, and Denis watches golf, and we watch snooker these days. It is just … it has become such a big part of life, much bigger than it used to be.
Interviewer
Do you ever have the time—this is the last question—some people might say in your position it is very difficult to keep in touch with the, as it were, the Clapham Omnibus. Would you consider being able to use television to keep in touch with the way people are thinking and feeling and the issues?
Prime Minister
You will find that you have got to know about some of the current serials. I do not watch “Dynasty” very often or “Dallas” or “East Enders”, but you have got to know about them, and you have got to know the characters, otherwise you are just missing out on something. So in that sense, you do use it to keep in touch. I think there is a great shortcoming to television. I think it makes you get things both out of proportion and out of perspective, because it shows a very narrow range of life and the news tends to be of things that are going wrong, and so I do think that it has some disadvantages and it is absolutely important that you do not kind of sit down every night in front of television and watch, regardless of what is on. That you become much more selective. Otherwise, you just get life out of perspective altogether, and that is very bad for young people, but I notice young people are [end p5] using it in a much more discrininating way than they used to.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, thank you very much indeed!
Prime Minister
Thank you very much. It is a pleasure. And you will not forget radio; that is very important.