Scotland Office minister Malcolm Offord needs Sir Humphrey to tell him how 'courageous' his tax-cutting idea really is – Scotsman comment

During the long-running BBC sitcom Yes Minister, Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby offered a masterclass for all aspiring civil servants on how to turn the tables on their supposed political masters.

Yes Minister actors Nigel Hawthorne, who played Humphrey Appleby, and Paul Eddington, as Jim Hacker, perform a sketch with Margaret Thatcher in 1984 (Picture: PA)

In one episode, he laid out how to scare a minister into dropping a reckless course of action. Bad ideas, at least in the Civil Service’s eyes, should first be described as “complicated, lengthy, expensive, controversial”. “And if you want to be really sure that the minister doesn't accept it, you must say the decision is ‘courageous.’” Controversial, he explained, was merely code for “this will lose you votes”, while courageous meant “this will lose you the election".

Apart from rare and comical exceptions, the hapless Jim Hacker was putty in his hands, despite the minister’s eventual move to 10 Downing Street. Given the current chaos in Whitehall, either the UK’s senior civil servants have forgotten the art of manipulating their politicians or they have allowed them to go rogue.

Speaking after the disastrous mini-budget, but before new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt ripped up almost all of its tax cuts, Scotland Office minister Malcolm Offord suggested in an interview with The Scotsman that the Scottish Government should actually go even further than Kwasi Kwarteng by using its powers to undercut the UK income tax rate. “A business enterprise agenda that saw that tax being cut, perhaps even becoming lower than the UK, would be very innovative,” he said.

Yes Minister, that’s really very innovative indeed. We suppose it might prove to be controversial in some quarters, but for a courageous politician like yourself, we’re sure it will all work out in the end.