#jim hacker

[gaylittlebillionaires]

yes, minister 2.03 the death list

[laceandsteelgirl]

those two guys in yes minister have enough sexual tension to power a space station. unfortunately this is countered by them being british politicians and therefore nothing interesting ever happens between them

[her-ladyship-ariadne]

I love Bernard he’s such a little dweeb. was watching the writing on the wall today and jim said something like “we’ve got it in the bag, this will really rock the boat” and you can just hear the RAGE in Bernard’s voice, like he’s gritting his teeth, when he says “you don’t put boats in bags”. adore this man.

[georgefairbrother]

An important message from the government...

[gluttonyedits]

prompt from @edelweiss-edits: favourite media Yes Minister protagonists layouts No doubles for Bernard.

[couldtheycatchkira]

[spamuelsonofspamothy]

Rewatching Yes, Minister and thinking about Sir Humphrey in "The Whiskey Priest". Upon being told that, if he doesn't care about morality in government, he's going to hell, the man grins. When asked about whether the Civil Service should believe in the government's policies, Sir Humphrey lectures us about how that would mean holding several contradictory views whose net effect would be to drive any man mad. And for all his amoral cynicism, he is sort of trying to help Hacker out: telling the PM what he knows would at best make Hacker a martyr for embarrassing the government (and leave him unable to help anyway) and at worst bring down the whole cabinet, PM included. An interesting episode, all around.

[carnivore-ivy]

[lifewithaview]

Yes Minister (1980) The Right to Know

Once again, the Minister, Jim Hacker and the permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, clash over the Minister's role in running the Department.The Minister instructs his senior civil servant to keep nothing from him and he is promptly flooded with everything under the sun. For Sir Humphrey, the Minister's meeting with constituents concerned about saving a local den of badgers is exactly the kind of work he should be doing. When he learns that Hacker's daughter will stage a nude protest over her father's decision on the badgers, Appleby must come to the rescue.

[daydreamerwonderkid]

*Girls Just Wanna Have Fun playing in the background*

Meme reference below cut

[gaylittlebillionaires]

rewatching s1+2 of the thick of it and yes minister simultaneously makes it so obvious that hugh abbot is basically just jim hacker but in 2005

[her-ladyship-ariadne]

Jim Hacker: You mean to tell me that when the chips are down, you’re on my side, not Humphrey’s?

Bernard Woolley: Minister, it’s my job to see that the chips stay up.

[gluttonyedits]

HEADCANONS : Jim Hacker (General)

His father was a Liberal Party counsellor for a county council, which would set his views and interest in politics.

I see him as an MP of a much more successful Liberal Party. Ideologically wise, he is a social liberal. While his biggest political hero is Winston Churchill, William Beveridge comes a close second.

Everyone in the department has been warned several times against buying him drinks for Christmas or birthday presents. Mainly because he tends to get drunk at the office. His favourite alcoholic beverage is claret.

Normally when he's drunk he either delivers a very staggered speech or makes fun of recent things that have happened. No one is particularly amused.

Most of his hours at home consist of dealing with red boxes, writing letters and reading newspapers while listening to Radio 1. If he and Annie do anything, then it's playing board games.

Private Eye has given him the simple nicknames of "Jim Hacking" and “Jim Hackless” because of his position as Minister for Administrative Affairs. “Hacking” is used when he destroys red tape, “Hackless” is used when he doesn’t.

[muppet-facts]

Muppet Fact #1287

Gonzo was given tickets for the whole Muppet gang to see Leapin' Lenny and the Jet Lag because the lead singer, Leapin' Lenny, loved his outfit.

Source:

Hacker, Randi. "Clothes Make the Gonzo." In Stories to Grow On. Funk & Wagnalls, 1991.

[georgefairbrother]

The Challenge was one of two episodes featuring Dad's Army legend, Ian Lavender, who passed away earlier this year aged 77.

It also featured, as himself, journalist, author, historian and broadcaster, Ludovic Kennedy (1919-2009). Kennedy was a former naval officer, serving on destroyers in World War II and involved in the pursuit and ultimate destruction of the Bismarck. He later became an influential writer on miscarriages of justice, including the trial of Stephen Ward following the Profumo affair.

The Challenge was a series III episode of Yes Minister (1982), in which Jim Hacker’s Department of Administrative Affairs assumes general oversight of local authorities. As Ludovic Kennedy (playing himself as BBC interviewer) points out, Hacker is now ‘Mr Townhall as well as Mr Whitehall’.

Echoing the Thatcher government’s zeal to reform the local government sector, Hacker is determined to make councils more efficient and to curb their extravagance. The Cabinet Secretary and Sir Humphrey are not so keen, worried that any reforms, such as direct financial accountability for the success or failure of council projects, could be extended to the civil service as a whole.

To deflect his attention, Jim Hacker is urged to tackle the largely ridiculed and tricky business of civil defence, in particular the provision of public fall-out shelters by local authorities, and is sent to confront the leader of the London Borough of Thames Marsh, Ben Stanley, over their anti-nuclear activism and budget blowouts. Stanley was reportedly based on Ken Livingstone, leader of the ill-fated Greater London Council.

There are a couple of interesting cameos, aside from Ludovic Kennedy, and Moray Watson as a BBC controller. Ian Lavender (Private Pike from Dad’s Army) plays Dr Cartwright, a departmental economics boffin doomed to spend his entire career as a middling undersecretary. “I fear I shall rise no higher,” he explained sadly to Jim Hacker, “Alas, I’m an expert.”

Ben Stanley, the unilateralist leader of Thames Marsh Council is played by Doug Fisher (Man About the House), and is unimpressed by Cartwright’s suggestions on how to save ratepayers' money, which include closing the feminist drama centre, abandoning plans for a leisure centre featuring an artificial ski slope and jacuzzi, closing the gay bereavement centre, selling the Mayor’s second Daimler, and cancelling a councillors’ fact-finding junket to the Caribbean.

The episode lampoons the council’s hypocrisy in taking an anti-nuclear stance while providing fall-out shelter space solely for the leader and some senior councillors. Paul Eddington himself (Jim Hacker) was a Quaker pacifist, and in a later interview recalled that he was very uncomfortable with the way the writers (Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn) had ridiculed the anti-nuclear issue and peace activism, and that they had allowed their own political bias to influence the story. Eddington objected, and some moderating changes were made to the final script.