Yes, Prime Minister (TV Series)
A Victory for Democracy (1986)
Nigel Hawthorne: Sir Humphrey Appleby
Photos
Quotes
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Sir Humphrey Appleby : Diplomacy is about surviving until the next century - politics is about surviving until Friday afternoon.
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James Hacker : Humphrey, I'm worried.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Oh, what about, Prime Minister?
James Hacker : About the Americans.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Oh yes, well, we're all worried about the Americans.
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Bernard Woolley : What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Then we follow the four-stage strategy.
Bernard Woolley : What's that?
Sir Richard Wharton : Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
Sir Richard Wharton : In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
Sir Richard Wharton : In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we *can* do.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.
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Sir Humphrey Appleby : I gather that there's an airborne battalion in the air.
James Hacker : Sounds like the right place for it.
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Sir Humphrey Appleby : East Yemen, isn't that a democracy?
Sir Richard Wharton : Its full name is the Peoples' Democratic Republic of East Yemen.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Ah I see, so it's a communist dictatorship.
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James Hacker : Foreign affairs are a complicated business, aren't they?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Yes, indeed, Prime Minister. That's why we leave it to the Foreign Office.
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Bernard Woolley : The PM seems to be completely in the dark.
Sir Richard Wharton : Good.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Excellent. Anything else?
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James Hacker : Foreign affairs are a complicated business.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : That's why we leave it to the Foreign Office.
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Bernard Woolley : Well, I wondered if there was anything he doesn't know?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Well, I hardly know where to begin, Bernard.
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Bernard Woolley : What if he demands options?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Well, it's obvious, Bernard. The Foreign Office will happily present him with three options, two of which are, on close inspection, exactly the same.
Sir Richard Wharton : Plus a third which is totally unacceptable.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Like bombing Warsaw or invading France.
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Sir Humphrey Appleby : You know what happens when politicians get into Number 10; they want to take their place on the world stage.
Sir Richard Wharton : People on stages are called actors. All they are required to do is look plausible, stay sober, and say the lines they're given in the right order.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Some of them try to make up their own lines.
Sir Richard Wharton : They don't last long.
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Sir Richard Wharton : But there's a group of Marxist guerrillas in the mountains somewhere. And we're getting reports that they're planning a coup.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Oh well, these things will happen.
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Sir Richard Wharton : If the PM gets into one of his ghastly patriotic Churchillian moods, he may intervene. All that pro-British, defending democracy nonsense.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Oh, I know, I know.
Sir Richard Wharton : He must understand that once you start interfering in the internal squabbles of other countries, you're on a very slippery slope. Even the Foreign Secretary's grasped that.