Yes, Prime Minister (TV Series)

The Smoke Screen (1986)

Paul Eddington: James Hacker

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Quotes 

• Sir Humphrey : Notwithstanding the fact that your proposal could conceivably encompass certain concomitant benefits of a marginal and peripheral relevance, there is a countervailing consideration of infinitely superior magnitude involving your personal complicity and corroborative malfeasance, with a consequence that the taint and stigma of your former associations and diversions could irredeemably and irretrievably invalidate your position and culminate in public revelations and recriminations of a profoundly embarrassing and ultimately indefensible character.

  Jim Hacker : Perhaps I can have a précis of that?

• Jim Hacker : It says here, smoking related diseases cost the National Health Service £165 million a year.

  Sir Humphrey Appleby : Yes but we've been in to that, it has been shown that if those extra 100,000 people had lived to a ripe old age, it would have cost us even more in pensions and social security than it did in medical treatment. So, financially speaking it's unquestionably better that they continue to die at their present rate.

• Sir Humphrey Appleby : All the hospitality that we've enjoyed at BTG's expense. Champagne receptions, buffet lunches, the best seats at sporting and cultural events.

  Jim Hacker : What's the problem?

  Sir Humphrey Appleby : The tobacco companies may release this embarrassing information to the press.

  Jim Hacker : It's not embarrassing. I've had drinks at the Soviet embassy. That doesn't make me a Russian spy.

• Jim Hacker : Leslie, if we do nothing, in the next ten years in this country alone we're going to have one million premature deaths.

  Leslie Potts - Minister for Sport : Yes, but evenly spread. Not just in marginal constituencies.

• Jim Hacker : We're talking of 100,000 deaths a year.

  Sir Humphrey Appleby : Yes, but cigarette taxes pay for a third of the cost of the National Health service. We're saving many more lives than we otherwise could, because of those smokers who voluntary lay down their lives for their friends. Smokers are national benefactors.

  Jim Hacker : So long as they live.

• Dr. Peter Thorn -Minister of State at the DHSS : Well, briefly, I'm proposing that the government should take action to eliminate smoking: complete ban on all cigarette sponsorship and advertising, even at the point of sale, £50 million to be spent on anti-smoking publicity, ban smoking in all public places, and progressive deterrent tax rises over the next five years until a packet of 20 costs about the same as a bottle of whisky.

  James Hacker : Isn't that rather drastic?

  Dr. Peter Thorn -Minister of State at the DHSS : Absolutely.

• Bernard Woolley : Do you think you will win this one? The tobacco lobby is incredibly powerful.

  James Hacker : Well, some you win, some you lose, Bernard. This one I shall definitely lose.

  Bernard Woolley : Then why?

  James Hacker : If you were the Treasury, which would you rather do without? One and a half billion pounds in tax cuts or four billion pounds in lost tobacco tax revenue?

  Bernard Woolley : The tax cuts. It's smaller.

  James Hacker : Exactly. That's what I want and that's what I shall get.

• Jim Hacker : Tell the Minister that I will see him at the house at 2.30 for ten minutes.

  Bernard Woolley : With pleasure, Prime Minister.

  Jim Hacker : No, not with pleasure Bernard, but I'll see him anyway.

• Jim Hacker : He's got to learn to co-operate.

  Bernard Woolley : What do you mean co-operate?

  Jim Hacker : I mean obey my commands. That's what co-operate means when you're Prime Minister.

• Sir Humphrey Appleby : A lot of people, eminent people, influential people have argued that such legislation would be a blow against freedom of choice.

  Jim Hacker : Rubbish. I'm not banning smoking itself. Does every tax rise represent a blow against freedom?

  Sir Humphrey Appleby : Well, depends how big the tax rise is.

  Jim Hacker : Oh, that's fascinating. Does twenty pence represent a blow against freedom?

  Sir Humphrey Appleby : Prime Minister...

  Jim Hacker : Twenty-five pence? Thirty pence? Thirty-one? Is something a blow against freedom simply because it can seriously damage your wealth?

• Sir Humphrey Appleby : I foresee all sorts of of unforeseen problems.

  Jim Hacker : Such as?

  Sir Humphrey Appleby : If I could foresee them, they wouldn't be unforeseen.