Yes, Prime Minister The Smoke Screen

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Yes, Prime MinisterThe Smoke Screen

• An introduction
• Yui-Wah (Clement) Lee, PhDApril 12, 2007

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Key characters
Jim Hackerthe Prime Minister
Sir Humphreythe Cabinet Secretary
A politician Votes, votes, votes! Popularity Grand
ideas
A civil servant Status Quo! He thinks he is
the real master
BernardThe Personal Secretary
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Special characters of this episode
Permanent Secretary to the Treasury,advising
the Chancellor
Dr. Peter Thorn,Minister for Health, wants to
ban smoking
Leslie Potts,Minister for Sports,a tobacco
lobbyist
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Some background for this episode

• Trident A defense project that Jim Hacker wants
  to cancel
• Conscription (???) A defense plan that Jim wants
  to use to replace Trident
• Whitehall The British Government (the
  non-political part run by the civil servants)
• Downing Street The Prime Minister
• The Parliament
• MP Member of Parliament
• A constituency (??)
• A marginal constituency (???????????)
• Covent Garden The Royal Opera House

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Quotes 1

• 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?"

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Quotes 2

• Jim Hacker "Humphrey, we are talking about
  100,000 deaths a year."
• Sir Humphrey "Yes, but cigarette taxes pay for a
  third of the cost of the National Health Service.
  We are 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."

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Quotes 3

• Jim Hacker Leslie, we are talking about 100,000
  deaths a year."
• Leslie Potts "Yes, but these are evenly spread!
  Not just in a marginal constituency!"

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You can review the episode on YouTube!
Go to YouTube, search for Yes Prime Minister
Smokescreen
Or http//www.youtube.com/results?search_queryyes
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