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Yes, Minister! is very amusing, full of well crafted witty dialog, but it is also fictional Thatcherite propaganda which bears limited resemblance to any real-w
by jacobolus 5y ago
Yes, Minister! is very amusing, full of well crafted witty dialog, but it is also fictional Thatcherite propaganda which bears limited resemblance to any real-world systems, and was grossly misleading about contemporary British government/politics. It should not be taken too seriously for policy analysis. The general ascendance of its worldview in the past few decades of British politics has been fairly disastrous (e.g. Brexit). (Similarly, we shouldn’t uncritically take policy advice from other satirical fiction such as Idiocracy, Robocop, Brazil, or They Live.)
- jl6 5y agoI respectfully disagree. As well as bureaucracy, it treated topics such as the old boys network, the class snobbery and small-c conservatism of Sir Humphrey, corruption, gender equality, denuclearisation, smoking, and financial elites - all of which would be welcome in critiques of Thatcher’s government. I find it a masterful equal-opportunity offender. I also don’t think it tries hard to put forward a particular policy position. Above all else, it is a show about the process of doing politics, rather than being overtly political itself.
- dageshi 5y agoIt doesn't strike me as "Thatcherite propaganda", is strikes me as cherry picked extreme examples of a lot of things that actually happened.