Yes, Prime Minister: Re-elected

---

Britain's most celebrated

constitutional comedy,

Yes, Prime Minister, is back.

I don't know what else I don't know,

do you know?

The prospect of a new series of

Yes, Prime Minister set today

is fantastic.

As Tony Blair would say,

"It's very, very,

very good news, ha ha ha ha ha!"

They really do say,

"Yes, Prime Minister."

There's a hungry audience

out there for it,

and I think it will

absolutely chime.

GOLD has enticed the original

writers, Jonathan Lynn

and Antony Jay, to write

a brand-new series...

I think it's fun.

I really think we're going

to enjoy the experience.

..with a brand-new cast...

I love playing the character,

because he reminds me

slightly of Boris Johnson.

Am I allowed to say that?

Because Boris Johnson,

incredibly shrewd at times.

And I think there's

a bit of that in Jim Hacker.

..and some very special guest

stars...

Hi, I'm George Clooney!

..because there's never been

a better time to bring back

this ground-breaking

tale of political chicanery.

There's a way you can make

yourself invulnerable!

Yes, Prime Minister,

the sitcom that lifted the lid on

the inner workings of government,

is finally making a triumphant

return to our screens

after 25 years.

It'll be great to see it coming back

and see how they've how

that programme can relate

to the changing world of politics

and the changing world

of entertainment.

And it will remind Humphrey

who's running the country.

It's gonna give us a fresh,

fresh light,

and is going to be very,

very enjoyable.

It's bound to strike a chord,

because people realise it's true.

In fact, it was so true to life

that when Yes, Prime Minister

first aired in the '80s,

the Iron Lady was most amused.

The odd thing about

Yes, Prime Minister is that it was

the favourite programme of Margaret

Thatcher, the Prime Minister.

'Do you watch Yes, Prime Minister?'

Oh!

Yes, I do watch Yes, Prime Minister,

but sometimes not when it's on.

It can be videoed for me,

or the BBC are very,

very kind

and will let me have the tape.

Mrs Thatcher once said to me,

"This is not a sitcom, Andrew."

She said, "This is a documentary."

Basically, I think the reason

that Mrs Thatcher liked it

was because it was politically

correct for her to do so.

It was one of the most

popular programmes,

and she was trying to jump

on the bandwagon,

as far as I was concerned.

She was inclined, from time to time,

to think that only

she was any good, and the rest

of her ministers were useless.

And therefore to some extent,

this fed into that.

Now, any other points

that we wish to raise,

generally, before we go on

to the main business?

JONATHAN LYNN:
I didn't like

it being associated with her,

because I wasn't wholly

sympathetic to her political views

and I didn't want it to

put off the rest of the country

or the people who didn't like her.

But I was absolutely

in favour of her views,

and I don't think that we've come

to an agreement about this.

We've never come

to an agreement on that.

I just wanted to make it clear that

you didn't have to be a Thatcherite

to like this programme, nor was it

projecting a Tory viewpoint...

No, that was...

..which a lot of people

claim that it was.

Although there was

one young Tory who disagreed.

In fact, during his uni days,

he wrote an essay saying

it wasn't that true to life.

But after two years in power

and with a wealth of experience

behind him,

Cameron has finally conceded

that yes,

Yes, Prime Minister

has got it right.

The fact David Cameron has said that

yes, it is basically like that

only really confirms why people love

that show as much as they do.

Our new series sees Jim Hacker

heading up a crumbling

coalition government

whilst battling a catastrophic

euro crisis, financial meltdown,

and a bid for Scottish independence.

You can propose as many alternatives

as you like in your referendum.

Good.

We will propose

only one option in ours.

We're in the age where we have

a coalition government

which is

increasingly fighting among itself.

We're at a time when politicians

don't quite know what to do.

I think you add all these things

together, and you see

the re-emergence, the second

coming of Sir Humphrey Appleby.

I have caught you red-handed

in a devious attempt to inveigle us

into the Eurozone behind my back.

No, well, yes, but...

To explore how

Yes, Prime Minister has shaped

our view of government,

we've put together our very own

Select Committee

for Comedy Analysis.

It consists of Tory titan

Michael Heseltine,

former Labour heavyweight

Alan Johnson,

Lib Dem deputy leader

Simon Hughes,

ex-Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell -

or Sir Humphrey to me and you -

and none other than Tony Blair's

former Spin Doctor,

Alastair Campbell.

So here we are talking about

is this the right time to revive

Yes, Minister

when first peace-time

coalition...

country in economic

difficulties, euro crisis,

Scotland talking about a vote

on independence...

What do you think?

Your party, first time in

government for a very long time.

I think it makes for, in theory,

a much more interesting set

of programmes

even than the original,

because one-party government

is interesting enough,

but two-party government,

by definition,

is much more interesting, because

it's not just the internal management

of your own people, but it's

the relationship between the two.

Oh, absolutely.

When I was brought up...

I mean, you described

Yes, Minister as a...comedy.

We were taught it as

a training video.

You know, this was

how you managed your ministers.

I mean, I've been in episodes

of Yes, Minister.

You know, when I was at Trade

and Industry, and Tony appointed me

and said, "Oh, incidentally,

we've changed the name of it -

"it's now the Department

of Productivity, Energy..."

which was capital E, small N

"..Industry and Science."

PEnIS.

I said, "I'm the Secretary

of State for PEnIS!"

And...and this was on a Sunday.

On the Wednesday,

I went to see Tony in Number Ten,

and he said, "Are you OK, Alan?

"You know, all this...

"pretty straight

nuclear policy...?"

And I said, "I don't like being

in the Department of PEnIS."

And he said, "Whose idea was that?"

And he looked round,

and, "Oh, not mine!"

It was his Press Secretary!

It was certainly was not!

Alistair had gone by then!

So we had to change,

so DTI had come down,

and it was blank outside 1

Victoria Street, I can remember it.

And they were just about to put

PEnIS up, and fortunately

I managed to persuade the Prime

Minister we'd go back to being DTI.

I mean it's an episode

of Yes, Minister.

They couldn't have got,

they couldn't have invented that,

could they?

No!

When Jim Hacker left our screens

in 1988, Jonathan Lynn hotfooted it

to Hollywood to become

an award-winning film director.

Antony Jay swapped the city

for the country to continue writing.

Now GOLD has persuaded them

to bring Yes, Prime Minister

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