Sir Antony Jay, co-author of Yes Minister – obituary

Yes, Minister ran for three series, before the advancement of Jim Hacker’s career (due to his valiant defiance of a new Euro directive redefining the British banger as an “emulsified offal tube”), led to its relaunch as Yes, Prime Minister, with the same cast (Sir Humphrey promoted to Cabinet Secretary), in 1986. The series ran until 1988.

 Jay felt that some politicians laughed through gritted teeth, and certainly there were dissenters. Nicholas Ridley, in his time as Transport Secretary, turned down a Foreign Office suggestion that he should take a set of Yes, Minister videos to present to his hosts during an official visit to India, objecting that the programme gave a false and damaging impression of the true relationship between ministers and their civil servants. But Ridley was no Jim Hacker.

Yet the comedy had an international resonance and clones of the series appeared in numerous different languages, including Hindi. In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe was said to be a No 1 fan.

However, not many, perhaps, were aware that the serial was commissioned with a serious political purpose: to popularise public choice theory. It is because it succeeded spectacularly that Jay received a knighthood in 1988.

Antony Rupert Jay was born on April 20 1930 and educated as a scholar at St Paul’s School, London. He won another scholarship to Magdalene College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with Firsts in Classics and Comparative Philology.

After National Service in the Royal Signals, Jay joined BBC Television in 1955, and was a member of the team that launched the current affairs programme Tonight, which he edited from 1962 to 1963. After a further year as head of Television Talk Features, he left the BBC to work as a freelance writer and producer.

It was Jay’s growing interest in public choice theory that helped to shape Yes, Minister, an interest that after he became a partner with John Cleese and two others in Video Arts, a company that makes comedy training films for business managers and campaigners.

 In economics public choice theory assumes that all economic actors – businessmen, consumers, politicians and bureaucrats – are motivated primarily by individual gain. Thus, politicians pursue re-election and bureaucrats pursue budget-maximisation, while voters and interest groups chase free lunches. The trick is to know your enemy and exploit his self-interest to your own advantage.

Jay incorporated the public choice lessons implicit in Yes, Minister in a series of guides, including Management and Machiavelli (1967); Effective Presentation (1970); Corporation Man (1972); The Householder’s Guide to Community Defence Against Bureaucratic Aggression (1972); and How to Beat Sir Humphrey (1997). In 1996 he edited the Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations.

In later life Jay turned against his former employers at the BBC, condemning its anti-establishment mindset, and in a highly controversial report, How to Save the BBC, written for the Centre for Policy Studies in 2008, he branded the corporation “bloated, biased and creaky”.

In 2011, Jay and Jonathan Lynn got together again to write an anniversary stage production of Yes, Prime Minister, updated for the era of spin, blackberrys and “sexed up” dossiers, and set in a country in financial meltdown. Starring Simon Williams as Sir Humphrey Appleby and Richard McCabe as Jim Hacker, the show was staged at the Theatre Royal in London, winning a Whatsonstage award for Best New Comedy.

In 2013 the two writers joined forces with UKTV’s Gold channel to create a six-part remake of Yes, Prime Minister, updated for the era of coalition, with David Haig as Hacker  opposite Henry Goodman’s suave Sir Humphrey. The satire was as sharp as ever.

Jay also wrote the BBC TV documentaries Royal Family and Elizabeth R, for which he was appointed CVO in 1993 for personal services to the Royal Family. 

Antony Jay married, in 1957, Rosemary Hill, with whom he had two sons and two daughters.

Sir Antony Jay, born April 20 1930, died August 21 2016