Sir Humphrey returns.

So Hapless premier Jim Hacker and his manipulative g civil servant nemesis Sir Humphrey with a script from original writers  Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn.

The update of the original g BBC show, will , finds Hacker heading a Coalition government which is facing disaster.

In the Plot the country is on the brink of economic crisis and the Scots are demanding an independence referendum. The one grain of hope is a morally dubious deal with the Foreign Minister of Kumranistan.

Those of you who have seen the original will remember that the Plot usually revolved around Sir Humphrey, placing obstacles in the Prime Ministers (Hacker) way and steering him away from any plans that would result in what he regarded as the dreaded "change".

However as Peter Black writes , (and for once he makes a valid point) on the recent plans to Spy on peoples emails and Web activity Civil Sevants still want to write the Governments agends.

Apparently the idea is to legislate so that internet firms will be required to give intelligence agency GCHQ access to communications in real time. The law would not allow GCHQ to access the content of emails, calls or messages without a warrant, but it would enable intelligence officers to identify who an individual or group is in contact with, how often and for how long. They would also be able to see which websites someone had visited.
This revival of a proposal mooted by the last Labour Government underlines the inertia of Government. Once an idea is fixed in the minds of advisors and civil servants, they keep revisiting it until they find politicians prepared to take it forward. Liberal Democrat Ministers should not be those politicians.

So this time  perhaps the Plot  hould concentrate on Sir Humphrey and Prime Minister Hacker agreeing on a course of action. Only to find the Deputy Prime Minister who leads the Junior Coalition Partners fighting against them.

So they will turn to him and say . Look Nick(maybe he's called Nick) . We can ese you have strong objections . So we want you to voice your concerns and we will take them on board. We will still have to carry on with this but at the end of the day  we are sure you will be able to say that you have made a contribution that make it better Act.

Nick will do this he will raise strong objections and make some amendments that he will claim (and maybe believe) that this has changed the Bill altogether.

He will never realise that he is there just to provide votes for the Senior Coalition Partners  and despite his claims the main purposes of the Legislation (as happened with the recent NHS reforms in England) will be carried out  and they are only throwing him a threw crumble in order to keep him in line.

Hacker and Sir Humphrey will gleefully see Nick's Party getting the blame from those who deserted the previous government  because they felt they were impinging on their Liberties.They wound't want them to collapse completely before the next Genera lElections the don't want them to jump ship in panic. But they would not shed a tear if "Nick's" party are the ones who suffer the Midterm losses usually felt by the sitting Government Party.

I don't know if this will emerge in   Antony Jay's and Jonathan Lyn's n script for the new series but the original had an uncanny perception and often came up with plots that latter seemed to appear in the actions of the then government.

We can only wait to see how on the ball they are in 2012

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