Sir Humphrey makes Jim suspicious of the Minister of Employment when he needs the P.M.’s support in opposing a plan to shift military personnel from the south to the north of England.

Jim considers approving the publication of his predecessor’s memoirs, but it becomes a plumber’s nightmare as a series of leaks spring up.

Jim uses the occasion of his predecessor’s state funeral to negotiate with the French over the conditions of the Channel Tunnel.

Hacker and Sir Humphrey clash over the appointment of the governor of the Bank of England and the cover up of a banking scandal in the City.

Sir Humphrey makes a very strange ally out of the formidable Agnes Moorhouse, a radical political reformer from a London council, in his efforts to stop Hacker’s plans to make local government more democratic.

Jim Hacker faces embarrassment when Sir Humphrey tells a friend in the arts that the PM's government is planning to cut grants.

Sir Humphrey faces a conflict of interest when Hacker devises a plan to improve educational standards by abolishing the Department of Education and Science.