Editing Yes Minister (section)

===Sir Humphrey Appleby===
{{Main|Humphrey Appleby}}

Sir Humphrey Appleby ([[Nigel Hawthorne]]) serves throughout the series as [[permanent secretary]] under his minister, Jim Hacker at the Department of Administrative Affairs. He is appointed Cabinet Secretary just as Hacker's party enters a leadership crisis, and is instrumental in Hacker's elevation to Prime Minister. He is committed to maintaining the ''status quo'' for the country in general and for the [[Civil Service (United Kingdom)|Civil Service]] in particular.<ref name="bbs"/> Sir Humphrey is a master of [[obfuscation]] and [[Social influence|manipulation]], baffling his opponents with long-winded technical jargon and [[circumlocutions]], strategically appointing allies to supposedly impartial boards, and setting up interdepartmental committees to smother his minister's proposals in [[red tape]]. {{listen
 | filename    = Yes Minister - Sir Humphrey speech.ogg
 | title       = "Sir Humphrey's big speeches"
 | description = An example of Hawthorne's performance of the "big speeches", from the episode "[[Man Overboard (Yes, Prime Minister)|Man Overboard]]"
 | format      = [[Ogg]]
}}  However, although presenting an outward appearance of supreme confidence and competence, Sir Humphrey is not immune to making miscalculations or outright blunders. When such blunders occur, he relies on the Civil Service bureaucracy to save him.

In ''Britain's Best Sitcom'', [[Stephen Fry]] comments that "we love the idea of the coherence and articulacy of Sir Humphrey&nbsp;... it's one of the things you look forward to in an episode of ''Yes Minister''&nbsp;... when's the big speech going to happen? And can I see if he's reading it from an [[idiot board]]&nbsp;... he's really learned it, and it's superb."<ref name="bbs"/> Derek Fowlds posited to a concerned Eddington that these speeches were the reason why Hawthorne won a BAFTA for Best Comedy Performance four times in a row, while Eddington, though nominated, did not win at all.<ref name="bbs"/>

Loquacious and verbose, he frequently uses both his mastery of the English language and his grasp of [[Latin]] and Greek grammar both to perplex his political master and to obscure the relevant issues. In a ''[[Radio Times]]'' interview to promote the second series of ''Yes, Prime Minister'', producer Sydney Lotterby said that he always tried to give Eddington and Hawthorne extra time to rehearse as their scenes invariably featured lengthy dialogue exchanges.<ref>''Radio Times'' 28 November – 4 December 1987</ref>