The newly appointed Minister for Administrative Affairs, the Rt Hon. Jim Hacker MP, finds even the corridors of power congested by the machinations of his Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey and his Civil Service cohorts.

A school teacher discusses types of government with his class. His students find it too boring to repeatedly go over national socialism and believe that dictatorship cannot be established in modern Germany. He starts an experiment to show how easily the masses can become manipulated.