[2] He had a career in political research, university lecturing and journalism[3] – including editorship of a publication named Reform[4] – and was elected as a Member of Parliament, initially serving as a backbencher.
The Department of Administrative Affairs (DAA) was described by a commentator as a "political graveyard", implying the Prime Minister may have chosen it as an act of revenge.
Early in his premiership, Hacker intended to implement what he called his "Grand Design" – actually the idea of the Chief Scientific Adviser – which involved cancelling the Trident missile programme, enlarging the armed forces and reintroducing conscription.
[18] Hacker was delighted by his sudden death, not only because the memoirs would not be finished, but because the funeral offered the opportunity for him to host an unofficial summit of world leaders, during which he discussed with the French President the terms of joint British-French management of the Channel Tunnel.
In summarizing his career, they say that he "failed upwards from one senior cabinet post to the next, culminating with his ultimate failure at Number Ten and his final demise on his elevation to the House of Lords (as it then was).
The foreword to the third volume of the book series (published 1983, but dated September 2019) makes clear that Hacker has died, not merely suffered a political demise.
"[11] Jim Hacker first appears in Yes Minister having been recently re-elected as Member of Parliament for Birmingham East, soundly defeating his opponents.
Bernard is sympathetic to Hacker's plight and tries to enlighten his Minister as to the tricks and techniques employed by government staff, but his ability to help is limited by his own loyalties in the Civil Service.
While Sir Humphrey nearly always gets the upper hand, Hacker now and again plays a trump card, and on even fewer occasions, the two of them work towards a common goal.
Hacker also learns that his efforts to change the government or Britain are all really for naught, as he discovers in the episode "The Whisky Priest", when he attempts to stop the export of British-made munitions to Italian terrorists.
With help from the recently promoted Sir Humphrey and other senior civil servants, Hacker emerges as a compromise candidate and becomes head of his party unopposed – and prime minister.
In Yes, Prime Minister Hacker strives to perfect all the skills needed by a statesman, giving more grandiose speeches, dreaming up "courageous" political programmes, and honing his diplomatic craft, nearly all of these attempts landing him in trouble at some point.
In a Radio Times interview to promote the latter series, Paul Eddington stated, "He's beginning to find his feet as a man of power, and he's begun to confound those who thought they'd be able to manipulate him out of hand.
Though primarily interested in his personal career survival and advancement, he, unlike Sir Humphrey, views government as a means rather than an end in itself.
(The book adaptation by Lynn and Jay gives the Prime Minister a name — Herbert Attwell — but it is only mentioned once, and the character remains completely offscreen.)
[24] On first becoming a minister, Hacker intends to implement his party's manifesto commitment to "open government", but backs down when he is shown the dangers of the policy.
In "Big Brother", Hacker reaches out to Tom Sargent, his predecessor as Minister of Administrative Affairs in the previous government, now a member of the Opposition, for help to overcome Civil Service resistance to the introduction of safeguards for a National Integrated Database; after Sargent outlines the Civil Service's five step stalling technique and revealing the existence of a white paper to introduce safeguards, Hacker successfully forces Sir Humphrey's hand by publicly announcing future proposals for such safeguards and eventually presents the previously suppressed white paper drafted under Sargent.
[25] Most of these are described as marginal seats, often mentioned when a potentially unpopular decision is under consideration, such as the revitalisation of a nationalised chemical plant through the production of propanol using metadioxin (a chemical similar to dioxin, linked to the Seveso disaster and purported to cause foetal damage) or introducing ameliorative measures to deter smoking (to the detriment of tax revenue, jobs in the tobacco industry and patronage for culture and sports).
The party is also mentioned as controlling the South Derbyshire Council (criticised by Sir Humphrey for not submitting its records to Westminster but which turned out to be the most effective and efficient local authority in Britain) as well as contesting a by-election in Newcastle.