"Иә, министр" сериалының кейіпкері – Джеймс Хэкер туралы

Fictional character from the British sitcom Yes Minister

James George Hacker, Baron Hacker of Islington, , BSc (Lond. ), Hon. D. Phil. (Oxon.) is a fictional character in the 1980s British sitcom Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. He is the minister of the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs, and later Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was portrayed originally by Paul Eddington, with David Haig taking on the part for the 2013 revival.

The original television series ended in 1988 with Hacker still in office as Prime Minister; however, both before and after this, writers Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn made references to Hacker's career in print which reveal his life after the series ended. In 1981, Jay and Lynn adapted the first series of Yes Minister into book form, presenting it in the form of Hacker's diaries, ostensibly edited by Jay and Lynn more than thirty years later in 2017. 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)." All five volumes of the book series are supposedly written at "Hacker College, Oxford", an institution apparently named after him. In 2003, Jay and Lynn wrote an obituary for Hacker for The Politico's Book of the Dead. Hacker mentions having more than one child, saying, "Our children are reaching the age where Annie and I are hoping to spend much more time with each other." Hacker becomes a more competent politician by the end. 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.

Hacker's political party is never explicitly stated – a deliberate ploy by the series' creators to prevent the show from having a partisan affiliation. This begins in the very first scene of the Yes Minister pilot episode, where the victorious Hacker's party rosette is white, as opposed to the red (for Labour) and blue (for the Conservatives) rosettes worn by the other candidates. The party that formed the previous government, which is now the opposition, is not explicitly identified either. In Yes Minister, the Prime Minister was unseen and unnamed, but established as male, whereas the real Prime Minister of the day was Margaret Thatcher. (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.) The Labour and Conservative parties are eventually compared in "The National Education Service", when Sir Humphrey tells Bernard, "When there is a Labour government, the education authorities tell them that comprehensives abolish the class system and when there's a Tory government we tell them that it's the cheapest way of providing mass education; to Labour we explain that selective education is divisive and to the Tories we explain that it is expensive." but Sir Humphrey then goes on to tell Hacker neither of these things, forgoing any suggestion that Hacker is from either party. In "Party Games", following the Prime Minister's surprise announcement of his retirement, Sir Humphrey and his predecessor Sir Arnold Robinson discuss who should succeed him. With the Home Secretary, previously the Prime Minister's likely successor, being forced to resign following a spectacular drink driving incident (with Hacker speculating that the Prime Minister only served for as long as he did to prevent the Home Secretary from succeeding him), the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign Secretary seemed to be the most likely successors. Humphrey relayed the concerns of the Chief Whip that as each candidate represented the extreme wings of their party, the election of either could antagonise the other's supporters and split the party. However, it is not mentioned what positions either candidate or wing support or oppose. With both candidates expressing desires to take proactive roles in governing and posing significant security risks, Hacker was positioned to succeed the Prime Minister unopposed as a moderate (otherwise described as a "compromise" or "less interventionist") candidate. Throughout the show, Hacker's political opinions tend towards reform of administration and are neither left nor right wing. 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.

In a radio broadcast spoof of Yes Minister performed by both Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne, both of whom played their respective parts from the show, Hacker is a Minister in the government of the day, that of Margaret Thatcher, who also played herself as Prime Minister. In the sketch, she asks that Hacker and Sir Humphrey abolish economists. In the 2010 stage production of Yes, Prime Minister, the role was played by David Haig; Graham Seed took the role in a touring production of the play.