McCann is quite knowledgable not just about Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister but also about the history of British television in general and the British sitcom in particular.

While a lot of the book does cover material that won't be new to those familiar with the program—synopses of episodes and transcriptions of scenes—it's very interesting to hear about what was happening behind the scenes.

McCann starts with the show's creators, Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, both being fascinated by a blatant display of political hypocrisy on the part of a Labour MP named Frank Soskice. Jay and Lynn hadn't even met yet but when they did, and had the idea of making a show that was about politics—politics as opposed to politicians, one reason the show has aged so well—they both had the same point of departure.

Interesting also to learn how an unsuitable choice of director for the first episode nearly ruined the whole thing.

Inevitably there are areas some readers will wish had been explored in greater detail. A casual reference to a Yes, Prime Minister computer game is left cruelly unexplained. (What? When? Where? How? Okay, you can read about it on Wikipedia, of course, but it should have been covered in at least minimal detail in this book.)

Margaret Thatcher's famous love and support of the show, dismaying to at least one of its creators and two of its actors, is covered well and should add to our understanding of Thatcher as a complex person.

If you haven't seen the show, this book won't be of any interest. But if you're a fan, then I think you'll find it not courageous at all but in fact a real vote-winner!

The first line is "The day — Monday, 25 February 1980 — unfolded, in the context of British politics, much like any other day".