You choose from a jumble of ill-digested ideas a version which represents the Prime Minister's views as he would, on reflection, have liked them to emerge.
But if it's not a true record...
The purpose of minutes is not to record events, it is to protect people. You do not take notes if the Prime Minister says something he did not mean to say, particularly if it contradicts something he has said publicly.
More from this episode
All quotes from this episode →More Yes, Prime Minister quotes · These quotes come from Wikiquote's Yes, Prime Minister pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.