The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (76 page)

Very snowy, very icy, so ran in slowly. Iraq was running big with Blix to do ‘minor’ UN reporting today. The
Mirror
splashed on ‘What is the point of Jack Straw?’ The
Express
had a scaled-down version of the same thing, claiming to have been told TB had said Jack was extremely stupid re the 60–40 remarks and had authorised the Geoff Hoon attack. Even though TB was indeed pissed off, he did no such thing. Later GH apologised to TB, said he had just lost concentration and made a mistake. It was relevant to the Cabinet discussion. TB made the point that we were in much more difficult waters and that our opponents were constantly on the lookout for differences between us. He did a very tame version of the note I put to him suggesting he really lay it on the line and impose basic discipline. Instead, he said that we were a very tight and disciplined unit, but some resented that and we had maybe eased up a bit and got a bit lax. JP was a bit tougher, said there was simply no room for Cabinet ministers going out and giving their personal opinions and streams of consciousness. JP was very firm and very supportive but I could tell from the look on some of their faces, that they felt damage was being done to TB’s authority by the fact it had taken John really to hit the message.

Then on Iraq, TB said that with Jack away in Indonesia, there was not much point in a major discussion and we wait till next week, yet he then allowed a discussion in which Clare accused Geoff and the MoD of briefing against Jack. She said she wanted a discussion of the military options because she did not believe that UK forces were needed. Yes they are, said Geoff. Well I don’t think so, she said. Again,
TB just smiled rather weakly at her. I said to him afterwards that he had been really weak in there today, and his supporters left very pissed off. He just shrugged and looked irritated.

TB then had a very difficult conversation with GB re student finance. Charles was successfully winning round the Cabinet but GB was opposed and ready to move against by saying it was elitist because potentially it would punish the poorest first. He was making clear that TB could just plough on if he wanted, but he was adamantly against it. Charles was all bouncy and convinced he had cracked it, not knowing the depth of GB’s determination to stop it. GB’s view was that there was no real crisis in university funding, that it was just a way of them getting more money, and we didn’t really need this big reform. Cabinet also had a very testy discussion on the Lords, Robin pushing at the ‘democratic’ end of things, JP, JR and DB very much against major reform that included an all-elected second chamber. Blunkett said we were sleepwalking towards constitutional gridlock which would stop governments doing the things they were elected to do and the public would give up on politics.

JR said we were not sleepwalking, but heading to disaster with our eyes wide open. Bruce said the reform and the make-up of the Lords was irrelevant without reform of the procedures, for example with no guillotine they could really screw us up. But again TB was not really directing the discussion so all we got was a collection of very different opinions. GB said next to nothing and left with Clare. Then to a meeting on health communications. We still lacked a clear top-line message. I was moving towards a ‘personal NHS’, also saying the statistics were hopeless for communications, which had to be rooted in the personal experience of patients. Milburn took me aside at the end, said people were getting really fed up of TB’s tolerance of Clare in Cabinet. He said it was like having a bag lady in there just speaking out on everything.

TB saw Adams and McGuinness pm, then C came in. He told us that the Brits got on with Blix pretty well and we were a good buffer for the US, who were much less subtle. Blix knew that he was being ‘cat and moused’ but he was not on a mission. He was sure Saddam was lying but still felt he had to establish that for himself. C felt we had a better chance of finding the breaches than the US. TB, half in jest, said ‘My future is in your hands.’ The nightmare scenario, or one of them, was that there was a discovery that was sufficient for the US but not for us. C said the other risk was that we found the evidence of the breach before the US were ready to go to war. C felt that if the inspectors had another month with genuine access, the picture would
be pretty clear. We were now pushing the line that they needed time and space to do the job.

I had a meeting with the Al Jazeera general manager and news editor who were over visiting the BBC. It was an interesting discussion. They did not appear overly hostile, but they said we had to face up to the fact that none of our arguments were really getting through to the Arab world at all. We were helped a little by the current row between TB and Israel over the Palestinian conference, but we were kidding ourselves if we thought our arguments were getting through at all. They said Gerard Russell was good and popular, but that they wanted and needed more access to ministers and military. They had been turned down for a facility on the [HMS]
Ark Royal
, which I sorted for them. They said we were not the US, and we should establish our own space. But nobody believed Saddam had WMD, or that he had any link with al-Qaeda.

The
Observer
sent me the magazine piece on me doing the marathon and Fiona went absolutely mental because of the ironing board being in the picture. God knows what that’s all about. Crime figures – dreadful coverage, and there were the beginnings of the notion in the media that TB would get so fed up he would go. He was certainly pretty fed up and I went up to the flat just after 8. Cherie was there, much friendlier than before they went away, and neither of us mentioned those events. TB felt we had to make real changes. Even in front of the others now, he was talking about ‘major reconstruction of the government’, which was clearly code for GB. He also felt quite a few permanent secretaries should go. I said I felt he underestimated the negative impact upon him in looking weak as he had yesterday. He felt the problem was that the government was not sufficiently New Labour. We had defeated the hard left, but the instinct of most of them was to settle for that, not go much further, go for consensus politics with internal vested interests. That wasn’t good enough.

We had a meeting – him, me, Jonathan, Peter H, Sally, Hilary C and Fiona – specifically to discuss him and his profile. Yet another discussion about how we reconnect him with the public. This couldn’t be about gimmicks, initiatives so-called, and all the rest of it. It was about endeavour, constantly speaking the language of people’s lives, but also being seen to be in charge and being seen to be on their side. It was yet another circular conversation of the kind we had been having for years. I said the question people were beginning to ask was whether he could change and do the on-your-side stuff in a way that broke
through. He said that the big decision was whether to make the changes that would allow us to go for broke, but the truth was we could just end up with the ‘broke’ bit. He felt GB’s game plan was to make him feel so miserable and paralysed that he would quit while he was ahead. But he was too strong to get rid of him right now.

11.19 miles in. Ran round Islington, the Barbican, Embankment area and back up through town. There was a real sense of problems building up. Iraq obviously, with the party going offside, [anti-war] demo again, and the papers really hitting us on crime and public services. The
Telegraph
had a page 1 story headlined ‘Campbell more spinned against than spinning’, which spoke of a rift with TB and had a fair bit of accurate stuff, for example the row over the New Year’s message, some of the background on Cherie/Foster. At first flush, it looked like Peter M’s work, and there was a hint of that in their editorial looking forward to my leaving. Peter called later and said he thought it was probably Sally. My hunch was that it came from the Treasury. Peter M called and said I had to make it absolutely clear I was there for the long haul. TB called around 9 and said it was the usual lightning-conductor crap and nothing to worry about. We were going through a difficult period and it was far better we were seen talking about serious issues than the usual personality crap. We went over an outline script for Monday’s press conference on the line of holding firm and sticking to our course. I was worried Clare would go off on one tomorrow so did a conference call with her and JR to go through the papers later. TB called again after returning from Germany [a private visit to Hanover]. He said the dinner with Schroeder had gone fine, but as the pressure grew on Iraq, the differences became more obvious.

IDS was on
Frost
going for TB for ‘wobbling’ on Iraq. TB felt we just had to hold firm and take the difficult decisions needed. He said the Sunday papers were now beyond parody, not really worth bothering with, but that there would be a reckoning upwards before too long. We needed to decide whether to do a WMD dossier. He was in two minds about it, and so was I. John Scarlett told me on Friday he was keen, but the FCO less so because it gave rise to other difficult questions. TB was still going on about Derry’s interview and said that of course, the liberal press would back him and therefore Derry would think even more he had done the right thing, when in fact he had given us a big problem with the public. He felt that on crime, Derry
was not so much New Labour as Old Liberal. The
Independent
had a big story, including on page 1, on alleged concerns in the Civil Service about my diaries. The only person who had ever raised any such concern was GB, both with TB and Turnbull.

Clare Short’s interview went pretty big as a combination of division/warning to TB and the backdrop to the press conference was clearly Iraq. The tough question was whether there could be any military action without a second UNSCR. It was going to be difficult, lots of party in turmoil, diving polls stuff. The latest flurry about me was by and large confined to the
Guardian
, in which a minister was quoted as saying it was nonsense, and the
Mail
which did a full-page cocktail of bollocks, including yet another [Peter] Oborne piece saying that if I went it would presage the end of TB. There was a nice little leader defending me in the
Sun
. I texted [David] Yelland but then a bit later Rebekah [Wade] called to tell me she was the new editor and David was going to the US to do a business course.

At TB’s Monday meeting, we were going round in the same circles. We just didn’t have the necessary cohesion at the moment. PG did a very good note over the weekend identifying lack of trust, lack of a coherent narrative and lack of teamwork as our three big problems. I felt all the narratives in the world were not going to bring together the poor, weakened operation. Bruce [Grocott, Lords chief whip, Blair’s former parliamentary private secretary] did me a note on the pros and cons of my leaving, said that the pros were all for me and the family, and all the cons were for others, especially TB. Tessa called, said she would do anything to support me, and to remember that if it hadn’t been for me, we would not be in the strong position that we are. TB did fine at the press conference, no real news story, just pushing the line that we were backing the UN and we had to give the inspectors time. He also got up a good defence of tax rises.

He called later and said he had felt very strong at the press conference, felt that once we stood up to their arguments there was nothing much there. All that matters is making the right decisions. He felt that if we failed as a government, it would be because we were not doing enough fast enough, we were not being New Labour enough. I pointed out he still had to resolve GB. He said I can deal with that and if I have to I will. Dan Bartlett and I went over some of the projects they were engaged in.

They had similar but also different PR challenges, and the sense
of the split between Powell and Rumsfeld was strong. They were also being criticised for not doing enough on North Korea because they were distracted on Iraq.

Six-mile run in, four-mile run home, sub eight-minute miles for the first time in ages. The press conference had done the trick in calming things down, and the Middle East conference was going far better than it might have done in terms of turnout and presence. GB was doing a tax credits launch and came out pretty hard for the line on Iraq. At John Reid’s party meeting, we went over how to do the Tories on twenty per cent cuts, lines on the Lib Dems and a discussion of local elections slogan where we wanted the focus on crime and GB’s people wanted schools and hospitals. JR was getting more and more confused about what we were meant to get out of these meetings. I had a meeting with Craig Reedie of the BOA [chairman, British Olympic Association], but my sense around the place was that we were moving away from supporting the [2012] bid. He gave me a big sell about the prospects of winning. I asked a fair few tough questions, and felt much more disposed to it afterwards than before, but I still felt it was going to be difficult to get Cabinet onside for it. Rebekah had gone to ground and the
Guardian
ran a line that she intended to be less close to us than Yelland. I did the conference call with the Americans, then fire, then diary meeting. Later to [broadcaster] David Frost’s party. Lots of people I tapped for marathon sponsorship. A policeman was murdered in a terrorism operation in Manchester.
²
I made a few calls to get our response and handling agreed.

Got a cab in, ran home. Thirty-three minutes. The murder of the policeman in Manchester dominated the PMQs meeting at 8. It emerged that an asylum seeker who had had his case turned down was involved and so we assumed that would come out pretty quickly. The Tories were already on to the theme of border safety. As well as the obvious sympathy for the policeman and his family, TB was worried about the backlash, that this could be a tipping point re asylum and the public. We arranged for him to speak to the chief constable and also to write to the family. He had one of his regular
sessions with the PLP, which went a lot better than it might have done, and which set us up for a much better than expected PMQs.