The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (110 page)

I talked to Neil [Kinnock], said I was ready to go and felt instinctively that I had to do it soon. He said I should ride it out. But when I told him my worries about the FAC, he changed his tune, said maybe do it sooner because ‘with our ridiculous media they will treat it like a mini Nagasaki near the Thames’ and it will wipe everything else out. He said if he was TB, he would be shitting himself. He said his
feeling was always that I should have been doing Jonathan’s job and overseeing somebody else doing mine. He felt me leaving was bad for TB but right for me. ‘You’re taking too much shit and you don’t need it or deserve it.’

Cabinet was dull and short. We were facing difficulties putting legislation through because of the Lords. Gareth Williams kicked off by saying ‘I bring you greetings from the men in tights.’ But GB wasn’t in the mood for joking, as he was still raging at them trying to get more powers over his taxation. Jack briefed on the European Council issues. He described [Romano] Prodi as ‘a rampant federalist’ who seemingly had said ‘I want to kill myself’ when he saw the draft Convention, because it wasn’t federalist enough. There was quite an interesting discussion about how we counter, via patriotism, their attempt to use Euroscepticism to hit the patriotic buttons.

I had a good long meeting with Peter M and we agreed an outline plan based on the policy ideas coming forward. He felt TB had slightly lost the values part of our big arguments. Andy Marr called to warn me the Sundays were doing a story that I was planning to leave. I said nothing. Then he called me again later and said he had been told by a member of the government that I was definitely going to go. I said nothing had been finally decided. Meanwhile the FAC, because some Labour MPs were missing, voted to summon me because Gilligan said he’d seen documents showing that I’d asked for changes, and also re the second dossier. I called Tom Kelly who was with TB in Greece. TB said to hold firm, get Andrew Turnbull to reply to the committee and say that I should not go. TB said we should co-operate with the ISC and that was that. I meanwhile had done a note to Jack S re how to handle the dossier issue. I told TB of the rumours doing the rounds that I was going to go in July or September. He said ‘Why can’t you deny it?’ I said that’s difficult and clearly people are talking. Very curtly, pretty cool, he said ‘I’m afraid that’s what happens.’ Both Fiona and Godric were of the view that some of us were being bugged by someone flogging stuff to the media, or by the media per se. It was extraordinary how many private conversations were getting out.

Just when we thought things might be calming down a bit, I woke to the radio news leading on Peter Hain saying that we should look to raising the top rate of tax. He had briefed the
Mirror
in advance of his Bevan lecture and they had splashed with ‘tax the rich’. He had also briefed the
FT
on his continuing support for PR [proportional representation]. Why do we fucking bother? If there is one thing we
didn’t need right now, it was disarray, on an unnecessary debate about tax. I called Hain, who was still in bed and I said this thing was raging, leading the news and [Michael] Howard was out saying it showed Labour red in tooth and claw. He sounded a bit detached from it all, said he was just trying to get up a debate about inequality and he was amazed it was going so big. I said we should call
Today
and offer to go on, make absolutely clear we are not going back to tax and spend and this is all part of the problem of a political debate conducted constantly in the media at the level of frenzy and hyperbole.

He went on and pretty much regurgitated the same message. The problem was he was relying on the offending paragraphs that had been pre-briefed and I told him we would have to rewrite the speech making clear no minister can undermine HMG tax policy in this way. I agreed with Balls and Austin that we would have to turn it into a story about process and discipline. I spoke to TB who was about to do a doorstep. He was not happy. Our top line was a clear commitment not to raise the top rate, and TB said he had not spent ten years changing the Labour Party to go back now. The problem was it just looked like another dent in TB’s authority. Then the frenzy got worse when Charles Clarke seemed to say – though in fact he didn’t – the same thing. Pat McF’s view was that Hain never said anything without thinking it through whereas Peter M was more of the view that it was stupidity.

I did a long note for TB setting out what we needed to do in the next few weeks up to conference. He was aware of how bad things were but clear that he could see a way forward. Philip’s view was that we had lost any sense of political project and that the party was getting silly and complacent because there was no sense the Tories could get anywhere near us. By the time we had finished with Hain’s speech, all of the difficult stuff on tax and PR was out. There was a bit of talk around that he was trying to position himself as a possible future leadership challenger from the left. I was pleased with the note, eight pages, emphasis on values, the need to reimpose strategic themes, tying in existing and future policy and events. TB got back late, though he left the summit before it finished. The Europe stuff had gone well but Hain gave us a problem we could have done without. For once the phone was going infrequently, though the Sundays were still chasing me re departure.

I hadn’t slept well. I was avoiding answering the phone other than to the office because by now all the broadcasters and half the Sundays
were trying to ask me if I was going. Now was probably not the right time. It would be seen as bad for TB and bad for me if I went under a cloud. The
Independent on Sunday
had a story with quotes from Eric Illsley [Labour MP on FAC] that they were going to go for me personally re the Iraq dossier and I felt the best thing for me to do was to go to give evidence and get my retaliation in first. I was sure of my ground, so why not? I did a note to Jack saying that when he gave evidence, there were two central points that needed to get over re the dodgy dossier. One, I was unaware of the plagiarism. Two, that it had nothing to do with the people named in the email about it, like Alison [Blackshaw]. We desperately needed to reposition on this and I was thinking the best way was for me to surprise them by saying I positively wanted to give evidence.

I did the Hampstead 10k in forty-six minutes. Tough, but really enjoyed it. I had been up early to do a note to Jack S on the
Independent on Sunday
, and called re the same. I spoke to TB, first re the general scene, on which he felt we had been here before and we could get out of it. I said we had to keep going on the long term and ignore the media. I also said I was worried about the FAC and thought I should go. I sent him a note explaining why, and copied it to Jack. I said to TB I feared none of the questions and that we had to get to a point where they accepted we did nothing wrong regarding the first dossier, made mistakes re the second. I said I was confident, really felt I should take the heat on it and get it into a better place. If not, the report would come out the day before the Liaison Committee and that would be a real problem for him as well as me. I thought the best thing to do was a note to TB, which I did, giving the reasons why we should break the convention and then give it to Donald Anderson [Labour MP, FAC chairman] as a letter. Jack S agreed with me I should appear because it was clear that a lot of the evidence given so far related to communications issues. TB was persuaded first by me and then by Jack that it was the right thing to do. Jack spoke to Donald Anderson and we agreed a process, that he’d write to Donald, and I subsequently gave him a memo.

TB sensed that me going to the FAC would go very big, but I was in no doubt I had to do it, try to get my reputation in a better place and I felt more confident if I could do that myself. Melanne Verveer [Hillary Clinton aide] came round for tea, advising Fiona she should get out because Cherie had made her position untenable, advising me to get out and get going on memoirs. She thought I could do well
on the US speaking circuit. She said Bush was still getting away with murder because he had brilliantly hijacked the security issue and the Democrats didn’t really know how to handle it. Clinton’s view was that Bush was a far better politician than people gave him credit for. There was an intruder at Prince William’s twenty-first birthday bash which gave us a massive news sponge.
⁶³

The William situation was still the main attraction but by the time of the eleven o’clock, it was clear I would be a strong second. I had redone a memo and Jack’s letter to the FAC. At the office meeting, TB looked dreadful and there were long pauses as he went through his weekend note, the usual list of the usual subjects, the usual hits on departments. He was getting more and more frustrated at what he called the lack of radical policy direction in the public services. Andrew Adonis would say that we were doing this, trying that, pushing on this, but TB was irritated. Geoff Mulgan [policy adviser] had meanwhile done an excellent note, which was a brutal assessment of our lack of long-term strategy on policy. He said we had lost authority at the centre, that Number 10 had got bigger but less effective, and that our overall narrative was no longer clear. He gave lessons from other midterm governments around the world, and said that they sometimes got renewal through brutal changes of personnel.

As I read it, eight pages of pretty good stuff, I noted Jonathan could hardly keep his eyes open, I was moving on in my mind already, and the contributions around the table were pretty rambling and anecdotal. It was pretty dispiriting. Towards the end I said to TB ‘For God’s sake try not to look so miserable. It’s not as bad as all that. When we have an agenda and we just get on with it and ignore the press, we are always strong.’ But he just kept asking if the overall plan was OK. Pat and I were arguing that we needed a clearer message – it was not about choice but about our values. Then I said: are you OK for us to announce me going to the FAC and he said he was not so sure any more. Someone had got at him, but I enlisted Andrew Turnbull, who persuaded him it was the way to avoid the Liaison Committee being about me/WMD/trust.

So Jack and I then finished the letter to Donald Anderson and got it in time for the eleven o’clock briefing. TK briefed on it, and it ran
for most of the day. We had a party meeting, TB again casting around for support and Hilary A being very clear about problems in the PLP. I was now totally focused on FAC, reading lots. Clare Sumner and Catherine Rimmer [Number 10 Research and Information Unit] were doing lots of work for me. Then to a meeting with Michael Jay and Dickie Stagg [FCO official] to go through what MJ would say tomorrow when he appeared with Jack, then back to see John S, Clare Summer, Tom and Godric to begin to go through the difficult questions.

Alison [Blackshaw] was back from holiday and getting me out all the files and I was beginning to work out all the answers to the difficult questions, for example [Ibrahim] al-Marashi’s claim [as the plagiarised source for the February 2003 dossier] that his life had been put in danger. Hilary A said some of our members on the committee were worried. They felt I could easily deal with Gilligan, but al-Marashi was not so easy. Clare had established who in the CIC was responsible for not telling people where it all came from, but we agreed I would take responsibility at the FAC.

Fairly big coverage of me going to the committee. Vile in the
Mail
needless to say but not bad overall. I spent most of the day with Clare and Catherine, who were terrific. Clare had got to the bottom of the whole [February 2003 dossier] thing. I spent several hours going over and over again the text of my memo which we eventually got to the FAC by 6.15pm. Jack S was keen that I apologise upfront. I agreed, but later came to the view that I should not and said it was because I was worried it would leak. My strategy was to apologise to Dr al-Marashi for the mistake and then demand an apology from the BBC not just for me but for the PM, etc. John Scarlett was getting my memo put through the agencies.

I saw TB, whose main interest seemed to be how the FAC would impinge on him. He gave little advice at all. At least Jack was suggesting changes and improvements. Jack also came over, very friendly, said the most important thing was that I was nice and polite and didn’t go for them. Then to a series of TB meetings on political strategy. He was infuriating me going on about our lack of plan, and I could tell he was as infuriated with me as I was with him, because I was constantly banging on about values, saying he was too technocratic on reform. TB said we had alienated the left on Iraq, the right on Europe, the party on public service reform. Yet he felt on all three we were in the right. Our problem was we weren’t explaining it
properly – blah – we didn’t have a proper communications plan for it – blah – so on and so forth, blah blah blah. I was pretty heavy with him, and he with me. Peter M was very good at seeing all the points where actually we agreed and by the end we kind of knew what needed to be done, by way of changing the draft plan from the weekend.

I then spent four hours with John Scarlett and Dickie Stagg to go over all the questions, etc. Meanwhile, six UK RMPs [Royal Military Policemen] were killed, which was really grim. I discussed with Neil [Kinnock], with Fraser Kemp [Labour MP] and a few others how to approach it. They all felt go for the BBC but be clinical and be forensic. John S was keen that I didn’t include the agencies in any general attack on the BBC. Jack’s evidence didn’t go brilliantly. He said I had commissioned the paper, and the BBC said that undermined me before my appearance. But I felt confident.

Jack had set me up badly by saying that I had commissioned the dodgy dossier and it was ‘a complete Horlicks’. He called me while I was preparing for the committee with Clare and Catherine. I said I didn’t want to speak to him but I would see him at the House before PMQs. There was quiet a lot of build-up in the news, full of the usual agenda stuff. TB asked me up to the flat. He said he really wanted me to stay calm at all times and treat the committee with respect. We had worked out the right strategy, concede the apology to Dr al-Marashi, be as detailed and as full as possible, go on the BBC, broaden it, demand an apology and get up the big-picture message about the cynicism of people who say that the prime minister would go to war on the basis of this. TB and I agreed that the media were a real democratic problem, but he didn’t really want to do anything.