The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (119 page)

Writing by Philip and Gail’s pool. Everyone has gone to Vaison to get bikes. Feeling a pretty big sense of foreboding. Catherine Rimmer just texted me to say the first question at TB’s press conference was about me and my future. No doubt they’re going to try to keep me as a big issue for him. JP very nice about me on the
Today
programme apparently. Michael Barber [head of the Prime Minister’s delivery Unit] did his delivery slides presentation at the press conference, and did it well by all accounts, but it was unlikely to get much coverage. They couldn’t give two tosses about the public service agenda. CR said the public services slide show had been excellent punishment for the hacks. The other major soap event was Carole C who had done a big picture spread in
Hello!
magazine, which the press were going big on. Sally called me, said she had been to see TB yesterday and told him ‘that woman’ is going to destroy you if you do not sort it out. She said TB went mad at her, saying it was ridiculous how we were all against Carole. I think TB just liked her, and liked the fact she had been a help to CB, but there wasn’t one of us who didn’t
find it a bit odd. I was feeling fairly detached. I was moving on psychologically and there were plenty of options to consider. News International were pressing pretty hard. I wrote I was keen to do sport before politics and based on a few chats with the boys I started to work up an idea for a series on how to decide who the greatest sportsmen of all time were.

TB called me the day I left but then we had radio silence for a while. Peter M called for a few chats, not least re the
Sunday Telegraph
when Gavyn Davies wrote a piece on how we were allegedly threatening BBC independence. This followed the letter from Dyke to TB claiming Marr had received a call from a Cabinet minister warning that we planned to get revenge. Marr’s behaviour in all this had been disgraceful, and he had just become part of the BBC’s lobbying and PR operation, which was going on relentlessly. I spoke to Tessa [Jowell] before she did
The World at One
and also did a note saying we had to make clear there was no link between the row and [BBC] Charter review.

Meanwhile there was more coming out about Kelly and his contacts with the press. The BBC were successful in keeping things focused on how Kelly’s name came out, and pretty much ignoring other more relevant issues. On the drive down through France I’d had a worried call from David Hill. He said someone was getting to TB over the Order in Council issue [the ruling allowing AC and Jonathan Powell to direct civil servants]. It was probably a mix of senior civil servants, who would be keen to use my departure to rein back, and Peter M who was keen to use it – for the right reasons – to give a sense of a post spin era. Bruce Anderson [
Independent
] was already on to the theme that we were now spinning non-spin as the new spin. But I was worried a change would weaken DH in the job. I told him I felt it was imperative that he keep it, particularly as the [Bob] Phillis [review] team was split on the issue and Bob needed support.

PG meanwhile was worried we were nearing a tipping point re TB. He had just been to the US with Ian McCartney, Pat McF, Douglas and Alice [Cartner-Morley, pollster] and came back both awestruck by the professionalism and ruthlessness of the Republican operation, but also alarmed at how people had started to talk of TB almost in the past tense, and focusing more on legacy than forward agenda. We drove down via a stopover in Paris to see John and Penny Holmes [UK ambassador to France and his wife]. Penny was very alarmed at the CB/Carole situation. John [Blair’s former foreign policy adviser] said of TB. ‘You must do something to try to distance himself from Bush. Nobody here believes Tony will do
anything that Bush doesn’t want and he is seen as even more right wing and unpopular here than he is in the UK.’ He felt TB gave Bush very strong support early on and Bush has exploited it. He does not get enough back in return and his European policy is paying a price. He felt the two GBs were Tony’s big problems – his foreign policy was foundering on his closeness to Bush. His domestic policy was stalling because GB kept his foot on the brake the whole time. Also, he said the thing I managed to give him – grip and good presentation – was now likely to weaken. He felt TB didn’t grasp the scale of the challenge at the moment. He had let things drift – never tackled Gordon properly, never really worked out a proper euro strategy, never dealt with Carole and the lifestyle image issues. He was paying the price and there were the beginnings of a feeling of decay. Philip felt the same.

We had a more or less painless journey down and the kids were on good form. I had meanwhile decided that I would pretty much leave as soon as we got back from holiday, the reasons as per the note I had done earlier. I felt I could continue to advise from outside on strategy and maybe do election planning. I would make speeches to make a living, write on sport and politics after a while, also do more on the leukaemia fund-raising front and motivational stuff for the party. I had a vague notion of getting involved with the ad agency. Maybe do a chat show but it might be difficult because part of the public argument I intend to make is how awful modern TV has become. I was thinking a lot about the media culture and its impact on the health of democracy. The balance had gone from being a good check-balance to just creating a culture of negativity.

I spoke to Richard Desmond in Majorca at one point. He said ‘You can’t go because Tony needs you too much.’ I said people always underestimated Tony. I told him I might do a film on Dacre and [Lord] Rothermere and he was very up for it. ‘How much do you want? We’ll do it.’ I was not going to be short of offers but I had decided no to the consultancy and lobbying route. Just not my thing. PG felt I needed to strike while the iron was hot re the US speaking scene. Nice call from Jonathan Prince [Democrat strategist], who was working for [Senator John] Edwards [Democrat presidential hopeful]. He said there was a fair bit of coverage of my travails in the States. ‘Just hang in there. They only hate you because you’re too good for them.’ I was getting a lot of ‘hang in’ messages, but my mind was set. I was clear I had to go.

On the Saturday I had a long chat with Alex F who was out in the States, raving about the Nike training centre. I told him I was
definitely leaving now. ‘Give my congratulations to Fiona,’ he said. ‘Maybe I gave you the wrong advice. Maybe you should have left when you first thought of it, but the one thing nobody can ever take from you is that you know you’ve done a great job, and you should now do what is right for you and the family. You’ve given enough.’ Fiona was still detoxing on the CB stuff, still angry about Carole but the more there was about her in the press in a way the better it was for Fiona as she tried to shape a new professional future too. Catherine Rimmer was keeping me in touch with the Hutton team. It now seemed Hutton would read himself in, then take witnesses from the 11th to the 18th, first the MoD, then the BBC, then others, then reflect, maybe re-interview, report maybe in October. So it was definitely going to be another interrupted holiday. Also the whole conference season would have Hutton as the backdrop.

I was now reaching a settled feeling about leaving – I felt excited at the prospect of new and different things to do. It would be nice for the family as a whole that I travelled less, saw them more, and could earn decent money. I sometimes felt I had been pressured by Fiona, but equally I knew she had my interests as well as her own at heart. But I also knew I would need to stay involved in some way, not least because I still felt at my best I was the best, and could make a contribution. It’s just that I hadn’t been at my best for a while. I also felt sad at the thought my team would break up. As I whirred things round in my mind it was clear for the first time I was thinking more about my own future than TB’s. I would help if I could but he would have to help himself.

The weather was beautiful and I was pretty much running every day, including a couple of big ones. We didn’t see that many papers. Philip felt the combination of no WMD plus Carole would get the party unnerved. I was getting into my stride on the sports series and by the weekend had written four or five articles. The
Mail
were still going at me hell for leather according to Catherine R. Sad fuckers.

Catherine Rimmer kept the faxes coming thick and fast. Matthew Lewin [journalist neighbour] did a piece for the
Press Gazette
about the press in the street outside the house and general BBC standards. Bill Hagerty [editor,
British Journalism Review
] did a piece attacking the BBC. The Hutton hype was winding down in advance of him saying tomorrow how he intended to proceed. I had a long chat with Jonathan who said TB had finally seen the light re Carole. ‘I know we’ve heard it before but
Hello!
was the last goodbye.’ After the call
Catherine R called again to say that Hutton wanted to see me and Jonathan on August 21.

I had been hoping to be able to see out the holiday but no luck. We now had to work out how best to get myself fully briefed and also properly psyched up. It put a real dampener on things and Fiona was even more pissed off now. Ross [Kemp, actor] and Rebekah [Wade] came over and we had a nice enough time with them. They, along with Gail and PG, felt I was on strong ground but I felt Hutton would feel he had to make some criticism of everyone. Philip felt TB had panicked in calling an inquiry. Kelly killed himself because he killed himself and we should have held our nerve. He was pretty down on TB at the moment.

Ditto Rebekah who felt public services were going backwards, though as I kept telling the News International lot, they tended not to use them. She and I discussed a number of News International options going from occasional columns up to a deal across titles. TB felt the
Sunday Times
was the paper to do a column in. PG felt the
Sun
. The Hutton traffic was fairly steady, with people calling regularly. Tom K and Catherine both felt the order of witnesses was good for us – MoD, then BBC, then us, then TB, then Geoff H and then John Scarlett who I felt sure would be a very strong witness.

Catherine R called again re flights as we felt there may be a case for her coming out to brief me. She was very happy with
The Times
which did a big number, and the
Guardian
had the Gilligan [FAC hearing] transcript which did not do him much good and suggested he was backing off the central allegations against me. John Stanley and Eric Illsley [FAC MPs] gave him a very hard time on it. Rachel Kinnock was due out so I was getting a new package of briefing material to come out with her. Truth was the holiday was pretty much going down the Swanee but hopefully it would be the last to be like this. Also I was pretty desperate to be cleared and so I had to keep my focus the whole time. I needed to be at my best when I reached the witness stand and a lot of the preparation had to be done now.

Hutton was doing his stuff at 11 and it would dominate the media all day, plus everyone was saying it was important I stay hidden away on the day of the funeral. I was finding it easy, and quite therapeutic, to do the sports series and had done the concept and the first few drafts in a matter of days. But I was not plugged into the political scene apart from re Hutton though I suppose that was about the only
politics going at the moment. Neil was hilarious on the sports greats idea. I told him about the idea over dinner on the evening they arrived and for pretty much every sport he had a Welsh name to suggest. He was adamant John Charles [Wales and Leeds United striker] was better than Pelé or Maradona. He had a Welsh boxer better than Muhammad Ali.

By now I had a huge Hutton file to read. Hutton did his opening statement which seemed to be pointing heavily towards the BBC but it was also clear the manner in which Kelly’s name came out was going to be a big part of it. I felt the weight of it all building again. Catherine felt the statement would worry the BBC more than us. PG felt Hutton came across as clear and strong and it was important I came over as being clear and strong. Later I spoke to Omand and Charlie F. CF said he felt there was no need to be too nervous but Hutton was not someone to be pushed around. Omand felt GH was the one who might be in difficulty and said they were all getting a bit jumpy at the MoD. I’d felt the name should come out and that Kelly should appear before the FAC and ISC and that it was important we knew what was what. I felt comfortable in that position but it may be others would see it very differently. I told Neil I was very nervous about it all. He said there was no need because if I told the truth it would be fine. He felt Hutton would just want facts.

Neil was being very supportive, though he was also in a rage re a few EU situations. I was working on a witness statement which meant going over the whole thing again and again. I wasn’t sleeping well. I called Joe Haines [Harold Wilson’s former press secretary] for a chat. He felt I had to maintain control of my own exit, don’t go under a cloud or looking like I’ve been harassed out. He said what had happened was awful, that Gilligan should be ashamed. The coverage of the Hutton statement was OK but there was still an awful lot being pointed at me.

I read the Kelly MoD interviews, which were pretty good for our case. I had had another night waking up, tossing and turning. I then just lay there waiting for the church bells to ring, and every time came the thought that they’d toll for me. Fiona was being very supportive and keeping the kids’ spirits up but it was like we had a big dark cloud over us the whole time.

Peter M in the
Sunday Mirror
had said TB was clear we would be OK. I sent a message round the system saying we should all just shut up. The
Indy
yesterday splashed on Number 10 describing Kelly as a Walter Mitty character.
⁷⁰
I told the office we had to disown it very forcibly at the eleven o’clock, which Anne Shevas, who hated doing the briefings, duly did. But it emerged that it was Tom who had said it, when chatting to Paul Waugh [
Independent
]. He had been going over the questions Hutton would want to look at, had not remotely intended it to run as a story and now it was the latest frenzy. I said he should apologise and drop a line both to Mrs Kelly and to Hutton. PG and Gail thought it was a bad idea to involve the widow because we had no clue as to how she would react. I had earlier drafted a letter to Mrs Kelly myself and discussed with JP whether he thought I should send it. He felt the sentiments were fine but you could never tell how people in grief and shock would react. He said he would take it to the funeral and make a judgement then as to whether to give it to her. There was no other major story around at the moment so several of the papers splashed on Tom on the Tuesday. He was feeling wretched and I called him to say not to worry too much about it. I got a message through to TB to call him too.