The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (39 page)

George Bush Sr [former President] came through to say hello and ask us if we wanted to change his introductory remarks. Maybe it was just age, but he seemed a lot more comfortable in his own skin than Bush Jr, though less jokey. The only change I made was to delete England for Britain when he talked about us losing the Queen Mum. TB and I went through the speech one last time. He got a very warm reception, the speech went well
²⁷
and although he got some tricky questions in the two separate Q&As, he was on form. I heard Bush Sr say to the people he was with how impressive he was. He had definitely made an impact. The argument was clear, he set up difficult questions, and answered them. JP called and said he really liked the speech.

On the plane I had dinner with TB and Jonathan and we discussed where we were going to find new blood for the office. I suggested a minister or senior MP getting involved in managing and motivating.
Neither of them seemed keen. The reality was Jonathan wasn’t a traditional chief of staff, in that he didn’t manage a lot that went on, and I wasn’t a traditional communications director. What we did was largely driven by what TB wanted us to do and what our personalities best allowed us to do. But it meant gaps that sometimes led to lack of clarity. Also the Policy Unit was badly managed and not properly integrated. TB was clear he wanted it sorted and wanted the game raised.

We debriefed him on the private sessions with Bush. He had been surprised how relatively positive he was about the idea for a big push on Africa. He had not enjoyed his contact so far with Europe. He liked Schroeder, loathed Arafat and had a total reversal of view of Putin. He now liked him. Bush had told him he had learned a lot from talking to his dad about success and failure. Bush Sr had told him he had not been nearly ruthless enough with his appointments and the people around him. He was trying to learn from that. He was also trying to learn the lesson that no matter what you did, you had to be out talking to the people that elected you. We got a few hours’ sleep, landed and straight to the office. He had agreed to a [Commons] statement on Wednesday.

I called [Sir Robin] Janvrin to say I thought they had handled events incredibly well and today’s broadcast by the Queen was the crowning glory of a very good PR campaign. They had done well every single day. Today, as well as the broadcast, they had the [Westminster Hall] vigil of the four grandsons. I spent a lot of the day working on Wednesday’s statement with David Manning and Matthew Rycroft [private secretary, foreign affairs] Peter Hyman was nagging me to set up a Budget strategy meeting every day from now on in. Fat chance. GB just wasn’t engaging. He was clearly trying to position himself as the saviour of public services whilst TB was fighting hard for more money for defence.

The Queen Mum’s funeral would be a media wipeout so the morning meeting was brief, though I did relentlessly take the piss out of Ian Austin who had said a few days ago that nobody would be interested in the Queen Mum’s funeral. I went upstairs to watch the cortège go through Horse Guards and towards the Mall. Big crowds, real solemnity and the BBC did a good job on it. I went to TBWA [advertising agency] who did a terrific presentation on the idea of
segmentation, targeting campaigns to specific groups of people. They were very good on overall branding but their basic take was that we needed to isolate groups and direct our communications to them through policy that impacts upon them rather than through the media they consume. Trevor Beattie [chairman of TBWA] gave me a copy of
PR Week
which had said that New Labour, New Britain was the best consumer PR campaign of all time.

GB had got hold of a tape of Liam Fox [Shadow Health Secretary] making very unwise comments on the NHS. GB got the
Mirror
to splash on it. Philip felt opinion was moving back to us a bit, with health improving, education not as good as it should be, crime worse. We worked on the Middle East statement which was fine, and it was right to go for Israel and the Palestinian Authority equally. The statement on the Middle East had definitely been the right thing to do. The right-wing press were trying to cause trouble. The
Telegraph
were trying to link the success of the Queen Mum’s funeral with hostility to New Labour. The
Telegraph
were also saying we tried to change the arrangements for the funeral, and Peter Oborne [columnist] was saying the same thing in the
Spectator
. I got Jeremy to write to them to complain. I had a meeting with Ed Balls on the Budget. He was happy where expectations were. I was less happy. We worked out what message TB should do in setting it up. They didn’t want too much focus on health yet but we did need to start a campaign to stand up for the NHS. We were going to be putting up taxes but it was vital that a New Labour message runs through it all. PMQs was fine, the Middle East statement OK, the PLP not too dreadful.

We had a reception for [former Labour Prime Minister] Jim Callaghan’s ninetieth birthday at Number 10. He made a really warm speech, terrific about his wife in particular, Audrey suffering from Alzheimer’s, and he said how he sat with her and talked to her every day and sometimes she said a few words that made sense and it was magical. Michael Foot [Callaghan’s successor as Labour leader] and I talked endlessly about Burnley and Plymouth [Argyle, supported by Foot]. Tony Benn [former Labour Cabinet minister] was filming the whole thing. Betty Boothroyd [former Speaker of the House of Commons] was there to call everyone to order. There was a good turnout of ministers though JP was angry he hadn’t been invited. Denis Healey [former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer] and I nattered about Keighley [where AC and Healey grew up]. Merlyn Rees [former Labour Home Secretary], Bernard Donoughue [head of
former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Policy Unit, 1974–76], Tom McCaffrey [Callaghan’s former press secretary], [Roy] Hattersley [former Labour deputy leader], Margaret and Peter Jay [Callaghan’s daughter and former son-in-law]. TB said afterwards they were a good bunch of people but in the end they had failed to stay together.

We were due to have a meeting on Budget strategy. TB was delayed at an NHS seminar. GB arrived on time but because TB wasn’t there, he buggered off for ten minutes, came back and said ‘What’s this meeting about?’ What became clear was that he didn’t intend to expand on what was in the Budget. He said I wish we could do a presentation based on delivery but we don’t have any. Puzzled looks all round. He told us about a campaign to be fronted by [Sir] Magdi Yacoub [pioneering heart surgeon] that was about getting up third-party support for the NHS. We would involve doctors and nurses in a fight for the future of the health service. I said that’s all fine, but are we clear that taxes up to pay for health is going to be the main line out of the Budget? He was, but felt we needed this bigger campaign to lay the ground.

GB also wanted enterprise talked up and investment dividing lines laid down. As ever, he was a mix of strategically clever and clear – as in keep the Tories out of the centre, stop them becoming New Conservatives – selfish and exclusive – as in clearly not wanting TB too closely involved – and unrealistic, as in imagining that tens of thousands of doctors and nurses would come out to make the case for us. TB was weak at the meeting, looked tired and fed up. After half an hour GB just upped and left. Ed Balls treated TB with a bit more respect, but not much.

Then Cabinet. TB started with a contextualisation of the Budget, with a focus on enterprise, the need for a big battle on investment and tax, the need to get up delivery and reform. He said these are the areas where political battle will be joined, that this is far more important to the PLP than Iraq. He spoke for a few minutes, then said ‘Anything you want to add, Gordon?’ No, he said. So there was no discussion at all. I slipped a note to JP saying that they would all be very pissed off if there was no discussion at all on Budget strategy, saying why didn’t you come back in the context of the local election launch today, but by the time he did GB said he had to leave for Treasury questions. TB had also slipped a note to GB saying he should say something. He said nothing. Absolutely ridiculous.

Later GB, Charles C, Alan M and I met to discuss the strategy for
the Budget. GB set great store by his ‘Say yes to the NHS’ campaign, though I remained to be convinced we would get all the professionals properly involved. Likewise, Charles seemed nervous about how readily the party would get involved. GB was claiming he didn’t want to rewrite the local election campaign but clearly wanted this to be a big part of it. I left with TB for Northolt [en route to Sedgefield]. I said GB could be a total pain but he still had amazing strategic energy and drive, that nobody but him or us could have motored on the NHS Fox story like that. TB did the
Northern Echo
when we got to Myrobella, then to the Labour Club for a Q&A where he was excellent. Don Macintyre and Andy Grice [
Independent
journalists interviewing Blair] stayed for it, and it ought to give them plenty of decent colour. We took them for dinner at the Dun Cow pub and TB talked about how much he enjoyed the Callaghan event but also how sad it was that this group of people seemed the best of friends now, but how they had split apart and how history might have been different if they had stayed together and the left of the party hadn’t made the right feel that they had to leave.

We left for a business Q&A, which was pretty dull, and then to a much more interesting Q&A with leaders and others working in the public services. The cops seemed the most onside, health and education less so, but the basic message was that things were getting better but money was tight. Then to Darlington Memorial Hospital, where again the mood was OK but they said they needed more [investment]. We flew back and I got in for a meeting with Number 10 and the Treasury re GB’s NHS campaign. My worry was that they didn’t have the infrastructure to mount a campaign and also that they lacked anything to campaign against. I was ready to go to war with the
[Evening] Standard
over Oborne refusing to accept we didn’t interfere in the lying-in-state arrangements. I had a meeting with Clare Sumner and Simon Virley [private secretaries], who had handled arrangements with the Palace, to go over it all. I sent a letter off after talking to TB and Guy Black [director of the Press Complaints Commission], to the PCC, who said if everyone is going to be clear that the report was wrong, it’s fine and we should go for it.

[Policy adviser] Liz Lloyd’s wedding, TB came to the church service and briefly to the reception where he did a nice little speech, referring to the ghastly process of conference speech-writing and also to our
‘dysfunctional relationship’. Tim Allan [AC’s former deputy] and James Purnell [Labour MP, former Blair adviser] did a very funny song about Liz’s past and Tim said that the new people he worked for [in public relations] were all totally indifferent to the fact he used to work for TB, but dead impressed that he worked for me. Most of the old office were there, and Ed Miliband turned up late for a while. Work-wise, fairly quiet though later on a rash of calls about Mo [Mowlam] in the
Observer
, extracts from her interview for a documentary to go with a book which was the usual over-the-top bollocks about her being smeared.

We went out for dinner with the Goulds and Bob Shrum [Brown’s polling adviser], who had probably worked on the Budget speech far more than we had. He said he would really like to get a better relationship between me and GB because he felt our politics were actually quite similar. I said I feared it was pretty hopeless.

TB was in pretty much constant dialogue with GB. The papers were full of Budget trailers. There was very little left and they had not done much by way of holding things back. The basic problem was no acceptance of a minimum delivery, not least because GB didn’t talk about delivery, possibly preferring for him to get credit for the economy and TB none on delivery. His latest line was that we had delivered nothing, despite the strong economy. On sleaze, TB was moving towards an ethics adviser. I was chasing the
Standard
and the
Spectator
re the Queen Mum lying-in-state. I spoke to Boris Johnson [
Spectator
editor] who tried to be all jokey saying he would consider correcting it if I did a piece on the Blair/Bush relationship. TB wasn’t feeling well and had picked up the bug that Leo had. The Tories had done a health document and Alan M and Darren Murphy put together a very good response on it. The
Guardian
was running a two-part series on the Treasury, its power and how it was built. Real self-aggrandisement with the help of two of their fans, Larry Elliot and Kevin Maguire [
Guardian
journalists]. Cherie and Fiona visited Holloway jail, which Fiona said was about as depressing as it gets.

Met Ed Miliband to go over the Budget broadcast script which was OK but lacking in a reform message. TB and GB were going through
the final meetings both on policy and the tone of the statement. Magdi Yacoub finally got his article in the
Mail
but I didn’t feel the ‘Yes to the NHS’ campaign was properly cooked at all. All the bulletins were leading on our troops fighting in Afghanistan. Some of the squaddies gave tremendous interviews. The pre-Budget coverage was cranking up, GB out with young kids. TB saw Hugo Young [
Guardian
] and then Peter Riddell [
Times
] trying to win the argument for tax for the NHS. I had altogether more difficult conversations with the
Sun
lot.

TB called a discussion on the ethics adviser idea. The worry was it was merely a response to a spasm of ‘something must be done’ which in fact would give us nothing but problems. TB felt that we needed something that gave us a bit of distance and a bit of time. He felt that for example with Peter M we might not have lost a very good minister if there had been a process one removed from us. But what both the Americans and [John] Major’s government had shown is that just about every time they set up new bodies and structures to look at these kind of issues, they seem to make matters worse not better for themselves. We had an internal meeting to work out how best TB could take forward the Budget message in the coming months. TB was happy enough with the Budget and GB clearly did not want to be seen as Old Labour.