The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (61 page)

I was trying to persuade TB to make the speech to midwives part of the general strategy on public services staff, trying to bind them in. I got Godric to do a very tough line on the FBU, no going back to bad old days. TB was still worried we needed the Queen’s Speech to be stronger, particularly on [higher education] top-up fees and child benefit conditionality. He was worried about the intelligence issue and the handling post Bali, so when I heard Jack wanted to make a statement tomorrow, I felt it was an opportunity to put out the broader picture re intelligence and warnings, drafted a section for Jack making clear that there had been no warning, that we had to assess this stuff the whole time. And to overreact to every warning, every piece of intelligence, would be to do the terrorists’ job for them. TB said we had to be very wary of the French, watch they didn’t do us in on the UNSCR, maintain the position of broker. Jack, a pretty rare thing this for ministers, called later simply to thank me for it.

Someone had briefed the Cobra meeting on fire [strikes], so the media coverage was giving a sense almost of national emergency. It was all a bit chaotic, and [Nick] Raynsford [minister] gave us a bit of a problem by saying that the army would not cross picket lines. There was just no need to get into that yet. My day was rather overshadowed by illness. After a few days of low-level colitis, it was back with a
vengeance. By the evening, I was back on the steroids. [Professor] Michael Farthing [gastroenterologist] thought it was a mix of stress, lifestyle, plus maybe a bug from Russia. He was sceptical about me doing the marathon though he conceded I looked fitter and better than before. TB’s other worry was the [EU] Stability Pact. He and JP had both been putting pressure on GB at least to discuss the euro properly, and JP had warned him he was thinking of making a speech about the Stability Pact. It led to GB then briefing the
FT
that he was looking into the issues. JP came to see me to discuss fire and whether he should meet [Andy] Gilchrist [Fire Brigades Union general secretary]. We agreed that for now it should be left to Raynsford.

TB asked me, David Manning and Jonathan to think through a strategy to avoid Chirac being credited with sorting Bush. It was TB who had persuaded them of the UN route, got it up and running. At TB’s weekly office meeting, his big worry as ever was public service delivery. We had a bit of an up-and-downer on schools when he said he wanted to replace the word comprehensive with specialist. What on earth was the point of that? Post Bali, he felt that on issues of intelligence, we should take the public much more into our trust and explain how we make these judgements, set out the difficulties we face in doing so. There were calls for an inquiry but our feeling was best to let the ISC [Intelligence and Security Committee of parliamentarians, appointed by the Prime Minister] look at it. As if to underline how difficult all this was, a new JIC [Joint Intelligence Committee] paper came in showing there were lots of different areas considered liable for attack – British schools abroad, airports and airline desks, bars. We were tightening security on official buildings and more vulnerable soft targets, but if we actually put up warnings about every target that might be considered vulnerable, should the terrorists be able to do it, the whole place would shut down. They also thought Bin Laden wanted to do a few high-profile assassinations.

David Miliband called late last night to say Estelle had pulled out of the 8.10
Today
programme slot because the Tories had dug up her pledge to resign if Key Stage 2 targets were not met. It was pretty black and white and DM and I discussed a line to help them through it, which was not brilliant but would have to do. But as she had a press conference later it was going to be pretty tough for her. Estelle asked to see TB and having been with him for a while, he asked me and Sally to pop round. She was basically saying she felt that her integrity and honesty was what made us value her and if TB felt she
should go, either because of this, or because of the cumulative effect of recent events, she felt that they should have that conversation. TB said he didn’t think this latest thing on the ‘pledge to resign’ was serious enough. I said it all depended deep down on whether she felt she was up to doing the job. She was clearly stressed, fiddling aggressively with her hands, her neck was bright red and at times she seemed close to tears. Sally felt that the team around her wasn’t strong enough. It seemed to me that deep down she maybe felt she wasn’t up to it. TB said we should all think about it. I had a couple of long conversations with her later in the day, during which I felt she was moving towards leaving, and I started to draft an exchange of letters. If it was going to happen, it was best to do it before a head of steam built up, and for her to say what appeared to be the case, namely that she found the pressure and realities of modern politics very difficult. We had the
Times
team in for lunch, during which I wrote the [exchange of resignation] letters, Alice Miles [columnist] constantly asking me what I was writing, was it newsworthy, and at one point, is it a reshuffle?

I spoke to Estelle around 6pm, having said I would take TB’s mind on things. He basically didn’t think she should go, but that only she could know if she was really up for it. She said to me that she just was not capable of coping with the nasty personal stuff in the media, like her nieces at school being approached, or a boyfriend of fifteen years ago being looked into. The growing sense I had was of someone who was looking around for reasons to go, but didn’t want to say that actually she was just finding it very difficult. When I next spoke to TB, he felt she probably would have to go and the only question was when. We didn’t particularly want tomorrow because of PMQs. In any event it was worth her sleeping on it again, thinking about it for a day or two, so maybe Thursday. She sounded pretty confused, very down, kept asking the same question – what do you really think? What does Tony really think? TB called when we were having a party for Rory’s birthday, and he was already thinking about a reshuffle. I felt maybe Tessa [Jowell] or Pat [Hewitt], not Charles [Clarke] because I felt he was beginning to get the hang of the chairman’s job, and also was it a good precedent in a sense to reward the fact that he had spent most of the time doing the job making clear he didn’t want it. TB felt he might be the right person for now. Peter H was particularly down on Charles, felt he was all problem, no solution. And he found his meeting style, which was basically get everyone to make random points, deeply irritating. JP’s statement on fire [describing threatened strikes as ‘completely unnecessary and completely unjustified’] went fine.

Fire dispute really picking up strong. The FBU was seeing the TUC but we were in a much better position than we might have been. The first meeting of the day was a rather alarming security meeting with Jack S, GH, CDS, DB, John Scarlett and the agency chiefs. There was a lot of specific threat stuff around, particularly re Heathrow. We agreed that there should be visible stepping up of security at airports. Then to a fire meeting, TB being ultra nice to JP, who was glad not just to be involved, but that TB seemed to be trusting him fully with the negotiations. He was so on board that in the Commons office after PMQs, when TB was doing his usual whisky-bottle and photo-signing session, JP was organising the bottles. We agreed it was far better for now we stay very calm and reasonable, lots of public information stuff.

At the pre-PMQs meetings, for obvious reasons TB and I were more worried than the others about questions on Estelle. After the meeting I went to my office and called her. She had just made a speech in Birmingham [to secondary-school heads]. She said she had slept on things, and now she had made up her mind and was clear that she was going to go. I had suggested yesterday that she might think about going back to being schools minister, and she said she would think about that. She said she had worked out what she was good at and what she was less good at. She was good with people, and she was good on policy but she couldn’t run a big department strategically and she just couldn’t cope with the modern media and its intrusiveness and nastiness. She said there was something I had said yesterday which had made a real impression on her, when I pointed out that compared to others, she hadn’t really had a hard time in the media and I had said ‘Maybe Tony and I are just so used to it that we have grown immune.’ She said ‘I don’t want to be immune, because it would mean I would stop feeling.’ She asked me repeatedly if I thought she was doing the right thing, and what TB really thought. I said he basically worried that she had lost her nerve, and that if she didn’t feel up for it, there was no point hanging around. He also felt she was an asset and he wouldn’t want to lose her, but if she had decided, he would respect that. She said she yearned for her old job in a way, but maybe it was difficult going back. I filled in TB who was still keen we did nothing pre PMQs but felt he should see her later, go ahead with it tonight, reshuffle tomorrow. Sally, Jeremy and I were arguing for Alan Milburn. TB was concerned because he had promised Ian McCartney [minister for pensions] the next Cabinet job. He called Peter M for views and he said we would be made to let her go.

TB was on great form at PMQs, hit IDS hard both on fire and on health, but was also strong on Northern Ireland. He didn’t like having to defend the line about the army not crossing picket lines. I arranged for Estelle to come in just after 6. TB’s view was that if she had decided to go, she should go now, which was also JP’s opinion when I spoke to him after PMQs. I was honing the resignation letters but also beginning to sink in a sea of unread paper, re the GICS review, Queen’s Speech. It always seemed to happen when I was drawn into the day-to-day again. TB had a call with Bush. It was clear the Americans were getting more and more impatient about the UN and at the way the French in particular were slowing things down. TB made clear he really felt we were best to stay on that course, and he would talk to Chirac again tomorrow. Estelle arrived and Sally and I had a long session with her in my office. She said she felt she was really good with teachers and she could do that part of the job great. She was hopeless with budgets and figures and there was too much of the department for her to stay on top of it all the time. She said it was the right thing to go but if we wanted her to stay to Christmas, that was fine, or if we wanted her to go back to the old job under David M – who she clearly thought was going to get the job – that was fine too.

I showed her the letters I had drafted, she read hers first, and said yes, that’s right, it sums it up fine. When she looked at the one I had done for Tony, she started crying. Sally went over to her and hugged her and after a minute or so she regained her composure, but she looked broken, She said it was just very tough for her and she hated the media side of things and she never felt able to cope with it. By the time we took her round to see TB, she was fine, very strong now, clear she was doing the right thing. TB was not sure it would be possible to put her back to the old job straight away, but maybe later when he moved David [Miliband] on. We finished the letters, TB changing the draft of his to be much warmer and making it clear that he was keen to have her back. We got Sue Littlemore [social affairs correspondent] in from the BBC to do an interview in Sally’s office.

We finally got the letters sorted and out by 7.45 after Estelle had called her parents and her permanent secretary. Her private secretary came in and was crying. I briefed Tessa [Jowell] to get her round and about on the interviews tomorrow. I sat in on Estelle’s [BBC] interview and she was excellent, really open and candid, saying she had decided she was not doing as well as she wanted to. It was a really strong, quite moving interview that would do her and politics some good. Afterwards she came over and gave me a big hug, said she had always
enjoyed working with me and hoped we would again in the future. Chris Woodhead [former Chief Inspector of Schools] was out dancing on the grave straight away. TB was going out for a dinner and came to see me before he left. He said it was important that I moved Estelle away from the idea she was coming straight back, because he would probably leave David M where he was. He wanted to take time on this and get it right. How many resignation letters have I now written? It’s a bit alarming how easily they flow from the pen. Estelle didn’t change a single word, TB just inserted a little bit of extra support. He felt people would find it odd that she went but it was ‘for the best’. It sounded pretty ruthless and probably was. I had said to Estelle ‘Sometimes I feel like the executioner. I always seem to be there at the death of a ministerial career and I find it unbelievably draining.’

Estelle got a good press. David Puttnam [Lord Puttnam, friend of Morris] sent me a message saying that she had been really grateful for all the support I had given her. I was in early, did a note to JP on his fire interviews and also a message note on the Queen’s Speech [November 18]. Sally M and I went up to the flat. She had spoken to Alan who was adamant he should should stay at Health, but after speaking to Darren Murphy [Milburn’s special adviser] and others, came back to say he could see the merit of a move to a big challenge that was behind the curve on modernisation. TB was moving towards Charles Clarke. I had doubts about how modernising he was on education and whether he would work properly with the centre. Peter Hyman said that Charles was constantly decrying the [Prime Minister’s] Delivery Unit and was also opposed to targets. John Reid was up for the chairmanship, so once the main decision was taken, the rest should flow quite easily. But TB wanted to take his time. He said there were four possible names – Milburn, Hewitt, Clarke, Jowell. He got Hilary A and Andrew Turnbull to join us. Andrew said he felt Milburn was the most proven, was more respected than liked by officials. TB wanted to speak to JP, then see Charles. We arranged for Charles to come through 70 Whitehall in case he said no. JP was OK re Charles, if not terribly enthusiastic, but not OK re John Reid [becoming party chairman], largely because TB had made a promise to Ian [McCartney]. TB didn’t even tell him what he was planning to do with [Peter] Hain [Europe minister], namely Welsh Secretary. He didn’t consult GB at all, largely because he couldn’t face the usual nonsense of GB trying to promote his own people way beyond their abilities. He did consult JP, Blunkett and Jack, who said yes to Charles
provided he got a warning about being more disciplined. The general feeling was that Charles had not done the last job particularly well and it was a risk. TB accepted Charles had not been a great party chairman but education was a job he really wanted, he was a big personality and he thought he could do it. He felt Alan needed a year to get critical mass on [NHS reform] delivery. So we got JP in to agree, then Charles, then Paul Murphy [replacing John Reid as Northern Ireland Secretary] then the Cabinet meeting. TB saw Charles privately and said he had given him a real warning about the need for reform, the need to work better with other people. Charles looked shell-shocked on the way out, as if congratulations were falling on deaf ears.