The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (64 page)

Eight-mile run with Rory and some of his mates. Conference call to pin down the detail on tomorrow’s press conference. I had a couple of long chats with Douglas and Gus O’Donnell re the GICS review,
and both felt a proper outside review was needed. Gus felt we almost needed to start from scratch, get rid of the GICS and start all over again with an outsider in charge. An ex-Health permanent secretary was being suggested, but I called Alan who felt it was a bit old school, as did Godric. Gus was clear this was the one opportunity we would get to be radical and we needed to get [Andrew] Turnbull signed up for that too.

TB called when I was at tennis with Calum. He was unaware of the Dobbo attack, and when I said he had gone for Andrew [Adonis] in particular, he got pretty angry, said it was a way of attacking New Labour without saying so. ‘If we followed the lead of people like Frank we would be straight out of power again. They do not get how the country has changed.’ He felt that with David Miliband leaving [as head of the Policy Unit, to become an MP in 2001], we had lost a very deft political operator – which Andrew was not – but he felt he got more policy drive from Andrew, whilst we had to do the politics. He said David was a good Policy Unit head, but so is Andrew, in a different way. I said he cannot just ignore the political fallout though. Andrew lacks certain political skills and the Policy Unit has become too managerial, with the result that the party sees it as soulless and right wing. Fair or not, we have to deal with that. I said your friends as well as enemies think it is sending out conflicting messages and is not sufficiently political or Labour. I was worried he was just becoming stubborn about this, when with a few modifications we could deal with the problem. It was not as though anyone thought he was not constantly looking for the modernising options. But seen as it was, it was also giving the GB lot a good deal of licence to cause trouble in the PLP and the party.

TB said there were elements who wanted to slow down or stop the process of reform and we just could not let them. I said I am not arguing for that. I am arguing for a more political policy unit to help us make sure they cannot win that argument. Andrew is just a surrogate for attacks on you, I said, but don’t get angry or stubborn about it, work out how we deal with it. The answer is better policy and better communication of the arguments. If it all sounds managerial, we lose. It has to be about values all the time, and that is where we are not as strong as we were. It is nobody’s fault, it is just where we are. The GB point was brought home again when Darren Murphy picked up from some of the hacks that the Treasury were briefing fairly aggressively against top-up fees. I called [Ian] Austin to rail at him but he did his usual. He dropped in that [Ed] Balls was doing an interview with Jackie Ashley [
Guardian
].
I dropped in that GB had effectively told TB he was putting together a left-wing positioning strategy and we would be watching for the signs. I was never sure whether Ian was really at the top table so maybe I was wasting my breath, but I told him I was really sick of their modus operandi.

The
Guardian
splashed on the Balls interview and a not very uncoded attack on TB’s policy direction, which all tied in with Dobbo. TB was furious but it was difficult to respond without provoking a TB/GB row publicly and there was just no point. He said the worst thing about all this is that ‘I still try to help him and he basically treats me like shit.’ He felt that they were now running a basic destabilisation strategy, though one without a clear outcome. Every time they did this, they tended to reinforce rather than weaken TB’s resolve, though they definitely had an impact on morale and effectiveness. He said this was all about trying to portray TB as being in love with markets, and therefore effectively not Labour. TB said if people knew the truth about how GB treats him, they would be appalled. He felt that GB was trying to push him into trying to get rid of him, and he would then seek to mount a challenge. But it was impossible to be sure.

I pointed out that GB tended to back off whenever it looked like becoming too public that he was up to this kind of stuff. I felt the loss of the baby had also had a profound effect and in its own way added to GB’s hatred of TB. It all added to the sense that everything came easy for TB and hard for GB. Leo was such a cute kid and added to the idea TB got everything. Austin fed back my comments re GB’s left-wing platform because GB raised it later, trying to make a joke of it. TB was at a loss how to handle things at the moment. He said GB was operating as though he were part of a different operation, not the government. There were plenty of problem areas to go through at the press conference pre-meeting – Royals, Iraq, Chirac. TB wasn’t brilliant, not as bouncy as usual, but OK.

Press conference coverage fairly low-key though TB was pleased that the
FT
, which most of Europe’s leaders take a look at, led on the row with France. He was fairly big in most of the papers though on a mix of subjects and the original intention, of driving through a message on ASB, didn’t really come off. The main political focus of the day was meltdown for IDS after the rebellion against his three-line whip
on gay adoption [the Conservative whip being to oppose]. There was a swirl of rumour that he was about to quit.

There was very little interest in us today. We had the first of the new ‘board meetings’, part of TB’s efforts to get a bit more managerial focus into the working of the office, but I didn’t hold out much hope of this lasting. The style didn’t suit him and some of the discussion was below his pay grade. Cast of thousands. The bulk of the discussion related to his continuing unhappiness about the lack of strategic and delivery capability, both at the centre but above all in driving progress in departments. He felt there was a big disconnect between radical policy thinking and front-line delivery. There was no strategic economic narrative. We went over the ‘traffic lights’ review, a [Michael] Barber innovation showing [red, amber, green] how well each department was doing on the main public service projects. It was a mixed picture, but not enough green for my liking. TB was also exasperated at the general failure on major IT projects. Several people said in their different ways that departments did not respond well to calls for change. [John] Birt [‘blue skies thinking’ adviser] said departments see the centre as something to be worked around. But I felt they now had so many different voices representing Number 10 that they were able to play us off against each other. The key had to be getting ministers signed up to a shared vision and then wanting to put it through with the same vigour as we did. But departments were complaining all they ever got was pressure from us without clarity or follow-through.

We had far better discussions on Europe and Iraq. TB was still worrying away about the French, said this was ‘Macmillan–de Gaulle all over again, but we have to think our way through it very carefully.’
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They basically think we are too close to the US and we think they are too old-fashioned and blindly anti-American. We needed to keep improving alliances with others, not just Germany. He felt there was also a personal element to Chirac’s current stance, that he resented how TB was seen as the great white hope around the new EU.

I watched IDS [press conference] and his basic line – ‘Unite or die’ – was simply going to add to his problems. First, unite around what? Second, the unity call came very badly from someone who had helped do in [John] Major. There was a hypocrisy attached to it and also something absurd saying the fight was about modernisation, coming
as this did on the back of what he did re gay adoption. I had lunch at the Savoy with John Witherow and David Cracknell [
Sunday Times
]. Witherow was starting to bid for my post-Number 10 book! He was pretty positive re TB, very up on Milburn, felt GB OK as Chancellor but not convinced beyond that. I drove back with Michael Jay [FCO permanent secretary] who was having lunch there. We discussed the UNSCR state of play and though we were still on course for tabling tomorrow he seemed pretty pessimistic. On the euro, I said TB was as keen as ever but GB was making it virtually impossible, and I didn’t think it could happen unless TB moved him.

TB saw Fiona re CB. She felt we were totally hostile to the book idea which is why she hadn’t involved us. He felt it was not about her making money but trying to do something useful. Fiona felt Cherie had not been open with any of us, including him, about the project. She was happy not to work for CB, and do something else, but needed to know the lie of the land. She had tried to rub along with Carole [Caplin] but she had no idea how involved she was. I met Nick Robinson who had been made ITN political editor, full of the usual stuff about wanting to do more serious in-depth analysis blah. I’ll believe it when I see it. We were in OK shape at the moment. The reshuffle had worked out well. Charles Clarke was starting to motor on policy. John Reid was a breath of fresh air at the centre. GB’s currency was a bit low, which had its upsides and downsides. As TB said, if only he could get that relationship back on some kind of keel, we would be in very good shape.

We were going to get the UNSCR tabled today. TB didn’t quite know how to handle PMQs with IDS in the state he was in. He was very focused on the GB situation at the moment. He had a euro-specific meeting with him, and got Gus [O’Donnell] along too, but said it had been as grim as grim can be. I called Gus later who said the lack of GB communication was almost comical. We thought re PMQs that IDS would do top-up fees and Gibraltar, and indeed he did, but the mood around him was so bad at the moment, it was like a dead man walking. I was beginning to feel sorry for him.

We had a good political strategy meeting, working on how we get definition out of their current situation being a problem about the Tories as a party, rather than just IDS as a leader. John R said we had to watch out for the line that we were too powerful. There was an even greater mood around in the media at the moment that with the Tories so useless, they had to go even more into Opposition
mode. I wanted to see and hear a big argument out there, possibly a JR speech, making clear that to a large extent we had created this turmoil, and we were very proud of it. After PMQs, weekly meeting with Peter M, PG and Peter H. Peter M was really motoring on the line that the City felt TB was being weakened at GB’s expense, and also that they sensed GB was basically Old Labour. Later I bumped into GB, the Eds and Gus in Number 11. GB grunted a kind of greeting, but friendly it was not. The best thing that happened all day came later, Burnley 2, Spurs 1.

UNSCR was the main news all day and we were building up Jack’s role. TB had a long call with Bush yesterday, who had been celebrating his election win. TB said he was much clearer about what to do and more interested in trying to get better relations with Chirac and Schroeder. He couldn’t deny that he had felt personally affronted by Schroeder, and he wasn’t going to hide that, but he did want to build things up. Today TB spoke to Putin who said he would vote for or against, but would not abstain.

IDS was finished. TB was starting to think that [Michael] Portillo would be OK for us, that [Kenneth] Clarke [both former Conservative leadership candidates] would give them a lift but in many ways present an even bigger target. Today’s Cabinet was straightforward – Iraq/UN and fire, which was getting difficult again, and asylum/Sangatte [refugee camp], DB saying [Nicolas] Sarkozy [French interior minister] was being helpful. TB said Jack had done really well on the UN situation. Jack did a very Jackish explanation of the background. I went for lunch with Gus Macdonald [minister for the Cabinet Office], Barry Cox [deputy chairman, Channel 4 and government adviser on digital television] and Richard Tait [former editor-in-chief, ITN] to discuss a few ideas re elections. I started to feed in the idea that there would be none of the old battle-bus routine. I was also quite keen to move away from the expectation of a press conference every morning. The 24-hour media beast had been an absolute bastard to deal with last time, so much effort for so few viewers and it would be even worse next time.

I got back for a very alarming terrorism meeting. Eliza Manningham-Buller [new director general of the Security Service, MI5] gave an overview, then Julian Miller re some of the voluminous stuff out there, then a specific discussion re Heathrow airport and the London Underground. The top-level worries were chemical weapons in the Underground, a hijacked plane into Heathrow, suicide bombs on
high-profile targets. Alistair Darling was pushing quite hard on it, asked if we were prepared for the kind of blind panic that would follow. He for one did not feel we were. TB said it was important to strike a balance. Milburn and Liam Donaldson [Chief Medical Officer] wanted to put out a lot of factual material on ‘what if’. There was also clearly a need for more training re major incidents on the Tube. There was a fiasco later when the Home Office released the wrong version of Blunkett’s statement which meant the media got the draft that had the section in about a dirty bomb that we thought better out.
⁶⁸
I called Huw Evans [special adviser] to ask how on earth could that happen? But I suppose it did get up the focus on terror.

I chaired a two-hour meeting on Iraq communications. Went through a lot of different scenarios and planning. We agreed that the crunch was likely to come quickly. We needed communication plans ready for all the different scenarios. I went to meet Alex [Ferguson] at the Hilton and travelled with him to a charity dinner. GB was there with Gus O’Donnell and I took Alex and George Graham [former football player and manager] over to say hello. Even in those circumstances, GB and I barely acknowledged each other. I spoke to Gus and Sue Nye [GB’s personal aide] and said they had to get their boss to stop treating TB like a hate figure. Gus said it takes two to tango. I said TB tangoes all day long with him. Alex coughed up five grand for my marathon. I shared a car home with George Graham who clearly wanted to be back in the game.