The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (65 page)

I didn’t sleep well, but ran in, up to see TB to discuss political Cabinet. I filled him in on the encounter with GB and Co. last night, his inability even to look at me when I was taking over Alex and George Graham, and also the subsequent discussion with Gus and Sue. Alex noticed the vibes. Philip had spoken to GB last night and asked why all the communications channels had closed, and he simply said ‘A lot has happened since last year.’ TB was more open than ever, said he was thinking about the denouement on this, but it was important if it ended in a fissure that people genuinely understood he had tried
everything. He felt he would at some point have to move him over or out, go out and say that he had been willing to stand aside before a third election, but even that had not been enough for him, that he would not work with me. The only other job he could realistically offer him was Foreign Secretary and he felt he would refuse that and walk.

TB said the reason ‘psychological flaws’ had been so damaging was because it rang so true with people who knew GB, and it rang true with GB himself. TB felt he was beyond repair. I said he had maximum power for a limited period, and it usually drained with time, and he had to use that power, not let more drain away before he decided and acted. I think the general feeling now, not just in Number 10 but around the Cabinet table too, was that GB was pretty hell-bent on TB’s destruction. TB said he still felt we had to try to get it back together but he didn’t hold out much hope. What was really important was that the upper echelons felt he had tried, and GB had refused to co-operate. JP was the key to this, and he was currently of the view that they were as bad as each other, even if GB had started to take the thing off the rails. TB felt it would be wrong to cave in to the kind of psychological and political pressure GB was piling on.

The main focus of the day was the UNSCR being agreed later in the day and I worked up a script for the UK on that. The morning meeting was largely about clearing up the dirty-bomb fiasco of yesterday. Political Cabinet was a good discussion. PG did a presentation which was realistic without being too downbeat, and on the fundamentals we were in a very strong position. TB did an overview – public services, antisocial behaviour, economy – and was very strong and clear on reform in particular. GB spent most of the time with his head down looking at his papers, but looked up a bit angrily when TB said there was a missing ingredient to the economic argument, its relation to the new economy and the developing economic giants, the whole science and research area. JP raised one or two concerns on the public services, and the fears of reforms leading to two-tier services, but he was OK generally. Hilary A spoke as well as I had ever heard her speak, said we had got into a rut on this two-tier thinking, said that a drive to uniformity had let millions of kids down. Schools and hospitals in the poorest areas were the ones that would benefit most from reform. Blunkett said two-tier exists now. In Hackney twenty per cent of parents send their kids private. People are opting out of the system and we have to attract them back. They won’t come back to an unreformed system.

Reid, Milburn and Charles C were excellent on reform. The centre of gravity had definitely shifted to the reform end of things, which made GB’s contribution a bit odd. It was a verbal version of Ed Balls’ recent article, and he said the coming argument was about the limits of the market. It was reasonably politely put but the coded message was fairly clear. The impact was muted though because he did not put the case with his usual vigour, and he sounded a bit old-fashioned and out of touch. It was as though he had decided what he was going to say in advance and couldn’t adapt to the discussion, and he didn’t resonate as he had planned.

Milburn spoke at length and in detail on the health reforms and how they related to other reforms and he had a good line, that if independence was good enough for the Bank of England, it was good enough for schools and hospitals, which brought a thin smile to GB’s lips. Margaret B said the message we put out on this was unclear, and there was a lot of confusion in the PLP about what we were actually saying. TB made clear that if we lost the ground on reform, we were giving the Tories the opening they needed and we must not give it to them. He said re markets that we would end up in an ‘absurd situation’ if we allowed our opponents to present this as an argument about privatisation. It is about choice and empowerment. If that wasn’t a big enough hint to GB, he then said we needed to learn lessons from Al Gore’s failure and defeat. Gore got himself into the wrong position on the role of the state. The Tories want to do us as the big-state party, holding the individual back and we must not let them. He was really on form today and a number of them commented on it during the break.

They came back for another good discussion, this time on ASB. Peter Hain said he had been told so many times that Cabinet meetings were boring, but he had felt this was a really strong discussion. ‘Who told you?’ snapped TB, joking, and they all laughed, with the usual exception. The mood generally was good. Even Clare was broadly on message on the ASB agenda. Only Alistair D came in on the GB point, saying that if we focused on excellence there could be a problem – the elitism point. JP said at the end that it had been a breath of fresh air to have a longer, broader-ranging discussion that went into themes rather than just policy. TB said he would look to do this more often.

The only bad note, as TB and JP discussed afterwards, was what he saw as GB’s diddling on the markets argument. It had merely been an attempt to disrupt the flow. JP felt it wasn’t that bad, but he came to see me before leaving and said though he was going to have one
more go on Sunday at getting them working together, he felt things were as bad as ever. He said TB had guilt. GB had hatred. And though TB was a more generous spirit, there was wrong on both sides. But he felt TB was the more rounded and complete politician. He was brilliant at winning arguments and he should do it more with the whole Cabinet like that, rather than just let these things simmer. He should force a proper Cabinet discussion on the euro and the five tests, let’s see where people really are, including Gordon.

JP said he had raised with GB why he had gone incommunicado with me and GB said he knew I was keeping a diary and he was sure I would publish it while he was still in power. I said why doesn’t he fucking ask? It’s not really that, said JP, it is all about the trust broken between them and he sees you as an extension of TB. I said if he spent more time building bridges and less time knocking them down, alienating people, treating them like dirt, he would find he had a lot more support than he thinks. JP felt TB should involve the Cabinet more, stop handling so many issues, particularly the euro, bilaterally with GB, and he would tell GB to stop demanding a date because it was counterproductive. He said both of us were important to getting them to the right place, and we should have one last go for peace. I said it was beginning to sound and feel like a peace process between enemies, like NI or the Middle East. JP laughed, said you’re not far wrong, but these are the two giants of the Labour Party and if they do not work together, the party suffers.

The best part of the day was [Burnley] getting Man United in the FA Cup draw. Also watching
Bend It Like Beckham
[comedy-drama film] with Fiona, Calum and Grace. Fantastic little film. I worked with TB on his
Observer
article [on rights, responsibilities and criminal justice] and did a conference call with JS, GH and DB who were doing media tomorrow. David didn’t sound good and I think the terror fiasco had hit him a bit. He hated it when he was being blamed for cock-ups, even though this was clearly not his fault personally. The issue had subsided a little but there was still the mood in the media that we were hiding something. I was feeling back on form and worked on TB’s Mansion House speech for Monday, using some of the lines and arguments that came out of yesterday’s discussions, getting up arguments pre Queen’s Speech as well as on the international agenda. TB was off at the Albert Hall [British Legion Festival of Remembrance] tonight but also working on the speech. Meanwhile the Royals story was going from bad to
worse and TB was worried about it.
⁶⁹
The idea of the Royal Family being run by a load of gays was taking hold. Did an eleven-mile run along Regent’s Canal. Sundays full of Royals, Iraq and the Tories who were progressing steadily towards meltdown.

TB called at 9 to go over where we were on the [Mansion House] speech. His basic message was that we could not defeat terrorism by security measures alone but we needed a coalition of common ideas and a shared agenda. He was really concerned re Chirac, felt that he was likely to be hostile for some time, and it would be difficult to rebuild. He felt JC was in the wrong on a lot of these issues, but he was sure we were heading for an extended bad time with him. On Iraq/WMD I said I felt we needed to be much more open and take people into our confidence much more about the information and arguments he was having to weigh up. He thought the Royals situation was damaging them. I felt what it was exposing was that the Queen was solid as a rock but beneath and around her things were a bit weak. He felt Charles should be staying above it all like the Queen if he wants to be seen in the same league.

TB was due to meet JP and GB later, ostensibly to discuss the fire dispute. I told him JP was pretty much in the ‘both as bad as each other’ camp at the moment. TB said deep down he knows that isn’t true but he has to maintain that to be in a broker position. He thought GB will have gone away from Friday’s Cabinet a bit worried, because it was so clear that the body of opinion wasn’t with him. He thought he might come back to the idea of some kind of deal based on co-operation and departure. When TB told Jeremy he was still thinking he might go before the election, Jeremy said the senior Civil Service would be up in arms if they thought GB was taking over any time soon ‘and for once they would be right’. Jack Straw was so horrified at GB’s recent behaviour that he had asked TB ‘Has he got something on you? How else do we explain to ourselves why you tolerate it?’ TB’s answer was the usual – that although he can be maddening, he has a brilliant side to him. TB was thought to be on such good form at the moment that his colleagues were clearly thinking GB could be moved. JP called re the fire situation. Gilchrist had heard [Professor Sir George] Bain [chairman of a government-funded independent
review of the Fire Service] would be publishing tomorrow, and he was worried that we were pushing it out. I said no way, and we would just keep radio silence on it.

We were well set up on the CJS [criminal justice system] reforms and on the speech, and on Iraq TB was at least getting some credit. There was still huge coverage for the post-Burrell Royals fallout. Bain put out his review, which the FBU rejected immediately needless to say. It was a good piece of work and I think serious people would wonder why on earth they could throw it out so quickly. We had a brief discussion on the Queen’s Speech debate and also truancy, where it was clear TB was moving to the idea of fixed penalty notices with child benefit sanctions. David M, Jonathan and I went through the speech to work on the balance between warning and assurance. I think we just about got there, though it was one of those that could go either way.

We were also having to get the balance right re Bush. There was no point him [TB] just getting up there and putting the US line but he did not want to be seen as anything other than supportive. The question was how you weave in the argument about maximising influence without being explicit. The problem was, as he said to the morning meeting, that Bush did not really seem to take account of different concerns. President [Vicente] Fox [of Mexico, visiting Downing Street] felt the same. The speech came together OK though and he had done some strong stuff on MEPP and on the Muslim community. I had a ninety-minute meeting re the GICS review. Gus [O’Donnell] made it clear from the off he was on the radical-change end of the market, which was good news for me. He said he did not feel what was currently envisaged as change was nearly radical enough, and would not be seen as such. What was slightly depressing was that some of the people and arguments were exactly the same as those we had in ’97.

[Andrew] Gilligan was doing a big number on security at Posts [UK embassies], clearly on the alarmist end of the market. Lots of ‘intelligence says this, intelligence says that’. I called [Sir] David Omand [permanent secretary and security intelligence co-ordinator, Cabinet Office] who said there had been a warning in Australia re an attack on Posts, which had been checked out through Cobra and found to be nothing. We agreed a line that there was no general new
threat to Posts and people should not change their plans. Then after I ran in, John Denham [Home Office minister] called, to say there had been a warning that went out via Transec, that part of the Department of Transport responsible for security, which did say there had been intelligence, though it did not say put out a new level of vigilance. The Gilligan report was outrageous and we used it to set out how difficult it was to make these judgements.

Up to see TB in the flat. He was more worried about fire and the FBU claim that we had been spoiling for a fight. Another discussion re GB. He said JP was the key and I really had to work on him. He knew deep down that we were in the right and he also knew he was in a powerful position and was using that. TB said ‘The crazy thing about all this is that I never wanted to fight a third election but I may have to because I don’t feel I can trust him to take over when he is as impossible as he is now. The only question is whether I can move him or get rid of him.’ He said we were strong on policy substance but GB hung over everything like a shadow. I had a chat with C on the phone to take forward what we had been discussing about use of intelligence in the public diplomacy campaign. The Palace were setting up an inquiry into the post-Burrell issues, rape, gifts etc., which was a massive story. I had lunch with Jeremy Vine [BBC]. There was something very positive and likeable about him. He was desperate for an interview with TB on the whole God thing. Then to the Newspaper Press Fund at Australia House, lots of the old crowd from the
Mirror
. I went for a drink with Rebekah Wade [editor,
News of the World
], interrupted by a call from Gerard Russell [Islamic Media Unit, FCO] re an OBL audiotape where he seemed to be taking credit for the Bali and Russia attacks. We got Hoon up.