The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (67 page)

Kevin Maguire had a piece in the
Guardian
doing in TB on our handling of the fire strike, as did [Paul] Routledge in the
Mirror
. Jonathan Freedland [
Guardian
] had a big piece on how the fault line was now opening for sure, while Patrick Wintour’s [
Guardian
] news story, also based on yesterday’s breakfast, was GB coming out against top-up fees. It was pretty tricky stuff. When Jeremy spoke to Balls first thing, he denied GB had spoken against top-up fees and said the problem was in the current febrile atmosphere, anyone who was anything other than totally in favour of top-up fees was seen as anti TB. Classic Balls. The reality was there was a deliberate strategy going on to put us into a right-wing construct in the eyes of the left – foundation hospitals, top-up fees, pro US on Iraq.

Peter Riddell [
Times
] also had a piece saying it was time for GB to speak out re the limits of the market in the NHS. There was no doubt that there was a major operation going on. But TB, who called me up as soon as I got in, said his instinct remained to let it run, not to respond, just let them get on with it. But he accepted it was serious and that the most serious point was that policy issues were being blocked. My belief was that GB had been gifted a policy cover for what in reality was a personality battle and something of a vendetta against TB. TB was adamant that if it came to a split it had to be absolutely clear who was responsible. But I felt we had a strategy being run powerfully against us, and we were doing nothing in return. TB said I had to trust him on how to deal with this one. I said the problem was the party didn’t see him coming out with enough that was seen definitively as Labour.

We got a bit of a problem out of the Hoon/CDS briefing, where
CDS said something pretty daft, making clear he felt it was bad for the Armed Forces to be involved in the fire dispute. We were getting ready for Prague but first had to endure a pretty useless political strategy meeting with John Reid, Douglas etc. where Spencer Livermore [special adviser, Treasury] was meant to do a Pre-Budget Report presentation, but pretty much said nothing that wasn’t already known to a reasonably well-informed member of the public. Catherine Colonna called to say if TB asked Chirac for a summit date he would offer one probably. I said it was a pretty silly way to work. When we finally got there, TB said Chirac was so cold that there was no way he was going to risk humiliating himself, so they just had a cordial handshake and that was that. He said he was happy to hang tough for a while longer.

PMQs preparation was focused on fire and Tory calls for a director of homeland security, on which IDS did six questions, though not terribly well. TB did OK but missed the opportunity to do a values-based answer on top-up fees to Tony Wright [Labour MP]. I don’t know why he won’t do it. He said afterwards it wasn’t the time, and he didn’t want to look like he was making a U-turn. I felt the only way to win this argument was to make it about values and opportunity, whereas he was more on the idea that the status quo wasn’t an option for the universities, as if they as institutions rather than people as individuals were more important.

I drove out to Northolt with TB. I had dinner with Dan Bartlett [now White House communications director] once we got to Prague. We went through why the US was so unpopular, the need to understand it and broaden the agenda. He was very down on the State Department, which of course outside America was the one part of the US government that was seen as vaguely bearable. The Americans currently thought it was seventy to thirty that there would be war, but that the thirty was genuine. We needed to set up a proper operation in Qatar, not least to have people able to make an impact on Al Jazeera. He was pretty down on the new [White House] Office of Global Communications, which of course the State Department were pretty much opposed to because it cut across much of what they did. He said the problem with State’s communications was that some focused on long term, some on three metres at a time and there was not much in between. I said I strongly felt they should try to keep Rumsfeld off the international airwaves, and broaden their messages beyond America. He told me GWB intended to visit Africa, which I suggested was a great opportunity for a much broader repositioning of their global message.

I had agreed with Dan last night that TB and GWB would do a short media event together, so we went through key messages on Iraq and fire. GWB arrived for the summit, was met by a beaming GR [George Robertson, NATO Secretary General] and then through for a meeting. Bush had the most extraordinary pair of cowboy boots on, and was full of the usual hail fellow well met, how ya doing? They did an OK doorstep, including on the latest bombing in Jerusalem. But the press were all focused on Iraq, and on the line that the US had pretty much decided. Bush felt there was a need for real pressure to build through troop movements, international condemnation, really tough and unpredictable inspections, to get Saddam off balance.

He said that once we made that phone call that agrees Saddam’s in breach, we had to do something militarily, and quickly. Quick sustainable bombing raid, and boots on the ground. He said if Blix gets dicked around, while a US or UK plane is shot down, we go for him. He was clearly not keen on Blix, said he was wringing his hands and talking war and peace but ‘That is our judgement. He is not going to get between us and freedom. Once we strike we go for it, we don’t wait for the world to sing “Kum ba yah”, to hold hands and wait for Saddam to develop a better karma.’ TB said he felt there was a twenty per cent chance Saddam would co-operate, but Bush said he didn’t know what co-operation meant. TB believed the regime would crumble pretty quickly, and Bush said both our secret services needed to be put to work to help that. They were thinking of a list of the top ten most wanted as part of a divide-and-rule strategy, e.g. put some members of Saddam’s family on there, not others. He felt Saddam was making Blix and the UN look like fools. He also felt that if we got rid of Saddam, we could make progress on the Middle East. He reported on some of his discussions with [Ariel] Sharon, and said he had been pretty tough with him. Sharon had said that if Iraq hit Israel, their response would ‘escalate’ which he took to mean go nuclear. Bush said he said to him ‘You will not, you will not do that, it would be crazy.’ He said he would keep them under control, adding ‘A nuke on Baghdad, that could be pretty tricky.’ He was also clearly worried about the stability of Saudi Arabia.

I then left for the airport. The fire scene was pretty bad. On the flight, I did a note on the dinner with Dan Bartlett and what we needed to do to take things forward. There was some interesting stuff around on deception programmes, for example [Iraqi] officials being forced to put papers and materials in their homes with the warning that they and their families would be harmed if they were lost. JP was doing a fire
statement at 7 with the strikes due to start, making clear that there was no more money, and that pay must be matched to modernisation and that in the meantime, preparations go on. We had to start getting a bit tougher in our language on modernisation.

The unions and the employers did a deal in the early hours which they sent through to ODPM [Office of the Deputy Prime Minister], we said no and they got out to say we had scuppered it. The problem being exposed was that we weren’t in control of the negotiations but we would get the blame. The FBU and the employers both came out to say we had scuppered the deal but the problem was we were being asked not just to bless a deal but to fund a deal. JP was doing the
Today
programme and I tried to get hold of him but was in the shower when he came through and missed the call. It was pretty grim. He was clearly tired and took everything too personally and the message was pretty mangled.

We agreed at the morning meeting to get more on the offensive and we put together some aggressive lines for Godric at the 11, that it beggared belief the employers had signed up to this, that the unions were determined to avoid modernisation. We had to get back on the front foot because the FBU were making all the running. JP though was still putting out different kinds of noise because he was saying ultimately we would have to do a deal. He was also wanting to get the TUC more involved though they had been pretty unhelpful and difficult. We did a conference call with TB in Prague who was wondering whether to do media on it. He felt it was best not to because JP would feel undermined, though we got JR on to the lunchtime bulletins, who was excellent. TB flew back later and was in one of his irritating ‘all that matters here is the facts’ moods. His basic argument was that we would have to foot the bill and yet the talks had led to all the modernisation measures being removed.

We had a meeting with JP and GB at which we agreed to publish a paper on the economic impact, the Treasury having done a paper on the figures with £4 billion for local authorities and £16 billion for the public sector, making clear that if this was applied across the economy, it [the settlement] would cost hundreds of millions without modernisation attached. GB’s main point was that we had to get the local authorities to negotiate this, but it wasn’t clear what we were meant to do to achieve that. TB and JP both said afterwards it was a very Gordonic point, focusing on something that wasn’t actually central. JP had become more seized of the TB/GB problem, and we both agreed
it was surprising that the media weren’t currently making more of what GB had been up to recently. It was not a great meeting. JP wanted to do interviews. I suggested he did one-on-ones, but he got a bit ratty and wasn’t clear enough. We were not in a very good position. TB was pretty clear there was no way we could give in on this.

TB called at 9. He wanted to do a press conference on Monday to set out the whole case, make clear why we couldn’t give in, make a direct appeal to the firefighters. He was worried JP would react badly to that, wouldn’t want him to do it, and asked me to speak to him. JP and I chatted for an hour or so before I sensed the moment was right to raise it, and he was fine. He was really fed up though with some of the personal vitriol he was getting from some of the papers. He was scathing about [John] Monks, who was leading the news today saying the TUC ‘supported the FBU’. I said we needed to use the next few days to set basic expectations, and he should see the TB press conference as part of that. He wanted to know if TB would let the TUC have a role in trying to sort this. The
Mirror
had been pretty vile, and he said he would like to have a go at [Piers] Morgan publicly re the DTI investigation [into share dealing by journalists at the
Mirror
]. I said that would be a mistake, and he mustn’t let them think he was taking any of it personally. He said that’s the way I am, I can’t help it, what am I supposed to do, if someone whacks me unfairly, I want to whack ‘em back. He did think I should be toning down the really heavy messages because in the end we would have to negotiate. We seemed to have a cast of thousands on the ministerial conference call. JP was down at Dorneywood [official country residence] and was clearly having dinner because at one point, as we were discussing Iraq, we could all hear him saying ‘I’ll have rhubarb on mine.’ The main message was all about getting the talks back up and focused on the right issues.

JP called several times pre
On the Record
[BBC]. Tried to get him on the broader economic message. TB was getting more focused on it, wanting greater clarity. The plan had been for JP to say in the interview that TB was doing his press conference tomorrow, so that nobody thought it was him being bounced out of the picture, but he forgot to mention it. He did very good clips that were used for the bulletins. We briefed out a pre-press conference message on today’s pay rise being tomorrow’s rise in interest rates and inflation. The press were
picking up on GB and JP saying slightly different things re sixteen per cent [settlement]. The Sundays were cranking up the idea of the unions now being at war with the government and John Monks was not exactly covering himself in glory. I went out for a seventeen-mile run, stopped a few times to take calls.

We did at least now have a bit of process story re fire and I felt if we got through today and tomorrow properly, on the comms front we would be in better shape. The FBU and the Tories were both out on mixed signals with GB making clear there was no more money and JP saying the deal on the table last week was still worth talking about. JP had been fine yesterday about the press conference but he was now getting worried it looked like TB was taking over. JP called me at 7.15, really down. He said he was thinking about handing it all over. He thought the soft-cop routine would work, but it hadn’t and maybe he should put out a statement or go up on how sixteen per cent was no longer a runner. He said he had always felt he could do a deal of some kind with [Andy] Gilchrist but maybe he was wrong, maybe we should just go hardball. I said there was no need to change his role, and we would make sure there was no question of tomorrow being seen as sidelining him. I said if he suddenly put out a clarifying statement, they really would have a field day. He agreed, but he was clearly very down. He said he felt it deeply, in his heart, and he absolutely hates it if people think he has fucked up.

News leading on press conference and the line that TB would speak direct to firefighters and their families. We needed a stronger process story. Pat McF was talking to [Sir] Jeremy Beecham [chairman, Local Government Association] to get a line on the streamlining of discussions. He also wanted TB to speak to Monks which he did just before the press conference. TB wanted to get up modernisation and the need for change in working practices as the issue. JP came over for a meeting and asked for a private word with TB and me. He said he felt dreadful. Because of his background, he really wanted to think he could handle these kinds of disputes, and thought he had got some kind of agreement worked out with Gilchrist but it couldn’t happen. He felt like he wanted out of the whole thing. He wanted GB to make clear in his opening statement that he and GB were not at odds. TB was very good with him, said he had worked incredibly hard on it, and done the right things, and don’t let the press play the game they are playing and unsettle him by attacking him. Put it behind him and don’t worry.