The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (75 page)

TB back, called on his way from the airport to Number 10, said he was really fit, full of energy and ready for the fray. He said he was clearer than ever about all the problems but we just had to hold firm. On GB, he said he had a plan. I asked if it was cautious or radical. Radical, he said. He added there was no point being in the job if you couldn’t do it properly, so the situation has to be resolved. On the euro he was still of the view we should try to go for it. He was chirpy enough but keen for a realistic take on our problems.

I felt we had slipped back on Iraq, slipped back on Europe, enjoyed no real breakthrough on public services, crime and fear of crime were a bigger problem than the figures suggested, the GB relationship had become a fault line, and I felt we needed a fresh and discrete TB strategy too. Overall, I said I didn’t think we were in great shape. Also, though it could be rectified, I felt our own relationship had changed as a result of the CB/Foster saga. Most of the time, I couldn’t give a fuck when the press turned on me, but I really resented it over shit like that. Calum and I left for Grimsby vs Burnley. We were two up, then blew it and drew. It was freezing cold. Drove back,
very little traffic from the press, the Sundays were full of crap, mainly on gun crime.

Alice Miles called from
The Times
to say that [former Labour Cabinet minister and co-founder of the Social Democratic Party] Roy Jenkins’ death had just been announced and would TB do a piece? I said maybe, but later spoke to TB and said I felt not, but maybe he should just do his own short tribute. He sent it through. It was very warm and personal, I felt the combined effect was over the top. I called TB to say so and he agreed to take out ‘mentor’ and instead talk of his support. I also pointed out he should at least say he disagreed with the formation of the [breakaway] SDP. ‘But won’t people think I’m just doing that for the Labour Party?’ I said ‘You are the leader of the Labour Party, and they did try to kill us.’ ‘Yes, but he was right in a lot of what he said, do you want me to say that?’ Laughter. I said no. ‘Surely the party is used to my little eccentricities by now.’ Yes, but one day they might decide you have gone too far and rise up against you. I just feel it’s a bit over the top. He said I thought you would but OK, take out the word mentor and put in something about me disagreeing with the formation of the SDP, but I do think he was a great figure and I am very sad about his death. At least he took the changes and agreed not to do
The Times
.

Andrew Adonis [Jenkins’ biographer] called to get the go-ahead to do his own big tribute piece to Roy.
The World this Weekend
had yet another discussion of the New Year’s message, which must be the first time it was still being covered five days after it was published. Mike Granatt [head of GICS] called from Scotland Yard to say there had been some arrests, possibly related to a ricin factory.
¹
Out for dinner with the Goulds. Philip really not keen on the FA idea. Gail thought it was a useful bridge to a new phase. All of us felt that TB was not in a strong position and really needed a new approach. Philip felt I should make clear I would only stay if there was a real onslaught on spin, a real effort at rebuilding trust, a new modus operandi and with him leading by example, e.g. on the lifestyle issues. The only other people I discussed the FA with were Godric, who felt it would be a good way out, and Alex F, who was also very positive, felt it
was a real job that I could do well. He felt [Adam] Crozier made too many enemies because he was too much of an empire builder. They were both very positive about the whole thing, and I respected their opinions. But both Fiona and I felt guilty at the idea of leaving just at a point when we knew things were going to get very rough.

Papers full of gun crime and Roy Jenkins. We got a bit of stick for the focus on crime looking like a response to recent events, which it wasn’t. Derry was on the morning media re courts and sentencing, and Tam Dalyell [senior Labour backbencher] was on re Iraq. I called Jack S to discuss the best way to handle it. He was pretty much echoing [Colin] Powell’s line that it was 40–60 [more likely that there would be a war]. He had called me a couple of times over the holiday and emphasised the importance of TB not positioning himself so that no war looked like failure. TB was pretty sure that there would be a war, or that in any event Saddam Hussein would go, and war remained the likeliest if not only way of that coming about. I chatted to him first thing, and then did a conference call to agree we would publish the Iraq policy objectives paper. John Williams rightly said it would get lost with all else that was going on but I felt it was important to have it out there at the moment. These strategy papers were as much about internal understanding as publicity.

TB’s morning meeting with the office went on for two and a half hours as we worked our way through the twenty-page note he had sent to us at the weekend. Much of it could have been written for any other year ahead – prioritising public services, Europe, crime and asylum, delivery and trying to get the Civil Service to modernise more, relations with GB and the lack of proper economic narrative. So it went on, and we all had our usual position, all a bit stuck in tramlines. TB was not for giving an inch to the party, wanted to be even more modernising than ever, at the cutting edge of reform. I said he didn’t need to keep winning modernising spurs, and I was worried that whilst he was identified so personally with all the controversies, it was being put together against us as being right wing, and he had to be careful. On Iraq, pretty much everyone was emphasising how little support there was, how little understanding there was of a real threat, but he was in pretty defiant mood on that too, said the threat was real and people would come round.

Later he called me in, was very friendly, and said he just wanted to know how I was. I said fine, up to a point. ‘But only up to a point?’ he asked. Yes. I couldn’t deny that I felt pretty ground down by things.
I asked what he was going to do about his ‘friend next door’. ‘I’m going to sack him. I’ve come to a settled view that he has to go. There was a time when I could make the case that the tension was creative. But it has reached the point where it is destructive and it can’t go on. I’m not prepared to be in a position where I have got the job, but I am not allowed to do it properly. It could be that it ends up with me being toppled but I would rather that than this situation. I remain of the view that the party will not get rid of a leader if they think the leader is doing basically what the country wants and needs.’ He seemed fairly set on it, but doing it would be harder than saying it. He was also keen for Ken Clarke to become Tory leader, feeling it would waken up our lot and also help the country on Europe. The general feeling was that IDS was fucked.

Then we had a meeting with the political team in the flat. Hilary [Armstrong] said that John Healey [economic secretary to the Treasury], Jon Cruddas [Labour MP, Blair’s former deputy political secretary for union liaison] and others were really organising now over the ‘elitism’ issue and trying to get TB on the wrong side of the divide. She was very fretful on Iraq and hunting. TB seemed much more relaxed after his break but in a way that just added to the sense that he was slightly losing the plot. Sally said she would go bonkers if she heard him say one more time that he was clearer than ever. It was all a bit groundhog day. Later we had pretty lengthy discussions on his speech tomorrow to the FCO heads of mission conference, where he wanted to say we were a unifying force around our vision of the world and that we had to get influence with the US and use it to broaden out our agenda. I asked him if he genuinely thought that our role was to keep them on the straight and narrow. Too damn right, he said, but if we say that’s our role, we lose any influence. He said he only wanted to make speeches that really made a point, which meant we could strip out a few in the forward Grid.

I ran in the long route with Hugh Jones [former international marathon runner and first British man to win the London Marathon] but I was struggling. TB called me up to the flat just before 8. He was worried about the Palestinian reform conference. The Israelis’ response to the latest suicide bombing was to prevent the Palestinians from coming to the London conference, so the conference was effectively scuppered. He was not happy with Jack’s saying the chances of war were now 40–60, thinking we should not get into that type of running commentary. And he was livid that Derry gave us a batch of dreadful headlines
from his
Today
interview on how we would let burglars go free, just as Blunkett was up doing his tough anti-gun crime stuff. We were a bit ragged generally, and he intended to make clear to Cabinet we couldn’t tolerate some of the looseness we had been enduring of late.

I had an Iraq strategy meeting, and took them through what TB had said in his note and we discussed how we needed to do more on WMD education, e.g. the dossier, the need to communicate more what was happening on concealment. We had a good discussion about the basic distilled message, namely that the reason Iraq WMD was so important and linked to terror was because one day terrorists would get them. Then the John Reid/AC party meeting. Greg Cook [Labour polling expert] said we were at our lowest lead since TB became party leader and moving down on all issues and attributes. People seemed a bit down, but both JR and I made the point that we were in a remarkable position for a third term midterm. We had been defying gravity for too long. Then a discussion on the Lib Dems. I felt we were missing tricks in not going for them hard enough. JR still felt it best to leave them alone.

A lot of the day was taken up with the ricin issue. Since the arrests on Saturday, lots of tests had proved negative but there had been a Cobra meeting this morning which was told ricin had been found in Wood Green. Mike Granatt came to see me to say they had agreed to do a joint Met/Department of Health briefing while DB wanted to do a written statement to the House. I was fine with that, provided it was mainly all operational, police security story with some health backup. That was all agreed, but Mike called back two hours later to say DB had really gone against the idea of a police press conference because he worried they always went over the top. Instead he had agreed a joint Blunkett/Milburn statement. I felt it set a bad precedent, that ministers would have to go up on every potential terrorist situation. I called Milburn who was fairly relaxed, but agreed that if ministers were to do it, it should be to the House, and backed me. DB agreed provided there was no massive briefing around it.

We sorted the final version which went out at 3.15. Once it was out there, it was pretty much an all-day news sponge, which massively ate into the coverage which had been planned for TB’s speech. Perhaps that was no bad thing in view of the fact following our overnight briefing of the speech, the US Embassy came on, alarmed at the way it was being presented as us trying to get them to broaden their agenda. I spoke to David Davies, and said I didn’t rule the FA job out. He felt there was a way of doing it quietly if I went for it, which I doubted. We had a PMQs meeting on tomorrow being the first
occasion for an earlier time. TB said if we had a decent Opposition, they really ought to be able to land some blows tomorrow. He said I must not discuss what he had said re GB yesterday with anybody. ‘It can only happen when the waters are calm and it’s least expected, and it must be a totally ruthless operation.’ Like me, he had been shocked yesterday by Hilary saying, in front of civil servants and others, that GB was openly organising, and naming some of the people doing it for him.

Ricin enormous coverage. Up to the flat for PMQs meeting at 8. The new time slot of noon would change the rhythm of the day. We were expecting them to go on crime/burglary and the differences between Jack S and Geoff Hoon on Iraq, which was indeed what IDS did, though he was pretty crap. TB was still in pretty much of a rage about Derry and the burglary stuff, much more relaxed re GH/JS. I drafted him a note pre Cabinet tomorrow, saying that he had to reset the basic discipline and order, that there had been far too much thinking aloud, far too many politicians as commentators, and that we had to make clear again that the price of the privilege of serving in Cabinet was collective responsibility.

I had little input into PMQs, apart from one line, namely that what was one hundred per cent certain was that Saddam would be disarmed, as a way of getting round the slight problem Jack had given us with the percentage game. I made clear to the morning meeting that TB was pissed off both at the initial 40–60, also at Geoff’s reaction and we had to get basic discipline back. We went over for PMQs and he successfully got up the public spending/cuts dividing line, then back to Number 10 and an amazing snowfall. TB, David Manning, Jonathan, Matthew Rycroft [private secretary, foreign affairs], Sally and I met to discuss Iraq. David was back from Oman and said he felt we had to give the inspectors more time now, but the US were impatient, felt the UN worked too slowly. TB said that if Blix found nothing, and the UN gave no specific sanction, it was going to be very hard to do. David said the Americans were very keen for a visit by TB at the end of the month. TB knew how difficult this was all going to be and felt we had to be out there fairly soon making the case, that it was only a matter of time before al-Qaeda get their hands on WMD unless we show how serious we are at dealing with the WMD issue.

TB was clear it was the right thing to do, and was on pretty good form, but also accepted there was not much support. Philip said to
me later that there was next to no support for the war and the domestic agenda was in poor shape too. I had a meeting with Charles Clarke re some of his trickier issues. On student finance, he was confident it could be sold as an opportunity measure and we could get it done fairly quickly. He said he had been round to see the whole Cabinet one by one and that he had a lot of support, e.g. from Jack, Blunkett, Andrew Smith [Work and Pensions Secretary], Tessa, most of the others. The problem would be JP, because of the process, and GB because of the politics. But Charles was very confident, both about the arguments and the process. He was clearly a lot happier than when party chairman. He was also up for telling the NUT [National Union of Teachers] that no minister would go to their conference because they were not serious and did not properly represent teachers. Piers Morgan was apparently on
The World at One
describing Saddam as ‘a benign dictator’.