The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (103 page)

Later, when he saw Fiona again, he said he was unlikely to stay but he couldn’t be sure. She spent an hour with him and though he started off very defensive about Cherie, he admitted that in part because of the pressure of the job, he had neglected her, but he also knew that things had to change. TB and I had been talking about it just before 10 and Jonathan and Andrew Turnbull came in.

Suma Chakrabarti [permanent secretary] had called from DFID to say that Clare was about to resign. From then on we were set for a day in which she would do as much damage as possible. She got a line out to PA as soon as she resigned, then interviews, later a statement. Every part of it was very bitter and designed for maximum damage. TB though felt it was the best outcome. He was intending to sack her, she probably knew it, so she walked, but with little credibility. Her letter of resignation was pretty bitter. I worked on TB’s reply, conscious of the fact I had waited eight years for this, but now it came to it I felt very little satisfaction from it. She wasn’t worth it. I watched her Commons statement and she got more and more bitter as she went on, spreading the attack on Iraq to the whole style of government. She was heard in near silence with the occasional gasp as the boot went in.

TB said afterwards that he had bent over backwards to be nice to her and about her, and if there was a criticism to be made of him, it was why he let her stay so long. ‘I doubt that any Cabinet minister has ever been indulged so much by a prime minister.’ There was no point pretending it wasn’t a bad day but she was such damaged goods that it wasn’t that bad. Adam Boulton [Sky] said few people could swallow it all without gagging. She was pretty powerful as a speaker but nauseated a lot of people. Valerie Amos
⁵¹
took her job. The main thing the politicos were on to was any input GB had. She said on TV that she had discussed her position with GB which begged
the perfectly fair question, why he hadn’t mentioned that to TB. We were going through a pretty vulnerable phase. GB, euro, reform, rebellion, Iraq.

Al-Qaeda bombings in Riyadh [Saudi Arabia, thirty-five killed] which were pretty massive. I spoke to John Sawers through the day about ORHA. He was due to have dinner with Paul Bremer and I suggested that he proposed to Bremer that we send a UK team to support their media operation. The papers were needless to say full of Short but the commentariat wasn’t greatly in favour of her. I felt CS herself was not so damaging but the GB resonance was and there was a bit of focus on why he hadn’t alerted TB to what was going on. We were trying to persuade TB that he did have to do more to get back in with those parts of the party drifting off, but he was more and more determined that reform was really all that mattered. The BBC called me out of the blue to ask if I would do a documentary on Paula Radcliffe [world record-holding marathon runner]. I obviously couldn’t do it now, but it underlined again that I wouldn’t be short of offers of work if I left.

Sawers called me after his meeting with Bremer who had asked if I could go out there and help set up the new system I was proposing. Lunch with Piers Morgan. We met at the Savoy Grill. He was in appeasing mood, said he had ballsed up the war, had lost 60,000 readers through that, 120,000 to the price war and he accepted he had fucked up. He knew he wasn’t in a strong position with us but said he wanted to come back in a bit, needed to get rid of [John] Pilger [journalist and polemicist], cut down on [Paul] Routledge [columnist], stop whacking CB, get back to being more positive on the domestic agenda. He denied there was a pro-GB agenda at the
Mirror
. He viewed TB as a formidable politician who won things through argument. He was sure that if ever it did go to a TB/GB war, TB would win and the
Mirror
would be on our side. Back for a meeting on the Olympics. I sensed we were moving in the yes direction. I had a chat with Sally who said TB didn’t believe that I would go, so if it was serious, I maybe ought to have the conversation again.

Alison [Blackshaw] spent much of the day trying to sort flights to Iraq while I was talking to John Sawers, then a series of meetings and conference calls on what we needed to do if I got out there. I was starting to ask some of our people, like Simon Wren [MoD] and
Darren [Murphy], if they would go to Baghdad. I got the sense that with Bremer there to replace Garner there was the chance to move in properly, though everyone agreed it would not be a good story if I actually went out and ran it.

TB was still thrashing out the euro with GB. He wasn’t at all happy with the process and nor were we, but it was about all we had. Charles C had a bit of a rough time at the PLP because MPs felt the Tories were on to something re tuition fees. Fiona had a face like thunder when I told her I might have to go to Iraq. Then a problem with the Olympics. Yesterday we were clear that we had sorted out the answers to all the financial questions we needed to be clear about for now, but today GB told Tessa that it was definitively not sorted. Both Andy Marr and Martha Kearney [BBC] were chasing me on the euro. Then Simon Buckby [pro-euro campaigner] called me at 9.30 to say the BBC were getting him on to respond to a report by Marr that the assessment had happened, it was negative and it was definitely not happening this parliament. This was clearly the next stage of the bounce. I called TB who said I should call Marr and say he could end up with egg on his face if he was definitive about this parliament.

Andy said he had been briefed by someone with ‘iron authority’, which I assume was his way of saying it was GB. GB denied briefing Marr. I put in a call for Ed Balls who came back just as the bulletin began. He was on a train. He said unless GB was a kamikaze pilot there was no way they would do this the day before a Cabinet meeting that was already going to be difficult. He was adamant that neither he nor GB had spoken to Marr. I said Andy could not have done a story so definitively unless it was one of us four, or Jeremy or Jonathan. I knew it wasn’t me or TB and I didn’t for one second think it would be Jeremy or Jonathan, both of whom were in a state of outrage.

The upshot was that I was taking calls till well past midnight. The best line we could deploy was that a very small number of people knew what would be presented to Cabinet tomorrow, Marr was not one of them and whatever he said the final position was not decided. TB felt GB was worried at the moment. He knew that Clare had damaged TB, but felt she damaged GB too. ‘If this thing ever was pushed to a contest, the fact is I would win. People would not want him if he was trying to force me out. He also knows now that if I wanted to, I could get rid of him and I’ve decided unless he starts being more co-operative and more supportive, I will do that.’ He sounded pretty steely. When I finally got to bed, the phone went again and it was TB again, saying he was sorry I had been kept up late.

The euro stuff was not taking off in the press, but it was still leading the BBC and we had to get ourselves in a better position. TB came down from the flat and after the usual bound down the corridor, we got into his office, sat down, in the armchairs, and he looked really fed up. I asked him what was wrong. He said he and GB were in a different league to the rest of the Cabinet as politicians, and GB was the only one who got anywhere near him in terms of ability, which was why he still felt he had to be next. But he couldn’t see a way out at the moment. He felt if they fell out terminally, and he felt he had to get rid of him, that was the nuclear option. ‘I would probably be left standing but there would be plenty of big holes in the floor around me and the party would be damaged for quite a while.’ He sat down at one point with a pad and made a joke of it, saying let’s do the pros and cons.

Cabinet was going to be tricky. Jeremy had worked out a stage-by-stage process. They had to have a sense of involvement in the process. So we would give them the eighteen documents, and follow it with a series of trilaterals with TB and GB, followed by another Cabinet and finally TB’s statement to Parliament. JP and GB came over and we signed them up to the process. TB believed that GB now thought that if he didn’t do what he wanted on the euro, he was prepared to move him. He said he would still be a pain in the arse at the FCO but he couldn’t do as much damage there. They had another one-on-one after which TB claimed GB was on the same pitch, but we doubted it.

Into Cabinet. First FBU/troops, then Iraq/MEPP, then TB set out the process on the euro and you could sense the relief round the table. He said that everyone within the Cabinet would be engaged in this discussion and whatever the press briefings coming out, he said the final decision had not been made. A number said explicitly how pleased they were at the process. It meant TB was wrestling back some of the control in this, though GB couldn’t resist saying there would also be meetings of the economic affairs subcommittee. TB said there would be another full Cabinet on June 5 or 6 and his statement would probably be on June 9. He urged them to ignore anything they heard in the media until this process was through. TB chaired the discussion well.

Then on to the Olympics decision. TB set out the basic case, Tessa the process and also the need to learn lessons from the [Millennium] Dome and Wembley [Stadium]. JP said everyone had to support it if a yes decision was taken, that there could be no mixed messages.
Both Blunkett and Straw, then McCartney, said what a huge benefit it had been to Manchester to host a successful Commonwealth Games. GB then said, in a pretty barbed way, that it was important the business community get the message that things will be asked of them. We had agreed that JP would do the media at lunchtime on the euro. JP went through to see GB at Number 11 and shortly afterwards Joan Hammell [Prescott’s special adviser] came out and asked me to join them. We went over what JP would say, then GB said to me ‘Where do you think the BBC story came from?’ Before I could answer, he said it was not him or Ed – ‘I absolutely guarantee you.’

I did a note to John Sawers on what we could offer Bremer, and on what approach I should take. I had another long chat with [Margaret] Tutwiler who seemingly had delayed her departure by a week in case I went out there. I was really trying to help but practically anything I suggested she would say that they already had it, even if I knew they didn’t. I got the very strong impression she saw me simply as an irritant. Charles Heatley [FCO spokesman in Baghdad] told me that whatever John Sawers said out there, there tended to be an immediate US push back. He also said there was a lot of chatter there about me trying to take over the communications side of things. He felt there was no way I would get them to accept everything we wanted.

Tutwiler gave me a long list of all the things she said were being done, but in the end what mattered was output and in so far as opinions were hardening, they were hardening against us. She was due to be the next undersecretary for [public diplomacy and] public affairs [US State Department] and was going through the approval process, so clearly didn’t want to be seen as part of any failure. Her attitude was ‘we’re not doing perfect but we’re doing OK considering’. John fixed a call with him, me, Bremer and Tutwiler. I did a five-minute pitch, then said I would write him a note overnight on what I felt they needed and what we could offer. I was beginning to think it might be a bad idea actually to go out there, partly because of home, partly because it would be seized on as a big bad story, but most importantly because it did not feel like what the military call a permissive environment.

TB and I had a cup of tea out on the terrace. There was a rumour around that the
Mail
had some big Carole story they were saving up to do damage either during a euro campaign or the next election. TB said he continued to believe she was basically straight and didn’t want to harm them. Sally sensed he was more worried about it than he was letting on to us. GB was now causing grief on the Olympics.
He said to TB ‘Do it anyway, you’ve already made up your mind.’ I saw Les Hinton [News International chairman] and without being absolutely explicit, told him I was thinking about leaving. He started to go over the sorts of things they might ask me to do, columns in the
Sun
and
The Times
, books, speeches, etc. He was the first person outside the immediate circle that I had raised it with, albeit obliquely. The only thing really holding me back was a basic loyalty to TB, my fear that he would be weakened, and GB emboldened if I went.

On the one hand, the papers came out fine for TB with a sense that he was back in control of the process and that the Cabinet was being used to shift to a more pro-euro position. On the other, there was still the sense, e.g.
The Times
and the
Guardian
, that GB was clearly set against a referendum in this parliament. TB called an EMU meeting for 11, just before he left for Chequers. He said we had to correct the impression, by the weekend, that GB was against a referendum in this parliament. I said that was easy enough for me to say to people but I couldn’t deliver what GB said. I suggested that I try to negotiate an agreed statement with Ed. I discussed it with him and with Jeremy and then drafted something. There was a risk of course that it would be seen as protesting too much. I felt we should get TB to echo their usual line – not dogmatic and emphasise the tests – whilst GB should echo ours, namely that he would fight for a yes vote if the tests were met and it was not the case that in principle he was against a referendum in this parliament.

It took an hour or so. When I read it to TB, he was fine. GB came back with a couple of changes that were relatively insignificant, there basically just to clutter it up, but we kept the basic thrust, i.e. unity and a position more subtle than was being ascribed to both. Phil Webster [
Times
], who was usually my first yardstick port of call on tricky issues like this, thought it did the job well. [Trevor] Kavanagh’s response was that it showed GB had seen off TB, a bit odd given that I had written it, and in the end it was probably not one of my greatest triumphs, but further evidence of the dysfunctional nature of their relationship.