The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (112 page)

The BBC were trying to move the goalposts to the ‘dodgy dossier’. Peter M said [Greg] Dyke was personally masterminding it and had written parts of Sambrook’s letter to me himself. Peter said they’d got themselves on a hook, whereby they felt their independence was under attack but they’d parked on very weak ground. I went up to see TB who said he didn’t want it going beyond next week. His rationale was that he didn’t want every single media organisation against him. I said we had to get it absolutely proven that we were right and use that to force a rethink of the political journalism culture. I could see he was up for suing for peace. He/Peter M wanted to get it stitched up in advance.

TB wanted desperately for us to get back on the domestic agenda. At the office meeting we had a decent enough discussion of the plan I put forward. The message he felt most comfortable with was that we were doing things that would make us unpopular in the short term but deliver results in the long term. I still felt we were too short on values. I did a revised version on the next four weeks and resubmitted it later. I talked to a few editors and commentators to try to explain this was about BBC journalism not WMD. Dennis Skinner called on his first day back in Parliament after his illness. He said keep at it. He thought I was brilliant on Channel 4, the MPs were totally behind me and ‘I’ll tell [Andrew] MacKinlay [Labour MP on FAC] he has to back you because TB needs you. I’ll tell him he’s worth ninety-nine Roger Liddles [special adviser] and TB is surrounded by twats whereas AC is fine and probably against the war anyway.’

[Peter] Kilfoyle was the only Labour voice apart from [Bob]
Marshall-Andrews, who I didn’t count as Labour, to be offside. I spent the rest of the day with Clare S, Catherine R and David Bradshaw trying to agree lines re next steps. The BBC guidelines were shot to pieces by this story. Gilligan issued his threat to sue. I had been quoted as saying: If that guy sues, I’m a banana. Tony Parsons [columnist] had a supportive column in the
Mirror
, attacking the Beeb. Ben Bradshaw was piling it on to Sambrook and did a letter to the BBC governors about where guidelines were broken. I had a sense of it motoring. I hoped that Scarlett might send a letter of support to the FAC, or maybe C. The jury still out on Channel 4. I got some good feedback, but both [John] Birt and Scarlett thought it had been a bad idea. Mum phoned and said she had lost half a stone in the last few weeks. A friend from Ayrshire had called her to say the vicar yesterday had said a special prayer for me because I was standing up for truth against lies. Seven-mile run.

Hunting was the main story after the government had to bow to MPs’ pressure and the story was that we were heading for a total ban. Gay marriages [proposed same-sex civil partnerships] were going big. I got good feedback from Peter M, Philip and Jonathan who all felt the forward-plan note I had done was strong.
The Times
had stuff on Dyke being in charge. The
Guardian
said the BBC would offer an apology for what was inaccurate if it was accepted they were justified in the broader context. The
Telegraph
had an Alan Cochrane [Scottish editor] piece pro me, a leader [column] on the fence. There was a vile piece from Hugo Young [
Guardian
] who said the BBC had behaved impeccably. Defending the indefensible.

I sent a letter to Charles Moore [
Telegraph
editor] re his leader. Lots of letters were coming in in support of what I was doing. Nice one from Joe Ashton [Labour MP]. Letter to Dyke re his letter to TB that ‘if we make mistakes we will admit we were wrong and apologise’. The intelligence from the BBC was that they were going to fudge the two dossiers in their response to the FAC report, and say there was sufficient concern re abuse of intelligence to justify the story. Meeting with TB. He asked where it was going. I said Birt told us yesterday – a defeat for BBC. I put to him a plan to use this to isolate small parts of the BBC and the
Mail
as the real cancers in our media. ‘How are we going to get back on to domestic politics?’ TB asked. I said this was part of the answer. We had to change the media dynamic and this was part of it. Get back to honest public service broadcasting, etc. He was not totally against it.

I gave him a plan which I thought would help him get into a better place. One, we get through the FAC. Two, we brief that TB has asked AC to put together a new A team of fresh blood including a new policy head and a replacement for me before I work myself out of the job. Three, I leave but we say I will come back for the election in a different position. He seemed up for that. I said to him that I sometimes felt he hadn’t really defended me properly and I had to do a lot of this myself. Yes, he said, and I’ve let you! He said ‘You’re motoring again, which is good.’ I was clear though I was still going. He said he felt there were two problems with the media and GB, but they were better problems to have than a recession or a national crisis. Re the BBC, Peter M was asking me not to get too heavy with Greg Dyke. Rebekah Wade came to see me and said Murdoch had asked why the
Sun
wasn’t doing the story properly. Research [and Information Unit] was going through the worldwide coverage of it all so that we could show just how far the original story had gone round the world. I had a meeting with David Omand. He said he was worried re Gilligan saying the source was clearly someone fairly high up.

The BBC row was lower in temperature. Then news came from Westminster of a very bloody meeting of the FAC yesterday, the Tories going very political, Richard Ottaway [Conservative MP] saying he wouldn’t endorse anything that exonerates me, [Sir John] Stanley putting down lots of amendments and saying they may do a minority report. It was clear it was going to go line by line and was difficult. Also I didn’t realise Ottaway had replaced [Sir] Patrick Cormack [Conservative MP] who was much more with us on this.

At the PMQs meeting, TB was clearly unhappy with our position on hunting. The PLP really wanted the ban, but TB didn’t. It was tough though. Meeting with John Scarlett and Clare Sumner. John S had agreed with Jack S that Jack would send a note, also cleared by C, that made clear the intelligence for the second dossier was cleared. I argued strongly that it would also help if they said the attacks on me were an attack on their integrity too because it suggested they connived and colluded with me. John was worried, felt that really was him moving the JIC tanks out in front of me. John was being helpful but didn’t want to be political support. Ditto C, who put his name in support of a Straw letter that introduced the thought that if the allegations persisted they were also aimed at the agencies. The MoD were putting out a letter of complaint re Gilligan claims that he
had checked his story with the MoD press office. We were still on top but if the committee split on party lines it was going to be very difficult for us. This was taking up too much of my time.

PMQs was OK. IDS hopeless, [Charles] Kennedy did a bit on me – crap – and then back for a meeting of the Iraq Communications Group. The guy from the DIS was just back from Iraq and said things were getting worse not better. Gerard Russell [Islamic Media Unit, FCO] was really worried about the Arab media operation. I had a meeting with Gavin [Millar, QC, Fiona’s brother]. He said the BBC had broadcast a libel but that I wasn’t named at first. It was the
Mail on Sunday
that did the libel. I could sue the BBC for aggravated libel because of all the other media who supported the story. He felt I could go for Gilligan but though the BBC would not want to litigate he felt the
Mail on Sunday
probably would. He undertook to read all the papers, felt it would be OK but I had to be clear what I was getting into. They could mount a wider defence. On balance he felt probably don’t do it, but the most important thing was to be cleared by the inquiry.

Meeting with Peter M. He was worried it would be really bad for TB/trust if I did not get vindicated. It was not going to be easy and everyone said it was getting tribal. I spoke to [Nicholas] Soames, who said he would defend me and attack the Tories for undermining the intelligence agencies. Peter M felt that we had to get some kind of deal with the BBC, but Gavyn Davies [BBC chairman] had gone into his shell and would do nothing to – allegedly – undermine BBC journalism! Peter M felt I had to get victory without humiliation for the BBC.

The
Guardian
splashed on my memo to the FAC. They did it dead straight, quite helpful to me. Greg Pope [Labour MP, FAC member] decided to confess that he leaked it. I had no idea he was doing it. I thought it was a disaster but Hilary A and Bruce [Grocott] said it would be fine and not to worry. Soames had called me late last night to say he had run into C and asked him straight out if the story against me was true. C said no, and Soames said can I say so? Yes, said C. He was a bit pissed when he phoned and basically said he would do anything to help me, adding ‘Especially if you stop TB using the Parliament Act on hunting.’ He wanted to go on the media, called the
Today
programme and seemingly told them ‘You are dozy, dishonest cunts and I am coming on your programme to say so.’ He was, though, serious that he wanted to go on and make the point that this was an attack on the intelligence agencies as well as on me.
[Andrew] Marr did the interview and was now redefining the allegations as us having given ‘undue prominence’ to the 45-minute point. Total bollocks. C called me after the interview to say he was surprised Soames had gone public, that he thought he meant he was going to speak to Tory MPs on the committee. But he added ‘Secretly, I’m pleased that I’ve been outed.’ I said ‘We will keep your pleasure secret, C.’

Then to a strategy meeting with TB, GB, JP, Douglas Alexander, Ian McCartney and David Triesman. TB said he would give the Cabinet next week a political sitrep and then have a polling and political discussion. JP said we needed a lot more than that, and there followed a positive and good discussion. JP’s main point was that we didn’t do enough to promote what we had done and talk about our values. The party felt itself on the defensive because that’s how we came across to them. GB said we had to think forward to the election, the issues, big choices and values dividing lines, and then think back, then plan from here to then. He felt there was so much focus on reform that we were losing sight of values, that the messages were too technocratic. It was exactly what I had been saying. But TB was worried it was a bit of a JP/GB stitch-up to block some of the reforms. He said if we didn’t have reform we would not be New Labour. We would look like we were running out of steam.

I said I still felt we could put together a clear single strategy based on the establishment of delivery, motivation of the party through values and dividing lines, then the next steps on future reform. What is the point of suddenly launching ID cards or LEAs [local education authorities] reform on an unsuspecting world? The ground work has to be about the values. GB made the point that the stuff running today on Lottery reform was fine, OK on its own, but not remotely strategic. Jonathan felt afterwards it was a hopeless meeting but I felt it gave us the right parameters of a better strategic approach.

Then Cabinet, during which I was only half listening because I was rewriting Pat McF’s draft of TB’s speech for tomorrow [in Liverpool, on public service reform], trying to reassert values and politics. I got a call from Hilary A around 12 to say the committee had agreed the report, with some amendments from [John] Maples [Conservative MP], but [Sir John] Stanley had been seen off. She felt it would be OK on the BBC issue, and that I could say that I was in the right, even if they didn’t want to say that the BBC were in the wrong. So it felt fine and I felt we were back on top. But the BBC reporting then moved either on to the second dossier or whether the select committee system could be fair as it was run by the parties, etc.

Long chat with Peter M re strategy. He felt we should not reveal tactics, keep our powder dry and see what happened. The BBC was panicking according to everyone now. JP came to see me for about an hour, first re politics, saying TB had to stop dropping massive reforms on us that we hadn’t had a chance to think through. He really felt we should get rid of some of his policy people. He also wanted to discuss the plan for him and Pauline [his wife] to come out with Pauline’s child from way back.
⁶⁴
He was a bit nervous but I assured him it was the right thing to do and agreed the plan he had worked up with his kids and Pauline.

TB called a couple of times from the North-West where he was doing a Granada TV special on the NHS. We were mulling over the debate on how to respond to the FAC. Jack S wanted to do a Commons statement, which I didn’t think was very clever. I felt we had to get it all pinned on the BBC story and go for that and that meant it could be better that I did the media on the day. There was of course a worry that if I did it, the story would become me/spin rather than HMG.

Off to [broadcaster] David Frost’s party, people generally supportive, including Frost. I avoided Dyke and Davies. I had a good chat with [General Sir] Mike Jackson who wanted me to kill Gilligan. At the Hillary Clinton book launch at the Orangery [Kensington Palace], Jim Naughtie [BBC
Today
programme presenter] was urging me not to do a big attack on the BBC generally, saying it was not the majority view that we were anti war, etc. I said I had a very good case in having a go at them. Chatted with Bill and Hillary Clinton a bit, both still very supportive. It was a nice enough evening but I was getting very down at Fiona’s constant portrayal of me as having brought all these problems on myself. Peter M called to say BBC were trying to shift the terms of the story in all their reports and we had to lodge that.

Got Ben Bradshaw to do another letter to Sambrook pointing out how they were changing their story, and at the 11 Godric did the same, also pointing out that Hoon had been refused an appearance on the
Today
programme. I spoke to Robert Jackson [Conservative MP who later defected to Labour] who had called saying he wanted to help. We eventually agreed he would do an article for the
Sunday Telegraph
, getting out the line that I was not totally opposed to the BBC but to this strain of reporting that was anti politics and anti public life. I had a series of long chats through the day with TB and Jack re how
to handle Monday. JS wanted a Commons statement. I said it was crazy because it put the onus on the Tories rather than us. I said we had to get it all on to the BBC/forty-five minutes.