The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (122 page)

I felt OK but reckoned I had now averaged three hours’ sleep a night since I got that wretched letter re my diaries. I was going to have to rely on a mix of real preparation, nerve and adrenaline to get me through. TB was working on his own witness statement and remained
confident. Catherine R had collated all the various comments from departments about the diaries, and the requests for further redactions from some, including TB. She and I then did a conference call with Sumption, and went through them all. Some he accepted but the bulk he didn’t, and he was absolutely clear he was not taking something out just because the prime minister wanted it. Jonathan [Powell] was back to give evidence, and I got the feeling he had very deliberately not allowed it to ruin his holiday. The downside meant he was not terribly well prepared and I was worried he was a bit cavalier.

He had also grown his usual summer holiday beard and I was urging him to shave it off as it looked a bit ragged. Hutton did not strike me as a beard man. But Jonathan was adamant he was not changing anything just because he had been dragged back for this. He was nervous though, as was I. I noticed at one point a slight shake in his hand, and when the two of us were alone, without the lawyers and researchers around, he let the front down a bit and seemed really quite anxious. He went off and by all accounts did fine, though he rather dropped Tom Baldwin [
Times
] in it by indicating that Baldwin was the one who briefed me re the Sambrook lunch. I said I would have to find a way of rebutting when I gave evidence tomorrow.

Stephen Parkinson [government lawyer] came back with Jonathan and then sat down with me for a really helpful, but quite gruelling, Q&A session. I felt by now that I had every word and every argument just about right, and there were no questions I absolutely dreaded. I felt on top of the facts. It was still not clear how the judge or the QC [James Dingemans, senior counsel to the inquiry] intended to use my diaries which was still a bit of a worry. But there too, I felt confident I could defend myself, even though there was the odd embarrassment or difficulty in there. I was getting a lot of Good Luck messages coming through, and there was definitely the sense on the media that after TB, I was the one they were really waiting for. In fact for some of them, I was a tastier target than he is, because the thing was coming over now as being about government vs media. I was impressed by Parkinson, very calm, very clear, tested my answers well.

I was getting lots of advice, not least from TB, re how to deport myself. Always answer the question, not the question you want to answer. Make your answers short answers. Do not waffle or lecture. Don’t be worried about pausing, or asking for time to reflect. If you cannot remember, say so. Call him ‘My Lord’ regularly. Look at him even if he is not looking at you. Be polite to all the lawyers. Above all, do not get riled. I remembered him saying the same thing before
the [Rupert] Allason trial. ‘And you won,’ said TB. Yes, but not before the fucking judge gave me a sideswipe.
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I called John Scarlett and made sure he was OK about the various references to him. He said he was fine. It must be dreadful for someone whose entire life has been about secrets, and dependent on staying low profile, now to be so out there in the public domain. He said he wouldn’t have wanted it that way but he was sure we had done nothing wrong and it was important we were vindicated. He wished me luck. I said when the lawyer or whoever first uttered the words ‘your diary’, the press would get out their todgers and have a great collective wank. I went out for a quiet dinner with Gavin [Fiona’s brother], Alan Maclean, Clare and Catherine. By the end we were the only people in the restaurant and we had a good laugh, but I was now as nervous as hell. The Number 10 staff had made me up a bed in John Birt’s old office. It was fine, but slightly surreal. I got a message that there were people queuing outside the court [Royal Courts of Justice] overnight to try to get in. The thing had become a bloody circus.

I woke up to the sound of Big Ben. I heard four chimes but looked at my watch, and saw it was 5. I knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep. It was so quiet now. I thought of Fiona and the kids asleep in Puyméras. I thought of Mum and Dad, and wondered whether Dad would see out the year. I thought of all the people who had been such a help in recent weeks. I thought about Mrs Kelly, really wished I knew what she really thought about all this. I was nervous but I had gone over everything fully, I was confident there wasn’t a single difficult question we hadn’t thought of, and I was confident my answers would withstand questioning. I scribbled a few thoughts – push hard on the dossier, express depth of anger at the BBC without getting angry, admit I wanted Kelly’s name out, but emphasise I did nothing to make it happen.

I got up and went to TB’s gym for a run on the treadmill. I just wanted to work up a sweat, without getting too tired, so ran for twenty minutes. I went down to the press office. The TVs were on and on both news channels there were people outside my house
saying they were expecting me to leave any minute. I called Audrey, who was so proud of herself that we’d managed to go through the whole three days without any of them seeing me. There were snappers covering every exit from Number 10. I had a shower and got dressed in the office and as I came out the first person I bumped into was Bill [Wells] the messenger, who had also been the first person to wish me luck on the day of my FAC appearance. There was something wonderfully Dickensian about Bill. The conspiratorial wink, the little smile that was always there, the walk that wasn’t so much a walk as a shuffle. He said to me ‘Whatever happens, whatever anyone says about you, you’re a good man and that’s a fact.’ I found it very comforting. I felt almost that it was a positive omen of some sort, he having lodged in my mind from the FAC day too. Everyone was supportive. Bill making tea, Felicity [Hatfield, secretary] making toast, Alison sorting my flight to Marseilles, Catherine R and Clare S coming in, their arms as ever full of huge, perfectly ordered files and folders, just going over the same old Q&A material.

Adam Chapman and Alan Maclean arrived. Alan had unsettled me a little at dinner when he said that my diary extract re ‘we didn’t do it ourselves’ [’We agreed that we should not do it ourselves’, July 9], could be read as saying we got others to do it. We went over how to deal with that. He knew it was innocently meant but said it was the one part he would zone in on if he was looking for a bit of a forensic challenge. Finally we left. Dave Borritt [Number 10 driver] drove us down there. I didn’t want to arrive with an entourage so CR, CS and Alan got out early and went ahead. I drove up as close as we could get to the court entrance.

The demos were far bigger than we had been led to believe but I was glad we had turned down the chance of going in the back. I walked straight through. They were shouting and screaming, some through loudhailers, but I had got the blinkers on, got into my best Roy Keane mode and just walked on, Adam at my side. There was a bank of cameras to the right, and I ignored them too. I caught sight of the odd placard, one saying ‘Ban the Campbell, ban the bomb’. I reached the door and CR looked like she was crying. I was taken by the cops and an usher to a little room upstairs. Within seconds, text messages were coming in. It had clearly gone out live. ‘Entrance the stuff of legend’ from Martin Sheehan. The court official said she had never known anything like it. People had been queuing since 1 to get into the marquee. She said there were journalists in there from all over the world. I bumped into Harry Arnold [ex-
Mirror
colleague] on the stairs. Another lucky omen. I looked out of the window and saw
a group of journalists I knew. It dawned on me that the little group was made up of people I actually liked. Another one.

I was feeling OK. I was pacing up and down this tiny little room, making a few black-humour jokes about executions, drinking tea, when someone from James Dingemans’ team came to see me. He said that Dingemans intended to refer to my diaries but not read from them. He would refer to them in questioning and if I wanted to read from them, I could, or I could paraphrase. I was fine with that. I was taken through by the usher, who was really looking after me. There were dozens of hacks around and I made a point of not looking at any of them, not letting any of them catch my eye, just talking to the usher and getting to my seat. Once I was there, I looked around at the lawyers, all chatting away to each other, and the people in front of the judge’s bench, including a beautiful young woman just a few feet from me. She smiled really warmly and I smiled back and decided whenever I felt my hackles rise I would just look at her.

Hutton came in, everyone stood until he had settled himself, and away we went. Dingemans went through things very carefully and methodically. After the first couple of answers, I felt I was OK and that I just had to relax now and rely on my knowledge of the detail of everything. Listen to the question. Answer it. I had the file in front of me but I was really relying on the short list of points I had made to myself, and also the witness statement. We focused on the dossier right up to lunchtime. Hutton came in at several points and it took me a while to work out that didn’t necessarily mean he was probing or trying to catch me out. On the contrary, on one occasion it finally dawned on me that if I looked at my diary extracts I would see the answer I was searching for. Dingemans was very clear and polite and helped my nerves settle quickly. I later thanked him for handling the diaries so sensitively. There were a few lighter moments, e.g. when I said [press officer] Danny Pruce’s comments were above his pay grade, or that I didn’t always respond to Jonathan’s emails, and when I said at one point TB’s comments were not taken on board. But I felt totally confident on the dossier and the overall impression was surely one of very good working co-operation with the spooks.

On the BBC again I felt Dingemans was fair in the way he took me through the correspondence with Sambrook. Here I think it helped that Hutton had my diaries because he had the full picture about the reasons for my rising anger and frustration. It was also clear that this was not some rampage for myself but for TB and the government. On Kelly, I felt comfortable with what I was saying. I was clear and
straightforward, said it would have been much better if we had been clearer at the start rather than put in place a process that allowed the press to control when he was identified. I said in a way I was pushed to the margins of that decision and so did not really say, in the way I normally would perhaps, what I thought, because others involved may think I had a clear vested interest. Hutton was interested in why we didn’t just batten down the hatches, why did he have to appear at the committee, to which I said it was inevitable and it would have been better if we had all faced up to that at the start.

By the time we broke for lunch I felt I was in good shape. The lawyers and CR/CS came to see me and said the tone was spot on, just keep going as you are. I had a coffee and a sandwich with CR and CS and was now worrying that my evidence would take us into another day. But we whizzed through the second half of my statement and the second session wound up fairly quickly and I could head back to France. There was an interesting moment when Dingemans, referring to a point in the diary where I said Gilligan would be fucked [July 4], where I answered in a way designed to convey the meaning without using the word, and I could see a little smile at the corner of Hutton’s mouth. So he didn’t mind the occasional in-joke. I felt that he and Dingemans had both been fair. However, they hadn’t raised the admission I had thought about briefing the press (re Kelly’s name) before TB appeared at the Liaison Committee. That meant when Godric got in there tomorrow, it was a problem for us. At least it was there in my statement, so it would not be news to the judge, but it would be new to the media. I felt it went OK and that was what all the talking heads seemed to be saying by the time I got back to the office.

There was a very warm reception as I got back in. I felt pretty tired and was desperate to get back to the family. I saw Tom and Godric before I left for Gatwick. I think my doing well had given them a bit of confidence too. I said the most important thing was to remember it is not a lobby briefing. They are not out to get you. Unlike the lobby, they actually want the truth. The only dramatic moment had been when they showed me an email that Gilligan had sent to David Chidgey [Liberal Democrat MP] re Kelly which I said was ‘unbelievable’.
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Dingemans said ‘Don’t make a speech on that,’ but the fact the BBC had not disclosed this meant Gilligan was in big trouble now.

When I was on the train, TB called. He said everyone seemed to think I had been the perfect witness. He said that after the initial panic – in which I had shared in spades – the diaries had actually worked in our favour. He said he had said a prayer for me this morning. So had Cherie, who sent me a note saying well done, and how sad she felt that she and Fiona had fallen out, and was there anything she could do? TB said he felt confident re the outcome. He also felt Geoff Hoon would be OK too. He had been reading up more of the background from the inquiry so far. Hutton would not be impressed by the way the BBC handled it all. He would probably also think Kelly was a bit at fault – something I had picked up from the judge as well. TB had felt throughout that the fact I lost it at times was OK, in that the judge would see why, because he would understand the seriousness of the allegations against me, when maybe those who made them did not. I had lost count of how many times TB had called in recent days, particularly about the diaries and his worries about Sumption’s strategy. He now accepted it had been the right strategy. I had been totally open. Sumption had redacted parts he thought irrelevant to the inquiry. But when we had finally handed them in on Monday at 5pm, nobody could say we were not being open. They had been gentle with me in the way they questioned me on them. There had been no reference to my bad language and only the phrase ‘plea bargain’ was specifically picked out.