The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (24 page)

Peter was in full flow, vivid, and I sometimes felt he had a photographic memory for these key moments and his key relationships. He said he told GB he didn’t believe it was like that, pointed out ‘You have to remember Alastair is different to us, he would happily walk away from politics, he has a different life he can lead, family, money to make beyond our dreams, he never chose this path, he was pursued, we poached him and a large part of him didn’t want it.’ Then Peter spoke as GB again. ‘Yes, but once he chose it, he wanted to be number one and he’s done it by getting rid of you at a time TB and I are seen as rivals.’ Even aiming off for possible exaggeration, and I’m not sure there was that much, I was mildly shocked. Peter claimed he had remained supportive of me and said it was all too obvious that GB was just trying to use the circumstances of the time to get Peter to move in his favour. He said that TB was in a different class as a
politician ‘I love his deviousness, his selfishness, the way he is able to turn everything to his own advantage. His genius as a politician is his understanding of people, but also the fact that he is totally selfish and people either don’t see it or if they do, they don’t seem to mind because of what he brings to them and the job.’

I reminded him of the time TB had told us that Labour governments always foundered on issues of ego and personality, and that we had to be different. I agreed with his car-crash analysis, felt that if it hadn’t been him, we would have handled it differently, felt that we both made mistakes. I felt sad that he was out of things, and sad that I had played a part in that. He was right that I could probably walk away. He wasn’t able to, yet had had to. Despite it all, we were still able to talk openly and I still considered him to be a friend whose judgement I value. We went out, and stood there, in the middle of Carnaby Street, with a couple of bodyguards, passers-by shooting the occasional odd look and Peter said ‘Happy Christmas. I had better do some shopping.’ And off he went.

The conference call was all one hundred days, then we did a selective briefing for the broadsheets and the BBC, really greasing up Putin. Then a meeting with Crozier and Davies from the FA after yesterday’s fiasco. They wanted assurances we were still up for it and they wanted me to persuade Tessa to put out something more supportive. I pointed out that politically we had to be very careful to cover our backs re the James report and anything else that may emerge. They also had to understand the political considerations concerning Birmingham missing out on a major national project. Crozier seemed a nice enough bloke, a bit looking after number one maybe, a bit pushy. I reported to Tessa that they felt there were senior people in DCMS [Department of Culture, Media and Sport] really trying to kill off the project. Tessa seemed keen on the idea of the stadium, but not keen on the FA, and she wasn’t keen on pushing the boat out.

Peter had given me a lot of food for thought. It was, as he said, crazy that he wasn’t in government. We weren’t exactly blessed with A-league ministers. He pointed out that he may have made mistakes on the personal front, but he never fucked up on policy and he always gave real direction to whatever department he was in. It was true. All the departments he worked in said the same. He could make decisions, and he could run things. I tried to work out whether he had gone second time around because it was him, or because of what our media operation and media relations had become, and his role in that. In a way, the strength he had brought to the modernisation of our media relations was what made him the bogey figure he was,
and that status plus baggage was what made us turn a mistake into something far bigger. It was the same reason so many in the media felt about me as they did. He also seemed more resigned to things. He believed that the new papers he had discovered for Hammond to look at showed that he was done in. But he had no desire to push it, felt it would only be worth it if it led to a change of attitude by the public and that would only come about if TB and I said that it changed things materially. And neither of us would want to do that because the world had moved on.

I was struck by how much he, and from his reported comments GB, believed I meant to TB, far more than I felt myself. He had said that both he and GB felt I was by far the closest, that he felt hurt because we had been such close friends, not so close any more, whilst GB just hated me and feared me in equal measure and saw me as someone that had to be dealt with. He really enjoyed the story of my row with GB during the election with Bob Shrum [Brown’s polling adviser] trying to calm things. He was making enough money and travelling a lot but when he listed the countries he was due to be visiting, he said ‘I’m busy, but it’s no life.’ He also wanted to dispute my line, which he had heard me say more than once, that he had dumped his old friends for a new rich set. He said he found his life very lonely at times and people like Carla Powell [socialite, wife of former Thatcher adviser Charles] gave him friendship and support and also a lot of fun that was missing a lot of the time.

I watched him wander off before going to do a bit of shopping of my own. In some ways, we’d grown apart, but I felt that between us we’d given something to TB, and the party, that really mattered, and that meant there would always be a bond there. I talked to Philip, and Grace [Gould], who was listening to the conversation, said she thought we would always be working together in some shape or form.

[Vladimir] Putin was coming over. TB was up north and flew back. I went down [to Chequers] to meet him so that we could prepare a proper script before Putin arrived. The only real announcement was a bilateral working group on terrorism, and the main interest anyway was Afghanistan. The trail for OBL seemed to have gone cold and that was casting a cloud over the whole scene. But we had the inauguration of a new administration in Kabul to look forward to tomorrow, and today the first Marines arriving there, so the media backdrop of the TB/VP press conference was OK. The MMR issue
[questions over whether the Blairs had chosen the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination for baby Leo] was going from bad to worse, and in addition Fiona, Hilary [Coffman] and Magi [Cleaver] were trying to work out how to handle the Egypt holiday. Fiona had done a brilliant job getting CB in the right place with the public, and could see it being undone. She feared a combination of yet another fancy holiday, with questions over who pays, and MMR, could produce a bit of a tipping point.

The Putin meeting was largely Afghanistan, also Russia/NATO, a lot of it just the two of them. We were definitely more confident. Tucker [Eskew] had given me a baseball cap for Christmas with the words ‘Media scum’ on it, which I showed to Putin. TB said ‘Don’t encourage him’ I think talking to VP about me rather than the other way around. The press conference at RAF Halton was fine, pretty low-key, but it looked good and the co-operation and warmth was strong. There was some interest in the terrorism issue. I went back for the office [Christmas] dinner but Hilary and I were still dealing with MMR. I did a little speech thanking them all, saying they were the best possible team, but afterwards admitted to Godric I felt we were coasting a bit and needed to up our game in the New Year, especially on story development and narrative.

Up early to head for Burnley vs Millwall. The new administration in Kabul was leading the news all day. But I spent a lot of the journey dealing with MMR. We had got ourselves into a bit of a mess on this. We had had to hold a privacy line, and I did feel that it was the thin end of the wedge, that every time they had to do something like this with the kids, it became a big media thing. But the reality was that the doubt was being used to fuel doubt about the safety of the vaccine, with potential serious knock-on effects, which would be a lot worse if it emerged Leo hadn’t had it. I spoke to TB, and we agreed that we should emphasise both of them supported the policy one hundred per cent but they didn’t see why they had to talk about their children. I went a bit further with some of them, dropping a very strong hint in the hope they wrote it as fact without attribution.

Through the day, this took up the time and energies of Fiona, Hilary, Tom [Kelly], John Shields [press officer] and me, all dealing with it because of Cherie’s views, and TB’s disengagement. He was just angry, said it was monstrous that the press could get into the family like this, and it was, but we had to deal with it. I said to Tom we should
put out a statement from TB making it clear he was pro MMR vaccine but if he commented on whether his child had taken part in one government medical campaign, he would be expected to do them all. It was all running pretty big by the time we finally got the words out. I spent the whole of half-time dealing with [Lord] Wakeham, and after a crap match [0–0], most of the journey home trying to get the press in a better place on it. Once it also came out they were spending $10,000 on a few days’ holiday in Egypt, we would be in major out-of-touch land.

TB’s statement was being seen as a hint that Leo had the jab, though they were still saying we would neither confirm nor deny. Frank Dobson [former Health Secretary] called, and agreed, which was good of him, to take up the bids he was getting, and was on the robust end of the market re their privacy, also saying TB and CB clearly backed the policy. This was beginning to do us quite a bit of damage. The big story was a Brit caught on a US plane with explosives in his shoes.
⁴²
I went for a massage and bumped into Rachel Stevens of S Club 7 [pop group], so got Grace to come over and she was incredibly nice to her, called us in while she was having a pedicure, her jeans rolled up and her tiny feet in a bowl of weird-looking stuff. She was so nice to Grace.

I worked on TB’s New Year message, euro, public services, commentary on the war. TB called as he left for the airport en route to Egypt. He said he knew he would take a hit, he was desperate for a break and said he intended to come back firing on all cylinders. I had been approached by a TV company asking me to make a film on a year in the life of Burnley if we got promoted. Fiona was really pressing me to go for it. It was tempting but only as a halfway exit, not a real alternative.

Jeremy [Heywood] sent through some good suggestions and additions [to the New Year message] on public services. TB changed the euro section, but otherwise it was fine. We agreed to get it out for the 30th,
ahead of the honours briefing. The problem with the MMR issue was that it was such an obvious and easy talking point and people sensed the vulnerability.

I went up with Calum and Rory to Mum and Dad’s. Fiona called saying Cherie had been on to say she had got a message that GB and Sarah [his wife] had had a baby [Jennifer Jane, born seven weeks early, weighing 2 lb 4 oz]. We had known nothing about it so I had to get Anne Shevas to track down Ian Austin so that we had a line ready when all the calls started. There’s no doubt it would give GB an added positive dimension. There was already around the place a feeling that he was the real character of the government, and this would show that in a way.

GB did a doorstep, looking pretty happy and human. TB’s New Year message went fine, the odd splash, a few page leads, not massive. I wasn’t convinced these New Year messages were worth the effort.

I took Rory to Man U vs Fulham. Saw Alex [Ferguson, Manchester United manager] beforehand. Clearly thinking about staying another year. JP was on, pissed off, felt he wasn’t getting proper support, e.g. before his
Today
programme interview. I sometimes wished politics could just all shut down during these holiday periods. I put in a couple of calls to get him where he needed to be. We went for dinner at the Milibands [David and Louise]. Lots of chat re GB. The baby would hopefully do him some good. I gave them a cut-down version of Peter M’s account [
see December 20
]. David seemed pretty shocked too.

TB called to wish us a happy New Year, and also tell us what a great time he was having. I did my best to tell him it was cold and miserable and the country was falling apart. It seemed from the way he was talking about [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak, his sons, Egypt generally that he assumed he was being bugged. He was relieved the NHS annual crisis had not materialised, though I told him rail [safety] was running as a pretty big problem. He said he felt ready for the fray, public services and Europe were what really mattered and there
had to be absolute focus on them. Kenton Keith was in town and came to see me at home at 3pm. Kenton was a lovely guy, but I think his way of dealing with the obvious tensions between the different parts of the US operation, and the scale of some of the issues we were talking about, was to retreat a little bit. He was due to leave, said he had enjoyed it, felt they had made a difference, in large part thanks to the people we sent. He felt the White House never really understood the need for Islamabad [CIC], and he was pretty scathing about Karen [Hughes]. He was intending to write a book and it would make clear she was only really interested in Bush’s re-election, that there was no real understanding of the need for a broader approach on foreign policy and public diplomacy. The tensions between Pakistan and India [military standoff including movement of troops and missiles to borders] were dominating the serious news, and getting very difficult.

¹
Offices of the Downing Street secretarial support

²
Blair told trade union delegates ‘This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world today. It is perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life and we, the democracies of this world, are going to have to come together to fight it together and eradicate this evil completely from our world.’

³
The committee intended to lead responses to national crises; named after the Cabinet Office Briefing Room.