The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (32 page)

I spoke to TB again after his press conference in Senegal. I suggested he advise the Queen that she needs to be seen, because that would attract support and also crowds, albeit nothing like on the scale of Diana’s death. ‘How can I advise her to do that?’ I said just say the country needs to see she’s OK and bearing up. They want to find a way of expressing sympathy for her. He also needed to make sure they were aggressive in dealing with any media attempts to make Diana comparisons as a way of reflecting on the Queen. Burnley 1, Barnsley 1.

The only political story running out of the Sundays was the
Sunday Telegraph
reheat of the
Western Mail
/Plaid [Cymru] story on [Indian industrialist Lakshmi] Mittal’s donation [£125,000] to the Labour Party. The donation seemingly came a few weeks before TB wrote to the
PM of Romania [Adrian Năstase] to welcome a deal with a Mittal company, which was basically Dutch rather than UK. Our line was that this was something done following a request by our ambassador, but it was clear this was going to be the next media frenzy to deal with. I took Rory to his mini-marathon heats, which he won easily, then to Charlton vs Man U. We met up with Alex F pre match. Rory was loving it, down the tunnel as the players warmed up, Alex talking to him about why he was picking the team he did. There was a minute’s silence for Margaret, well observed. Janvrin called to get my take on how I thought things were. I felt fine, but still thought there should be more focus on the Queen if she was up to it at all. Rory Bremner [TV satirist and impressionist] had a sketch on ‘me’ telling ‘TB’ why I wasn’t going to Africa.

The Mittal situation was tricky.
¹⁵
Jonathan had been through all the papers and realised that he (Jonathan) had advised against doing anything on the grounds that Mittal was a known Labour donor and supporter. For some reason that did not appear to have been communicated to TB and the letter as prepared was put in his correspondence folder. It meant we could stick to the line that he had merely done something as asked by our ambassador for sound reasons to do with his assessment of Anglo-Romanian relations, no big deal unless people were determined to make it so in retrospect. TB was totally dismissive of the whole thing, saw nothing wrong with it at all. I said it was a bit odd that he was writing letters to the Romanian PM about what was in the end a Dutch deal, even if Mittal ran the company. He found it bizarre, as did Jonathan and I, that he did not see the point made by Jonathan – rightly in my view – but even so he was clear we just had to ride it out and tell them to get stuffed.

I went over to the DTI for a meeting re the Post Office. Pat [Hewitt, Trade and Industry Secretary] didn’t seem totally on top of it. We had allowed the debate to develop in a way that suggested the Post Office was a public service on a par with health and education, so the idea the country was ready for what would be seen as privatisation by a Labour government was self-kidology. The timing was tough and the Dutch were going to be the bigger party. Weird that the two tricky
issues I was dealing with involved the Dutch. Back for a meeting with TB and Alan M on health communications. TB felt we just were not getting over the reality of the progress being made and we were not getting over the scale of reform planned or required. There was a conflict though between a message that said ‘things going well’ and one which said ‘lots more to do’. The
Guardian
splashed on how GB was going to ‘stand up to Europe’ on the Stability Pact [safeguarding fiscal discipline of EMU], and warn they would not get in the way of our plans for investment in public services. It was a classic piece of GB spinology, a phoney row if ever there was one, launched without our knowledge, but one we would have to row in behind.

Brian Groom [
FT
] called to ask whether it was true that there had been an earlier draft of TB’s Mittal letter which referred to ‘my friend’, and that the reference to ‘friend’ had been deleted. It transpired that there had, and that Michael Tatham [private secretary, foreign affairs] had – again, rightly – deleted it. This was getting a bit weird and was obviously being briefed out by someone. So our line that TB had not changed the draft was true. But it wasn’t true to say that ‘we’ had not changed it. TB was adamant we should not engage, not get into drafts, simply say TB signed the letter as requested, end of story. I suggested we get our man in Bucharest [UK ambassador Richard Ralph] to write a letter to
The Times
explaining why he had wanted to get the TB letter but though he was keen Jack and, even more so, Michael Jay were less so. I had a meeting with the Northern group of [Labour] MPs at 5, and there was something really sad in seeing Peter M there as just another back-bench MP [for Hartlepool] listening to me blather on about the message and the machinery. David M [Miliband, Labour MP for South Shields] was there too, and seemed to be getting on fine with the real Northerners.

I then got back to learn Jonathan had spoken to Jack in Istanbul, and then to Michael Jay, who were adamant it would be bad for the diplomatic service if an ambassador was personally placed at the centre of a diplomatic controversy. I called Michael and said, jokily at first, that he mustn’t feel got at by the right-wing campaigning elements in the press, and whatever happened to the great FCO, scared of nobody? He said he was totally against doing this, because it put an ambassador right at the heart of it. I said he was already, and there were plenty of situations down the years where others had been. I said it would help him and it would help us. He was adamant though. I was impressed at the way he stood up to me, if unpersuaded
by the reasons. I suspected they just felt a bit beleaguered and said as much to Jack when he called. He said no, it wasn’t that. It was simply that they felt they should protect a member of the service.

As TB came back from the Palace [Royal Audience], I told him the
Guardian
were on to the fact Mittal had been at [Labour fund-raiser] Michael Levy’s party for high-value donors on June 24. Again, he was totally dismissive, and said I needed to stop giving off worried vibes about it. His mix of bluster and head in the sand was really irritating. He was irritated when I said so, said he was not prepared to take this seriously, it was a fuss over nothing and we should not be getting our knickers in a twist. I said my knickers were not in a twist but it was a frenzy and we had to have answers to questions even if we thought the questions were ludicrous. He would not be able to dismiss it in the House. He would have to answer questions on it.

I was in early, and up to see TB in the flat. It was dark up there and he seemed a bit down. He asked me if I was depressed. I said yes. Clinically I mean, he said. I said I think so. He said my problem was I was agonising – stay or go. He felt I would hate it if I went, no matter how much I sometimes hated it now. I needed to see the press as the inevitable downside of a job that had a huge upside, namely doing an important job and being part of a huge process of change for the country. He came back to the theme over at the House pre PMQs, said I should remember what Leon Brittan [former Conservative Cabinet minister] said about leaving power, leaving powerful jobs – for a year you feel better, eased of pressure, able to do normal things, but then you realise what you miss, the ability to make change. He said ‘If I die tomorrow, they would say he was the guy who modernised the Labour Party, made it electable, won two landslides, sorted the economy, improved public services, Bank of England, Kosovo, Northern Ireland. They would barely mention the frenzies we have survived, so always remember the big things, the big reasons why we’re doing it.’

He accepted Mittal was a problem for us, the focus moving to Jonathan’s role as gatekeeper to TB and how that fits with any political or party role. The ticking timebomb that worried me was Mittal’s letter to Levy, and Jonathan’s notes. I was angry with Jack and Jay for their refusal to let Ambassador Ralph set out the case, because I felt it was what our current argument lacked – the reason why it mattered to him. TB looked tired, Jonathan looked nervous. They both hated this kind of thing. We had to decide how heavy TB should get
[at PMQs], and we agreed – heavy. PMQs was not as bad as we feared, because the Tories were not forensic enough, and TB really went for IDS and we avoided the question about whether he or Jonathan knew Mittal was a donor. Back to a press event with [Rudolph] Giuliani [mayor of New York] where TB managed to avoid any Mittal questions. TB spoke to Jack to emphasise we needed the ambassador’s reasoning out there. He was also worried after his meeting with Eddie George [governor of the Bank of England]. He had not liked what he heard re the euro, where Eddie seemed less and less keen. TB felt if we didn’t go for it this parliament, we would lose out a lot more in the long run.

The
Mirror
and
Express
had stories that Jo Moore had suggested that DTLR put out railway indicators on the day of Princess Margaret’s funeral – another ‘bury bad news’ situation. They denied it last night. I missed the 8.30 meeting because I was at a
Guardian
breakfast with TB. Godric was agitated when I got back. Martin Sixsmith had said at the meeting that Jo had indeed said something like that and though the email referred to in the
Mirror
did not exist, there was another one – which he gave to Godric. It was an email FROM Sixsmith TO Byers and which suggested Steve HAD suggested using the cover of Margaret’s funeral to get out bad news. I smelled a very large rat. It was already known – because Byers had announced it – that we were planning to do the railway indicators. It was hard to get a full picture, not having been at the meeting, but both Godric and Tom felt there were some really funny games going on. It looked like Jo was being totally done in. Given what they had been through, politically and media-wise re Jo’s 9/11 ‘bury bad news’ email, it was pretty much unthinkable that they’d have done a version of the same thing again, so I didn’t buy the idea Byers would have done this. Tom and Godric both thought it odd that Sixsmith had brought the email to the meeting, and on reading it they saw it was not clear that Steve had suggested doing this. It was Sixsmith suggesting he had.

We got back from the
Guardian
, where TB did fine on the war, despite them pushing the whole time re Iraq and a bit on party funding. I told Godric that at the 11.30 he should make clear what balls the stuff on Jo Moore was. But Godric was really concerned something odd was going on. He, Tom and I met with Byers before Cabinet, and agreed we should say the email in the
Mirror
was a total fabrication, but point out there had been an e mail exchange between Sixsmith and Byers pointing out that as Friday was the day of
Margaret’s funeral, there was no question of doing railway indicators then. It was another load of old balls really, but with the potential to do real damage. I got the feeling that if ever there had been any trust between Byers and Sixsmith, there was none now.

At lunchtime Anne Shevas took a call from Jon Smith at PA who said he’d had a call from someone claiming to be a press officer from DTLR who said Sixsmith wanted it known that Godric had got it wrong at the morning briefing, that there was indeed an email that had the words ‘Margaret, burial etc.’ in. It was hard to disagree with Godric’s analysis that something very odd was going on. Byers had been complaining that he had parts of his department out of control and Richard Mottram [permanent secretary, DTLR] seemed unaware how to resolve it. I called Mike Granatt [Head of the Government Information and Communication Service], said clearly things were going on there which were inexcusable and he had to get involved. He drafted a letter making clear officials simply could not brief against ministers. Godric went off to the four o’clock and came back to say they were going crazy, and based on the weird call to Jon Smith had accused him of lying, having yesterday accused us of lying over Mittal.

I had to leave for a Q&A with permanent secretaries and a few business people at Chevening [in Kent, official country residence of the Foreign Secretary], which I could really have done without. It was basically about crisis management communications. When I worked on the speech, I found myself trying to work out how many genuine, genuine crises we had had and it was probably fewer than half a dozen. Yet we had hundreds described as crises and dozens that felt like it from time to time. But most of these guys had never actually been involved in a real full-blown crisis, and yet felt they were in one every time they were in the papers.

I got back to find Mittal on the news and the Jo Moore situation back running big. Godric was really angry that his honesty was being questioned. I spoke to Byers again and said it was obvious he couldn’t work with his own press team, but I also felt this was heading towards Jo’s departure. It was totally unfair on Jo who though she had made a dreadful mistake on September 11, was basically loyal and a good person. My sense was that Jo was fed up with the whole thing anyway.

Godric texted me just before 7 to say he felt we should put the Sixsmith email out to set the context. I talked to Byers who agreed. He had felt strongly yesterday that I should stay out of this but it had to be
gripped. Godric spoke to Sixsmith who agreed that Jo had never suggested using the funeral. Godric said he was given a different impression yesterday. TB was heading to Italy and had finally agreed this was damaging us. I told Steve it had to be brought to a head quickly. I talked the whole thing through with Richard Wilson who was seeing Mottram at 9.45. Richard was pretty good on this. He knew that there was funny stuff going on inside the department and he didn’t much like it. I took Calum to tennis and RW called to say he had been ‘very heavy’ with Mottram, had told him there were only three routes – muddle on (not acceptable), lose one of Jo or Sixsmith, or lose both, or possibly suspend them while it was sorted out. I was trying to play tennis with Calum but got call after call on this bollocks.