The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (33 page)

Sixsmith saw Mottram at lunchtime and seemed to be in agreement to go, provided he got money, Jo went too, and we did not dump on him. So by the time I got in – around 2.30 – we seemed to be ready to go with it. Jo wanted to get her kids home from school so the plan was then to go for 5pm. Then Byers called to say Mottram was now not so clear that Sixsmith had actually resigned. He had seemingly gone out for treatment on his eyes, and come back to say he was still thinking about it. This was being so badly handled. It seemed Mottram had not actually got a bloody resignation. So we now had a situation where we thought both had resigned, Byers had now said so on TV, Jo had gone, but Sixsmith hadn’t and was, like as not, liable to pop up and say this was like Soviet Russia, where his resignation was announced when in fact he had never resigned. TB called from Italy and said that whilst this was all crap, it was dangerous crap and we had to be careful. I said I was fed up with the whole thing. Byers, to be fair, was amazingly resilient and had a bit of the Zen about him, but he was damaged.

The Kabul soccer match had been an amazing success, spoiled by crowd trouble among the thousands who couldn’t get in. There were about 42,000 inside to witness a stupendous goal, thousands more outside. Lawrie McMenemy [Football Association special ambassador] did fantastic interviews in his trad Afghan cap. Simon Wren [MoD] called me, said it was the most exhilarating thing he had ever been involved in.

Another crazy day. TB called as I was going out of the house to take the kids to Regent’s Park. We had talked briefly last night but now I filled him in on the whole madness of yesterday. He said he would
speak to RW and they agreed we should play it a bit long. I said it would be too much for Byers and probably for Godric too if Sixsmith was allowed to stay in the GICS, just move on to another job. The trust issue was a problem. Steve [Byers] was quite clear an agreement was reached on the basis both Sixsmith and Jo would go. Then Granatt called me to say TB/RW seemed to think Sixsmith could stay. This was getting ridiculous. Mottram then spoke to Sixsmith to work out a deal.

I spoke to Sixsmith, the call taped by Martin Sheehan [press officer], and played along with him, just tried to get a sense of where he was. I said both Godric and Tom felt they had been misled by him. He was apologetic for the mess, but said he had not deliberately done anything wrong. Of yesterday, he said he had had an assurance from Mottram he would not be ‘sacked’ while he was out at the eye doctor. Byers called to say Jo had gone on the basis they were both going, and he was not prepared to let Jo go and him stay. TB was pretty fucked off with the whole thing, as was I, and felt there were real problems at the top of the department. Mottram had been clear with me he [Sixsmith] would go if the money was right, Jo went and he got a testimonial. Now he was apparently in a position where Jo had gone, he was staying and he was getting a glowing tribute from Mottram.

I spoke to Alistair Darling, who knew Sixsmith better than I did and who had spoken to him earlier. He said Sixsmith seemed to think he was being offered gardening leave [instructions to stay at home] and let’s see what turned up. Mottram called around half five to ‘pick my brains’. I said I felt we should let it calm for a bit and see where it went. Sixsmith was going to be seen as a hero in the press, because they love the damage being done to Byers in all this, and he may want to go back to the media. It was ridiculous TB even had to be bothered with this. Byers was livid we were even thinking about Sixsmith staying. I said let’s sleep on it and see where we are tomorrow. He said if he stays it means ‘they have won’. He felt that the whole episode risked sending the worst possible signal: that ministers and special advisers can be done in by anyone with an agenda. I was now way beyond the end of my tether and thinking fuck the lot of them. Godric was the one I felt for, because he really cared about his integrity, and he felt he had been dropped in it.

Byers called again late last night, after having told TB he would have no option but to resign if Sixsmith was allowed to stay in the Civil Service. TB told him it was simply not worth resigning over.
TB felt Mottram had clearly not handled things well, but that Byers also had to take responsibility for relationships between key people in the department. He said part of the job is building an
esprit de
corps
and he clearly failed to do that. But what do you do if people inside are doing you in? TB’s view was you don’t let it get to that. Easier said than done. Byers felt if Sixsmith stayed, then because of the way this was playing out, it would be felt within as a great victory for the right of civil servants to undermine ministers and they would just move on to the next one they don’t much fancy. Sixsmith called, claimed Byers was not taking Mottram’s calls. I had now reached the point where I was very cagey in what I said, assumed he would be taking his own legal advice, so said little, advised him to bide his time and not do anything too rash. He said he had been offered thousands by the papers to tell his story, which I guess was a way of saying he had other options if he didn’t get a decent deal. I told him Byers was hostile to any kind of deal but we just had to wait and see whether once he got a new team in there he was less bothered.

On the media, TB felt there may be a case for a new ethics commissioner, tougher rules for MPs alongside a statutory watchdog for the press, including re accuracy. He felt we should go for the liberalised view on media ownership, and encourage European companies to get involved in taking over parts of our press. I said when he told me he had been thinking re the press, I was hoping he was going for PCC on statutory footing with fines for inaccuracy, VAT on newspapers, privacy laws, really put it to them. He felt it wasn’t worth all the aggro. Godric was still very steamed up re Sixsmith, sent me a five-page note setting out why he believed he had been misled, and how.

At TB’s morning meeting, he was mainly focused on the war again, feeling he was going to have to get back in the saddle more. Byers came in to see TB and we just about persuaded him Sixsmith wasn’t worth resigning over. We had to bide time then move on and we were better leaving RW to manage the process. Byers was adamant we would regret it big time if Sixsmith was allowed to stay in the system. I met [Mike] Granatt and Sue Jenkins [GICS] to put together a hit team to go to DTLR. The best part of the day was when Rory came in and we went for a run through Hyde Park. Stan [Greenberg] and Philip [Gould] came in with a new poll. Not brilliant. Down on state of the parties and on right/wrong direction. Trust and openness bad. TB felt it could have been worse given recent events and the tone of
the media debate. Stan felt we had endured a lot worse but I didn’t like the feel of it.

We went in for a meeting with the
Observer
. Mary Riddell [columnist] making a big thing of saying to TB ‘Of course nobody is saying yoooooou are corrupt’ when [Andrew] Rawnsley [
Observer
political commentator] had done just that and had his piece bought up by the fucking
Mail
. I saw the BBC team re NHS Day and finally agreed we would co-operate as best we could. I had a meeting with TB/CB re the US trip. I thought it a bit odd she wanted to be on holiday in the States when Euan was doing his A levels. TB said there was no way in the world he could have a holiday at the moment. CB was pissed off but adamant she was going. I even felt TB going out early for a couple of days was not a good idea, but she just felt I was being too puritanical and worried re the press. I said I wasn’t bothered about the press, I was worried about the public. She said we should not let the press run our lives. TB said we have to apply common sense and at the moment it is not on for me to be seen taking a holiday.

Godric was getting a small taste of the media shit I endured most of the time, and I felt it was getting to him a bit. TB had a ‘Phase 2’ war meeting with David Manning, C, Peter Ricketts [FCO], Tom McKane [Cabinet Office], Jonathan and me. TB was not sure if the Americans had taken all the decisions. He wanted to be in a position to influence their strategy, which we would project as being about fighting poverty and taking aid, but which they would see as fighting for their values. He also wanted to commission papers on Iraq, Libya, North Korea and the European trade in WMD. He wanted work done on how to rejuvenate the MEPP. He assumed by the time of our visit to the States in April, there was a chance the Americans would be casting around wider, and he wanted all the facts at his fingertips. He felt that the political situation would be different and internationally a lot harder for the Americans than things were post September 11, if they were thinking of going for any of these other countries.

I had a meeting with Tucker [Eskew] and Jim Poston. Tucker was due to go back [to Washington] on March 13 to replace Jim Wilkinson and set up a new Office of Global Communications. He said he was phenomenally grateful for the opportunity he had had to work with us. I was still having to deal with the Byers/Sixsmith fallout. Byers adamant Sixsmith had to leave. Sixsmith telling me that SB had cut a deal with Mottram – a new job and a mild testimonial. Byers read to me what he called a ‘threatening letter’ from Sixsmith, still
describing himself as his director of communications, saying he didn’t want to damage him, saying AC didn’t want ‘collateral damage’. Sixsmith was constantly dropping hints to me about how he was being offered money to ‘tell all’ in a way that would damage the government. TB had clearly led SB to believe he would be sacked, RW that he could ease him out. RW was telling Mottram to play it long. Byers was sure Sixsmith was taping all calls, possibly with a view to doing a big thing about it all afterwards. Piers Morgan was adamant they’d been within their rights to run the story they did, not least because they ran it by the department’s press office. TB told me Peter M had said to him it would be a disaster for the TB operation if I left. TB felt I just had to rise above the day-to-day.

NHS Day was in fact nothing like the stitch-up we feared. Jack S came over for a chat. He was strongly of the view that TB should do something that would symbolise a greater respect for Parliament, maybe appear at the PASC [Public Administration Select Committee]. He asked how I was, and I said pretty fed up. Why? Because I spend so much time clearing up the shit, and I don’t always feel I get the support in return. Number 10 is seen by departments as interfering, and yet they are on to us the whole time to sort things that go wrong. Jack felt we had made Number 10 more powerful but not necessarily more effective across government. He felt there were too many of our people who called departments and said they were ‘Number 10’. If it was me or Jonathan, people knew that mattered, and in any event we would deal with ministers. But departments had any number of people calling up and saying what TB wanted, or what Number 10 wanted.

Sixsmith was calling me all day, but I decided not to engage. The
FT
were on to the story again and I suspected he was trying to bounce us into a deal. The phone logs apparently showed both Sixsmith and Ian Jones [DTLR head of news and Sixsmith’s deputy] called the
Mirror
and
Express
. Hardly earth-shattering. It would be very odd if they didn’t call them pretty regularly. Sixsmith was not wanting to say he was talking about the terms of his departure. He wanted the line to be he was going to another department without a stain on his character. Byers, Mottram and I did a call at 6, and we agreed Mottram would say to Sixsmith that he had clearly resigned on the Friday and we were now working out the terms of his departure, and this is what we would be saying. But after they spoke, Mottram backtracked on that as well. Philip was doing [focus] groups tonight specifically re the press and called after the first one to say maybe I was right, that they really didn’t
like the press, and they liked TB when he was strong. They wanted more not less leadership. The RCN [Royal College of Nursing], King’s Fund [health think tank] and others, including [Sir] John Stevens from the Met [Police], had written an open letter to TB which was going to be seen as a big attack re public services, low morale, pay and conditions etc. I spoke to TB who agreed we would do an ‘open reply’, full of praise for them and setting out some of the things we were doing. TB was alarmed that DB had bitten off more than he could chew re the cops. He had always seen the police as something of a touchstone. If you have them offside, that is not a good place to be.

We were about to leave Number 10 [for TB’s constituency] and as I walked to the foyer with Helena [Hopkins, duty clerk], Sixsmith literally charged through the front door. He didn’t see me but headed to my office. I was determined to leave Mottram to sort this out, so I went to the car to avoid him and left Anne Shevas to deal with him and try to calm him down. She said he was clearly on the edge, that she had just let him talk and didn’t engage much at all. He was saying our line in the
FT
that he had resigned from DTLR was wrong and we had to correct it. If not, he would, or he would have to get the deal agreed. I spoke to Richard Wilson and said we should not be having to deal with this. Mottram should be dealing with it. RW called later, said Mottram had made clear if he didn’t resign he was sacked and they started to talk about a deal. The
FT
story didn’t go too big. It was going away and Mottram was finally getting the message to Sixsmith that he was not on very strong ground.

We got a small plane up north. TB then did a series of visits around Sedgefield while I worked with Anne-Marie [O’Brien] from the Garden Rooms [offices of the Downing Street secretarial support] on the speech [for the Scottish Labour Party conference in Perth], working up the public services sections, and the interdependence theme. I felt we had got things back on a proper agenda. Philip said people were crying out for a plan and a proper sense of direction and would be relieved simply to hear us talking about issues they understood and cared about, not all the bollocks from inside the Westminster village. TB went out for dinner with John Burton [constituency agent] while I worked on the speech, and tried to make sense of the clashing drafts we now had. I got TB to do a Good Luck letter to the UK curling team at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake and then stayed up to watch. It was brilliant, really exciting, and we won gold. Myrobella was the usual chaos but we just about managed to get the speech for tomorrow sorted.