The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (70 page)

He said you have to understand the pressures I operate under. I said I do, probably better than anybody else, but you also have to understand how damaging this kind of thing can be. It’s been building up, and you also need ways to defend the individual situations to do with lifestyle, and by and large that can be fine, people will tolerate it but then sometimes there’s a tipping point and that’s where we are now. In all we must have had ten conference calls through the day. He said he resented having to deal with all this nonsense when he was also having to worry about Iraq. I continued to say it was all avoidable. We got the
Mail
questions in the afternoon and they related mainly to Foster and Carole being invited to things with Cherie, plus the issue of a trust that bought the flats, plus Fiona’s role. We were dismissive of the invite stuff, fairly detailed on the trust. Then the
News of the World
came in with various groups of questions, first the claim that CB definitely knew about Foster’s past so her statement on that was false, second that Carole tried to do a deal on clothes as we had always suspected, and third the wacky stuff about them having mudbaths and showers together.

By now, we were at Catherine MacLeod’s [political editor, the
Herald
] farm in Essex to get a Christmas tree, but I spent most of the time on the phone up in one of their boys’ bedrooms, Fiona popping in and out. TB had Cherie with him though she wasn’t on the call, and he was saying to her ‘This has to be one hundred per cent accurate’ and it was easy to hear she was on the edge of it all, crying and saying why do you believe him not me? What a fucking mess this was. The fact of the purchase was politically grim, the sense of a cover-up and misleading was disastrous for our media relations, and the whole image being created of CB was appalling. When the
News of the World
stuff came through, the lack of a direct channel to Carole became an issue and in the end TB had to speak to her himself. She was denying that Cherie misled anyone about Foster and also denying she did deals on the clothes, which I didn’t believe. TB wanted Fiona to act for Carole and put out a statement for her, which we refused to do.

Catherine and her family all seemed to be of the view that our life was absolutely crazy. Even when we went out to the field to pick a Christmas tree in a howling wind, I was called by Switch [Downing Street switchboard] for yet another conference call. The
News of the World
stuff came from someone who used to work with Carole but helpfully she used a different name so we could be fairly dismissive. Again, I was struck by how blinkered TB could be re some of the central allegations. For example, Carole saying she didn’t do deals on clothes was enough for him but there was no way we could become their defenders. I was also angry that the press office had been put in a position where this shit was taking up all their time.

I was also sick of so much of the flak flying my way. I didn’t mind when it was over things that really mattered, or when it was things I’d done that people disagreed with, but I hated it when I was copping it for things I had always been against doing. TB said, when I pointed it out, ‘This is not very nice for me either you know.’ I said yes, but at least you have some control over your own life and how you spend your time. At one point during the day, CB came on the phone, thinking I was Tom. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, and gave the phone back to TB. She really was resentful of us at the moment. Fiona’s theory was that TB was so tolerant with CB because he had fallen for some of the Carole stuff himself. We had the worst of all worlds at the moment. I got Stephen Pound [Labour MP] out publicly asking [Paul] Dacre if the
Mail
had paid Foster for the emails. There wasn’t too much to worry about in the various Sunday stories but the compound effect of a great morass was difficult.

TB and I were both feeling the pressure, and finally snapped in the evening when I said the whole fucking thing was their fault. He came back pretty heavy and the call ended badly. He called a bit later to say he understood this was difficult for us too, but we always did best when we hung together. The low point though had been when he was calling me and then calling Carole in quick succession to get her responses. The idea of a prime minister talking to this ridiculous woman who was sitting next to some ghastly conman was absurd and degrading. We got through the day somehow but I felt bruised and fed up.

I did a long conference call with Jack Straw and Alistair Darling last night but amazingly neither was asked about CB in their interviews. Jack was doing fine on Iraq. I went for a six-mile run, then a swim, then a few calls, the press basically focusing in on the trust and how could they buy a flat through a blind trust, whilst my fears about the clothes issue were not yet realised. TB didn’t call me during the morning which was rare. Philip was worried about the
Sunday Telegraph
because it looked like I was dumping on TB and CB. It’s true that in some quarters I had let my anger get away from me. But I felt entitled to be angry when our advice was ignored with this kind of effect, and we were now having to deal with it, something that should have no government significance at all. I also felt that if they didn’t change their ways, there would be more of this kind of stuff to deal with and I had just about had enough of it.

TB was down at Chequers seeing [Bill] Clinton, and it was pretty obvious as the day wore on he was not in contact, presumably because he was feeling I had distanced myself and briefed against Cherie. Philip, Gail [Rebuck] and Peter M came round to discuss the whole picture. Peter M took out his yellow pad. Must be serious then, I said. Fiona and I were in a state of real anger about the situation, and we had to try and work out a way out of it. Peter M had no idea of the extent of the problems we potentially faced, e.g. clothes, discounts, all the New Age stuff. We agreed we needed 1. to get Foster out of Carole’s life, and 2. to manage Carole out of theirs. Gail said it would mean us giving massive support to Tony and Cherie, and also embracing Carole. I said there was no way I could do that, or let any of my staff do it. Fiona said even they had no real idea what our lives were like having to deal with this for so long. I feared that a lot of the really positive side of TB’s image was eroding.

It was a good discussion and at the end we agreed we needed a
proper audit of clothes, freebies, Carole’s access, any use of government facilities, and we needed to put the fear of God into TB and make him understand the political precariousness. TB was fed up of hearing all this from me and I agreed with Peter M he would go with a warning that this was a real disaster unless gripped, that CB had to be reined in, Carole managed out over a six-to twelve-month period, and meanwhile we had to be very supportive. Peter was horrified that I was even thinking of going, but I really did feel the time was coming. He then called TB and arranged to see him tomorrow. Philip and Gail felt this could be the beginning of the end if not gripped. Peter believed if we did grip it, we could then repair, rehabilitate and move on, but it was difficult while Foster was still there.

Sally M called to say that Cherie had called her to say that AC/FM were briefing against her. Sally believed there was real damage to be done to TB by all this. TB had said yesterday this was not why he came into politics. I felt exactly the same. Cherie later called Fiona, was very frosty, said it was very clear Fiona disapproved of her, and intimated that maybe it would be better if she didn’t work for her. Pretty unpleasant, after all Fiona has done for her.

I said to Fiona I felt we could be out by Christmas. I sensed a denouement. I said I wasn’t going to be in a position where I was defending the indefensible. I took enough blame without taking it for things that weren’t of my making. At the morning meeting, we skipped over CB, Iraq the main focus, while at the TB meeting we were mainly on asylum, NHS and fire. TB saw Sally, Jonathan and me, later joined by Hilary [Coffman] and Fiona. We agreed we needed a full audit of the clothes situation, and we would probably have to register retrospectively any discounts. TB kept trying to persuade me that Carole was basically a decent person and would do nothing wrong, e.g. on clothes. I said this had to be copper-bottomed, and I’m not sure I believed it. He got very defensive and we had another row about it, saying that we had a real problem because he took what she said at face value and I didn’t. It was not an easy conversation. All of us felt he was not being quizzical enough.

The main area of press interest was the blind trust, but Andrew Turnbull backed TB’s view that it was in accordance with the ministerial code on blind trusts. He was also OK about the Number 10 press office being used because we were only being asked any of this because she was the PM’s wife. TB did the
FT
, and was on very good
form, really pushing the New Labour reform agenda, definitely worth doing. But there was only one political story in town. There was an awful lot of [broadcast journalists’] two-way chatter about me and Fiona, while [Trevor] Kavanagh [
Sun
] had a big piece re how TB couldn’t afford to lose me. Hilary was up seeing CB, came back and said she was not exactly on the same page as TB. She had also spoken to Carole who said she had not kept receipts. He said he obviously understood Carole could not come into Number 10 but then Hilary discovered she was coming in to see Cherie at 4.30. We put a block on that.

I had several meetings with TB, who was looking more and more depressed about the whole thing. Then Tom got totally banjaxed at the four o’clock – Foster’s solicitor put out a statement which showed that CB had taken part on a conference call with Carole and Foster’s solicitor. It sent the media into a frenzy. I went to tell TB, who looked grey, angry and sick. Cherie was due to be turning on the Christmas tree lights outside, but TB called for her to come down to the office, told her the questions that had now been put to Tom and she said yes, she spoke to the lawyer because Carole was worried Foster’s case wasn’t being handled properly, and what was wrong with that? She had a look of injured innocence. TB looked really angry, was close to the end of his tether. This is the worst possible nightmare, he said. She talked us through it and we put together a line which said she didn’t know his past and she had made a short phone call.

TB said the whole thing was ridiculous, the media just moved from one charge to another, and when one fell down, another came up. We had gone from stamp duty evasion via slimming pills and now this. The problem was he saw nothing wrong in her making such a call, and I did, because she was the PM’s wife, a QC, a judge, and she should have better judgement. TB said OK, she’s maybe been daft but does she really deserve this kind of treatment? TB didn’t raise my briefing against CB but Hilary came to see me, said it was the right thing to do for the credibility of the office. IDS was now writing in about the blind trust, about my role.

I had a long chat with Peter M before we went to see TB. He felt we could fight back harder and I said the solicitor’s statement was a tipping-point moment. The politics on this were getting worse and worse, elitism while top-up fees was the issue, a real sense of out-of-touch lifestyle. [Conservative deputy leader and Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael] Ancram was out and about on it. TB was keen for us to get people up so I briefed Stephen Pound and later Clare Short. She did a good job on
Newsnight
but it wasn’t great having to ask
people to do this. TB did at least apologise to my team, or at least tell me to tell them that he had, for what they were having to do. He came through later to say a milder version of the same thing. God knows how many hours and how many people this was taking up at the moment.

Ran in. Papers grim, and the news leading with the Tories calling for an inquiry. Up to see TB, and we did a conference call with Peter M who had seen both of them last night to go through the facts of it all and was confident that CB was OK on it and there were no real new problems to worry about. I argued there
was
a problem in CB making a call to a lawyer, because she was a QC and his wife. TB was getting very agitato. He said ‘I’m not having my wife treated like this and we have to fight back on the basis we have done nothing wrong.’ He wanted to go up and do a big defence of her, but I said if he went up and just stated nothing had been done wrong, he would be more tarnished by it. He was so angry that I felt it would backfire if he went out now. TB’s anger was affecting his judgement on it. He really seemed unable to see anything wrong in it. I felt that unless we let some air out of the situation, this was just going to go on and on. We also had to divide and rule, isolate the
Mirror
and the
Mail
from the rest. Peter M was keen for CB to do something today. Fiona, who later also saw Carole, felt too that CB should do something. I wasn’t so sure. I chaired the first Iraq Strategy Group meeting and we agreed to do an objectives document. It was an OK meeting but we needed to get to a position where we were far more in control of the agenda.

Fiona came back from her visit with Carole, who didn’t want to say she was dumping Foster, and had moved towards thinking as I did, that Cherie should do something public. TB was off to see the Prince of Wales for lunch, and new questions came in from the
Mail
. They were now suggesting ‘judge nobbling’. It was time to go for it. It was a tipping point and we were all now up for CB doing a big number. I put calls out to Peter M and Charlie [Falconer] to get them to come over and we went through things line by line, making sure that all the difficult questions were answered in there, why the flats, how Foster, what she knew, why Carole. Fiona was terrific today, so was Peter M, saw things really clearly, but we had to fight back and that meant changes in the dynamic. An interview would be no good, because then someone else would set the agenda with it. It had to be bigger to break through. We decided that in the end Cherie was going
to have to go up on this, break through, let the public see it and judge for themselves. She was due to do an event [Partners in Excellence children’s services awards] over at Millbank, with a ready-made audience, who would be sympathetic.