The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (111 page)

It was an odd feeling to go out from Number 10 with lots of good wishes and with the media there for me, not TB. PMQs was pretty low-key. Afterwards TB had another private word. He said look, this is the reverse of the usual. I am telling you that you have to be calm and not get peevish. Clare S and Catherine R were brilliant in preparing me, going through the difficult questions again and again. Meeting with John Scarlett, Godric, Tom, etc. Over at the House, feeling not bad, long walk to Boothroyd Room, there were crowds outside the room, and I had to wait around the corner. I got in, slow start with [Sir] John Stanley [Conservative MP] before a break for a vote at 4. Three hours in total. I picked up after a while. I got most of my lines in, and it went pretty well. I thought the Labour MPs
were reasonably helpful, I think they were glad I apologised and they went for the BBC thing pretty well. I cut my hand on the sharp object in my palm (a paper clip). It was gruelling, and I walked back exhausted, followed back by cameras, but there was a nice round of applause when I got back. I felt a lot better. Flank opened on the BBC.

Then to the Leukaemia Research reception and we got the cameras in, partly to get coverage for the charity, partly to give fresh pictures of me looking a bit more normal and less wound up than I was at the committee. The kids were brilliant. I did a good speech, and they gave me a great cartoon as a present for having raised so much. David Davis [Shadow Deputy Prime Minister] came, which was nice of him. By the time I got home, I was totally shagged out. There was loads on the news. It had been live on the news channels plus CNN. I felt the tactic of going myself had worked. TB called late, said ‘Everyone was saying you did superbly, which you did. There is no Cabinet minister who could do that as well.’ Audrey [Millar, Fiona’s mother] called, said she liked [LBC radio talk show presenter] Nick Ferrari’s line, that I don’t pick fights I can’t win.

Huge coverage in the papers and some great cartoons. Generally I was thought to have done well, though the BBC were still focusing on dissent and opposition to me. During the morning we put together a letter following [BBC director of news, Richard] Sambrook’s interview in which he made further contradictory statements. I put together a letter, and got Clive Soley [Labour MP] to do a letter saying that the source should speak to Donald Anderson and, if not, Gilligan should be recalled. We were on a roll, all right yesterday and today, we had good messages of support coming through. I was up at 5 to work on the letter that I was to send to the committee to deal with their extra requests. It took hours and hours and hours. I went through all the different exchanges of correspondence with John Scarlett. It took hours for me, John, Clare and Catherine to get it sorted. I also wrote to [Greg] Dyke [BBC director general] and to Sambrook and put the Sambrook letter out to the press. I was going to nail Gilligan completely, and then the
Mail
.

Pre Cabinet, Jack S came up to me and I was very short with him and did not engage. Later I told Michael Jay I took it very personally, felt betrayed, that the FCO had basically been interested only in protecting JS and the FCO. TB called me in before Cabinet. ‘You did brilliantly.’ ‘No help from ministers,’ I said. ‘You have to understand these guys are not as used to pressure as we are,’ he said. ‘They panic.’
I said I’d taken a lot of shit for these people and got very little back. I’d thought JS was a bit different.

At Cabinet, I was working on my supplementary letter to the FAC. They were mainly discussing Iraq and TB talking about the general situation. Ian McCartney did me proud, said that yesterday I had shown passion, values, conviction and humility and an awful lot of ministers could learn from that. He said he had watched it on the news and he hoped every party member had seen it because it showed that we believed in something. JR said something similar and then had a real whack at Peter Hain for ‘launching a debate’ on tax. Putin was in for lunch, which was OK as was the press conference, though it didn’t really fly. The media were still obsessing about me the whole time, though we were doing pretty well. The BBC letter went well though and I felt it was turning our way a bit. TB’s demeanour about the whole thing had changed. I had never had so much coverage as in the last few days but TB said it was the right thing to do, I’d have been hung out to dry if I hadn’t done it. We had a farewell dinner for David Manning [moving on to be UK ambassador to Washington]. I had a nice chat with John Scarlett and his wife. Condi was over, which was quite a tribute to David. He was such a nice guy, and TB rightly paid him a very warm tribute.

Ran in, thirty-one minutes. I had been going through the FAC memo until late last night. Early in to go through it again. John Scarlett had a lot of cuts and a few changes and he was really good. We had a long discussion about whether we should be specific that I had previously pointed out an inconsistency between the text and executive summary of the 45-minute description. I decided to put in a general line in relation to the ironing out of inconsistencies. I had to leave for a speech meeting with TB, at which Peter H and I were trying again to tilt the balance towards values and away from the technocratic side of reform. TB was keen to get back on public services but we had to cut short the meeting because Derry arrived to see TB. They had bumped into each other at a state banquet recently, where Derry completely blanked him. He looked totally forlorn as he waited outside and I chatted to him for a minute or two before he went in.

Clive Soley and Phil Woolas [Deputy Leader of the Commons] were doing media defending me. There weren’t that many ministers out but I don’t think that meant they weren’t behind me. Audrey [Millar] did however remind me of the observation that if you want a friend
in politics, get a dog. I did the final memo with the last changes then sent it to Clare Sumner to get ready to send while I went with Calum and Charlie [Calum’s friend] to Wimbledon. I lost my rag in the morning watching Jack’s live evidence, where he was umming and aahing and when asked whether the 45-minute claim was in the first dossier, looked shifty. He did not just say yes. I had even talked to him about that point in the morning when I spoke to him at the request of John Scarlett to let him know that I HAD probably made a point to John S re forty-five minutes but it was not a request. So what the fuck was going on?

I suggested to Danny Pruce to get a note to Ed Owen [Straw’s special adviser] saying that the answer was yes, and why didn’t he say that? I said that I felt badly let down and this was what happened when a department cared about itself, not the government. John Williams [FCO] left a hurt message on my mobile saying it was not deliberate, though I was not so sure. But I sent him a softer message back. At Wimbledon, C called me to say he thought I’d done brilliantly at the FAC, that I’d moved the debate on and people in the agencies felt I’d done well. He said we had to win this because it was so unfair and wrong. We went for lunch at Wimbledon. Julie Kirkbride [Conservative MP] was at our table. She said she was totally supportive of me re the BBC and she agreed with pretty much everything that TB said. I said I was determined to get an apology. We watched Andy Roddick and Venus Williams [US tennis players], but I was constantly being called out.

Jack S called me after his private session at the FAC, said it went well. He asked me to understand that he’d not done it deliberately. We went in for tea when news came through that Sambrook had replied. It was real sophistry. Their line now was that it was OK to report a source even if you didn’t know what he said was true. He said I had a vendetta against Gilligan and that I was intimidating the BBC. He also had a line that they would express regret if story turned out to be false. So they were both blustering and on the run. I wrote a very angry response, probably too angry. ‘Weasel words, BBC standards debased beyond belief,’ I really went for it. Once it was drafted, we had a conference call to discuss it.

We drove back and I listened to the BBC
Six O’Clock News
in the car. It was a total PR job on the BBC letter, and a straight hit at me. I got in to the office and Jon Snow [news anchor] had asked me to go on
Channel 4 News
. Hilary C had said no but I was tempted because I knew the story inside out. The office was split, half in favour, half against. Jonathan feared it would make me the story even more. I
spoke to TB, who said do you really want to do it or don’t you? I said I do. OK, be calm and be careful. The important thing is you do what is appropriate and don’t go over the top. I got into the car and headed there gathering my thoughts. I was taken straight to the studio. Snow seemed not to be expecting me, but there I was. I felt I won it re the words and was able to pick him up on fact a couple of times, but I did get a bit too angry. The clips used in later bulletins were good though.

Lots of calls of support came in, including John Reid, Neil and Glenys, Philip. The office was OK, but TB said he felt I was too angry and Fiona was livid I’d done it at all. She did one of her ‘you never listen, never acknowledge anyone else’s views’ numbers. Peter M called and said get a strategy for the weekend, keep calm, get friends and don’t lose it. The Tory line on
Newsnight
[BBC] was that I’d flipped my lid and was a liability. But we kept going and I was sure we were going to win. I had the idea of calming it down by saying that we would go to the BBC Complaints Unit. Tom Kelly said it would suit their purposes, not ours.

I was up at 5.50 and did a note to Fiona apologising that I had sent the kids home on their own and gone on. I felt it was the right thing to do, but if she thought it was a mistake, please understand the pressures, and the need I feel to be vindicated, and understand that I’ll get out as soon as we are through this. I listened to Ben Bradshaw [fisheries minister, former BBC journalist] on the
Today
programme who was excellent. [John] Humphrys [presenter] was getting very childish and petulant and Ben got him to say that Gilligan DID check it with MoD. The MoD press office told us that he didn’t, that all he had said to them was that he was on talking about an interview with [Adam] Ingram [Armed Forces minister] re cluster bombs, said he had a WMD story but it would not bother them. So we got Ben Bradshaw to put out a statement plus a letter to Sambrook, which was running later and kept them on the back foot.

I got some very supportive phone calls through the day. Rory answered the phone to Nick Soames [Conservative MP], who before realising it wasn’t me went off on one – ‘You sex god, you Adonis, you the greatest of all great men’ – before Rory said ‘I’m his son.’ Soames was totally supportive, said keep going, these people are total shits. He said in part we had created this monster, seen it as a beast and we fed it well. But it was now out of control and we had to get the control back. He said bad journalism is like pornography. Every
time you fail to check it, it gets closer to being the norm. ‘Do you think my grandfather [Winston Churchill] had a spin doctor? Course he fucking did.’ He said we had to win but he would be happy to speak up for me at any point. He was in great form. ‘Tell the prime minister that the next time I’m called at PMQs I intend to say “What is a lifestyle guru and do I need one?”’ He said he had once said that the Royal Family was like a great tree and if you hack at the roots hard enough eventually the tree will die. That is what’s happening to politics thanks to our wretched media. Keep going, because they don’t like it up ’em.

I spoke to Robin Oakley [CNN European political editor, formerly BBC] who said the same, that he had always considered I was straight and what was happening was wrong. Geoff Hoon called saying he wanted to be out there supporting me. John S called to say he was a bit worried about my interview. He felt I’d done so well on Wednesday, maybe I should have quit while ahead, but he also said he had spoken to C and they were all really pleased they had such a loud champion of the spooks. I told him of the extraordinary moment yesterday, like something out of a film, when I was dictating my response to Sambrook from the marquee at Wimbledon and who should walk by but a spook I recognised.

I felt we were in a much better position. I did the Sunday broadsheets. I spoke to Neil [Kinnock] and got some nice words out from him, also Alex F, Soames and Oakley. John Reid called, keen to do something, ditto Bruce Grocott. Letter from Blunkett saying don’t quit. Ben Bradshaw was brilliant on the media and I told him so. He said he felt it really strongly and we really had to make this stick. TB said keep going hard for another day or two, then we leave it to the committee.

Gilligan called the MoD press office in a bit of a flap to say that the call to the press office of May 28 was indeed the only one he made. We had media outside the house the whole time but I decided to go out for a run anyway. Home for dinner with the Goulds and the Kinnocks. Neil was in one of his wonderfully over-the-top, often comic rages – at the BBC over me, at Glenys over Iraq. His big rage was at the idea of Peter M going to Brussels. The papers came. They were mixed. Some of them had MPs saying I would be cleared, others that Gilligan intended to sue. Fiona seemed a lot happier. I felt very lucky that I had friends like Neil and Glenys, Philip and Gail [Rebuck], Alex, the handful of others who were calling the whole time to help me through. I did a conference call for the Sunday broadcasts with John Reid, Margaret B, Douglas, Valerie Amos, Geoff H. JR did
most of the talking. The agreed top line – one month in, one question remains, is the story true? This was getting clearer.

TB wanted to work out an exit strategy. John Birt [former BBC director general] had suggested that I put it in the hands of the FAC and say I’ll do nothing until after that, which was probably the right thing to do. He said it was important that I didn’t let my emotion come into this too much. Birt drafted my letter to Sambrook, which we got out by 4pm. By then Sambrook digging in deeper by saying that they never said TB lied – what the fuck do they think saying something whilst knowing it to be untrue means? Sambrook said we’d acknowledged their source was right (!) and that the real question was where are the weapons. They were beginning to look silly and defensive.