Terrier
The New Labour Government meant to handle public relations in a different way to previous governments. Alastair Campbell understood the demands of 24-hour news feeds, and realised that for Labour’s message to reach the public intact, civil servants would have to "grab the news agenda"; speeding up their response to news stories and getting the government point of view out to the masses.
In the past, stories had been (intentionally) ‘leaked’ by governments and un-named sources would brief the Press. Ostensibly sources remained anonymous for protection: in fact this anonymity often hid their proximity to the highest government officials. Alastair went some way to changing this culture by becoming the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman and although he stopped short of allowing himself to be named, he gave daily briefings to the Press. But he did far less than he could have done. He could have insisted that all the spin-doctors, himself included, only spoke *on* the record, and ensured their quotes were correctly attributed. Instead, he offered access and interviews to a harem of journalists (usually employed by Rupert Murdoch) in return for favourable coverage. The systematic leaking continued (the Speaker would often find ministerial statements in his morning papers before they were announced in Parliament), as did the off-the-record and unattributed quotes attacking out-of-favour ministers.
All ministers were expected to know the party line and follow it when speaking in public - all Whitehall departments recieved a daily fax around noon, containing a transcript of the day's lobby briefing so there could be no excuses. Even the Deputy Prime-Minister and Foreign secretary cleared announcements through Alastair's Downing Street office. Alastair was centralising control of the public face of government, and he was that control.
The result of this was that initially the Evil Troll appeared unable to put a foot wrong. When Princess Diana died in August 1997, it was Blair, and not the Royal family, who was first out of the starting blocks; his tribute to the ‘People’s Princess' airing before most of us had finished our breakfast. "They [the Royals] just lost it completely," said Alastair, "didn't know what the hell to do. They ended up pretty much doing whatever we told them to." Piers 'Morgan' Moron tells of how he congratulated Alastair on the Evil Troll's performance and how he had captured the public mood. " 'Yes, I did, didn't I?' [Campbell] smirked."
Less endearingly, that same month Alastair phoned Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, to tell him that the News of the World had discovered his affair with Gaynor Regan (now his wife). Cook and his wife were at Heathrow, about to leave for a riding holiday, but Campbell gave him an ultimatum, assuring him that 'clarity in news management' would prevent too much bad publicity. So Cook dumped his wife, Margaret. She used to work at the same hospital as me. I didn't end up going off on endless holidays with toyboys though, chance would be a fine thing. Anyone know a decent gigolo?
Alastair was in charge of trouble-shooting, dealing with unhelpful media attention. This meant he was constantly under pressure.
"Let me just try to describe what it's like, right. You wake up at, I dunno, sometime before 6am and you read that morning's media brief and within it there are probably about 30 things that you know are wrong or that you decide are unfair and most things you just completely ignore and some things you've got to respond. You maybe turn on the radio and you hear something that you think is a misrepresentation of your position. So you think, 'Do I sort it or don't I sort it?' and most times you don't. By about 6.30, quarter to seven, I'm probably getting my first calls from politicians, because it will be somebody going on to do GMTV on this or Today on that and they're saying, 'I'm slightly worried about being asked about this thing in the Telegraph, what's the line? What am I supposed to say? What's the facts and da da da da?' and then I maybe get out the house at seven and I used to run into work and regularly get interrupted about three or four times, and then get into the office and I'd have my first meeting at eight usually with Tony, then the first meeting that I chair at 8.30 and then to a round of meetings before the 11 o'clock, and then the briefings and your day goes on and it never ever stops and then you get home, say you get home at 10pm at night, and you get a phone call saying somebody who was going to be on Newsnight has pulled out because they've gone to a dinner and they forgot they were double booked and you then phone round to get ministers on."
Alastair was soon finding the BBC a thorn in the side of New Labour. Rod Liddle recalls, "when I was editor of the Today programme I took Alastair's regular missives very seriously at first. This was, after all, the prime minister's office talking and one was inclined to consider its imprecations carefully and respond with respect and, at times, contrition. But pretty soon these billets-doux became too frequent, too trivial and often palpably absurd - and so I began to pin them to the wall next to the letters in green ink from listeners calling me a Zionist fascist Jew boy."
Alastair Campbell's first big challenge was the Bernie Ecclestone affair in November 1997. The government had announced its intention to ban tobacco advertising at sporting events: but Tessa Jowell, the Health Minister, planned to grant Formula One motor-racing an exemption. On 6th November Tom Baldwin of the Sunday Telegraph phoned Downing Street asking for corroborration of a story that motor-racing supremo Bernie Ecclestone was a big donor to Labour Party funds. Alastair considered that the best thing to do was to confirm the story and admit that Ecclestone had made a one million pound donation. ET and Brown disagreed and decided to write a letter to Lord Neill, chairman of the Committee of Standards in Public Life, asking if it was ethical to accept the donation. Baldwin didn't receive his confirmation, but broke the story anyway. All hell broke loose,and eventually the Evil Troll was forced to appear on TV to apologise - but not for taking a bribe:
"I didn't get it all wrong in relation to the original decision as I'd be very happy to explain. But it hasn't been handled well and for that I take full responsibility. And I apologise for that. I suppose what I would say to you is that perhaps I didn't focus on this and the seriousness of it in the way that I should, as I was focusing on other issues."
On radio, the Evil Troll for once dared to face John Humphries and his shining armour, but only to emphasise how "hurt and upset" he felt at any suggestion that he had "done something wrong or improper, or changed a policy, because someone supported or donated to the Labour Party.... I don't believe I have been tarnished, I believe mistakes have been made but in the end the country has got to look at me and decide whether the person they believed in is the same person they have got now - and it is."
After all, he was just a "pretty straight sort of guy", and he would publish the names of all those who had donated 5,000 pounds or more to Labour since 1992. But only if other parties would do the same. It was a poor smoke-screen, but the best anyone could do.
During Labour’s first term, Alastair's control of the media made him an increasingly powerful figure. As he rubbed shoulders with Clinton and Putin, he became increasingly contemptuous of senior ministers and media figures, and soon the knives were out on both sides.
In January 1998, a biography of Gordon Brown highlighted the rift between the chancellor and the prime minister, and was followed by a series of damaging stories in the press. Whispers then emerged that Gordon Brown 'has psychological flaws’. There was little doubt that these rumours came from Alastair’s mouth, and Gordon Brown’s Press Secretary, Charlie Whelan, was soon limiting damage by grabbing Campbell’s reputation, shaking it and refusing to let go.
He was one of many. The problem remained - not so much with what Alastair was saying, but with what his words were hiding. New Labour English had turned into Newspeak: to dimantle welfare provisions was to strive for "rights and responsibilities"; to oppose New Labour's Thatcherism was to join the "forces of Conservatism"; to close Post Offices was to follow a "Post Office Urban Network Reinvention Programme". Ultimately, invading other countries was to be a commitment to an "ethical foreign policy" and to "world peace." How far can we be from "freedom is slavery"?
Yet amidst all the carefully crafted sound-bites, those that stuck in the public memory were often unscripted and unfortunate asides from the Press Secretary himself. "New Labour, Old Bag," on Barbara Castle, who dared to protest about pensions; ''bog standard comprehensives", the phrase that alienated thousands of teachers and even more of the pupils who owed their success to such schools; "we don't do God", which just drew attention to the Evil Troll's fondness for incense and wafers.
But on the whole, Alastair's attempts to keep media coverage favourable were successful: even if he had to take the bad press himself to avoid it falling on the government. He learned fast, but his attempts at keeping the media coverage of the government on an even keel were always going to be derailed by an Evil Troll with his own agenda.
In March 1998 ET spoke with the Italian Prime Minister, Roman Prodi, about a business deal Rupert Murdoch was considering in Italy. When asked whether Mr Blair had intervened in the deal, Alastair had, in his usual shy and retiring style, dismissed such reports "a complete joke" and "C-R-A-P". Two days later the Financial Times quoted Murdoch colleagues who said he had planned to 'ask Tony Blair for help in ascertaining whether the Italian governemnt would block his £4 billion acquisition of Mediaset, Italy's leading commercial television network.' The Tories accused Alastair of lying, and he denied it - even though Murdoch called off his Italian enterprise after hearing the ET PM's account of his conversation with Mr Prodi. The then-'leader' of the Conservative Party, William Hague, and his media spokesman, Francis Maude, scented blood. Hysterically they screamed that the 'over-mighty courtier' at the 'court of King Tony' must be brought under control. "We want to know if he is doing this off his own bat. Is he specifically authorised to tell lies?". Alastair responded to this sort of taunting by saying, "I described that story as a joke and I happen to think it was a joke. I think it is the oddest form of intervention to sit in your office waiting for a call from the Italian Prime Minister." So he didn't exactly lie, but you wouldn't call it the truth, would you?
Faced with this level of pre-occupation with what he defined as 'trivia', Alastair fought back in a way the media could understand. He focussed attention on ET's support for Deirdre Rachid, the Coronation Street character jailed for inadvertantly aiding a con-man. Without seeing any relevance to his own situation.
In May 1998, Emperor Akihito's state visit to Britain created uproar with ex-prisoners of war protesting against his presence in Britain as they had never received an apology, let alone compensaton, for their inhuman treatment during their incarceration. First off the Evil Troll tried to make out that the Emperor couldn't apologise because of the Japanese constitution, or some other such bollocks, which prevented him from commenting on any political issue. Eventually Alastair achieved the coup of arranging for the Sun to print an article signed by the Emperor, apologising for the treatment of prisoners of war.
Alastair was not untouched by tragedy. One of his best friends, John Merritt, had died of leukaemia in 1992. In June 1998 Merritt's daughter, Ellie, also died of the disease, and Alastair was once again a coffin bearer. "I can remember with John's coffin it being so heavy, and with Ellie's it was so light." Years later, because of these deaths, Alastair would become a fundraiser for Leukemia research, running marathons and competing in triathlons for the cause.
But his work couldn't wait. November 1998 saw the Ron Davies affair blow up. Davies resigned from his post as Secretary of State for Wales after what he initially described as a 'carjacking' turned out to be a far more complex affair involving blackmail over his homosexuality. Unlike Cook, Davies wasn't about to allow any clarity in news management, even though Alastair spoke to him on a daily basis. A Downing Street spokesman, almost certainly Alastair, said at the time, "You think there are elements to the story that have not been fully explained. Maybe we feel a bit like that as well." Davies' resignation letter, drafted by Alastair and referring to a "moment of madness" on Clapham Common, was criticised roundly. But Davies didn't want to confess all the ins and outs of the affair, and it was impractical to say nothing. Alastair's hands had been tied. Oooh, now there's an image....
But what of the stories doing the rounds suggesting that the pressure was leading Davies to contemplate suicide? They certainly deflected news headlines, but they were completely false. Davies later said that "Alastair was under pressure at the time and he made a throwaway comment: 'Leave off him, you guys, in case he tops himself.' That was without any discussion with me or my psychiatrist - not that I have a psychiatrist - or with my wife, who is better equipped than anyone to judge my mental state. Of course I was concerned. I saw this headline about suicide and it was dreadful. I'm not that sort of person. I'm certainly not a manic depressive and I'm not suicidal." Then again, maybe it wasn't spinning on Alastair's part so much as projection.
More ministerial problems were to follow. In December 1998, the Guardian heard rumours that a forthcoming biography of Peter Mandelson by Paul Routledge would reveal a loan of £373,000 made by Geoffrey Robinson to Mandelson (now Trade Secretary) in 1996. This loan had not been revealed to the Evil Troll by Mr Mandelson, even though it potentially breached the rules of ministerial conduct. Mr Robinson was facing charges of breaching company law, and had taken part in an investigation into the dealings of Robert Maxwell. However, Mandelson insisted that he had removed himself from any Department of Trade and Industry dealings with Mr Robinson.
Only five people had known about the loan: Robinson, his secretary Brenda Price, Mandelson, his political advisor Ben Wegg-Prosser and Wegg-Prosser's father. The Brown/Blair hostility was ongoing, Mandelson and his entourage being part of the Blair camp, and Robinson now a friend of the Brown inner circle. Suspicion thus fell on Charlie Whelan, one of Routledge's known government contacts. The Sunday Times had a serialisation of the book scheduled for January 1999, and there was much government backroom in-fighting over if and how to break the story to the Press. Alastair was opposed to leaking it to a right-wing newspaper, as had been proposed, and in the end the Mirror and the Guardian both published versions of the story on 22nd December.
On 24th December, Mandelson's resignation letter, and the Evil Troll's response, were published:
Dear Tony,
I can scarcely believe I am writing this letter to you. As well as being one of my closest friends you are a close colleague whose leadership and political qualities I value beyond all others.
As you have, I have reflected overnight on the situation concerning the loan I took from Geoffrey Robinson and I have decided to resign from the Government.
As I said publicly yesterday, I do not believe that I have done anything wrong or improper. But I should not, with all candour, have entered into the arrangement. I should, having done so, told you and other colleagues whose advice I value. And I should have told my permanent secretary on learning of the inquiry into Geoffrey Robinson, although I had entirely stood aside from this.
I am sorry about this situation. But we came to power promising to uphold the highest possible standards in public life. We have not just to do so, but we must be seen to do so.
Therefore with huge regret I wish to resign. I am very proud of the role I played in helping you and previous leaders of the Labour Party to make our party electable and to win our historic victory last May.
I am proud of the trust you placed in me both at the Cabinet Office and at the DTI. In just 18 months you have helped to transform this country and the government has made huge progress delivering on our manifesto and its programme of modernisation.
I will always be a loyal Labour man and I am not prepared to see the party and the government suffer the kind of attack this issue has provoked.
You can be assured, of course, of my continuing friendship and total loyalty.
Yours ever, Peter.
****************** Dear Peter,
You will know better than anyone the feelings with which I write to you. You and I have been personal friends and the closest of political colleagues.
It is no exaggeration to say that without your support and advice we would never have built New Labour.
It was typical of you, when we spoke last night, that your thought was for the reputation of the Labour party and the government and that you believed that since there had been a misjudgment on your part, then, as you said to me 'we can't be like the last lot' and that what we are trying to achieve for the country is more important than any individual.
But I also want you to know that you have my profound thanks for all you have done and my belief that, in the future, you will achieve much, much more with us.
Yours ever, Tony.
Alastair drafted both letters, ensuring the way remained open for Mandelson to return. No such favour was extended to the other casualties Robinson or Whelan, who resigned shortly after Mandelson.
