Unleashing Demons

by Craig Oliver

  DC seems to be taking it in his stride. Standing in his office at 8 a.m., he says to me, ‘This is a battle we were always going to have to fight – the right-wing press trying to kill us on this issue.’ The Out campaign currently has no serious leader and is widely believed to be in disarray.

  IDS announces he is coming in to see the PM. He’s a proud and formal man and we are expecting him to revolt on principle against the fact that Cabinet ministers who want to leave the EU aren’t allowed to campaign until the deal is formally signed off. The thought is he wants to go on Marr to speak out. I say to the PM, ‘You’ve got to appeal to him as a military man. If no one follows the leader, it’s chaos.’

  DC agrees this is a good approach. I also say we should try to persuade him to do nothing, but if he has to, he mustn’t breach the collective responsibility line, ‘because if he does, the first question we’ll be asked is: Are you going to fire him?’

  I make myself scarce. Fifteen minutes later, I’m called back through to the PM’s office. It turns out IDS has had a change of heart. He doesn’t want to speak out now, but he does want the Cabinet after the European summit to be brought forward, either to the Friday night or the Saturday. My view is we need space to drive home our points before the cacophony surrounding the bigger story of who is In and who is Out. DC isn’t sure that’s sustainable.

  We start talking about what we need to do to get some momentum back on our side. My thought is that with Theresa May having announced her plans, Boris and Gove are now the focus of attention. If we’re sure Gove has said he’ll join us, we should try and get him to find a way to come out. This morning’s Times suggests he’s wavering – it would be a great moment to confound those thoughts. DC agrees – he seems utterly confident Gove is on side after discussions he had with Sarah Vine at New Year.

  Late in the day, Ed says he has spoken to Gove and he is equivocal. I’ve spotted a tweet from Rupert Murdoch that seems to me is aimed squarely at him; ‘Cameron’s deal with EU a nothing. How can sensible Cabinet colleagues accept this? Loyalty to country more important than friendships.’ Gove is very close to Murdoch – he goes to his dinners when he is in London and will be at his wedding to Jerry Hall.

  George comes in as I’m saying Gove going to Leave would be as big a problem as if Theresa had done. He disagrees – saying Boris is the one to worry about.

  I’m not so sure and find myself thinking more and more about why Gove is perhaps the key figure in all of this.

  Chapter 6

  What It’s Like to be Ed Miliband

  IN NO. 10 there have always been two big assumptions about Michael Gove: he has no leadership ambitions and as a close friend of DC and George, he would never do anything to undermine them.

  I have always questioned both of these claims and having dealt with him over a number of years, I’m left asking the same question: Would the real Michael Gove please stand up?

  On the leadership, he had always told people that he recognised it requires special qualities to be Prime Minister, which he did not possess. This is what he told Sky News in 2012:

  I don’t want to be Prime Minister … Having seen close up how [David Cameron] does the job, I know that I couldn’t do it … if anyone wants to get me to sign a piece of parchment in my own blood saying that I don’t want to be Prime Minister – if that’s what it takes, then I’m perfectly happy to do that.

  His set of friends agreed he wasn’t the man for the job, saying he was not worldly enough, and claiming, ‘This is the man who had to be stopped trying to unblock his loo with a hoover.’

  Gove also told a lot of people he would be loyal to David Cameron to the very last, when he would switch his allegiance to George Osborne. A small moment made me doubt that. Very early on in my time at No. 10, I accompanied Gove and the PM on a visit to a free school. Michael was entertaining, gossipy and preoccupied by what would happen if Boris got into Parliament – would he create an alternative powerbase from the backbenches? After a while it was clear that DC was bored with it and said, ‘I don’t know – that’ll be something for George to deal with.’ I could see that, as the PM went back to his work, Gove looked crushed. It struck me at the time that he hated being dismissed as a potential leader by this casual comment – even though DC did not realise what he was doing.

  I also noticed that Michael was assiduous in courting backbench MPs and assumed this was part of keeping his options open. Others said, never mind what Gove wants, think about what Mrs Gove wants.

  Looking back, I now see Gove always hated the idea that some saw him as David Cameron’s court jester. He was rightly valued for his jokes – regularly called upon at prep for Prime Minister’s Questions to sprinkle some much-needed humour into the occasion. Some found the cumulative effect of being hit by a round of his jokes the equivalent of eating too many chocolates, but there was real talent there. When being asked about Ebola, he suggested, ‘When it comes to communicable diseases, it’s quite clear that the honourable gentleman doesn’t know his Sars from his Ebola.’

  Although Gove was praised by many for being an intellectual, I struggled to see how all the positions he had taken hung together. A man who presented himself as a modernising liberal could also appear to be a reactionary. In a paper entitled ‘Northern Ireland, the Price of Peace’, he claimed the Good Friday Agreement was a capitulation to the IRA; and in a newspaper column he argued in favour of the death penalty, writing that for there to be fair trials, they needed to be held ‘under the shadow of the noose’.

  And it was the apparent desire to still be a columnist that was part of his downfall as Secretary of State for Education. While a growing coalition accused him of failure to explain one of our flagship policies and alienating all teachers, he found time to write some curious pieces. One criticised the TV series Blackadder for misleading people by suggesting the First World War was futile, because, in his view, the reality was that we had been fighting anti-democratic forces bent on imperialism. I called him up to ask, ‘Michael, given it is the settled view of most people that the First World War was a waste of life, and that at the time Britain occupied more than half the globe, why did you think it was a good idea to write this stuff? You seem like you’re not interested in your day job.’

  The more I looked at him, the more everything he did appeared to be an act or a performance. Watching him in various situations, I was reminded of the line in T.S. Eliot, ‘To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.’ In Cabinet while others sat still, he would flick through his notebook and scribble theatrically. His now legendary politeness seemed forced, particularly for someone so skilled at dinner-table character assassinations.

  Polling showed he was deeply unpopular – not just with professionals, but with the wider public. Educational reform that should have been a jewel in our crown was becoming tarnished. He was moved to Chief Whip, a job the PM said Gove had told him he’d always wanted to do. In DC’s mind he was protecting his friend – giving him an important role, while preparing the ground for another promotion at the next reshuffle. Gove accepted, but he appeared not to realise it meant a pay cut, and his champions in the press said he had been humiliated.

  His wife, Sarah Vine, tweeted: ‘A shabby day’s work, which Cameron will live to regret.’ Were they really people who wanted the PM to succeed and did not harbour their own ambitions?

  On Friday 5 February, I wake early, but allow myself the luxury of reading the papers and listening to the Today programme in bed. My ears prick up at an item saying the group most likely to vote to leave the EU are those with few educational qualifications.

  When I get into work, I make myself a cup of tea in the kitchenette area of the basement. Sean the driver is down there. He’s a sharp, older, sensible guy and I value his opinions. He says in his group of friends, largely ex-servicemen, all want to get out. They’re sick of being told what to do, and with the impact of immigration, struggling to get on the housing ladder. He says he heard Nigel Farage on t
he radio and was taken by him saying, ‘This is all about the bankers and the posh boys.’ It’s a cynical ploy – he was in the City and isn’t exactly from a poor background – but it’s clearly effective.

  The Vote Leave campaign continues to be a mess. The MP Kate Hoey has ended her affiliation with them, apparently sick of being treated like a fool by Dominic Cummings. It’s obvious that coming from Labour, Hoey should be treated as a precious asset – someone they can point to who isn’t UKIP or a right-wing Conservative – but now she’s gone.

  The one card Cummings does hold is that he may be able to deliver Gove. On that front, George texts DC having seen Gove to tell him it is definitely a serious prospect.

  The next day, the papers continue to be bad on Europe. Charles Moore writes in the Telegraph that he’s been polite about the deal so far – but enough is enough. He says there’s nothing in it and now people have to decide.

  In the Guardian’s comment pages there is a thoughtful piece from Martin Kettle pointing out we really look like achieving a lot.

  We seem caught between those in the EU who don’t like our supposed belly-aching, think we’ve been offered too much and want us to get less, and those who don’t like us at home who think we’ve been offered too little, want us to get far more, and will keep screaming until we do.

  The Sunday papers are as bad as it gets. An almost universal and systematic trashing of the renegotiation – particularly by voices in the Conservative party. We can pretend we aren’t flying into the teeth of an outright campaign, but the truth is we are, and it feels uncomfortable.

  I email the PM saying we need to have a fightback, but the problem is that while we’re still negotiating, we can’t seem too much in favour of staying in.

  Late last night it emerged the Telegraph is running a story headlined: ‘Cameron: Brexit will bring “Jungle” to Kent.’ The BBC calls to ask if it is true. I can spot trouble. The Telegraph has clearly taken it from a briefing the PM did with their editor and political editor last week. They didn’t tell us they were planning to run it. If they had, we’d have corrected parts of it. What we mean is that if the so-called ‘Juxtaposed Controls’ were ended with France, everyone in the camps would naturally want to come to the UK, and not that they would set up camps here. We’re now in a situation where the lobby can play a game – is the story true? We then have to explain what was meant, to which they say, ‘So the story is bollocks?’ If we answer that, they say No. 10 ‘backs away’.

  There’s concern about where the story came from (‘Um … the PM … but they’ve massively over-written it.’).

  I have a particularly frustrating call with the Evening Standard, who say they are going to write the story is true or that we are backing down. When I say we can’t be mocked or back away from something we didn’t say, they act dumb and pretend not to be able to see the point. I tell them if I see either version of the story I will take it as misrepresenting us.

  DC says this is why he hates having cosy chats that are supposedly off the record – because this is what happens. Of course, he is right that the Telegraph should have told us what they were planning and we’d have told them they had the wrong end of the stick, but that is not the world we live in, and we need to keep as good relations as we can.

  The PM has to rush off to give his prisons speech. When he does Kate, Ed and I reflect on where we are. The problem is all the negativity in the papers is winding up the party.

  I’m made to feel a little better by some fresh polling, which I summed up in this email to the PM:

  Andrew Cooper called me with some fresh polling.

  A phone poll shows – Remain: 59 and Leave 41.

  He asked if people support or oppose the renegotiation – with 42% saying Support, and 31% Oppose, with 27% Don’t Know.

  When people are given more detail – support for renegotiation rises to 50%, but opposition also rises to 40% with 10% Don’t Know.

  His view is stick to the big picture – we can have the best of both worlds.

  Craig.

  That brief moment of relief is ended by Ed suggesting we may need to walk away from the February Council without a deal. Tusk is now suggesting they could release a second draft text, which might be worse for us than the first. Obviously we couldn’t accept that – and would be in an even worse position with the papers than we are now (if that is conceivable).

  Meanwhile the tale of who will support Out continues to torment us. Boris writes a piece in the Telegraph which is an exemplar of his policy on cake: having it and eating it, too. It’s basically, ‘On the one hand … and on the other …’ with no firm conclusion.

  It makes me think how the arguments are boiling down. Out is essentially motivated by ‘sovereignty’ – saying it’s ridiculous that a country that has been under the rule of law for centuries can’t have proper control of its own borders, is regularly over-ruled by foreign judges, and whose parliament can’t pass all its own laws. Ours is – we can have the best of both worlds, all of the economic advantages of being in the EU, without the downsides of being in the Euro or the Schengen ‘no borders’ agreement.

  As the day goes on, the Calais story gets better. For a start, the Leave campaign claim it’s no more than scaremongering, which shows they are rattled. The former head of UK Border Force comes out and says it is absolutely correct – the French would drop border controls like a hot brick. I joke with the PM at the end of the day that it’s been another triumph of media strategy and he winces.

  A few people are now beginning to realise that we are in a looking-glass media world, where everyone we traditionally chalk up in our column is on the other side and vice versa. There is almost nothing as formidable as the campaigning power of the right-wing press. As Ameet puts it, ‘We’re discovering what it’s like to be Ed Miliband.’

  I meet with the BBC, who dominate the media landscape in this country. In the face of a powerful newspaper campaign against us, they are going to be desperately important in reaching undecided voters.

  The main purpose of the meeting is for them to get the logistics going forward, but they also bring up that they are determined to sort out the problems with online and morning bulletins the BBC has had in the past over big campaigns. I’ve heard this before and am sceptical. They tell me they plan to have a hotline for both campaigns that nominated people will be able to call at any time.

  Having worked as the editor of the BBC News at Six and Ten and controller of the World Service, I know the organisation backwards.

  The best way of understanding it is likening it to a huge vineyard, renowned throughout the world for its vintage wines – like the Today programme, the News at Ten and the World Service. As well as wines of distinction, it also mass produces more basic product in the form of short radio and TV bulletins and online copy, consumed by literally tens of millions. Understandably the management are obsessed with getting the big ‘reputational’ programmes right. They are less concerned by the mass-produced products. The 8 a.m. bulletin on Chris Evans’ Radio Two show is the most listened-to output from BBC radio news, but I doubt any senior editorial figures ever tune in.

  Too often in this job, I have struggled with these bulletins and online stories being wrong or misleading. It’s not just an issue with me. When I have spoken to figures in Labour and the Liberal Democrats, they have had the same complaint. It’s also not about believing them to be biased. They’re not. It’s about being slapdash in these areas. At core, I believe the BBC is a fundamentally good thing. Its heart is in the right place, with a public service ethos and attempting to be impartial.

  What bothers us all so much is it is a leviathan – dominating journalism on radio, television and online in this country. If they get it wrong, it’s a serious issue. For years no one has been in overall charge of morning output. We have frequent issues with BBC Online getting things wrong, and it seems to take a minimum of six hours to get anything changed, even when they admit a mistake.

  G
iven their scale, how they perform in this campaign is going to be crucial.

  It seems certain Donald Tusk will put round a second draft text on the renegotiation ahead of next week’s council. It’s thought it will weaken the original proposals. Given how bad it was for the first draft, I am seriously concerned.

  I run into one of the lead negotiators coming into the back of No. 10, looking dishevelled, wearing an old beanie hat, his face gaunt and weather-beaten. He tells me he’s been dealing with well over twenty other countries who want to water everything down.

  He declares in the PM’s office, ‘There’s been lots of moaning, but nothing fatal,’ before going on, ‘It’s going to be OK.’ The main concern is chipping away the language around ending the concept of ‘ever closer union’, the idea that we are on a fast track to a European superstate.

  There’s a lot of debate about the vagueness around how long we will get to extend the emergency brake on welfare to end the ‘pull factors’ for migrants. The PM says it’s enough for him to make an argument. I worry we’re too close to it. A lot of this stuff is gobbledygook to the average person – easily hijacked by the Leave campaign as not good enough.

  Late on, the PM’s mind turns to the drink he’s having with Michael Gove. We discuss what might work in persuading him not to go to the Out campaign. George says, ‘There’s no argument that really persuades him. There’s a little bit around “What does Vladimir Putin want?” But nothing more.’ That argument is that Putin wants to destabilise the West and what it stands for. With a hawkish mindset, Gove would not want that to happen, but it’s unlikely to weigh heavier than all his other doubts about the EU.