by Tom Bower
Blair asked no questions about what would happen now. Detaching himself from the consequences of underfunding the military, he was preoccupied by the forthcoming election, having received a reprimand from Philip Gould, his trusted adviser: ‘You are not focusing on the domestic agenda. Your language is wrong.’
Unmentioned in that message were the fractured relations among the New Labour family.
EIGHTEEN
The 2001 Election
* * *
The mood inside Blair’s own home had been poisoned by a ninety-minute argument between himself, Cherie, Alastair Campbell and Campbell’s combative partner, Fiona Millar, who had told Blair that his government was too right-wing and that he should no longer employ Jonathan Powell or Anji Hunter. Blair replied that he would decide on his staff rather than be subject to Millar’s diktat. Her rant spurred Campbell to snap that he would resign after the election, due in spring 2001.
The festering disagreements among Labour’s top echelon were stoked by Geoffrey Robinson’s newly published memoirs, which offered a gloriously prejudiced description of his service in the Labour government, laced with a disparaging account of Blair’s lapses as compared to Gordon Brown’s genius. ‘I have a real sense of foreboding,’ Blair told Peter Mandelson. ‘I feel very insecure. It’s just not going to work.’
The test of leadership, Blair knew, was to stay in power. In the wake of the petrol crisis, the polls had put the Tories temporarily ahead. Newspapers reported the fading of ‘Teflon Tony’. The bad news was compounded by Hunter announcing that she would definitely leave No. 10 after the election. Blair pleaded with both her and Campbell to stay. Without them he felt even more vulnerable, especially because Brown was being ‘vile and rude’, according to Mandelson, about the election campaign. Blair’s charm and popularity enraged the chancellor, who shrugged aside Blair’s warning that, if his vitriol did not stop, his expectations for the succession would be stymied. If he were fired, he threatened, there would be war. Blair recoiled. He fulminated about the risk of ‘Gordon on the back benches’ rousing his considerable army of supporters.
His fears had become profound. Without Brown, he could not fight the election. Only his chancellor had the intellect and political savvy to rout the Conservatives with beguiling slogans and the thunder of competence. Unlike most other ministers, including John Prescott, Stephen Byers, Harriet Harman and Jack Straw, Brown, despite his dubious counting, retained the appearance of running his ministry flawlessly. Somehow he concealed his dithering over decisions, his volcanic temper and his propensity to blame others for his own mistakes, like the award of a 75p pension increase. Brazenly, however, in his quest to become leader he also threatened to destroy the government. ‘The two clowns’, Alan Milburn told Blair unceremoniously, referring to Brown and Mandelson, ‘are harming the government.’ Blair’s best weapon against Brown, and his only defence against the Daily Mail’s latest attacks against Mandelson, was Campbell, who was soon to be deployed when the New Labour family’s troubles increased markedly on 21 January 2001.
Norman Baker, a Lib Dem MP, was alleging that Mandelson, by then employed as secretary for Northern Ireland, had interceded with the Home Office to help Srichand Hinduja, an Indian billionaire, obtain British citizenship. Baker knew that, two years earlier, Mandelson had persuaded Hinduja to finance the Millennium Dome’s Faith Zone. Mandelson denied Baker’s allegation, a denial that was repeated by Campbell to journalists.
Mandelson’s answer surprised Mike O’Brien, the immigration minister at the time. Referring to his notes, he recalled a telephone call from Mandelson asking about the application’s progress, and mentioned the contradiction to Jack Straw. At that stage, Straw could have remained silent to protect Mandelson and the government. Instead, he telephoned Blair and subsequently appeared on television to say that Mandelson had ‘told an untruth’. Not only had Mandelson telephoned O’Brien, said Straw, but he had also asked for his name to be omitted from any parliamentary answer.
Blair was trapped. Mandelson pleaded his innocence – ‘I never used my position to help anyone get a passport,’ he said – but the media were demanding the resignation of a man who aroused suspicion. While Mandelson fretted, Hinduja was bathing in the Ganges during a festival. To enquiring journalists he denied placing any pressure to obtain British nationality other than asking Mandelson to make ‘purely a casual query’. Blair approved an official inquiry into the allegations, but the media were unsatisfied. Mandelson’s honesty was widely disputed. The fate of a controversial politician could have awaited an independent report, but Blair was feeling even less secure than usual. At the best of times, holding together a government threatened by the passion of personal rivalries was difficult but, as he well understood, cynicism always triumphed over sycophancy. After four days of torrid headlines, the foundations of his government appeared to have become unusually fragile.
Campbell reckoned that Mandelson had been lying. He had indeed telephoned O’Brien, Campbell decided, and ‘had misled us’. Although Richard Wilson told Blair it was all ‘a minor mix-up’ that should be ignored, Campbell pronounced the opposite and pressured Blair to dismiss Mandelson. In choosing between his two closest aides, Blair surrendered to his overbearing spokesman. ‘Peter Mandelson is at this moment upstairs discussing his future with the prime minister,’ Campbell told journalists at a briefing on 24 January, implying the minister’s departure even before Blair had requested a formal resignation.
Mandelson was outraged by Blair’s disloyalty: ‘I was simply not worth the trouble and was dispensable.’ He also felt ‘betrayed’ by Campbell, who in turn suggested that Mandelson was ‘mentally detached’. Blair absorbed Mandelson’s outburst about an unnecessarily ruined career. Although his minister was a gambler, Blair had allowed Campbell, declared by a High Court judge in a recent libel action to be an ‘unreliable witness’, to destroy an invaluable confidant. His only concession was to describe his doomed adviser’s fate as ‘tragic’.
On his last morning in office, Mandelson had been served breakfast by his butler at Hillsborough Castle, his official residence in Northern Ireland, and by lunchtime was opening the door of his London house in Notting Hill to take delivery of a ‘Mermaid Queen’ pizza. Over the following days, he would admit his mistake, then deny his confession and finally repudiate the investigation. ‘I came briefly to be persuaded that my recollection was entirely wrong,’ he would say, ‘that I had erred, and that I should resign. Downing Street sentenced me to political suicide without a fair trial.’ No one could have imagined that a consequence of creating a Faith Zone at the Dome would be the termination of a career on account of a ‘forgotten’ telephone call two years earlier. But, in Blair’s judgement, he could not afford to ignore Campbell and take gratuitous risks so close to the election.
In one breath, he had dumped Mandelson and, with Campbell’s encouragement, embraced Richard Desmond, a publisher with a background in pornography and other murky business ventures, including a contract in 1991 to supply pornographic magazines to the Gambinos, New York’s mafia family.
Blair’s interest in the abrasive millionaire was sparked by Desmond’s purchase on 22 November 2000 of the Express group of newspapers. Although no longer the dominant influence it was in the Beaverbrook era, the Daily Express was still read by over a million people. Its new owner’s expectation of respect from Britain’s power brokers was instantly rewarded. Within an hour of his arrival at the Express’s headquarters, he was telephoned by Blair, who offered his congratulations and an invitation to visit Downing Street the same afternoon.
Blair seemed unaware that in 1997 Desmond had donated £5,000 to the Conservatives and, on that year’s election night, had watched with Barbara Windsor – ‘wearing our blue badges’ – the news of Labour’s landslide victory. ‘We were crying,’ Desmond recalled. Nor did Blair know that, a few months before, Desmond had ordered the editor of his pornographic magazine Readers’ Wives to ‘put Cherie Blair on the front
cover’.
On his arrival in Downing Street, Desmond snatched Blair’s outstretched hand and volunteered, ‘I’m a socialist.’ After some excited small talk about their shared interest in guitars, Desmond agreed that Margaret McDonagh, the Labour Party’s general secretary, should visit him to discuss a donation. A day later, he agreed secretly to donate £100,000 to the party.
To cement the new relationship, McDonagh invited Desmond to visit the party’s headquarters in Millbank. His appearance shocked Lance Price, a Downing Street spokesman. With Blair’s approval, said Price, ‘a sleazeball was allowed to run around’ the secret sanctum. Days later, Campbell addressed the Express group’s editors as members of Labour’s election machine rather than independent journalists.
‘Can you get Posh Spice to say, “Vote Labour”?’ he asked.
‘She’s Tory,’ he was told.
‘Beckham?’ chimed in Campbell, laughing. The footballer, he was informed, might be a more likely bet, but could not be relied upon to say the right thing.
‘I like Blair,’ Desmond recounted after his next meeting with the prime minister. He prided himself on having dictated his lunch menu to Downing Street – asparagus, steamed fish and berries – in order to satisfy his diet. ‘I can talk to Blair about anything – asylum-seekers, pensions and music. He and his wife are what modern Britain is all about. They are typical Express readers, self-made, liberally minded and down-to-earth.’ Shortly after, Blair met Anthony Bevins, who had just resigned as the Express’s political editor. ‘Why did you leave?’ Blair asked. Bevins placed in front of him Horny Housewives, Mega Boobs, Posh Wives, Skinny & Wriggly and other magazines owned by Desmond. One year later, Blair was asked by Jeremy Paxman on television whether he knew Desmond published pornography. ‘No, I don’t,’ he replied with doe-eyed innocence.
The new partnership would be tested after the Mail on Sunday revealed Desmond’s £100,000 donation to the Labour Party and juxtaposed it with Byers’s formal approval of the takeover of the Express and Desmond’s recent employment of McDonagh as general manager of Express Newspapers.
‘Richard Desmond’, said Alice Mahon, a Labour MP, ‘is the last person I would want to support and finance the Labour Party.’
Baroness Kennedy, the Labour lawyer, added about the donation, ‘I do think this is tainted money.’
In response, John Reid, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland – his fourth job in the government – retorted, ‘If you’re asking if we are going to sit in moral judgement on those who wish to contribute to the Labour Party, the answer is no.’
Blair damned all his critics for being part of a ‘systematic attempt … by some parts of the media to undermine politicians and undermine the political process’.
Events interrupted the flow of Blair’s spleen towards his critics. On 19 February, Brian Bender, now the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, told Blair that foot-and-mouth disease had been discovered among pigs at an abattoir in Essex. The ministry’s policy in such cases assumed that the neighbouring ten farms were at risk. Restrictions on animal movements were imposed and the ministry’s staff were deployed to resolve the outbreak. ‘You’ll have to sort out that mess,’ Blair told Bender. His priority was preparing for a meeting at Camp David with George W. Bush, the new US president.
After weeks of turbulence, Blair’s critics watched his arrival with Cherie in Washington on 22 February 2001 with particular scepticism. Taking his wife to meet Bush was a risk. Quite possibly she would not conceal her dislike of the Republicans, but rejecting Bush’s invitation was impossible. The right-wing president seemed uninformed but safe. ‘At Last a US President Who Won’t Meddle in Foreign Intervention’ was one British newspaper’s headline. By the end of their first day in Camp David, Bush’s charm had melted Cherie’s antagonism. Despite their different political allegiances, the two leaders also bonded over shared philosophies towards terrorism and religion.
Few beyond his inner circle had realised Blair had developed a genuine interest in religion since his days in Oxford with Peter Thomson, the Australian chaplain of St John’s. Unlike his predecessors, Blair made no secret of his Christian worship, which Matthew Parris in 1998 perceptively predicted would end with his conversion to Catholicism. Thomson, a lifelong friend, encouraged Blair’s conviction that religion lay at the heart of human existence, but sensibly Blair rarely discussed his faith, unless it was with like-minded people, including Bush. Both had read the scriptures, especially with regard to the importance of providence. Among their shared values was a hatred of Saddam Hussein. Blair opposed the dictator in the name of social democracy, while Bush wanted revenge against Saddam following the Iraqi president’s failed attempt to assassinate his father, former president George H. W. Bush. During their conversations, Bush reassured his visitor of their union in a moral crusade.
In the press conference at the end of the visit, Bush blessed Blair as ‘our strongest friend and closest ally’. The two leaders were asked about sanctions against Iraq. The previous week, American and British planes had attacked targets around Baghdad, the first bombing in nearly two years, evoking protests from many Labour MPs but justified by Robin Cook and the Foreign Office as necessary to prevent the development of WMDs.
‘Don’t be under any doubt at all’, Blair replied, ‘of our absolute determination to make sure that the threat of Saddam Hussein is contained and that he is not able to develop these weapons of mass destruction.’ Blair’s emphasis was on Saddam ‘developing’ the weapons. After conversations with Bush and the CIA’s director, he did not state that Saddam actually ‘possessed’ them.
He flew back to London exhilarated, but any feelings of triumph soon evaporated. New outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease had been discovered in Northumberland and Devon. Fifty-seven farms in sixteen counties had been infected even before the first discovery in Essex. The unexpectedly large number of animals being transported around the country was overwhelming the government’s outdated contingency plan. Whitehall’s leaders had allowed the organisation created during the Second World War to manage civil emergencies to disintegrate. The replacement Cobra machinery, Brian Bender discovered, was ‘antiquated. We were making it up as we went along. Everyone was out of their depth.’ ‘You may be looking for leadership,’ Helene Hayman, a junior agriculture minister, told a group of officials in the Cobra room, ‘but I’m completely untrained for this role.’ In their slow, uncoordinated response, officials were closing down rural areas and culling thousands of healthy animals. Smoking pyres were beginning to cover Britain, as Blair searched forlornly among the civil servants for a solution. In this major battle to save the countryside, he shrank from assuming the mantle of commander-in-chief.
At that moment, Nick Brown, the minister for agriculture and an ally of the chancellor, told David Frost on his television programme, ‘I’m absolutely certain we have it under control.’ Simultaneously, David King, the government’s chief scientific officer, was offering data to Downing Street showing that ‘It’s all out of control.’ The culling of animals, recommended King, would need to be intensified. Notably indecisive, Nick Brown failed to respond. Relations among fearful civil servants became tense and the machinery of government stagnated. Critics, especially in rural areas, accused the government of dithering, while farmers accused metropolitan politicians of disliking the countryside. The public’s confidence, as well as Blair’s, disappeared as newspapers reported irrational decisions to cull healthy animals.
During visits to infected areas, Blair encountered incompetence, mismanagement and a shortage of trained experts. In London, his principal private secretary, Jeremy Heywood, told Bender to employ sixteen Spanish vets.
‘They don’t speak English,’ Bender replied.
‘They can use translators,’ said Heywood.
‘No,’ ruled Bender. ‘I can’t have a Spaniard telling an English farmer that all his animals must be killed. This is all nasty work.’
The Departm
ent of Agriculture, Blair saw, was irretrievably broken. Healthy animals could have been saved by vaccination, but because of opposition by the farmers’ union, King’s cull was transforming the countryside into a killing zone. Six and a half million animals were being slaughtered, meat exports were banned and the rural economy was being crippled. The government was spending £8 billion to save the farming industry at the expense of tourism.
This was not an ideal backdrop for an election, even though Labour was still some fifteen points ahead in the polls. Despite the lead, Blair was sufficiently nervous that he postponed the election from May until June.
William Hague calmed the public’s anger. The army, he suggested, should take over. In a video conference, Blair’s face visibly eased as Brigadier Malcolm Wood provided the solution. Nick Brown was pushed aside in favour of Geoff Hoon but, though the army was critical to the nation’s salvation, Gordon Brown was infuriated that his ally had been sidelined. Alternating between sulking and verbally assaulting Blair with demands for his resignation, he refused to allocate additional money for the public services.
‘Life is a living hell,’ Blair told Powell, and questioned why he would even want to be re-elected. Organising the campaign had become fraught. None of his Downing Street advisers, Blair admitted, including David Miliband and Andrew Adonis, could invent ‘a sufficiently compelling vision of a second-term government to engage the electorate’. He summoned Mandelson as the one person with the ingenuity to express ‘Blairism’ in slogans and ideas.
During his visit to Downing Street, Mandelson found Blair isolated and distracted, ‘unsure exactly what his message should be’. One proposed slogan – ‘A lot done. A lot still to do’ – barely disguised the Labour leader’s disappointment about his achievements so far. Blair mentioned his desire for his next government to be ‘more radical, more ambitious’, especially when it came to health and education. Too often over the previous four years, he volunteered, he had approved government by assertion: spokesmen uttered seat-of-the-pants announcements in the hope that the facts would catch up. Mandelson, on whom Blair relied despite his dismissal from the government, offered reassurance. The theme, he suggested, was New Labour as ‘a party of aspiration and compassion’. Blair was relieved, but the respite was brief.
