by Craig Oliver
DC calls to say, ‘The problem is most people didn’t see it, but they’re getting their sense of it from the endless press digests on TV and radio, or reading the biased coverage.’ Once again it is clear we do not have a champion in the press – and with the broadcasters often, though not always, taking their cue from this kind of coverage, we are always going to struggle.
I fully accept that we took what we could get in the general election – with the Sun and the Telegraph knocking lumps out of Labour, and the Guardian and the Mirror knocking lumps out of us. Now we have the Mail, Sun, Express and increasingly the Telegraph smashing us, while the other papers that are supposedly pro-Remain either throw their hands up in horror at the brutality of the campaign, or do endlessly reasonable pieces about the other side.
I take a deep breath and tell myself the broadcast media packages major on our economic message, as well as the ‘roll the dice’ line, and that is how most people will consume this.
After an early morning encounter on Good Morning Britain, we shoot through the rush hour to a hotel at St Pancras station. It feels like we are entering a giant and imposing Gothic film set: the ceilings sky high, the lighting dim.
We’re here to meet Simon Walters from the Mail on Sunday – the one paper that does seem to be really behind us.
The PM says he is ready for action. We’ve already talked about making the passionate case for Remain. DC delivers, really stepping up, but not crossing the line into a rant.
Simon wants it to be all about DC versus Boris. The PM doesn’t play directly, but he does attack hard, saying Leave know claiming we’ll be better off out is ‘nonsense on stilts’, and it’s ridiculous to portray the EU as an ‘evil empire’, while expecting them to do a good deal if we leave.
DC disappears off to Kent and I stay back to talk to Simon. He says, ‘I’ve never seen him so fired up.’ Neither have I. He thinks we’ve had a rough ride on immigration, but concludes, ‘It’ll be sixty–forty to you.’ God, I hope so.
I get in the cab back to Stronger In. It’s not even 9 a.m. and I feel like I’ve done a full day’s work.
As I sit down, the latest tracking poll comes in.
It says we are winning 56–44. I’m confused. Everyone is worried about immigration, but since it has been front and centre, we seem to be improving our position. Less than a week ago our polling put us on 51–49. There’s now been a move outside the margin of error. What is going on?
Stephen Gilbert then says we should just ignore all polls. I wonder, why we are doing one then?
I jump back on the Tube to Downing Street. We have a meeting with the Chancellor in the No. 11 Dining Room to go through the grid.
The main thing to come out of it is agreement with my point that we need a story for when the PM does the ITV programme with Farage next week. I’m clear Farage will attack us in the most vicious way – accusing the PM of being a liar.
We need to appeal to all the people who see him as beyond the pale. Something along the lines of: the choice is now clear, between Farage’s Britain – with a shrinking economy, fewer jobs and our face turned to the wall, or the people who are prepared to work together to achieve something bigger and better.
It’s agreed I should go and work it up.
A few of us head back to Stronger In to watch Gove on Sky. There’s a good team atmosphere in the office. The entire press team is there – geared up to leap on everything.
There’s no question that Gove is on the ropes for the first seven minutes. He can’t name a single serious economic body that supports Leave. Nor businesses. Nor international allies.
He fights back by saying ‘people in this country have had enough of experts.’ It’s a breathtaking moment – perhaps one of the most cynical things I’ve ever heard a politician say. Michael Gove parades himself as an intellectual who prizes reason, but when his back is against the wall, he’s prepared to attack the very people who know what they are talking about.
He then goes on to attack Faisal as part of the establishment.
His strategy is clear – create the idea that the gilded elite are all part of a conspiracy. It’s absurd. What is the Lord Chancellor, other than part of the elite?
We are firing out tweets left, right and centre: ‘On the ropes’ … ‘No supporters’. But one of the problems we have is that the Leave members of the audience are just a lot noisier. They applaud anything he says.
I text DC, who isn’t watching, and say he has been struggling.
George asks to be kept informed, saying, ‘I literally can’t bring myself to watch it.’ It’s in these moments that I realise how high the stakes are – and the sense of personal betrayal at the heart of it all.
Joe Carberry spends the whole time bashing away at his keyboard, filtering any shout-outs into a coherent document.
The audience have some tough questions, including accusing Vote Leave of being ‘project lie’ and another commenting that Gove is like a First World War general, waving his flag and urging everyone to go over the top, without knowing what we’ll face on the front line.
The programme rather fizzles out – Gove looks increasingly comfortable, rolling out what are clearly pre-prepared script lines about patriotism and sovereignty.
I go home thinking it is evident he had every bit as tough a time as the PM. Any fair representation would make that clear. Later, John Rentoul writes a piece on Gove’s performance. He describes his ‘Red Mike persona as an act constructed for the purposes of debate.’ I wonder if he knows quite how well he has hit the nail on the head.
For me, Gove is an actor. He strikes a pose according to circumstances.
Does he really believe any of it?
Leave’s pattern of deceit continues the next day with a 2,000-word letter signed by Boris and Gove. It’s an attempt to raise the risks of remaining in the EU to counter our constant barrage of stories about the risks of leaving. It’s the most deceitful thing they’ve tried so far – full of claims about Turkey joining the EU and how there’ll be 300,000 more jobs if we leave.
I draft the lines to take for our people: ‘As any credible expert will tell you, this letter from Leave is reckless nonsense – they are now guilty of actively misleading the British people. The Leave campaign cannot produce a single expert who believes there is any prospect of Turkey joining the EU. The UK retains a full veto over any new member. We have clear guarantees we will not contribute to any bailout and protections against Eurozone integration. If we Leave, we will wreck our economy, people will lose their jobs and families will be worse off. Leaving is too big a risk to take.’
Chapter 25
You’re Killing Us
IT’S SUNDAY 5 June and I am worried.
This is tighter than we thought it would be. Bloodier than we thought it would be.
I talk to a very senior broadcast journalist. He says, ‘I think the Leave campaign just can’t believe their luck to still be in it at this stage.’ He pauses for a moment, before saying, ‘So many of the things they are saying are just wrong. Literally like sand falling through our fingers and yet the public just don’t seem to care.’
This really could be a complete disaster. Reports keep coming through of disaffected Labour voters saying they are sick of immigration.
And yet our media team is doing an amazing job – we completely outwit Leave in the Sunday papers. James McGrory has worked with the Mail on Sunday on a story about far-right elements infiltrating Leave. They splash with it. It includes an astonishing set of pictures showing a woman with a large swastika tattoo and her Nazi friend working on a Leave stall. There’s also a positive write-up of the PM’s punchy interview and a great editorial.
I settle down to watch Marr, anticipating John Major. I text a friend, ‘Strap yourself in.’ He texts back, ‘I am. God, I hate this referendum.’
Sir John looks like a man doing well to control his cold fury. He wastes no time in saying he believes Leave are ‘misleading the British people’, the
n goes on to describe it as a campaign that is ‘verging on the squalid’ over immigration. He says Boris appears to have been converted to Leave on ‘a day trip to Damascus’.
Marr asks him about the idea that money would be safer after Brexit. He attacks Gove, Boris and IDS, saying, ‘The NHS would be as safe in their hands as a pet hamster with a hungry python.’
The next interview with Boris is weak as water. On air, Andrew Marr appears to suggest they have done a deal – he won’t interrupt Boris, if his questions aren’t met with long speeches. I am shouting at the TV when Boris denies his unbelievably glib comment that the graph of leaving would be like the ‘Nike swoosh’ (a downturn, before a sharp rise). He did it in The Times and was asked about it on his last appearance on Marr. He evidently realises it’s not a great look to be so blasé about jobs.
Then there’s the moment when he is shown a Leave poster saying, ‘TURKEY (population 76 million) IS JOINING THE EU’. Boris smirks, knowing it is a lie – and attempts to justify it. The interview was a failure, and what was supposed to be Boris’s big day has been hijacked by John Major.
The referendum has boiled down to a straight fight between the economy and immigration. Voices from across the campaign remain confident that we have the right approach – trashing our economy is no way to deal with immigration.
Peter Mandelson writes a long, thoughtful note, arguing, ‘… crystallising the choice between economics and migration will help us. We ought to encourage it. Those who think migration most important will have already decided to vote against us. We are targeting those who are worried about immigration but are susceptible to the argument that dealing with migration by disabling the economy is not right. So let’s reinforce this equation.’
He adds that ‘the PM has done well in pointing out that free movement isn’t a one-way street into the UK, it is allowing millions of Brits to exercise freedom about where they work, live or retire. And from construction and building to our NHS, the everyday reality in the UK is that we often rely on citizens from the rest of the EU to get the work done and the care provided.’
Finally he suggests the PM make a definitive speech on immigration, but he should not leave it to the end, because it will appear desperate.
The core No. 10 team gathers at Downing Street that evening. We, too, have been thinking about immigration. We are less comfortable than Peter Mandelson about simply saying you have to accept unlimited free movement in exchange for a stronger economy. It’s also not assured that a major speech on immigration will do much more than poke the hornet’s nest. The bottom line is: what can we say on immigration/freedom of movement that will not be met with derision?
We are left with: Leave are confused on immigration and reckless on the economy. On immigration – they won’t solve the problem with their plan for an Australian-style points system (as Migration Watch points out). They are lying about Turkey joining, and they also appear to be demanding more immigration from outside the EU.
We agree to get all our people to constantly point out that we have a plan – Leave doesn’t have a plan.
It’s late as I get in the car home. I call Will Straw. He’s supposed to be on Today in the morning. He thinks immigration is hurting us. All of us are being brave, but we know it’s true.
I go to bed with a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach and wake up to the BBC leading on claims by the Leave campaign, which are straightforwardly wrong – that we will be on the hook for higher EU budgets and Eurozone bailouts if we stay in.
It’s become a theme of this campaign that the BBC thinks they have to give them equal time, regardless of whether what they are saying is true or not. So it’s not unusual for them to start the day just running what they say. I send the following text to key editorial figures in the BBC: ‘Another example of you leading on a Leave claim that is literally not true.’
I point out that they really should be dismissing it as a story, but given they are running it, they should at least make plain it’s nonsense from the start. It’s a fact we have a budget veto and don’t have to take part in Eurozone bailouts. They need to be a fair referee – not just allow them to assert something that’s demonstrably wrong.
I explain it to Norman Smith when he calls me for a comment and he seems to be agreeing with me. But little has changed by 7 a.m. I send another text: ‘Still same. You need to actually say EU rules are clear. Otherwise confusing.’
By 8 a.m. it’s changed. But it’s depressing we have to go round this course so often.
Later, I pick up from senior contacts at the BBC that they have been arguing all day about my intervention suggesting they keep running stories from Leave that are factually incorrect. They say they haven’t learned from what happened during the Scottish referendum.
It’s the same old thing, they have a serious problem with quality control on morning bulletins. Who is responsible for taking an overview of the morning output that spreads across so many radio stations, TV and online and reaches tens of millions of people? Having worked at the BBC, I know that there’s endless focus on the so-called flagship programmes, like Today and the News at Ten, whereas the shorter bulletins and internet copy are churned out with little oversight.
I’m beginning to realise that this is just a symptom of a wider concern. Serious journalism is struggling to hold to account those who are prepared to go beyond standard campaign hyperbole and stray into straightforward lies. If a campaign has been officially designated as the lead advocate for one side of the debate, and so much of their core message is untrue – how do you report it in straightforward news terms? The reason I focus on the BBC so much is because of their sheer scale in terms of British journalism. They are a leviathan – in TV, radio and online, dwarfing the competition. If they are struggling it’s a serious issue, particularly when newspapers are actively campaigning.
At least we are very much on the front foot this morning – holding a major cross-party event, with strong visuals. We’ve been given a heads-up on Harriet Harman’s speech. She wants to directly attack Boris and Gove. Ameet points out this is hopeless – the PM will literally be standing next to her, listening to her attack people in his party. She needs to do it more subtly.
We contact her team and she agrees to pull back.
I rush up the road to see Amber Rudd for her debate prep. I have arranged for us to use CTN in Covent Garden, which is run by the lovely and supportive Stephen Watson, who has a TV studio in his basement.
Amber is one of my favourite politicians, straightforward, clever and fun. But she is a little nervous. I get her to record her opening statement. The first thing she is doing wrong is not looking down the barrel of the camera. She fixes that quickly.
Then I point out that her script just isn’t emotional enough. She needs to have more passion. I suggest: ‘They are asking you to take a leap in the dark and take a risk with all our futures. And as a mother, I am just not prepared to see that happen.’
We move on to the Q&A. Her presentation style is classic Tory – reasonable, technical and just a little dry. I feel my mind wandering. I tell her she has to be more aggressive. ‘Tell them this just isn’t good enough. They’re asking us to take a leap in the dark. Kick them hard: “Boris, I might come to you for a good joke, but I’m not prepared to entrust you with our children’s futures.”’
While the team prep her, I go through to the studio gallery to watch the PM event. It is as I hoped – each of the party leaders standing in front of a Mini painted the colour of their party … except for Natalie Bennett, who is standing in front of a green Brompton bike. Apparently the collective that runs the party took three meetings to conclude they were prepared to do this.
It looks a little eccentric, but it’s a strong image and the bike makes it stand out. Outers in the Conservative party are attacking the PM for standing with our enemies. I hit back hard – Leave are dragging Labour’s Gisela Stuart round the country with them, and Chris Grayling was prepared to share a platf
orm with Nigel Farage. I also note that after ages pushing, the BBC are saying straightforwardly that Leave claims today are wrong. It’s a small victory after a lot of effort.
As I come out, Kevin Pringle arrives. He is representing the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon. He’s no fool – Alex Salmond’s former Director of Comms. He leans forward, peering through steel-rimmed glasses and sucking on a carton of juice.
He says, ‘Nicola will give the positive case.’
I decide to be straight with him. We wouldn’t have chosen Nicola to be on the platform, as she goes down very badly with English voters, but ITV insisted. ‘The big worry is that she says something unhelpful and makes it look like we can’t even agree amongst ourselves.’ He makes some understanding noises. We’ll see next week. Once again it is something beyond our control – someone representing our campaign has a separate agenda.
I walk back to Downing Street in the hot summer sun, ready to join the PM for the Jeremy Vine show. We get in the car together and talk about how close it feels. DC laughs and says, ‘Half a point will do it for me.’
When we arrive, we end up having to hang around in a lift that won’t move. We finally get to the sixth floor. Jeremy comes out and I take a picture of the two of them together, to tweet out that DC is about to be on.
I listen to the burble of Ken Bruce in the background, the middle-of-the-road music and the sunny jingles, and think, this is a so much nicer world than the world we inhabit. I mention this to DC and he laughs, ‘Yes, where people are happy!’
The interview is unremarkable. In the car back, I ask him cheekily about what it’s like having Gove and now Steve Hilton out there attacking him. It sounds to me as if Gove is destined for a reserved politeness when they are eventually forced to interact, but he really won’t have anything more to do with Steve, who has been highly critical on his current book tour. The theory in Downing Street is that Steve never got over the fact that the PM was prepared to let him go so easily. Life had become intolerable, with Steve falling out with civil servants and apparently behind briefings that DC had betrayed their core mission. When he disappeared, the ship settled and we won a general election. Most can’t help noticing that every intervention about Downing Street is unhelpful.