Unleashing Demons

by Craig Oliver

  Two weeks ago there was a 6% Remain lead for ‘coming across strongly’.

  I focus on keeping the rational side of my brain calm. This was always going to be the tough bit. Don’t panic. But I can’t squash inside me the small, fearful voice, which is taunting me that we are going to lose.

  Turning to the debate, I push the pace – acting as the moderator. To my right are Amber Rudd, Angela Eagle and an SNP official acting as Nicola Sturgeon. To my left, Will Straw, Ed de Minckwitz and Adam Atashzai playing Leave. We go through the opening statements. While the politicians on our side sound a little hesitant and lacking in passion, Will, Ed and Adam relish playing Leave, tearing things up with a passionate, bombastic case for getting out of this sclerotic institution. They have studied our opponents and know their arguments backwards. Ed de Minckwitz does a particularly good Boris.

  When they are done, I let Alastair Campbell comment first. He gives cautious praise – clearly in favour of not crushing them just yet.

  I say my overwhelming sense was of a lack of passion and we really need to work on that. It’s apparent to me from the SNP answers that Nicola Sturgeon is determined to do the positive ‘Hello birds, hello trees’ case – which will have little impact. I tell Angela Eagle that I need to hear her righteous indignation on behalf of working people.

  We do the openings again and the best that can be said is that they are a bit better.

  We get into some proper debate. I call time quite quickly: ‘You keep being sucked into talking about immigration on their terms. Don’t unless you have to.’ We fire out lines that they write down and I find myself thinking they are nowhere near as across this as we are, or they should be.

  The low point is when Angela Eagle tells a fake audience member that the reason his child’s class is swamped by foreign children isn’t because of immigration, but Tory cuts. ‘What?’ I say. ‘One – you sound like you are fighting amongst yourselves. Two – it isn’t credible: the kids are physically in the class because of immigration, not because of cuts.’

  The Labour special advisers in the room kick back a little. But it feels hopeless. I don’t give a damn about her having a go at us – she just needs to be credible.

  We take a break and I gently take Angela Eagle to one side. You need to kick these people – how dare they tell everyone they are the champions of working people?

  I go up to Amber Rudd and write the following line for her: ‘You are going to hear a lot of numbers flying around in this debate. But it seems to me the only number that matters to Boris is Number Ten. His pursuit of the next big job shouldn’t skew this debate, which should be about the jobs and livelihoods of millions of people.’ She says she will say this. This is a significant moment. It’s a direct attack on Boris from a current Cabinet minister. It will be a story. I think we will need it.

  Outside, the sky is bruised. Then comes heavy, raging rain. Thunder rolls and roars. I’m transported back to school and my English teacher explaining that a ‘pathetic fallacy’ is when the weather and landscape match the emotional mood.

  I find myself imploring them, ‘Where’s the passion? You’re supposed to care!’

  After another go, I take Adam Atashzai and Ed de Minckwitz to one side and tell them the only way we are going to get through this is if they provide three sides of A4 that simplify every part of this: the economy; immigration; attack lines. Then drill them into their heads.

  I walk back to No. 10, feeling more tired than I ever have before.

  At the 4 p.m. meeting I’m asked to talk about debate prep. I say I’m concerned and conclude with the line I have written on Boris. Nick Herbert says he doesn’t like it – and MPs are worried about blue-on-blue. I snap, ‘I really don’t care if they’re worried. I’m not seeing a lot of evidence of them doing much and I’m sick of the whingeing. One of the reasons we’re in this war is because of MPs trying to have it both ways. Don’t blame me for having to deal with the consequences.’

  I feel bad – I don’t think what I said was wrong, but I shouldn’t have said it.

  Afterwards, Ed, Ameet and Kate all say they sympathise. It’s kind, but the reality is that only a few hours’ sleep every night is taking its toll on me.

  I drag myself over to Cannon Street for the last meetings of the day and to watch George live on Andrew Neil’s programme. Neil’s approach is to pick at detail, building the pressure until the person crumbles. Ultimately it is a trial of strength. George pushes back, concedes nothing, and by sheer brute force is standing tall at the end. I feel proud of him.

  I text Francis Elliott to ask if Sarah Wollaston is their splash. He texts back: ‘Part of it, yes.’ I am suspicious.

  Late on, I learn they have splashed on something that has been around all day – Sir Anthony Bamford, the head of JCB, has written to all his 6,000 staff to say there’s nothing to fear from Brexit.

  I feel properly let down. We gave them a grade A exclusive and it’s been buried – under a story that can only benefit Leave. They could and should have told us it wasn’t getting proper treatment and I could have shopped it elsewhere.

  Not for the first time, I think we have no champions.

  Having gone to bed in a fury with The Times, I get up on Thursday and cheer the BBC. They are leading with Sarah Wollaston defecting to Remain. She does a full morning round and comes across brilliantly: a sensible woman, who has reflected. Best of all, her message is that the Leave campaign is based on the £350 million lie – and the NHS will suffer, not benefit from Brexit.

  I’ve been working for three hours by the time the 8.30 meeting comes round. Someone is saying how angry they are with Bamford from JCB. They had assumed he would be on our side.

  This is proving a painful experience for everyone.

  I spend the morning back at North House preparing for the ITV debate. Amber is late. Angela Eagle is even later. I get everyone to stand together at their lecterns and practise their opening statements. The group watching applauds Amber. I almost let it go, but the fact is it just isn’t working for me – starting with a not very good anecdote about visiting a factory last week. When I say it, others chip in that they agree. I say, ‘It’s got to be core message,’ and adapt it off the top of my head.

  To be fair to her, we’re veering back to something we suggested a week ago and changed. She’s being incredibly understanding and flexible.

  I get her to repeat it several times so that it is in her head.

  Angela Eagle makes the standard Labour case and does well. A young woman from the SNP is standing in. She has a draft of what Nicola is planning to say. It includes a line about how all the countries in Europe are ‘independent’. It provokes a ten-minute discussion about whether this is a good thing or not. Eventually I say, ‘It doesn’t work. Everyone is going to be thinking about the fact that you want independence. If we are confused in this room, then others will be, too.’

  They promise to go back to her.

  We then open things up to a question from the floor. Alastair Campbell asks, ‘What is the number that immigration should be set at to ensure the country isn’t full?’

  There then follows a truly disturbing moment when Angela Eagle stares at him for a full ten seconds before saying, ‘I have no idea how to answer that.’

  We have another go, but it’s clear no one is sure of the lines. I say, ‘OK, stop. This is hopeless. You all need to realise – we shouldn’t see this as a debate. It’s an opportunity to get our message across. If someone says immigration – you find a way to repeat our lines. If someone says NHS, you clobber them with Sarah Wollaston. At the moment you’re like rabbits in the headlights.’

  We’re hours away from the programme and none of this is working. We haven’t even spoken directly to Nicola Sturgeon. I’m worried that we are going to be horribly exposed over the course of two hours of prime-time television.

  I then get Ed de Minckwitz and Adam Atashzai to pull out the three sides of A4 I asked them to write and ask Amber an
d Angela to ensure they have each of them on their lecterns tonight.

  We run through it and Angela Eagle announces she has to leave. I apologise for being tough and she is keen to let me know I am one hundred per cent right. She reassures me it will be all right on the night.

  Alastair and I talk. He says he thinks Amber will be fine, but he is concerned about Angela. He’s sent her an email reminding her, ‘This is the biggest thing you have ever done. You need to take it seriously.’

  Another Andrew Cooper email comes through. He says that the reporting of the referendum as a blue-on-blue soap opera is reinforcing the idea that the only people really wanting to keep the UK in the EU are the Government faction of a deeply divided Tory party. It is helping create an anti-incumbent vote. The email ends: ‘Conclusion obvious.’

  The conclusion is indeed obvious – we need to see and hear more of Labour. But how we do that is by no means clear. As Stephen Gilbert puts it: ‘We must get strong Labour voices out, but it is clearly a problem that even if they agree to do stuff, and many of them are very keen, they get no cut-through. In some cases this is because Labour Stronger In activity is frankly being undermined by the Labour leader’s office.’

  He suggests getting Gordon Brown to join Stronger In and do a ten-day, high-profile tour to motivate Labour’s vote. He goes on: ‘… if we remove Conservatives from high profile media, there will be nothing from Remain because Labour will fail to deliver – again in my view making it imperative that we get senior Labour people, into and at the head of Stronger In.’

  The PM sums it up: ‘Agree we have a problem. The difficulty is solving it without leaving field clear for Leave campaign.’

  Back at Stronger In, I spot Ryan and Stephen in the tiny meeting room just off the entrance. You can get a maximum of four people in there without them being pushed up against each other. They tell me action is needed to get Labour voices clearly out there making the case. Stephen wants to set up a new campaign, ‘Progressives for Britain’, where we see the leaders of Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens together.

  He has the right idea – though the execution sounds very North London. The real message we are suggesting is: Save Britain from people who don’t have your interests at heart.

  Jim Messina fires in an email, saying that he agrees with Stephen, and he ends it: ‘Are we having fun yet? :)’

  Ryan, Stephen and I remain in the room together and discuss what is to be done. I can help by calling very senior broadcast figures and pointing out they are ignoring decent Labour stories.

  Key Conservatives aren’t convinced. They believe the story of who is the next PM is vastly more interesting to the media (and rightly so) than hearing from another ex-PM. We need to find a message that works, which can be carried by the people who can get on the news, not hope to carry a message by those who cannot. The trouble is our routes into these people are limited to say the least.

  We are facing a stark truth: we have no control over a Labour party run by Corbyn and McDonnell. The sad fact is the senior Labour people on our campaign have had more face time with the Conservative PM than they have with the leader of their own party. To us the Labour leader’s office resembles a madhouse, where the patients have taken over the asylum. There’s also the real possibility they don’t really care if we win or not – the ensuing chaos and our destruction providing opportunities that could deliver power.

  I have to go to the South Bank Studios with Lucy Thomas for the ITV debate. We get in an Uber together with a real sense of dread at what might happen.

  We find Amber Rudd in an overheated dressing room. She looks remarkably relaxed. I urge her to keep powering on through the two hours and reminding her to get in there early with her remarks.

  I walk down with her to make-up – and stand in a long corridor while there’s a conference call with the PM and George on how we get Labour to step up.

  DC says he will be seeing Jeremy Corbyn at the Queen’s ninetieth birthday celebrations tomorrow, ‘I will say to him politely and nicely that he needs to step up and we need to find ways of letting him.’ The call ends with DC saying, ‘We mustn’t throw everything up in the air.’

  We go to have a look at the set. Nicola Sturgeon is already there. She is wearing a green suit that is the same colour as the backdrop and says she’ll change because of it. After a bit of time working out where the cameras are, I suggest to Amber that she take Nicola to one side and have a chat. They’re supposed to be on the same side soon in front of the nation – and yet here we are, tip-toeing around.

  They go and sit in the front row. Amber looks up at me, suggesting it is OK for me to approach. I edge my way in and sit down and suggest it’s crucial to get our points in early and to keep the energy levels up. I also say there’s a danger that Leave will look like a team, while we will be divided, not agreeing on why we need to stay in. Nicola looks at a point on the floor in front of my feet. There’s the odd nod, and a sound that I take as agreement, but I sense that it is completely toxic for her having anything to do with me, the representative of a Tory prime minister, whom her supporters resent bitterly.

  I also realise the craziness of my position: here I am talking to a woman whose main purpose in life is to break up the United Kingdom, hoping she will help us win the referendum.

  We go up to the green room. I chat to Angela Eagle about hitting them hard. The three women are called and we sit down to watch the debate. Angela’s partner and her two SpAds come in. Nicola’s team choose to remain separate.

  When the programme starts, Boris seems remarkably subdued, but he’s effective in getting his point across – ‘take back control’.

  Amber nails her opening – I feel myself relax into the large leather sofa. It’s almost word for word the script we wrote together this morning.

  When it’s Angela’s turn, I make a point of saying, ‘Come on, Angela!’ She does well, delivering the passionate case for Labour voters.

  The first question is on immigration. They don’t freeze – making the point that it is a complex issue. As I’d asked her, Amber delivers the line I wrote for her, ‘There are lots of numbers flying around in this debate – but it seems to me the only number Boris cares about is Number Ten.’ Twitter erupts. There are cheers in the spin room. Tweet after tweet comes through.

  I’ve done this game long enough to know you need to get in early to frame it and there’s nothing the lobby like more than a bit of aggression. Boris looks like he’s flinching. Tomorrow the Leave press has a choice of two stories to write, the brilliance of their team, or Boris put on the spot. I want them to go for the second.

  Any objective assessment would say the Leave team were coherent and message disciplined. They came back to the same point over and over. Our team sounded like they were coming at it from different angles. But they looked like they believed in it more and had the better moments. This was always my strategy – to make sure there were enough opportunities to hit them hard, and to have moments that clip down well for the news bulletins, where most people will engage with this.

  Our best moment is when they gang up to call out the bus with £350 million on the side. Amber says, ‘We’re going to repaint that bus – and put a leprechaun at one end, a giant pot of gold at the other, and a rainbow in-between.’

  Angela’s attack is short, blunt and devastating, ‘Get that lie off your bus!’ There’s a world of difference between the shambles of rehearsals, and their passion tonight. I feel proud of them.

  At the end of the night, when we are all flagging, Amber unleashes an attack on Boris, which is almost too much. ‘Boris – you’re the life and soul of the party, but I’m not sure I’d want you driving me home at the end of the night.’ To me it feels like a slightly racy joke, but one commentator claims it’s a ‘date rape metaphor.’

  The Leave supporters go wild on social media – we’re playing the man and not the ball. I think it’s pathetic, given how rough they have been prepared to be. Someone makes a co
uple of jokes and the poor lambs are crying like babies. This from Boris supporters, who cheered when he suggested the PM was ‘demented’ and then ‘corrupt’ over his engagement with the FTSE 250 company, Serco, and the referendum.

  The team come up. I give Amber a hug and Angela a kiss. They did bloody well. Nicola Sturgeon waves and disappears down the corridor.

  In the cab back, I watch the BBC 10 p.m. edit. They went for all our lines. ITV seemed even better. More people will watch the coverage of the debate rather than the actual thing – and we look better.

  DC calls me a few times. He’s heard we kept accepting immigration is a complex problem and didn’t like it. I thought it was great. I tell him to make sure he sees the BBC and ITV edit. He calls a quarter of an hour later. ‘It worked – the edits were good.’

  Seven hours ago, it felt like we were flirting with disaster.

  DC ends the call by saying, ‘The whole thing is giving me a heart attack.’

  Chapter 27

  We Need a Fluke to Win This Now

  I HOPE FRIDAY 10 June is a low point.

  The No. 10 team gathers for another meeting to discuss again what to do about Labour. It takes DC a while to come on, so I ask George about the pictures of him with Ruth Davidson on a farm yesterday. One is a low-down shot of both of them literally shovelling shit. I say that’s what my life feels like at the moment. George says they also stood next to a bull with a broken penis – prompting Ruth to shout, ‘Let’s call him Boris!’

  The meeting starts with Ed saying he’s worried by their message clarity, while we seem to make a range of points.

  Stephen and I try to be patient. I spent many hours yesterday trying to get the SNP, the Labour party, and a representative of the Conservative Government to work as a team. Of course Leave had a core message. So do we – ‘We’re stronger, safer and better off in the EU’ and ‘Leaving is a leap in the dark’. But getting people in a group as diverse as ours to sing in harmony just isn’t going to happen. Instead we keep reminding people how extraordinary it is that people who normally disagree violently are prepared to come together.