Now the looks from the rest of the room were ‘I wouldn’t push this one if I were you’. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘but we’re going to at least have to tell The Sun that’s what we’re doing.’ Gordon and the others went off to write the statement, while I closed the door and rang George. Professional as always, he just said: ‘OK, let me pass that on, but don’t do anything in a hurry.’
There were further phone calls from The Sun but they made no difference. Gordon came back down the corridor half an hour later with a finalised statement, and Yvette Cooper was lined up to do interviews afterwards; although I said we should wait to put out the statement until after the early evening news so as not to cause chaos beforehand at the BBC and ITN.
That also gave me time to do what I personally believed was necessary – despite Gordon’s anger about the whole thing – to make sure our relationship with The Sun wasn’t permanently damaged and to ward off any suspicions from other newspapers.
I called George back and told him when I planned to issue the statement and what it would say. ‘OK?’ I asked him. ‘Got ya. Thanks, mate,’ he said. That was my tacit nudge and wink to tell him The Sun had about thirty minutes in which to break the story, not as they’d hoped on the morning news-stands, but still online and on Sky News.
I then rapidly called round, in descending order of how suspicious and angry they might be, the Mirror, Mail, Telegraph, Guardian, Times, Standard and Independent, and did a whirlwind script, telling them on ‘strictly operational terms’ (i.e. for information and planning purposes, not for direct use) what was about to emerge in our statement and why, but emphasising that The Sun did NOT get the story from us and were pissed off we were spoiling it.
It’s worth pointing out that this was in an age before the ubiquity of Twitter accounts, so even if I was taking a risk with some of those operational conversations, it wouldn’t have been easy for any of the journalists to do much with the information they had. I then tipped off the BBC and ITN in similar terms and waited for the news to break on Sky, which it did with a mock-up of The Sun’s front page, and George at Millbank to do the analysis.
While it was a chaotic and traumatic couple of hours, I think we handled the story about as well as we could. Gordon and Sarah were upset that something very secret had suddenly become common knowledge and a subject of public debate while they were still learning about the condition themselves. But they didn’t blame The Sun at the time, and they were grateful that they’d been able to handle it in their way without any overly aggressive reaction from the paper. That was why relations with The Sun carried on pretty much as normal.
It was only when the allegations over phone-hacking emerged years later that Gordon put two and two together and made five. He was utterly and wrongly convinced – and enraged – that The Sun had become aware of the story as a result of the voicemails being left on his phone from family members discussing matters, and wishing Fraser well.
Even if Gordon over-reached by making that allegation public in 2012, with The Sun responding that there was a ‘legitimate source’ for the story connected to Edinburgh Infirmary, it remains the case that his significant behind-the-scenes role in urging along the newspaper editors and MPs who exposed the phone-hacking scandal was largely driven by his anger over the idea that the Fraser story had been obtained through those highly personal voicemail messages from family members.
Indeed, when reporters from the New York Times first began researching their September 2010 article which re-ignited UK interest in the scandal and alleged Andy Coulson’s complicity, their initial conversations with me and others in Brown’s circle revolved almost entirely around the Fraser story.
If there was a more immediate repercussion, it was to harden Gordon and Sarah’s position about the boys appearing in public when they went over to No. 10, and settle that argument between Gordon’s various advisers in favour of the entrenched position taken by Ed Balls, Michael Ellam, Ian Austin and me that the kids should never be ‘used’ in publicity.
After Fraser’s birth, there had been a brief lapse in the other direction, with a card issued by the Browns thanking people for sending flowers or cards featuring a photo of the family posing together, which went on to appear in every newspaper. But from 2007 onwards, we maintained cast-iron rules; when we went into No. 10, Michael issued a formal notice to editors that they were not to publish any pictures of the children. Any newspaper that subsequently did so – and there were a couple – received an immediate censure from the Press Complaints Commission.
Occasionally, I’d be called up by a journalist saying they had the most lovely shots imaginable of Gordon playing in the park with John and Fraser, that it would be tragic not to use them, that it would change perceptions of Gordon entirely, and I’d just say: ‘Sorry, no can do.’
I knew myself from watching him with the boys around Downing Street or in the garden in North Queensferry how much he doted on them, and how his mood, tone and energy levels were transformed when they were around. He’d be on the phone on a Saturday with me in one ear and John in the other. Occasionally, he’d get confused and ask me in a baby voice: ‘And what are The Observer doing?’ I’d say: ‘Are you asking me or John?’, and he’d revert to his normal tone and reply incredulously: ‘Why would I ask John what’s in The Observer?’
Every so often, a new adviser would come on the scene or someone like Piers Morgan would visit, see what Gordon was like with the boys and try their utmost to unpick his resolve. They’d look at our private polling which showed that a significant part of the population didn’t even know Gordon had children, and would tell him it was a no-brainer that he had to get the boys ‘out there’, not least because of how damned cute they were.
But I always took the line that to do so would not only be wrong in terms of protecting the boys’ privacy; it would also be a disaster with the media because it would look as though we had changed our mind purely for PR reasons. Gordon and Sarah both remained firm on the issue, to the extent that Gordon decided publicly to make a virtue of it at the 2008 Labour conference, preparing to use the line that – in obvious contrast to David Cameron – ‘my children are not props, they are people’.
I felt massively uncomfortable about the line, not least once we knew Sarah was herself going to appear on stage to introduce Gordon, but also because I thought the rule in this area should be that you do what you feel is best for your kids, but don’t question another parent’s decisions. After all, Ed Miliband has ended up including his kids in publicity shots whereas Ed Balls and Yvette always refuse – neither has the ‘right’ answer. I fought hard to get the ‘props’ line taken out, but I was told repeatedly that not only did Gordon like it, so did the focus groups who had previewed the speech.
To my surprise, it didn’t cause too much of a fuss, except with Quentin Letts from the Mail, who berated me afterwards for the hypocrisy of using that line on the children while simultaneously using Sarah as a warm-up act. I agreed with every word he said. That Christmas, Cameron’s card to Gordon was famously signed: ‘From David, Samantha and The Props!’ It was only when you saw the indentation in his underlining of ‘props’ that you could tell how angry he must have felt.
When I had to quit No. 10 a few months later, doing so at the weekend may have saved me the indignity of a public exit but it also removed the opportunity to say goodbye in person to a great many people, most sadly of all John and Fraser.
Over time, first John and then both of them came to know me as ‘the French soldier’: if they came into the corridor or my office, I’d come to attention, march up to them, click my heels and then request their orders in a loud, exaggerated French accent. I’d always do that routine and it made them laugh like crazy. But how do you tell two kids that the reason the silly French soldier isn’t here any more is because he sent some silly emails?
I could barely watch the coverage after the 2010 election and I found the idea of watching Gordon’s exit from No. 10 too painful for words.
But I brought myself to do it, and was as surprised and moved as everyone else when the boys came out with him and Sarah. I listened to all the commentators say: ‘Why didn’t we see more of them while he was in office?’, and just smiled.
33
GOING TO THE MATTRESSES
The day had gone so well.
George Osborne was in Tokyo, lying in the smouldering rubble of his announcement that he would build a version of Japan’s mag-lev train in Britain, and I was having an evening drink in Victoria, receiving grudging texts from even right-wing hacks that unless the Tories got their act together we would shred them as soon as Blair’s mob got out of the way.
Then Phil Webster, political editor of The Times, called. Of all the journalists I ever dealt with, Phil had the most telltale greetings. A chuckle meant good news; a quick ‘Oh, hi mate’ meant he needed an urgent bit of information or clarification; and a relaxed ‘How are you?’ meant he fancied a decent run round all the issues on his train back to East Anglia. At 6 p.m. on 31 August 2006, it was a low-pitched, elongated ‘Ah, hiiiiiii’. Oh shit.
‘What’s up?’ I said, trying not to sound too worried.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ve done an interview with the PM tomorrow and it’s pretty strong, it’s the splash, and you’ll start getting calls on it pretty soon. I can’t tell you the line but all I’ll say is we were told in advance this would be the line, and we checked afterwards that they definitely wanted it to be the line, and they were very clear. So I know you’ve had a good time on all the George stuff, but keep your wits about you ’cos you’re going to have a long night.’
Other hacks soon told me that the two crucial lines were that Tony would not be setting down any timetable for his exit and that certain people had to stop obsessing about dates. Everyone was planning to do it up as yet another hammer blow to Brown’s chances of becoming Prime Minister, with Blair seemingly determined to stay on until an alternative successor could be found.
I called Gordon and told him. Compared to Washington in 2004, he didn’t seem devastated and betrayed, just utterly uncomprehending and resigned. ‘What do you want me to say to the hacks?’ I asked him. ‘I don’t know … I don’t know. Just don’t answer your phone for now.’
Ed Balls called shortly after. ‘Are you getting loads of calls?’ he asked. ‘Yeah, but Gordon said not to talk to anyone. Are we just shutting it down?’ Ed sighed: ‘I don’t know. There’s no controlling this. We’ve been telling all the backbenchers it’s all going to be OK and they just need to give Blair time. They’re all going to go nuts now. I’m not sure where we’re going to end up.’
He also told me not to answer any calls, and make sure nothing came out of the Treasury or the Brown team which could take on ‘African coup’ status. I didn’t quite refuse to answer calls – I’d never done that before and it would have drawn more attention if I’d started then – but I just said as plainly as I could to everyone who called that we had nothing to say.
That same night, a group of West Midlands MPs met for a curry to mark the end of the summer recess, with Gordon’s staunch ally Tom Watson in a fury over the Blair interview. There were many MPs present who, regardless of their past affiliations, wanted rid of Tony Blair as soon as possible, given the number of voters in their constituencies and councils who would never vote Labour again as long as George W. Bush’s wingman remained in Downing Street.
What followed can only be described as the most perfectly conceived and almost perfectly executed British political coup of recent decades. Within a week of refusing to set a timetable, Tony was forced to announce publicly that he’d be gone within a year. And it’s an indication of how brilliant a coup it was that I knew not a thing about it; indeed, no journalist, no spin-doctor, no one in Brown’s inner circle or Blair’s ever had the slightest clue what the next move would be or who from.
Tom kicked things off by coordinating a letter from a group of MPs calling on Blair to quit. He signed the letter himself and allowed a frenzy to mount about whether he could retain his junior post within the government having done so, thus ensuring everyone was paying attention when he then quit. Further letters and resignations followed. Indeed, over a 48-hour period, every time we thought the pressure exerted on Blair had reached its peak, the ringleaders would amaze everyone by coming up with another group of Labour MPs calling on Blair to quit, while a dwindling band of Blair loyalists could be found to go on TV and defend him. For two days, we sat in the Treasury watching the whole coup unfold on TV like the O. J. Simpson car chase.
Impressive as it was, there was something alarming and somewhat anarchic about it all. There is a story, thought to have been leaked by Douglas Alexander, that Gordon – alarmed at the open warfare on his television screen – said: ‘We’ve got to stop this’, and that Ed Balls responded: ‘We can’t stop it.’ It is entirely true, but it didn’t have the imputed meaning as evidence of their complicity in the plot.
In reality, Gordon was genuinely appalled at the rising level of vitriol on either side – MPs, ministers, Labour-supporting columnists were all at each other’s throats. Even if it was clear that the rebel side was winning out, Gordon had reached the point where – if Blair was forced to resign – he thought it would be impossible to stitch everything back together and reconcile the two sides. When MPs like Vernon Coaker, who defined the non-aligned centre of the party, were so obviously furious at the actions of the plotters, you could tell the Labour Party was in very serious danger of falling apart. But Ed was clear with him: we’re not in charge of this; it’s not ours to stop.
The only thing that could be done was for Gordon to approach Tony and try to find some formula that would take the momentum out of the crisis, urge unity and stop moderate MPs feeling forced to take sides. Gordon drove in through the back gate of Downing Street to avoid the cameras en route to meet with Blair, but as he emerged from his talks, the snappers were surrounding the exit. Sue told him to make sure he didn’t look unhappy at the outcome. A bad thing to say to Gordon. He lurched in the opposite direction, flashed his trademark spontaneous grin, and his apparent laughter at the success of ‘his’ coup and the carnage within the Labour Party became the defining photo of the week.
Meanwhile, Douglas was wheeled out on camera by No. 10 to be the voice of compromise and unity, telling the rebels that they did not represent the mainstream view of the Labour Party and that the country wasn’t interested in their internal wrangles. Tom Watson must have felt like Mel Gibson’s William Wallace, covered in blood on the battlefield, on the verge of victory, having to look back and watch the posh horseman from Paisley wave goodbye.
As briefings started to emerge of an imminent compromise and truce between Brown and Blair, I received an angry phone call from a colleague of Tom’s: ‘Is this stuff on Sky coming from you?’ ‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘I haven’t said a thing for a week.’ ‘Well, can someone tell Gordon to wake up? We’ve got Blair on the edge of the cliff; we need to stamp on his fucking fingers. What’s this bollocks about a deal?’ ‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully, ‘but Gordon thinks it’s all gone too far.’ ‘OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE!’ he said, and hung up in frustration.
It’s not a popular view, but Gordon saved Tony that day; he got him his final year in power, for all it was worth. And he was right to do so: the unceremonious, immediate ousting of Labour’s most successful leader would have been a terrible scar for the party to bear, in the same way that Margaret Thatcher’s removal affected the Tories for decades afterwards.
Of course, that was not quite the end of the story. The following Saturday, I was making calls in the garden at Gordon’s home in North Queensferry as he prepared to do the Sunday Andrew Marr interview the next day – part of his deal with Blair to project an image of unity. Gordon was insistent that we keep our side of that deal, even though my counterparts at No. 10 were unleashing blistering briefings to the journalists writing reviews of the week in the Sunday papers.
A call came
through from my old Peterhouse contemporary Jonathan Oliver, at the Mail on Sunday, and I assumed it would be just another request for a response to the vitriol from Blair’s mob. It wasn’t: ‘Hi there, it’s only a little fishing expedition, but we’ve got a contact claiming that Tom Watson was in St Andrews last weekend before the coup was launched, and we’re just wondering if he might have seen Gordon, given that’s quite close to Kirkcaldy. Could you ask?’
I rang Tom. He said: ‘But how do they know I was in St Andrews … oh fucking hell – Lord Snape.’ He said before he’d travelled to Scotland the previous weekend, the only person he’d mentioned it to was his predecessor as MP, Peter Snape, ennobled in 2004 by Tony Blair. ‘But you didn’t see Gordon, did you?’ I asked. Tom groaned. He said his family had stopped to drop off a present for baby Fraser. ‘We were only there twenty minutes. Sarah and Siobhan [Tom’s wife] were there the whole time. Even if we’d wanted to talk about Blair, we couldn’t.’
I went into the kitchen to see Gordon and told him what was happening. He shook his head in almost amused disbelief. ‘So stupid … we watched fucking Postman Pat was all.’ I was so worried about the impact if we told the truth that – for the only occasion when I worked for Gordon – I offered him the liar’s way out: ‘Look, only we know for sure that Tom stopped here so why don’t we just say he went straight to St Andrews and you never saw him? We could get away with it.’
He looked at me sharply: ‘Never do that. Never ever do that. The truth might hurt you, but it’s the lie that kills you.’ Jonathan couldn’t believe it when I rang back and volunteered the information that Tom had indeed visited Gordon, and talked him through the details. Of all the briefings I’ve ever done, that one left me feeling sick, and it felt odd to get a big cheery ‘Well, thank you very much – I must buy you lunch’ at the end.
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