Power Trip

by McBride, Damian

When I started writing this book, I was warned by an old colleague that – whatever I did – I should not admit to ‘doing in’ any Labour MPs or ministers, because they said: ‘Even though people know you did, you actually confirming it will make you a pariah for life.’

  I decided to ignore that advice throughout this book precisely because I regret – or at least have retrospective reservations about – the vast majority of what I did and, as my old parish priest Father Cassidy used to tell me when I went to confession as a child, you can’t expect forgiveness unless you speak your sins out loud.

  But if there are any of those occasions I engaged in ‘friendly fire’ which I honestly don’t regret it was where I exposed senior Labour men abusing their power and harassing junior female officials or advisers, no more than I regret exposing Tories for similar offences, or for racism, homophobia, misogyny, snobbery, hypocrisy or any other offensive behaviour.

  Indeed, when I did those kinds of stories, it always irritated me afterwards when people would say: ‘Were you responsible for that News of the World or Mail on Sunday splash last weekend?’

  No, I’d say, the person ‘responsible’ was the bloke refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer in the House of Commons bar; or the bloke who inveigled his way back into a girl’s house after she’d gone to sleep and got in bed with her naked; or the bloke who told his daughter in front of a room full of dinner guests that she looked like she’d just walked out of a council house. Actually, that last one never made it into the paper, worse luck.

  If in those cases, I was making the stories up, or indeed exaggerating them, then yes, I would feel ‘responsible’. But I struggled with the concept of taking the blame when those individuals were bang to rights and the only thing they had to complain about was that the misdeeds they hoped would remain secret had been made public. Well boo hoo.

  Of course, people will say I have form for making stories up, including the ones in the emails that got me the sack. But that wasn’t the case. Like I said, people just tell you things.

  Of the six stories that I wrote down in two emails in January and February 2009, three were told to me by very senior journalists on Tory-supporting national newspapers. They told me erroneously that the information was totally kosher, but that they couldn’t get it in their papers, in one case because they were worried about losing advertising revenue, in another because their then editor had done a deal with the Tories to go easy on a story, and in the third because it was simply impossible to tell the story in a ‘family newspaper’ in any kind of meaningful way.

  Two of the other stories were told to me by someone George Osborne (wrongly) regarded as a very close and loyal friend, to illustrate his view that the Chancellor was ‘an absolute shit’. And the last one was told to me by the chief executive of one of Britain’s leading household-name companies, who just enjoyed a good gossip.

  At the time, I never had any reason to doubt the veracity of anything I’d been told. But they were not only unsubstantiated, they were all just sleazy, mucky stories. Even worse, one of the stories focused on a senior Tory’s wife, and – even though it was seeking to attack her husband, with her as an entirely innocent party – it was still unfair to drag her anywhere near an attack on him. Beyond that, the idea that anything in those emails had a go at the wives or families of Tory politicians is a total myth.

  Nevertheless, all the stories should clearly have been left to rot in the pubs where I was told them. The fact that they weren’t was my major misdeed and I don’t complain for one moment about the price I paid for even contemplating that they should be made public.

  That’s where Derek Draper comes in, Peter Mandelson’s former special adviser. I like Derek a lot. He’s a very funny, kind, intelligent man; he’s a great dad; and he cooks a mean roast dinner. He’s also a great spotter and developer of talent, one of the best ‘ideas men’ in the business, and superb at advising others on political strategy. The only thing he’s lacked over the years – when venturing into politics himself – is a 40-foot neon arrow stationed above his head flashing the word: ‘TROUBLE’. Some might say I could do with one of those myself.

  I already knew Derek indirectly through his wife Kate Garraway, but we’d never met. In late 2006, as Gordon was preparing for the possible leadership contest to come, Derek submitted an unsolicited memo to Gordon about his presentational style and media profile, which – while I was determined to find it objectionable, just because of his Mandelson connections – was actually very good. It was agreed that it would be no bad thing to get Derek on board as part of the strategy at that time to reach out to Blairites and show we wanted to build a broad church.

  Personally, as I got ready to step into the shoes that the likes of Draper and Alastair Campbell had once worn in No. 10, I’d begun to crave some acknowledgement and acceptance from the Blairite brigade, rather than the contempt and loathing that most of them evidently felt. I was anxious to impress Derek, and hoped that his approval would open other doors.

  We became friendly and by the time he launched the website Labour List as an alternative to the Tories’ Conservative Home in January 2009, we were texting and emailing each other almost every day. And one of the things he would regularly talk about was that, in parallel with Labour List, we needed a left-leaning version of the Guido Fawkes website, focusing on gossip and sleaze.

  He said he’d registered the name Red Rag for it, and at one Labour List planning meeting, with the likes of Ray Collins, Labour’s General Secretary, and Charlie Whelan present, Derek referred to the website with a wink as a little project he and I were working on, but said no more about it.

  He subsequently asked me to write up some of the stories that were doing the rounds in Westminster in Guido style, and that’s how I came to send the two emails. Much was made at the time of the fact I sent them from my Downing Street computer, but it didn’t make much difference to me: I spent so much time at my computer or on my BlackBerry that whether I was at work or not at work had ceased to matter in my mind; the concept of office hours simply didn’t exist.

  Simultaneously in early 2009, Derek was embroiled in a running feud with Paul Staines from the Guido website and with Iain Dale, the Tory blogger. By a strange twist, it was this feud that convinced Derek to drop the whole Red Rag idea: ‘I can’t simultaneously have a go at this guy Staines for gutter politics, and then get in the gutter with him, so I’m going to drop it.’

  On one particular Friday, when Staines put a caption competition on his website with a photo of Gordon speaking to a group of black and Asian toddlers, his comments section rapidly filled up with the most abhorrent filth, the worst of which was simultaneously violently racist about the children and portrayed Gordon as a paedophile.

  Derek and I were both outraged, and – as I concentrated on emailing the most offensive remarks to Derek – he started contacting some of the household-name retailers advertising on the Guido website to ask if they were aware this was the site they were supporting.

  Staines went bananas and when the growing feud escalated into a row between them on the Daily Politics show at the end of March, he said Draper was a stooge for the government, and that he could produce evidence that Draper had been taking orders directly from me on what material to put on Labour List.

  I was in Chile with Gordon at the time, part of his effort to whip up support for his economic plan ahead of the G20 summit, and I sat in the courtyard of the presidential palace as reports of the encounter between Derek and Staines came through, punctuated by text messages from Staines himself teasing and taunting about the information he had on me.

  I determined just to enjoy the rest of the trip, most of all the journey back, when our usual party with the journalists was made even more riotous by the presence of a young BA cabin crew hitching a flight home and happy to join in the games and drinking. I sensed during that flight that it would be the last time I’d enjoy that luxury.

  I met Derek as soon as I got back and asked him wh
at he thought was going on. He said: ‘I think someone’s got into my emails and has leaked them to Paul at Guido Fawkes. He’s making so many references to things he could only know from my emails that must be what’s happened.’

  ‘But how could anyone have got into your emails?’ I asked him. ‘Oh God,’ he sighed, ‘I’ve been extremely naive on my password. I’ve changed it now, but it was pretty obvious before.’

  Then the big question.

  ‘What’s the worst anyone could have found if they’ve been in your emails?’ ‘Well, in terms of ministers I’m in contact with, who would have problems because of things they’ve written to me?’ he asked aloud. ‘Peter [Mandelson] – definitely, James Purnell – definitely and Ed Miliband – probably.’

  ‘And then,’ he said, ‘there’s your Red Rag emails.’ My heart sank. I was hoping against hope he’d say he’d deleted them but no. The teasing and taunting from Staines made sense.

  Looking back now, at least six separate email exchanges appear to have been accessed from Derek’s account: an email from Peter Mandelson about Gordon’s media style sent in summer 2008 – reported by the Mail on Sunday in June 2009; my two Red Rag emails sent in January and February 2009; another email from me to Derek in February suggesting attack lines against Iain Dale; some bawdy exchanges between Draper and the New Statesman’s James Macintyre in early March 2009 – featured on the Guido website the following year; and my emails about the caption competition in mid-March, referred to by Paul Staines on the Daily Politics at the end of that month.

  What that would suggest is that, if someone did access Derek’s emails, it happened in late March 2009, and they were able to retrieve material from his inbox going back at least a year.

  Many people will feel I got exactly what I deserved being on the receiving end of a mysterious dark arts operation. ‘Live by the smear, die by the smear,’ as Paul Staines wrote himself at the time. And usually, I’d be the first to doff my cap at a job well done. But the lack of a credible explanation for how Derek’s emails were obtained has always left a bad taste in the mouth.

  It’s hard to say ‘Well done’ if you think the other guy’s been playing with a stacked deck.

  And if somewhere sitting in a drawer, waiting to be deployed before the next election, are any damaging emails from Ed Miliband to Derek Draper, then I’d suggest this needs some attention.

  50

  ANATOMY OF A RESIGNATION

  When your world’s about to fall in, it helps to have some warning. On the evening of Wednesday 8 April 2009, I started to hear rumours that Paul Staines was trying to flog the two Red Rag emails to the newspapers, and the suggestion was that the Sunday Times and News of the World were set to print them that weekend.

  That short period of grace before all hell broke loose was a fantastic kindness. I stocked up my flat in Holloway so I could hole up there if necessary and contacted some of my oldest friends so that I had some other possible places to stay; I had a tough conversation with Balshen about what was about to happen; and then, finally, an even harder conversation with my mum.

  With my mum, I had to strike a balance between sounding confident and firm enough that when I told her she needed to get out of the country to her holiday apartment in France for a few days, she would just do as I asked; but not saying too much about what was happening, because then she would have refused to go. I managed it, although I broke a bit when I told her I loved her, and if she loved me too, she wouldn’t look at the news for the next week.

  I went into work on the Thursday as normal, but spent most of it tying up loose ends, and downloading my contact book of phone numbers and emails. I didn’t want to draw suspicion by packing a bag, but I knew enough about sackings from the civil service to know that they just empty your desk drawers into a box and deliver that to you, paper clips and all, so I squirreled away a few select items from around the office into those drawers.

  Two of those items brought home to me what I was about to lose in terms of my ability to make things happen within government, or at least get my ideas heard.

  I’d been reading Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science in South America, and I’d come up with an idea that we would allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise prescription medicines in the UK, in return for which they would be obliged to sign a new code on publication of their research data: good news for the advertising industry, the media, Big Pharma and patients. That idea went in the bin.

  And as I packed away a signed photo of GMTV’s Clare Nasir from my noticeboard, I thought of the deal I’d been hatching with her boss, Martin Frizzell, where we’d allow GMTV, the only profit-making part of the ITV network, to take over Channel 4’s morning slot, and stop them being cannibalised and swallowed up by the rest of ITV. That idea too was kaput, and so eventually was GMTV.

  When everyone trooped off to the Westminster Arms that afternoon to mark the start of the Easter holidays, I took a longer look around No. 10 than normal and, for a change, walked out of the front door knowing that – barring miracles – it would be for the last time. At the pub, I took aside first Michael Ellam, then Michael Dugher and then Stewart Wood to tell them what was happening.

  I knew that they were grown up enough to talk personally and sympathetically about what it meant for me, but then sensibly and objectively about how No. 10 should handle the story if it broke that Sunday. I still had an outside hope that the papers might decide the content of the emails was unprintable for legal reasons, and, based on what Derek had told me, there were also serious questions about how they’d been obtained.

  We agreed that if I got any calls before Sunday, I’d refer them to Dugher, and he and I worked out a provisional source quote in case anyone reported the existence of emails proposing a planned smear campaign against the Tories, but didn’t disclose their full contents. I’d still have to resign if that was the story, but at least it would be slightly less of a scandal.

  The Telegraph called the next day – Good Friday – and said they were planning a Saturday spoiler in case the story broke on Sunday. They weren’t prepared to buy the emails but were going to turn it into a story about security concerns over how they’d been leaked. They included the quote I’d worked out with Dugher. The broadcasters picked it up overnight and by 6 a.m. on Easter Saturday, my mobile was red hot with text messages and voicemails.

  Ed Balls called and asked what the full story was. I didn’t know quite what to expect, but I was still taken aback by his reaction. It was the angriest I’d ever known him and, Mr Discipline that he was, he kept returning to the refrain: ‘How could you be so utterly stupid? Why did you get involved in this? You of ALL people.’

  He eventually stopped and asked if I’d rung Gordon, who was in Scotland for Easter. ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘What do you think I should say?’ ‘Just explain what’s happened,’ Ed replied, ‘…and tell him you think it’ll be bigger than the Peston book. Use that phrase – bigger than the Peston book.’ ‘Isn’t that just going to get him even more wound up?’ I replied. ‘Yeah,’ said Ed, ‘but it’ll remind him that he’s had his share of fuck-ups as well.’

  Before he hung up, he said: ‘I’m sorry I had a go at you, but … this is such a problem for Gordon.’ ‘I know,’ I said and apologised again, ‘but at least no one can hold him responsible for this.’ ‘That’s not what I mean,’ said Ed, ‘that’s just a short-term issue. But I’ve said to you before, if you’re not there, he’ll be totally exposed, totally vulnerable. That’s the problem.’

  I spent several minutes plucking up the courage to call Gordon, standing on the balcony of my flat in Holloway. I had no urge to chuck myself off, but crashing eight floors to my death certainly seemed a more attractive prospect than ringing Gordon at that point.

  I finally called him, and – from his tone – I could tell immediately that he’d already spent a lot of the morning talking to other people about the story. You know you’re screwed when other people are having conversations about how to handle your prob
lem.

  ‘What’s this all about then?’ he asked. I delivered the lines I’d rehearsed, including the one about the Peston book, and there was total silence at the other end. I said: ‘I know I’m going to have to resign, or you’ll have to sack me, whichever works best.’

  There was a pause, then he asked: ‘What do the emails say?’ It occurred to me that – in all the conversations I’d had to date – nobody had actually asked for the gruesome details. If I was nerve-racked before calling Gordon, I was now filled with embarrassment about having to tell him; it felt like when my dad would ask me what I’d done to get sent off at football.

  ‘Honestly, Gordon, you don’t want to know.’ ‘What do they say?’ he repeated, the only time on the call he raised his voice in real anger. I told him. He listened in silence, his only reaction when I mentioned the Tory wife – a loud sigh: ‘Oh, Jesus Christ.’ I finished, and there was more silence. He finally said: ‘You’re going to have to resign … I’ll ring you back.’

  That might have been it there and then, but the discussions went on for hours. Every time I rang Dugher or Ellam or Balls, their phones were simultaneously engaged, so there were obviously conference calls going on. What became clear is that various people were worried this would be the thin end of the wedge: either other people would be shown to be involved, or other emails of mine would start to surface revealing I’d been up to even worse tricks.

  Over the years, there was one mantra which guided Gordon’s team in moments of scandal, such as when the row over Bernie Ecclestone’s donation resurfaced in 2000, or when David Abrahams’s dodgy donations were exposed in 2007. Even if journalists were battering down the doors demanding a public statement, we always took the time to establish all of the facts and look at all of the records exhaustively before saying anything, thus making sure there could be no fresh revelation to cast our statement into doubt and keep the story going.