Hostility grows towards Blair

By ANNE McHARDY

The grizzled features of Sir Bill Morris, the first black trade unionist to achieve real power in Britain, and the saturnine features of Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, were briefly pushed from the TV screens and the front pages of London newspapers at the start of the week by David Beckham.

But even on Wednesday, at the height of Beckham mania, when the reedy-voiced but fit-as-a-bull footballer and his bra-popping wife were filling front pages in Spain and Britain, the harsh reality for Blair was that even the ultra-loyal Sir Bill and those inside the tent of the New Labour Party are showing the strain.

Next week the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee will rule on claims that Campbell, who is running around north London's parks in his London Marathon competitor's gear looking like Mt Vesuvius on a bad day, "sexed up" one of the dossiers presented to the House of Commons and to journalists. The claim, against the wisdom of the heads of the intelligence services, that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction at 45 minutes notice was written into the report.

The improbable term "sexed up", used apparently by Campbell on whose lips it sounds normal, has sounded increasingly bizarre as the story has unfolded.

Campbell, a former tabloid journalist and a tough performer, was riled, during his three hours giving evidence to the select committee last week, by repeated charges that he had interfered with documents, both the "dodgy" one, which was published last February, and a larger one last September, and had leaned on the Joint Intelligence Committee heads to insert evidence they believed was dodgy to help to sway MPs and the public in favour of war.

At the time, in February, millions of ordinary Britons were taking to the cold winter streets to demonstrate against the threatened attack on Iraq by the British and the United States' Governments, and backbench Labour MPs seemed likely to vote en masse against Blair's Government and its readiness to toe the Bush line. The "dodgy"dossier helped to sway many backbench MPs, who are now angry as its apparent dishonesty is being revealed.

The BBC, two months ago, carried a story on its Radio Four programme, Today, by its defence correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, reporting that one unnamed intelligence chief said that the 45-minute claim had been inserted to overcome the political opposition to war. Campbell bit his fingernails and lost his temper to the select committee as he called that story "lies" and demanded an apology from the BBC.

He followed with a series of letters demanding a retraction and an apology and these were met by the BBC in increasingly angry tones, with those responsible for putting Gilligan's story on air insisting that they stood behind their man and the veracity of his source.

On Thursday, the Guardian published a letter sent by Campbell to the select committee in which Campbell said he suggested 11 changes to a September dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, six of which were adopted.

A spokesman for Blair said the letter proved Campbell had not sought to exaggerate intelligence of Iraq's banned weapons and that the BBC's charges were false.

The public evidence to the select committee included devastatingly honest insights into how the Government seeks, habitually, to manipulate news services.

Campbell, who was political correspondent for the Daily Mirror before joining Blair's team when Blair was elected leader of the Labour Party, said that he had always believed, as a tabloid journalist working for a paper on the left of the political centre, that his job was to say "vote Labour".

He believed that the BBC, financed as it is by taxpayers' money, had a different obligation. It was, he said, in a unique position because of its charter and the public funding. It had, he said, to always be objective.

As the row progressed others began to tear the veil from the relationship between the press and the Government. Martin Sixsmith, a former BBC journalist who became a Government press officer, resigned before the Iraq war. He was pushed to resignation by Campbell.

During last week he described, with gusto, how news was managed each day. There was always, he said, a selection of ministers and MPs who were chosen for the day.

They were briefed before they appeared. Campbell, working with departmental news teams of the sort Sixsmith had headed, would lay down the line the ministers were to follow. There were ugly moments when ministers did not do so.

The select committee will publish its findings at the end of next week. Its members appear to be dividing on party lines - which could mean that the Labour majority will rule that Campbell did not exceed his brief.

Campbell is said to have impressed many of them, but the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who gave some of his evidence in private, is also said to have been influential. The fact that this vital evidence which committee members say influenced them was given in private is causing hostile comment.

Straw had seemed to be targeting Campbell and setting him up as New Labour's fall guy, but latterly became his firmest defender. However, the parts of his evidence on which the committee seemed most ready to rely was given in private - and the mood in Britain appears to be to follow the United States' example and put as much as possible in the public domain.

Whatever the findings, the reality is that the hostility to Blair, and in particular his role in the war, in trade union and Labour ward meetings around Britain will not change. One 77-year-old lifelong Labour member in north London typified many. She had driven her frail husband and herself back from their holiday cottage to vote in her London ward this week because they were considering a vote criticising the Blair involvement against Iraq.

"It's coming home to roost that they tried to frighten everyone into supporting a war - a despicable thing to do by any reckoning - think of all those frightened kids expecting mayhem and terrorist acts all the time. They never did that to us in the last war!", she said.

The mood within Labour Party local committees across Britain and within the trade unions appears to match her angry view. In the most conservative of rural areas - in the English Midlands, in places like Stratford - there are still people who would have voted Conservative in the days of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister but who have twice voted for Blair.

Elsewhere the mood has decisively shifted. This week one opinion poll had Labour behind for the first time since 1992. The YouGov poll said 35 per cent of voters backed Labour, down two percentage points from May, while Conservative support grew one point to 37 per cent. Most people surveyed by YouGov said they disapproved of Blair's record in office, and consider his government to be untrustworthy and "not honest," as well as "indecisive," bad at "practical day-to-day management" and "not on the side of the trade unions".

The findings are in line with other surveys. A Populus poll last week put Labour at 37 per cent, down two points; the Conservatives had 33 per cent, up one point. ICM Research earlier put Labour at 38 per cent, down three points; the Conservatives had 34 per cent, up five points.

The trade union view, expressed loudly as the annual round of union and then party politician conferences began, is that the automatic allocation of a political levy to the Labour Party should be challenged.

Sir Bill, a moderate man who retires this year, spoke in favour of continuing to finance the Labour Party through that levy, speaking of the close, traditional relationship between the unions and the party and the need to be a force within the party. It was, he said, crucial that the unions did not cease to use the political influence that the levy gave them. Ending or diverting the levy elsewhere would simply mean losing all ability to help form New Labour policy.

Members of the British Parliament are about to begin their summer recess, leaving the Palace of Westminster virtually empty, the plaything of tourists. Hostilities will resume in October, when the main conferences are held and when all the political parties hold their conferences. Meanwhile, the mood of grass-roots Labour supporters is increasingly more leftwing.

The Labour emphasis on youth, as described by Blair just before his election - and its consequent failure to listen to the increasing number of 50, 60 and 70-year-olds who have money and leisure - is under attack within the party, with Blair promising "anti ageism" legislation.

But this wooing of the "grey" voters, many of them traditional Labour supporters, may well have started too late. The north London 77-year-old is typical of a growing unhappiness.

Whether the select committee vindicates Campbell or not, the Blair Government has another difficulty looming over his role. There are rumours that Campbell will leave Blair's team. His partner, Fiona Millar, who was Cherie Blair's press officer until the rows six months ago over the influence of her "style guru" Carole Caplin and her Australian conman lover, Peter Foster, has already left the charmed circle.

Blair seems to be surviving the departure of former ministers, including Robin Cook, who was Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons, and of Clare Short, who was Minister for Oversees Development. But neither has had the insights into life in Camp Blair as Campbell, who has travelled with Blair constantly on his diplomatic missions in support of the Bush line on Iraq.

If Campbell is forced out, his destructive potential is incalculable.

Herald Feature: Iraq