Politics
If these shadows have offended . . .
Published 08 January 1999
Peter, Geoffrey, Charlie: the stage is littered with bodies. Steve Richards tells the inside story of new Labour, Act I
Tony lost Peter. Gordon lost Charlie and Geoffrey. With a Shakespearean symmetry the bodies from the rival courts lie sprawled across the stage while the two leading players, hurt but still at the centre of the drama, take a bow. So ends new Labour, Act I. It began in July 1994 and it came to a close with Charlie Whelan's resignation this week.
Whelan's departure, along with that of Geoffrey Robinson, will grieve Brown as Peter Mandelson's loss will grieve Blair. Although Mandelson, an elected MP and a cabinet minister, was much the more influential figure, Whelan, too, had been at the centre of new Labour since its creation. In opposition he did the same job for Brown that Alastair Campbell did for Blair. A media addict (like Brown himself), Whelan could read the rhythm of news stories and sometimes rewrite the music himself. In those days, the two men would often talk after Radio 4's News Briefing at 6am, long before the Today programme had even started.
Whelan came to even greater prominence in government because of two related developments: the media's obsession with spin- doctors, and the government's preoccupation with "the message", causing it to behave at times as if it was still in opposition. I share that fascination with the spin-doctors, but I know that, when I regale non-political friends with my Whelan impersonation (a rather good one, if I may say so), their eyes glaze over. The whole thing baffles people outside the incestuous world of Westminster, most of whom have never heard of Whelan. And their ignorance is, in truth, a proper reflection of reality. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are powerful, not their messengers.
But the media is not entirely to blame. Presentation has sometimes seemed more important to this government than the substance of policy. In the autumn of 1997, how the newspapers reported the issue appeared to matter more than whether we were in or out of the single currency. While other EU members were busy preparing for the euro, the enduring image of this administration's early priorities was Whelan briefing journalists from the Red Lion pub. The build-up to Budgets and draft green budgets has often been as important as the events themselves, creating an impression of a whirlwind of radical activity at the Treasury that is not always matched by the substance. How many times, for example, have you read that Brown was about to announce the new 10p starting rate of income tax?
There is a palpable sense of relief among ministers that both Mandelson and Whelan have left the heart of government. But before they toast the purge, they should recall one significant point: most newspapers are essentially hostile to this government. One of the myths about new Labour is that all journalists are under its spell. Is that really true of the Mail, the Sun (supportive of Blair, but hostile to most of his policies), the Times, the Telegraph, the Conservative-supporting Sunday Times and so on? Yet I can think of countless occasions when Mandelson and Whelan, working separately, prevented damaging stories from taking off or managed to get front pages helpful to the government. After the Chancellor's last Budget, for example, the Telegraph headline was "Brown Spares Middle England", whereas Middle England was being mildly hammered without realising it. Such ambiguous politics cannot be sustained for very long but, as voters adapt to life after 18 years of Tory rule and propaganda , do not underestimate the importance of a sympathetic press. It is very hard to govern against a relentlessly hostile media.
The mantle of spin-master now falls to Alastair Campbell alone. And if the media obsession with spin continues, his position, too, will quickly become untenable. More likely, though, the hysteria about spin will subside. Campbell has a very close working relationship with Blair, which has developed into a friendship between the two families - the Campbells were at Chequers with the Blairs over Christmas. That makes him a hugely influential figure in this administration; but it is still the elected Prime Minister who decides the policies, not his press secretary.
Indeed, if it were left to Campbell, "the project" would be a very different thing. When education policies were discussed by Blair and his entourage in Downing Street recently, Campbell's contribution was to suggest the government "abolish all grammar schools, public schools and opted-out schools". He is opposed to electoral reform and he is no fan of closer ties with the Liberal Democrats. Campbell knows he has not got a hope of swaying his boss on these issues and yet finds himself portrayed as one of the most powerful men in the country. There are limits to the power of a press secretary, even this one.
How was it, then, that new Labour, Act I, demanded such a dramatic catharsis, leaving Blair, Brown and Campbell to carry on without their co-founders? As I wrote last week, I have sought in vain for big policy differences. Brown was as much an architect of new Labour as Blair. Yet he somehow manages to seem above "the project", in the same way that Blair seems to float above the party he leads. Brown arouses devotion in those who are well to the left of new Labour. Whelan is one example of this; Paul Routledge, the Mirror journalist who has now written biographies of both Brown and Mandelson, is another. The former Labour director of communications, Joy Johnson, despises new Labour but will not hear a word against the Chancellor. Meanwhile, some of Blair's closest allies famously regard Brown as psychologically flawed. But press either side to articulate big policy differences and not one is offered.
So what is the answer? Peter Mandelson's memo, written to Gordon Brown four days after John Smith died and published in the new Routledge biography, explains virtually everything. "You have a problem in not appearing to be a front-runner . . . it would now be very difficult for Tony to withdraw in your favour . . . by standing, you would trigger Cook and possibly others . . . our cause and the party would . . . be hugely damaged." Strip away the recent hype and the memo does not portray Mandelson in a bad light. He was clearly in an agonising dilemma as he wrote, not wanting to dump Brown, with whom he had worked especially closely, but knowing that the game was already up for the shadow chancellor.
Yet think of how it looked to Brown and Whelan, then recently appointed as his press adviser. At the very moment when they were ready to launch a campaign, and when they were thinking of a call to Mandelson, the office fax machine spewed out the tortuous memo. That moment, not disputes about social democracy and liberalism, started a drama that has lasted for more than four years.
Blair understood Mandelson's dilemma because he went through it himself. (He once confessed to Roy Hattersley that he had doubts about standing for the leadership because of his friendship with Brown.) Bizarrely and revealingly, Whelan was the subject of the first conversation between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor on the historic day after Labour's election victory. As the NS first revealed, Blair asked if Whelan could work under Campbell's eye in the Downing Street press office. Brown refused and placed his protective arm around Whelan, partly out of loyalty, but also because he believed that Whelan's mastery of the media had helped him out of the post-leadership contest doldrums in 1994 and could continue to assist him. After all, he still wants to be the next leader of the party.
Whelan's fate was sealed after the publication of the Routledge biography on Brown a year ago, rather than the one on Mandelson that is about to be published. I was in Whelan's office waiting to see Brown when stories about the book first made the front pages. As I sat there, Whelan received a bleep from a distraught Campbell, who was in Japan with Blair. It stated baldly: "You said this biography would help the government. You are wrong."
The two did not speak for months. As with so many feuds, the cause was relatively trivial because the book itself was much less sensational than the newspaper stories written about it. As long ago as last January, Whelan began to talk about leaving his job after years of seven-day weeks and faction-fighting. Many people saw him as the main culprit behind the feuding, but he saw himself (and to some extent his master) as a victim. Often, he insisted he was staying on only out of loyalty to Brown, who reciprocated by assuring him that he would never sanction his dismissal. His announcement that he will resign, voluntarily, when he gets another job was a "third way" out of the entanglement.
Now the debate turns to the identity of Whelan's successor. My former BBC colleague Lance Price, currently Campbell's deputy, is being mentioned in senior circles; Price works well with Campbell and is known by Brown. The question will generate intense interest, such is the symbolic potency of who represents whom.
But the appointment is really just a coda to new Labour, Act I. Now we enter a new era where the government will be judged much more on the delivery of its policies than on how they are presented. Expect a nurturing of the Blair/Brown relationship, not least by the two men themselves. Look out also for Mowlam, Blunkett, Byers and Milburn: Blair will push them forward and consult more as he tries to fill the gap left by Mandelson. Even those close to the PM accept that Mandelson will play a much diminished role on the back benches. Ladies and gentlemen, take your seats. New Labour, Act II is about to begin.
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