The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour

When he rose to face Lawson, he did much more than that. He spoke with confidence, vigour and verve. Lawson’s great economic expansion, he said, was mere sleight of hand, based on irresponsible levels of borrowing. ‘It is a boom based on credit,’ he said. Warning of trouble ahead, he ridiculed the Conservatives’ efforts to insist that all would be well despite their failure to live up even to their own economic forecasts. Then came the killer line, as Lawson sat grimacing, like an elephant improbably brought down by a mosquito: ‘The proper answer is to keep the forecasts and discard the Chancellor!’ When he had finished, to shouts of support from the Labour benches, I went up to the press gallery to gauge the reaction. I didn’t need to tell them Gordon had done well; they had seen it for themselves. But I felt we had witnessed something of real significance to Labour in this David and Goliath drama. ‘Today,’ I told them, ‘a star was born.’ The reason the Guardian’s Ian Aitken and others echoed the phrase the following morning was because all of us recognised that it rang true.

Part of what drew me to Gordon and Tony, and drew us together, was simply the way they did politics. So much of the Labour Party seemed weighted down by torpor and an acceptance of defeat. Morale reached a new low the week after Gordon’s Commons breakthrough, with a particularly painful by-election defeat in the ostensibly safe seat of Glasgow Govan. We lost it, with a swing of 33 per cent, to the Scottish Nationalists. Neil was feeling so despondent that for a brief period he even began speaking of stepping aside the following summer. I was feeling equally down. A fortnight later, I boarded a train north with Tony to join him at a meeting with his constituents. The contrast could hardly have been greater. Watching him use his mixture of intellect, humour and charm to communicate – with voters was like getting a blood transfusion.

The growing bond between Tony, Gordon and me was not only about politics. On policy, we also found much common ground. The specifics of the new Labour platform we envisaged would not take shape until much later. But we knew absolutely what had to go: the statist, unilateralist and class-defined prospectus that had lost us three straight elections and was surely going to lose us a fourth.

Two late-night entries in my diary, six months apart in 1988, chart the depth of my frustration and my growing certainty about what needed to be done. The first followed the NEC’s approval of the initial policy review reports. It reflected my relief at the vote, and my admiration for Neil’s role in arguing for and mobilising the support needed to secure it. But I worried about what hadn’t been accomplished, the risks we had failed to take, and where we might go from here. ‘The problem is that for all Neil’s courage and strength of leadership, he is let down by his lack of self-confidence and his seeming lack of interest in the detail of policy,’ I wrote. ‘It shows not so much in what he says and does, but in what he fails to articulate and to achieve.’ There was an ‘awful’ implication in this. I had begun to suspect that the country might never view Neil as prime ministerial material. He would end up being both ‘the hero and the fall-guy of history. The likelihood at the moment is that he will be the leader who restored and rebuilt the Labour Party but who could not clinch victory.’

The second snapshot is from a few days after my trip to Tony’s constituency in Sedgefield. ‘Increasingly,’ I wrote, ‘my role is revolving around the strong future leaders – Gordon Brown and Tony Blair – and the political nourishment and companionship I get from this group. They have such political gifts, and they know that on the present course we shall remain out of office for a generation. I have now become determined to be part of that successor generation. All my political ambition has returned with the challenge that they hold out.’

While I had not yet shared this with Neil, or even Charles Clarke, I knew something else as well. If I wanted to be part of creating a truly revived Labour Party, I could not do it from where I was – as a headquarters man, whatever the range of my influence. Like Gordon and Tony, I needed to be on the front line. I needed to resume a course I had abandoned, in disgust at the shambolic extremism of London Labour politics. I would seek election as a Labour Member of Parliament.

4

The Three Musketeers

My search for a seat in the Commons need not have ended my role in organising Neil Kinnock’s last realistic chance to become Prime Minister. But it did. By the time of the next election, my relations with Neil would be much more distant, while with Charles Clarke they were badly strained. With Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, however, they were not only closer: the three of us had become a political partnership, convinced that the party had to transform itself if it was to have any hope of returning to government. We were also fairly sure that neither Neil nor his likely successor, John Smith, could deliver that change.

I first broached the subject of looking for a parliamentary seat with Patricia Hewitt at the start of 1989. She smiled, an increasingly rare occurrence. Far from trying to argue me into staying the course with Team Kinnock, she had given up trying to convince herself. Working in the leader’s office, she was even more frustrated than I was about the prospects for the policy changes needed for renewal. With criticism of his leadership rising, Neil was in brooding, bunker mode. A change had come over Charles as well. His ebullient, can-do confidence was less in evidence, as was the banter with which he had always entertained, and sustained, the Kinnock operation – ‘Why, it’s Jolly Pierre!’ he would invariably greet me in my first years at Walworth Road. While I had undoubtedly become a bit less jolly myself, Charles’s morale had clearly suffered from the strain of projecting and promoting, protecting and preserving, Neil’s leadership against critics within Labour, and the media without.

Neil mistrusted, feared, and often despised the press, and would be upset by every unfriendly headline. He was using Patricia less and less, but blamed her when things went wrong – with sometimes distressing results that Charles did little or nothing to alleviate. She had begun helping Clive Hollick, a business supporter of Labour who headed the Mills & Allen billboard giant, in his efforts to equip the party for government over the longer term. Mrs Thatcher had entered Downing Street in 1979 with the core of a programme and a political identity – built, with Keith Joseph, largely on the work of a US-style think tank called the Centre for Policy Studies. There was no left-of-centre equivalent. With Clive’s backing, that was remedied, with the establishment of the Institute for Public Policy Research. Shortly after we spoke, Patricia left to become Deputy Director of the IPPR.

I mentioned my plans to Charles a few days later. He asked me to take Patricia’s place as Neil’s press secretary, an offer he repeated several times in the weeks ahead. No doubt naïvely, I did believe I might succeed in using day-to-day contact with Neil to engage him more deeply in the plans we needed to put in place to win the next election. But I had a caveat. I told Charles that if I made the move, I would want to keep open the option of going for a seat in the Commons. He insisted that that wouldn’t work, and he was right. Patricia’s place eventually went to Julie Hall – a bright, charming ITN reporter who became a close friend, and later the wife, of my most gifted protégé at Walworth Road, Colin Byrne.

I turned my attention to securing real change through the policy review, which was due to be published in the spring. At the end of January, I accompanied Gerald Kaufman on a trip to Moscow for the overseas equivalent of the ‘Freedom and Fairness’ launch. It was an intricately choreographed event, designed to pave the way for us to abandon one of our most entrenched, and electorally perverse, policies: unilateral nuclear disarmament. Gerald and I took with us the trade union leader Ron Todd, a long-time supporter of unilateralism whose presence would be important in making the shift credible.

As we had anticipated, Gerald was told in his meetings with Soviet officials that even the Kremlin saw Labour’s unilateral disarmament policy as an unhelpful distraction. They were also dismissive of the idea of bilateral arms talks, the halfway house favoured by some on the left. The Soviets wanted Britain involved in a multilateral disarmament process, alongside their talks with the Americans, a position they helpfully made clear to the travelling British press. Gerald held a press briefing in front of Lenin’s tomb in Red Square at which he took the first step towards abandoning unilateralism, by steering the reporters away from expecting separate arms talks between Moscow and a future Labour government. Gerald then left, for personal rather than political reasons: one of his more endearing quirks as Shadow Foreign Secretary was his ambition to sample the finest local ice cream on all his travels. For reasons that were never entirely clear, he had decided that Moscow’s best was to be found in the GUM department store, across Red Square. I followed up his remarks with further, off-the-record briefing that delivered the message more directly. Unilateralism, I said, was dead. When we finally released the policy review in May, it was. Labour would remain committed to disarmament, but ‘in concert with action taken by the superpowers’.

The policy review was called ‘Meet the Challenge, Make the Change’. With the exception of Gerald’s bold move on defence, it might more accurately have been entitled ‘Skirt the Challenge, Hint at Change’. There were a few significant changes, notably a retreat from the Bennite dream of reversing all Mrs Thatcher’s privatisations. But on finance, John Smith’s domain, we did not manage to jettison our high-tax, high-spending reputation. The booklet was glossy enough, the presentation sufficiently polished, to make some impact: for the first time since the run-up to the 1987 election, one of our internal polls even showed us leading the Tories. It also provided a platform for organising our campaign for the June European elections.

In the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986, environmental issues would play a major role, leading to predictions that the Green Party might have a singificant effect on the outcome. Many in Labour were arguing for us to adopt a raft of new environmental policies, looking to the possibility of a longer-term ‘red–green’ alliance against the Tories if the Greens’ impact continued to grow. Though I was open to this, I came to believe that it should not be at the expense of a realistic energy policy, including a commitment to nuclear power. I was especially influenced in this by Jack Cunningham, a shadow cabinet minister whose constituency included the nuclear plant at Sellafield. He quite rightly feared that if we came out against nuclear energy he would lose his seat. In the event, I used my campaign briefings to make it clear that we would not close Sellafield, and left others, especially Robin Cook, to court the green vote by implying that we might well do so. With Colin Byrne and Philip Gould helping me plot the overall strategy of the campaign, I also played the policy review for all it was worth, which is to say I trumpeted the changes on defence and nationalisation, and skirted over the rest. I worked as hard as I had since 1987, coordinating campaign events, orchestrating media appearances and briefings.

Against resistance from most of the shadow cabinet, Neil and I insisted on retaining Bryan Gould as the main face of the campaign. Not only was he a proven performer, he was broadly Eurosceptic, and thus perfectly placed to play on the Tories’ internal divisions over the EU. As Bryan’s partner in presentation I chose Mo Mowlam, a young MP from the 1987 intake, a Political Science PhD with a sharp sense of humour and an in-your-face frankness about her. Mo was excited at being given her chance to shine. Afterwards, quite unnecessarily, she even went out and bought me a gift, a combination radio and television that would have pride of place in my constituency home throughout my period as an MP. Mo and I became good friends, and she and Bryan formed an effective team. Surpassing all expectations, Labour picked up fourteen seats in the European elections, while the Tories lost fourteen. It was the first election of any kind since 1974 in which we had defeated them. The Greens took about 15 per cent of the vote, though the first-past-the-post system meant they got no seats.

Despite media talk of a Labour revival, however, I suspected it was a false dawn. Judging by Neil’s mood, and Charles’s, so did they. In many ways, however, I was now enjoying my work at Walworth Road. The early fears that I wouldn’t be up to it were gone. I had assembled a talented, and committed, team, and the changes we had made to Labour’s public face – how our literature and launches looked, how we organised election campaigns – were now embedded. Our party and its policies may not yet have been modern in any real sense, but our communications were. I was even enjoying my role as the spokesman – or more often the stage manager, interpreter and spinner – for Labour in the media. Not everybody in the media enjoyed me quite so much, but I did build working relationships, even very friendly relations, with many journalists.

Ultimately, however, I saw my role as using any tool at my disposal to ensure that Labour, and Neil, were presented in the best possible light. I paid special attention to television coverage, because of its importance and immediacy, and because my time at LWT had given me first-hand experience of the mechanics of the medium. If that sometimes meant cold-shouldering those who made Labour look bad, I saw that too as part of my job. This stored up bad blood that would do me damage in the future.

I did sometimes have to use more direct measures. Before finalising the policy review, we had launched a nationwide publicity tour called ‘Labour Listens’. The idea was for a rotating cast of shadow cabinet ministers to hold meetings in which the audience would tell us what they wanted to see reflected in a future Labour manifesto. My touchingly naïve hope was that thousands of voters would take the opportunity to do so, and that their common-sense messages would prod the party towards changes in policy. In fact, it was a disaster. It began in Brighton, with Roy Hattersley chairing the panel. A Steve Bell cartoon in the Guardian captured the atmosphere perfectly: politicians rabbiting on in front of an audience that was snoring, or in some cases dying of boredom.

The nadir came in Birmingham, where, in front of a grand total of twenty people and a local television crew, the shadow ministers made their opening pitch and then asked for questions. A few hands went up. One belonged to an odd-looking woman who was wearing a very tall hat made of newspapers. I sent a note up to Ann Taylor, the senior shadow cabinet member on the platform, saying under no circumstances should she be called on. But before long, our lady of the newspapers was the only one with her hand up. As she began her incomprehensible question, I deliberately tripped over the wire linked to the TV crew’s sound system, apologising profusely to the cameraman as I regained my balance. ‘Labour Listens’ was not seen or heard from again. Still, despite the occasional rows and setbacks, and my frustration that we did not have a more attractive message to convey, I liked what I was doing. I felt it was important, and that I was good at it.

I did not, however, think that over the longer term I could best help promote a changed Labour Party from Walworth Road. I did not intend to leave soon. And not completely, since I still held out some hope of applying the experiences and lessons of 1987 to organising a ‘brilliantly successful’, yet victorious, campaign next time round. But I believed victory would be a tall order. Though my role had given me an increasingly prominent public profile, my ability to influence the change that mattered most – in Labour’s policies – was limited. I was certain that I would feel more fulfilled personally in the Commons, and that I could make a more useful contribution to turning the party round from there. My aim was, alongside Gordon and Tony, to become part of a new generation of MPs who would complete the work Neil had begun and bring a genuinely modernised Labour Party back into government.

The three of us were already working together. I began turning increasingly to Gordon and Tony as front-rank Labour spokesmen. Oonagh McDonald was no longer around, having lost her seat in the 1987 election, but other senior, or rising, MPs and shadow cabinet colleagues resented the profile they were getting. The fact is that they were the most effective and convincing means of getting Labour’s message across. They helped me as well, encouraging me in my efforts to gain selection as a Labour parliamentary candidate. Gordon’s role was largely tactical. Having come from the tough school of Scottish Labour politics, he was an endless source of advice on navigating the eddies of local party, and trade union, influence. Tony provided the critical, on-the-ground, support. He was convinced I would make an ideal candidate for Hartlepool, a north-east seat adjacent to his own, and when he learned that the sitting MP, Ted Leadbitter, had decided to step down, he took me to meet him. Our talk was warm and engaging, but inconclusive. It turned out that a key group of local party leaders had decided to sound out another, undeniably high-profile, aspirant: Glenda Jackson. I spoke to Glenda. Though no one had yet contacted her about Hartlepool, she was aware of the interest, and I told her that if she wanted to go for the seat, I’d defer to her. I meant it. I also sensed she would be happier with a London seat, as soon turned out to be the case.

Once that became clear, I threw my energies into trying to win support, both in the constituency and with the critically important trade unions. Masterminding my campaign was an astute and talented local party member, Bernard Carr, whose political skills were exceeded only by his ability to conjour up delicious meals. It was not easy at first. Although the national exposure I had got at Walworth Road was in one sense a big advantage, it was not without its downsides. My rivals for the nomination were understandably keen to paint me as an outsider, out of touch both politically and socially with the largely working-class constituency I wanted to represent. They especially delighted in dragging up, and embellishing, a media myth about me from a by-election campaign a few years earlier. In its final form it had me strutting into a Hartlepool fish-and-chip shop and mistaking mushy peas for guacamole. For the record, I have never mixed up the two. And I quite like mushy peas. In fact it was an American intern working for Jack Straw who had made the error.

While the invented version of this story didn’t help, as I began spending more and more time in Hartlepool, I found it to be the exact opposite of its parochial media stereotype. The scores of people I met during my bid to become the prospective parliamentary candidate in 1989, and the many thousands more I would meet as their MP, were almost without exception outward-looking and open-minded. And much too canny to be taken in by the guacamole story. The choice of candidate was to be made in mid-December, and I still have the outline speech that Gordon hammered out for me on his office typewriter as the basis of my presentation to the selection meeting. The theme was hardly revolutionary, but it was modernising in the sense that it championed social justice without linking it to higher taxes, ‘matching unused resources with unmet needs’. I think that what most won the day was my genuine enthusiasm both for serving the future interests of Labour nationally, and Tony-style, for engaging with and listening to my constituents.

During the run-up to the vote I had said that the first thing I would do if I were selected was to buy a home in Hartlepool, and I soon found a comfortable four-bedroom house on Hutton Avenue, near the civic centre in the heart of the town. It cost a little under £90,000. My mother helped with the deposit, and I took out a mortgage for much of the balance. The only sadness was that, to make ends meet, I would have to sell my wonderful little cottage in Foy.

In London, my living arrangements were also in flux. I was lodging in the Islington home of one of my closest political friends and her family. Sue Nye had worked as a ‘garden girl’, one of the Downing Street secretaries, for Jim Callaghan, moving with him into opposition, and had gone on to play a steadily more senior role with Michael Foot and now Neil. Her husband, the Goldman Sachs chief economist Gavyn Davies, was high-powered and wealthy. He was also informed and astute about politics, warm and generous and utterly without pretension. They offered me a room in their home until I could find a more permanent base, which I did when I bought a small flat in neighbouring Wilmington Square the following year. But my focus had begun to shift away from the capital, towards Hartlepool and the north-east.

On the day of my selection, Tony was in Sedgefield giving a speech. It would mark the beginning of his emergence as a politician whose weight and prominence in the party were equal to, and eventually greater than, Gordon’s. None of us realised this at the time. Weeks earlier, Gordon had finished first in the elections for the shadow cabinet, and was rewarded with a departmental role of his own, as Trade and Industry spokesman. The increasingly settled view was that he was future leadership material. Tony’s shadow cabinet brief had changed as well: he was now Employment spokesman. He spotted early on that the party’s support for the European ‘social chapter’ meant that a Labour government would have to abandon its backing for arrangements under which employees could be required to be members of a designated trade union. He also had the modernising instinct to make a virtue out of necessity. As I was addressing the selection meeting, Tony was telling his constituency party that Labour would no longer back the so-called ‘closed shop’. He spoke, almost literally, to three people and a dog. But by pre-arrangement with Colin, I made sure the media were primed to give Labour’s most serious policy shift since Gerald’s move on defence the prominence it deserved. The TV bulletins and newspaper headlines unsettled the unions and the Labour left, but gave encouragement to the growing band of ‘modernisers’ in the party. They also raised Tony’s profile in much the same way Gordon’s showdown with Nigel Lawson had done for his a year earlier. Before long he too would find himself being talked about as a future leader.

I was hugely excited by my selection as a candidate, and even more so at the prospect, in a solid Labour seat, of becoming an MP. But while I knew I would now be spending at least a couple of days each week in Hartlepool, I assumed that I would continue my work at Walworth Road. Within days, however, I realised that Neil, and particularly Charles, wanted me out. Neil was relaxed when I told him I intended to apply for the seat, because he assumed I wouldn’t get it. ‘I should not be hopeful, kid,’ he told me. ‘I wish you well, because I want you to have what you’ve set your heart on. But Hartlepool won’t have you. I know what sort of party it is.’ At first, neither he nor Charles seemed bothered by my increasingly frequent trips to the north-east to drum up support for my candidacy. I was still in London for any major media or campaign event, and in touch with journalists by phone when I was away, and Colin was doing an excellent job anchoring the operation during my absences. But when I won the selection, Neil was shocked, and Charles’s attitude hardened. ‘Betrayal’ was the first word to cross Neil’s lips, I was later told. ‘I should have known Peter would have conducted this like a military operation, every door knocked on, no stone left unturned, the charm turned on,’ he apparently said when he had calmed down a bit. ‘He deserves it, but it’s left us in the shit.’ On the Monday after my selection, Charles called me into the Shadow Cabinet Room in the opposition leader’s suite in the Commons. ‘I have never known Neil so angry over anything,’ he said. ‘You cannot stay. You’ll have to leave, and we’ll find someone to replace you.’ He added that if it were up to him, I would be clearing out my desk that day.