Labour’s press operation ‘lost all credibility’ under Alastair Campbell, Blair told while PM
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Downing Street’s press operation “lost all credibility as a reliable, truthful, objective operation” under Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair was told by his principal private secretary in 2003.
Jeremy Heywood – later Lord Heywood – told the then prime minister in a memo marked “confidential – personal” that: “Even respectable journalists treat it with caution – part of a relentless politically-dominated spin machine … this is disastrous for the authority of your own office.”
Mr Campbell had announced his intention to step down, which Mr Heywood described as “a unique opportunity to rebuild confidence”.
Earlier the same year Mr Campbell played a pivotal role in a spat between No 10 and the BBC over its coverage of the build up to the Iraq War, during which Mr Blair – now Sir Tony – wrote personally to the BBC chairman to complain.
In May 2003 reporter Andrew Gilligan claimed on Radio 4’s Today Programme that the Government had “sexed up” a dossier on Saddam Hussein’s ability to launch weapons of mass destruction in order to help justify the invasion of Iraq.
Documents released by the National Archives reveal that two months later Mr Campbell sent a memo to Mr Blair in which he accused BBC executives of a “culture of arrogance” over the dossier controversy.
He added: “If the BBC remains belligerent, I think the rhetoric has to be stepped up, up to and including the threat of putting the issue in the hands of lawyers.”
Mr Blair had already complained to the BBC chairman Gavyn Davies over the corporation’s reporting in the days before the US-led invasion got underway in March 2003.
The imminent invasion had by then already caused deep division within the Labour Party and led to widespread public protest, with an estimated 1.5 million people marching through London in February that year.
Writing on March 19 – the day the air attack phase of the war began – Mr Blair said he had “seen and heard enough” and that he had to complain about the BBC’s coverage.
He told Mr Davies: “In a democracy, voices of dissent and opposition are rightly heard. But the balance in BBC reporting and comment has not been there.
“I have also been shocked by some of the editorialising of your interviewers and reporters.”
He took particular exception to BBC correspondents claiming to be reporting the views of “ordinary” people in Iraq while failing to make it sufficiently clear that foreign media outlets operated amid strict restrictions under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship.
Mr Blair wrote: “The result is that your viewers and listeners might believe that your reporters operate as freely in Baghdad as they do in London, Washington or Paris when in truth they can neither travel freely nor choose who to speak to.
“‘Ordinary’ Iraqis know what they have to say and they know what happens if they don’t.”
The letter produced a robust response from Mr Davies, who pointed out that both sides of the Iraq War divide complained the BBC was biased against them.
He told the then prime minister: “There is a great tendency for protagonists to complain about specific instances of apparent bias, while forgetting that others may be equally incensed about alleged bias in the opposite direction.
“For example, I have been frequently told that it is outrageous that BBC News has devoted ‘so little time and attention’ to anti-war protests. Equally frequently, people have complained that BBC programmes or interviews appear to proceed on the basis that the anti-war case is axiomatically correct.”
The row has echoes of current clashes between the BBC and the Conservative Government, which has seen the corporation accused of bias in its reporting of the conflict in Gaza and its refusal to describe Hamas directly as a terrorist organisation.
Blair defied Cherie’s demand he should sit for official portrait in run-up to Iraq
By Gordon Rayner, Associate Editor
Cherie Blair demanded that her husband sit for an official portrait as the war in Iraq was approaching, but Tony Blair resisted his wife’s importunity for another five years.
Rather than discussing the matter with her husband face to face, Mrs Blair got her aide Fiona Millar to fire off a memo to the then prime minister on Nov 12 2002 saying: “Cherie is adamant that you must now sit for the Lincoln’s Inn portrait by Jonathan Yeo, as you have agreed this in person with them.
“This presents us with a dilemma as we have turned down the National Portrait Gallery on the grounds that you haven’t got time for the necessary sittings at the moment. None of us feel that the image of you posing for your portrait is a particularly helpful one at the moment, especially if the conflict in Iraq escalates.”
On the day the memo was sent, Britain and other countries were putting pressure on Saddam Hussein to comply with UN Security Council resolution 1441, which called on Iraq to disarm or face “serious consequences”. Allied forces invaded four months later.
Ms Millar, partner of Mr Blair’s communications director Alastair Campbell, suggested that the portrait could be done without any fanfare and “they can slip it into the Dining Hall at Lincoln’s Inn (or wherever it is due to hang) without anyone noticing”.
At the time, the then prime minister was known to be reluctant to sit for a portrait because the public expected him to be spending every waking hour concentrating on his job running the country and deciding on policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Blair – now Sir Tony – wrote in red pen on the bottom of the note - now released to the National Archives – : “I’ve never thought this is so presentationally disastrous but I agree with what you suggest.”
Mr Blair finally sat for Mr Yeo for his first official portrait in 2007, after leaving No 10, when he was depicted with a poppy in his lapel for a painting that hung in the Great Hall of Lincoln’s Inn, where Mr Blair trained as a barrister.
He did not sit for his official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery until 2013, six years after he left No 10, when he was painted by Rutland-based artist Alastair Adams.
