Free The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries by Campbell Alastair Page A

what he thought of what was happening, and got the monosyllabic treatment. Eventually he said ‘How am I supposed to know what to think? I don’t know what is going on.’ TB said there was not a word of support, or a hint of understanding of how tough this was. He even got back to the point of demanding a date for TB’s departure, at which point TB snapped, said he was fed up of the way he spoke to him, the way he treated him. ‘You say I have a choice about when to go. It’s you that has a choice, about whether you work with me or against me, and get it into your head that if you work against me, you’ll get no help from me.’ He said GB was also urging him to cut loose the IRA from the peace process, which was ridiculous. I sometimes wondered whether he wouldn’t actually be a total disaster as prime minister and whether in fact we weren’t duty-bound to ensure it didn’t happen. John Rentoul had a very goodline on the ‘psychologically flawed relationship’ and it wasn’t far wrong. 10 The main issue to be resolved today was the recall of Parliament, and what to do about party conference. TB wanted it all kept under review. He was worried about the meeting with the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Intelligence select committees but in the end it went extremely well.
    TB went through four separate areas – diplomatic, action being taken, evidence re the attacks, implications for domestic law. He said we were sure the Taliban knew something was happening. He made clear military action would follow if they do not comply in yielding up OBL. He went over some of the long-term issues, money laundering, shutting down the camps, the trade in WMD capability, including the involvement of what he called responsible business people. He said a lot of people had expected the US to go straight in but they didn’t. They want to get it right. Even the Tories were effusive in their praise for his handling. Questions were intelligent and sensible and as an exercise it was definitely worth doing. Chris Mullin [Labour MP, chair of the Home Affairs select committee] said afterwards he had found it extremely useful. TB was on good form and they sensed he was in charge and in control of all the arguments. On conference, we agreed it would be difficult to do normal traditional conference-type announcements but we should not imagine the whole flavour had to be foreign affairs.
    TB had a meeting with IDS, who did a very supportive doorstep. TB felt he was a reasonably nice guy but very right wing, e.g. already trying to link OBL to Iraq. I went home for a run with Rory [AC’s elder son] then back for TB’s dinner with Blunkett, Milburn, Estelle [Morris, Education Secretary], Steve Byers, Cherie and Sally [Morgan, political secretary]. Both Alan and Estelle felt they didn’t have the money to deliver and needed to press for more, that the tax credits agenda was doing them in. They both seemed demoralised. They also feared that even if we met the targets, people would not see it as a transformation of public services. Blunkett had a right old rant at the Civil Service.
Tuesday, September 25
    Jack Straw was involved in a diplomatic row with Israel as he arrived in Iran because he talked about Palestine in an article for an Iraniannewspaper. TB said the FCO sometimes lacked subtlety. Sharon cancelled his meeting with Jack and it took a call with TB to get it back in his diary. We needed TB up today so I spent much of the day putting together a script in three parts: 1. Taliban are our enemy as diplomatic effort intensifies; 2. we are addressing the humanitarian crisis, and 3. we will report on any change to domestic law within two weeks. We announced the recall of Parliament.
    At my morning meeting, I asked who was the minister responsible for the civil contingencies situation and was told Chris Leslie [junior minister]. Lovely bloke, but the public would be shocked, I reckoned, that it wasn’t a big hitter. I spoke to JP after speaking