Lord Hutton has impressed the public with the dignity and clarity with which he is presiding over the inquiry into the death of David Kelly. However, I do not think that his findings will necessarily change the public opinion that is being formed. Unless he produces a sharply worded, black and white judgment, which seems unlikely, the public may be expected to form their own judgment on memories of the process. Those memories are beginning to crystallise.
There is already an indelible impression of the way in which Government is conducted in the Blair Downing Street. There is a hazier impression of the way in which BBC journalism is conducted, and how it is supervised. Neither impression has been attractive. Public opinion is also being shaped by events in Iraq. Each day produces reports of attacks on American or British soldiers, with a steady trickle of casualties. The appalling terrorist attacks on the Shias and the United Nations seem to have involved both surviving supporters of Saddam Hussein and members of al-Qaeda. These attacks. reinforced by sabotage to the oil pipeline, are a deliberate attempt to prevent the redevelopment of Iraq. Saddam has never hesitated to attack his own people.
There are two ways in which the public could react. In Britain and the United States some people will fear that these attacks foreshadow another Vietnam, a long guerrilla war which cannot be won, with no exit in sight. Others will regard the terrorist actions as proof that the war in Iraq was necessary, that Saddam’s regime had to be removed because it was as evil as President Bush and Tony Blair argued. The future of Iraq is bound to have a dominating influence on the judgment eventually formed of Mr Blair’s decision to go to war. It will therefore decide public opinion about the argument that he used to justify that decision. Iraq is the reality.
The public view will also be affected by today’s interviews at the Hutton inquiry with members of Dr Kelly’s family. The public naturally have great sympathy with the family’s suffering; many women will feel a personal identification with Mrs Kelly. The public already feel that her husband and the rest of the family were put under too much pressure; they are likely to lay the responsibility for that on those ministers and officials who made his name public in a sneaky and roundabout way.
Voters, who have followed the inquiry mainly through television, may well be more concerned about this human suffering than about any administrative procedures. Nevertheless, the picture that has been drawn of the way in which the Government does its business is a damaging one. Saturday’s leading article in The Times made the point vividly, stating: “It has become clear during the Hutton inquiry that the seat of Government is a sofa”. The e-mails themselves have left a paper trail which suggests that Downing Street operates more like a personal court than like a government office.
Mr Blair is often referred to as a presidential Prime Minister; this has been supported by the evidence, particularly Geoff Hoon’s. No one would believe, from what Mr Hoon said, that he was the Secretary of State for Defence. He seems to have done what he was told, by the Prime Minister, or the Prime Minister’s staff, or sometimes even by his own staff. I remember an elderly peer who was charged with being accomplice to a fraud as a company director. The judge dismissed him, observing tartly that “no one who had heard his evidence could possibly believe that he had any understanding of the business of the company”. Substitute “department” for “company” and that is the Hoon defence.
The absence of ministerial involvement is particularly striking. The decision to go to war, and the preparation of the documents used to justify that decision, are surely departmental matters. They are matters for the Prime Minster to discuss with two very senior Secretaries of State, for Foreign Affairs and for Defence. Instead, the names which come up again and again are those of Jonathan Powell, who gives good advice which is not taken, and Alastair Campbell, who charges around on the basis of his own indignations. We hear little of Mr Hoon and nothing of Jack Straw.
Now Mr Campbell is gone, or at any rate is going. He is a big figure, and in some ways an attractive one. He is indeed a ruthless bully. But he is intelligent, decisive and loyal to the cause. His cause is the Labour Party and Mr Blair. He seems also to be essential to the transmission system of the Blair presidency; he is, or was, the driveshaft of the Government.
A normal government transmits decisions from the Cabinet, through senior civil servants, to the ministries. This Government has no great regard for ministries. Decisions are taken on the sofa, by way of chit-chat, and are transmitted by official advisers, or through the information system that was commanded by Mr Campbell. The Government arrives at policy more or less by accident, but arrives at propaganda — “the line to take” — by careful planning and high-level discussions. The Government is a presidency organised for propaganda, not a Cabinet organised for policy. Such is the picture given by the evidence to the Hutton inquiry. If it is a caricature, it is the Government’s own caricature. There has never been a propaganda presidency before in Britain. It inevitably transfers power from ministers to the Prime Minister and to the propaganda chief.
Clare Short was still a member of the Cabinet last September, when the first dossier was being drafted. I entirely believe her description of the relationship she had with Downing Street. She said that there were two classes of minister. The first, and larger, class consisted of ministers who did what they were told, such as Mr Hoon. They were in favour with Downing Street and were rewarded with friendly approval, but not with serious influence. Independent ministers, of whom Ms Short was one, and Gordon Brown must be another, were largely left alone, but more or less ostracised.
It must be a bad sign that the courtiers themselves are now departing. If the Prime Minister depends, as he does, on “Tony’s cronies”, it is a pity that so few of them are left. Anji Hunter, whom everyone liked, has gone. Mrs Blair herself is in the potentially dangerous hands of her “lifestyle guru”, Carole Caplin. Fiona Millar, Mrs Blair’s previous minder, is leaving. Jonathan Powell is still around, which is much to his credit, although there are rumours that even he will be leaving shortly. Sir David Manning, an adviser rather than a crony, is about to go to Washington. At the ministerial level, apart from the defection of the internal opposition of Robin Cook and Ms Short, Lord Irvine of Lairg has been fired for the criminal offence of giving good advice, Peter Mandelson has been fired twice, Stephen Byers was brought down by his own spinners, and Alan Milburn is spending more time with his family. Mr Hoon will be even more of a liability if he stays than if he goes. Lord Falconer of Thoroton remains, but has become Lord Chancellor by mistake.
This is no longer the team that brought Mr Blair and new Labour to power. You can hardly run a court, a campaign or a Government, on only two people, Mrs Blair and Charles Falconer. But the great loss is Mr Campbell. He was the master of propaganda, the man who saw the agenda, decided the line to take, hit back at Labour’s enemies, defamed the Tories, bullied the bulliable, undermined those who would not be bullied, polished the image, told the story, ruled the information service and transmitted TB’s orders. He was also the symbol of the great electoral victories of 1997 and 2001, to which he had contributed so much. Perhaps most important of all, he was the one man who could convince Mr Blair that he was a strong Prime Minister. David Hill will not be at all the same thing.
In fact, the propaganda was overblown, however successful it had been in the early years. Mr Campbell is not good at managing the gap between illusion and reality, however skilful he may be at inflating the illusion. Blair’s presidential style is not the way Britain can be governed. Nobody can be a successful Prime Minister who does not respect the House of Commons, who is not a true democrat. Mr Campbell’s work was built on sand and it will all have to be done again, and differently. However, he was the Christopher Wren of sandcastles.
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