No. 10 secret memo: We are seen as a shambles
Various | 17.12.2006 23:23 | Anti-militarism
Despite this, Bliar remains in power, his policies are still being ruinously followed, and earlier leaked reports say that there is no official plan to hold him to account. On the contrary, there are plans afoot to allow him to resign in honour.
No. 10 secret memo: We are seen as a shambles
Exclusive by SIMON WALTERS
Last updated at 21:43pm on 16th December 2006
Labour has no chance of winning the next Election because voters think the Government is a shambles - and there is little Gordon Brown can do to stop David Cameron becoming Prime Minister.
That is the devastating verdict of a secret Downing Street memo drawn up for Tony Blair by his senior advisers and obtained by The Mail on Sunday.
The confidential document states:
- Labour's standing is so low that the party's only hope of recovering may be to abandon Mr Brown and 'move to a new generation' by picking a much younger new leader - though it warns of the perils of being 'disloyal' to the 'greatly respected' Chancellor.
- The public believes the party is riven by 'internal conflicts' and shows a 'lack of grip and competence on key issues' such as Iraq, the NHS and immigration.
- People who voted Labour at the last Election 'are moving across' to the Conservatives and Labour is floundering 'on every major issue'.
- Mr Blair faces a 's*** or bust' decision on how to stop the rot.
The leak came as a vicious new war of words flared between the rival Blair and Brown camps over where blame for the cash-for-peerages scandal lies.
Mr Brown angrily accused Mr Blair's chief fundraiser Lord Levy of trying to 'smear' him over claims the Chancellor did not tell the truth about nominating two of his cronies for peerages.
And Mr Blair's allies responded by claiming the Prime Minister believed Mr Brown had 'fanned the flames' of the row over party funding to bring down his Downing Street neighbour. "It is outrageous for Brown to play the innocent,' said one. "No one demanded more money than him - and he knew where it was coming from."
The Mail on Sunday has also learned that Mr Blair has held secret talks with his chief of staff Jonathan Powell, at which they agreed that the Prime Minister's final six months in office must create a 'leadership legacy' which sets him apart from Mr Brown.
The Prime Minister has privately mocked Mr Brown's prospects as Prime Minister, saying: "The trouble with many of Gordon's ideas is that they butter no parsnips."
The memo, written in the past few weeks, is the most damaging Government leak in years.
It was written by one of the Prime Minister's closest advisers and seen by a handful of senior figures, including Mr Blair.
It makes a nonsense of public claims by Labour that Mr Blair is planning a smooth transition to Mr Brown next June or July as part of a carefully co-ordinated strategy to secure a fourth successive Election victory.
It also flatly contradicts Mr Blair's public statements dismissing Mr Cameron as a lightweight with no chance of winning power.
In private, Mr Blair's inner circle is in a blind panic over the march of Mr Cameron's Conservatives, and they don't think Mr Brown is any match for him.
The memo freely acknowledges Tory gains in the polls since Mr Cameron replaced Michael Howard, with big leads on tax, crime and immigration. "Labour no longer has a measurable lead on any major issue,' it states.
And it confirms Opposition claims that the Government has failed to live up to its promises and that it is haemorrhaging support as a result of the Iraq War.
"The Government is seen as a shambles. It is not just Labour internal conflicts but a lack of grip and competence on key issues. Iraq is a potent and raw issue, so is the NHS, immigration and crime. We have lost control of the big issues and are not delivering,' the memo states.
Nor is the trend likely to change. "This view is deeply held and entering the bones of the electorate. The public are clearly preparing to shift to the Conservatives if they prove themselves credible and likable."
It would be wrong to assume this is some kind of mid-term setback. It is not. It is a long-term cyclical shift towards an increasingly acceptable Opposition. People who voted Labour in 2005 are on their way across."
Mr Blair's advisers believe Mr Brown's position as Labour heir apparent is making things worse. "Compounding this is an erosion in Gordon Brown's position against David Cameron," the memo says.
Extraordinarily, the document reveals that No10 actively contemplated dumping Mr Brown in favour of a younger successor.
"We can rally round...or we can go for total renewal, moving to a new generation, effectively forming a new government while still in power."
It does not name the potential alternative successors but it is no secret that Mr Blair once hoped Environment Secretary David Miliband would mount a challenge against Mr Brown.
Similarly, despite being slightly older than Mr Brown, Education Secretary Alan Johnson, a relative Cabinet newcomer, was also seen as a way of providing a 'break with the past'.
But the memo warns this tactic could backfire: "Trying to completely renew in office may look as if we are trying to cheat time. And worse - that we are disavowing our record in government.
"Gordon Brown is part of our record. If we disown him, we run the risk of disowning our record. The public will recoil from evidence of disloyalty towards Gordon.
"Whatever people think of him as a [potential] Prime Minister, they still greatly respect him as a Chancellor."
But it shows Mr Blair has serious doubts about allowing Mr Brown to take over without a leadership contest.
The public are 'not stupid', says the memo. "They will not forgive us if we foist an unpopular leader on them without a proper democratic process. They just won't accept it."
It finishes on a note of desperation. "We have to focus. We can't sort out everything. The NHS is probably the best place to start. If we can make sense of one or two areas of policy the rest might fall into place. This is really s*** or bust time."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=423159&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
PM aides deny 'shambles' memo link
17/12/06
Downing Street has denied any connection with an internal memo that apparently admits the Government is seen as a "shambles".
The Mail on Sunday reports that the document was prepared for Tony Blair by senior aides, and gives a bleak assessment of Labour's situation.
It expresses concern that the party is viewed as riven by "internal conflicts" and lacking "grip and competence on vital issues".
The memo also apparently warns that the position of Mr Blair's likely successor, Chancellor Gordon Brown, is "eroding" against David Cameron's "increasingly acceptable" Tories.
It is said to insist that the party is running out of time to avoid electoral disaster.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said: "This is not a Downing Street memo, it was not written by any of the Prime Minister's staff and it most certainly does not reflect his views."
Downing Street sources also insisted the memo had not been prepared by any of Mr Blair's special advisers or other Labour Party-funded staff in his personal office.
http://www.express.co.uk/news_detail_pa.html?sku=116633838013109894-H3
The final, ghastly days of Blair
15.12.06
Add your view
Master of the black arts of spin: Alastair Campbell
When Alastair Campbell left Downing Street in the wake of the death of Iraqi weapons expert Dr David Kelly, the Prime Minister's allies explicitly stated that he had learned his lesson.
They said that there would be no more spin, no more deception, no more smears, no more burying of bad news. Government henceforward was to be conducted on a straightforward basis.
How utterly wrong these claims turned out to be. I have been keeping a file of ministerial lies and deceptions, and it is now bulging.
Only last week, Defence Secretary Des Browne was forced to apologise to MPs after a leaked document showed that he had misled the House of Commons about plans to axe allowances to British soldiers serving in war zones.
Earlier this month, General Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the Army, said that he warned ministers about the extreme danger of the Afghanistan expedition, exposing as a piece of tawdry spin John Reid's remarks that he hoped our soldiers would return 'without a shot being fired'.
Tony Blair's promise that our underequipped Armed Forces would be provided with whatever they needed to fight their battles is another pledge that turned out to be fabrication.
But ministers do not lie just about foreign affairs. Last month, in an astonishing statement, a High Court judge rebuked Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain for 'lack of candour to the court' with reference to a sensitive case involving a controversial political appointment designed to appease the Democratic Unionists.
This was a very grave allegation, and particularly shocking directed at a Cabinet minister. In a government of principle, this would have been a resignation matter.
Over the summer, the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, was caught out making misleading statements about his connection with the U.S. gambling tycoon Philip Anschutz, while the former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, was exposed as a serial liar on a scale that might impress even Mohamed Al Fayed.
But nothing comes close to the events of last Thursday. These will, I believe, come to define the final, ghastly months of the Blair administration in the same way that Black Wednesday defined John Major.
It was a day that contained a series of momentous events: the bombshell (and very welcome) decision to drop the Serious Fraud Office investigation into whether BAe Systems paid £60 million in 'backhanders' to win a lucrative weapons deal with Saudi Arabia; publication of Lord Stevens' report into the death of Princess Diana; and the police interview with Tony Blair as part of the 'cash for peerages' inquiry - the first time that a serving Prime Minister has ever been interviewed as part of a police investigation.
Anyone familiar with the workings of Tony Blair's Downing Street and its careful manipulation of the political agenda by use of a diary grid system, which enables future news events to be charted and orchestrated, will spot a familiar pattern here.
The Prime Minister's aides chose the date of the interview - intriguingly, police sources have stressed that the timing was left up to Downing Street - because they knew that it coincided with the Diana report and the news would be partly 'buried'.
Downing Street officials, however, maintained that it was purely a coincidence that the two events took place on the same day. The trouble is that No 10 has misled the public so often that it no longer has the right to be believed.
Scepticism is all the greater because No 10 also lied, several times, during the course of Thursday. The first falsehood was uttered early in the morning, when Joe Murphy, the political editor of the London Evening Standard, rang Dave Hill, the Downing Street director of communications, to check a rumour that the police were set to interview Tony Blair that day.
Hill replied: 'Look, nothing is happening. I think that's pretty unequivocal.'
At 11 am, at the meeting of the Parliamentary Press lobby, the Prime Minister's official spokesman, Tom Kelly, was asked whether the police had been in touch. He replied: 'Nothing new to report.' But at the very moment he was speaking, the police were inside Downing Street quizzing the Prime Minister.
This astonishing and successful attempt to mislead journalists follows a long line of examples of the Government systematically lying to the Press and public about the cash-for-peerages crisis.
I know of cases where reporters have phoned No 10 to ask whether certain officials had been interviewed by the police. They have been told 'No' - and then discovered that they had, in fact, been questioned.
Another gross act of deception came in the form of a press release put out by the Labour Party on November 28 - the day that the Electoral Commission, an independent watchdog, published a document on party finances.
Yesterday, I asked Downing Street's Dave Hill to explain his conversation with the political editor of the Evening Standard early on Thursday morning. 'I knew nothing. I did not know anything. I did not know that the police were expected at the time,' he said.
I told him that I was prepared to accept his comments (although only with some reluctance, for since he is one of the three or four most senior figures at No 10, and, being director of communications, he would be expected to be consulted about the timing of a major event like the arrival of the police).
But his answer raised a further question. If he was, indeed, in this blissful state of ignorance, why didn't he just say he hadn't a clue what was going on? Hill seemed incapable of answering this question.
The horrible truth is that Thursday's episode is simply the latest in a line of evasions, lies, falsehoods and even smears to issue from Dave Hill and his colleague Tom Kelly - the man who so callously denounced Dr David Kelly as a 'Walter Mitty character'.
Yet I have known Hill for 15 years and know him well enough to be sure he is a fundamentally decent man. He went into Downing Street three years ago with a high reputation - but that is vanishing fast.
Before ending our phone conversation, I told him that he would be foolish to destroy his own integrity on behalf of Tony Blair, a man who - whatever the result of the current police investigation - is now certain to go into history as one of the most disreputable, duplicitous and dishonest Prime Minister in British history.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23378469-details/The%20final,%20ghastly%20days%20of%20Blair/article.do
Exclusive by SIMON WALTERS
Last updated at 21:43pm on 16th December 2006
Labour has no chance of winning the next Election because voters think the Government is a shambles - and there is little Gordon Brown can do to stop David Cameron becoming Prime Minister.
That is the devastating verdict of a secret Downing Street memo drawn up for Tony Blair by his senior advisers and obtained by The Mail on Sunday.
The confidential document states:
- Labour's standing is so low that the party's only hope of recovering may be to abandon Mr Brown and 'move to a new generation' by picking a much younger new leader - though it warns of the perils of being 'disloyal' to the 'greatly respected' Chancellor.
- The public believes the party is riven by 'internal conflicts' and shows a 'lack of grip and competence on key issues' such as Iraq, the NHS and immigration.
- People who voted Labour at the last Election 'are moving across' to the Conservatives and Labour is floundering 'on every major issue'.
- Mr Blair faces a 's*** or bust' decision on how to stop the rot.
The leak came as a vicious new war of words flared between the rival Blair and Brown camps over where blame for the cash-for-peerages scandal lies.
Mr Brown angrily accused Mr Blair's chief fundraiser Lord Levy of trying to 'smear' him over claims the Chancellor did not tell the truth about nominating two of his cronies for peerages.
And Mr Blair's allies responded by claiming the Prime Minister believed Mr Brown had 'fanned the flames' of the row over party funding to bring down his Downing Street neighbour. "It is outrageous for Brown to play the innocent,' said one. "No one demanded more money than him - and he knew where it was coming from."
The Mail on Sunday has also learned that Mr Blair has held secret talks with his chief of staff Jonathan Powell, at which they agreed that the Prime Minister's final six months in office must create a 'leadership legacy' which sets him apart from Mr Brown.
The Prime Minister has privately mocked Mr Brown's prospects as Prime Minister, saying: "The trouble with many of Gordon's ideas is that they butter no parsnips."
The memo, written in the past few weeks, is the most damaging Government leak in years.
It was written by one of the Prime Minister's closest advisers and seen by a handful of senior figures, including Mr Blair.
It makes a nonsense of public claims by Labour that Mr Blair is planning a smooth transition to Mr Brown next June or July as part of a carefully co-ordinated strategy to secure a fourth successive Election victory.
It also flatly contradicts Mr Blair's public statements dismissing Mr Cameron as a lightweight with no chance of winning power.
In private, Mr Blair's inner circle is in a blind panic over the march of Mr Cameron's Conservatives, and they don't think Mr Brown is any match for him.
The memo freely acknowledges Tory gains in the polls since Mr Cameron replaced Michael Howard, with big leads on tax, crime and immigration. "Labour no longer has a measurable lead on any major issue,' it states.
And it confirms Opposition claims that the Government has failed to live up to its promises and that it is haemorrhaging support as a result of the Iraq War.
"The Government is seen as a shambles. It is not just Labour internal conflicts but a lack of grip and competence on key issues. Iraq is a potent and raw issue, so is the NHS, immigration and crime. We have lost control of the big issues and are not delivering,' the memo states.
Nor is the trend likely to change. "This view is deeply held and entering the bones of the electorate. The public are clearly preparing to shift to the Conservatives if they prove themselves credible and likable."
It would be wrong to assume this is some kind of mid-term setback. It is not. It is a long-term cyclical shift towards an increasingly acceptable Opposition. People who voted Labour in 2005 are on their way across."
Mr Blair's advisers believe Mr Brown's position as Labour heir apparent is making things worse. "Compounding this is an erosion in Gordon Brown's position against David Cameron," the memo says.
Extraordinarily, the document reveals that No10 actively contemplated dumping Mr Brown in favour of a younger successor.
"We can rally round...or we can go for total renewal, moving to a new generation, effectively forming a new government while still in power."
It does not name the potential alternative successors but it is no secret that Mr Blair once hoped Environment Secretary David Miliband would mount a challenge against Mr Brown.
Similarly, despite being slightly older than Mr Brown, Education Secretary Alan Johnson, a relative Cabinet newcomer, was also seen as a way of providing a 'break with the past'.
But the memo warns this tactic could backfire: "Trying to completely renew in office may look as if we are trying to cheat time. And worse - that we are disavowing our record in government.
"Gordon Brown is part of our record. If we disown him, we run the risk of disowning our record. The public will recoil from evidence of disloyalty towards Gordon.
"Whatever people think of him as a [potential] Prime Minister, they still greatly respect him as a Chancellor."
But it shows Mr Blair has serious doubts about allowing Mr Brown to take over without a leadership contest.
The public are 'not stupid', says the memo. "They will not forgive us if we foist an unpopular leader on them without a proper democratic process. They just won't accept it."
It finishes on a note of desperation. "We have to focus. We can't sort out everything. The NHS is probably the best place to start. If we can make sense of one or two areas of policy the rest might fall into place. This is really s*** or bust time."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=423159&in_page_id=1770&ct=5 PM aides deny 'shambles' memo link
17/12/06
Downing Street has denied any connection with an internal memo that apparently admits the Government is seen as a "shambles".
The Mail on Sunday reports that the document was prepared for Tony Blair by senior aides, and gives a bleak assessment of Labour's situation.
It expresses concern that the party is viewed as riven by "internal conflicts" and lacking "grip and competence on vital issues".
The memo also apparently warns that the position of Mr Blair's likely successor, Chancellor Gordon Brown, is "eroding" against David Cameron's "increasingly acceptable" Tories.
It is said to insist that the party is running out of time to avoid electoral disaster.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said: "This is not a Downing Street memo, it was not written by any of the Prime Minister's staff and it most certainly does not reflect his views."
Downing Street sources also insisted the memo had not been prepared by any of Mr Blair's special advisers or other Labour Party-funded staff in his personal office.
http://www.express.co.uk/news_detail_pa.html?sku=116633838013109894-H3 The final, ghastly days of Blair
15.12.06
Add your view
Master of the black arts of spin: Alastair Campbell
When Alastair Campbell left Downing Street in the wake of the death of Iraqi weapons expert Dr David Kelly, the Prime Minister's allies explicitly stated that he had learned his lesson.
They said that there would be no more spin, no more deception, no more smears, no more burying of bad news. Government henceforward was to be conducted on a straightforward basis.
How utterly wrong these claims turned out to be. I have been keeping a file of ministerial lies and deceptions, and it is now bulging.
Only last week, Defence Secretary Des Browne was forced to apologise to MPs after a leaked document showed that he had misled the House of Commons about plans to axe allowances to British soldiers serving in war zones.
Earlier this month, General Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the Army, said that he warned ministers about the extreme danger of the Afghanistan expedition, exposing as a piece of tawdry spin John Reid's remarks that he hoped our soldiers would return 'without a shot being fired'.
Tony Blair's promise that our underequipped Armed Forces would be provided with whatever they needed to fight their battles is another pledge that turned out to be fabrication.
But ministers do not lie just about foreign affairs. Last month, in an astonishing statement, a High Court judge rebuked Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain for 'lack of candour to the court' with reference to a sensitive case involving a controversial political appointment designed to appease the Democratic Unionists.
This was a very grave allegation, and particularly shocking directed at a Cabinet minister. In a government of principle, this would have been a resignation matter.
Over the summer, the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, was caught out making misleading statements about his connection with the U.S. gambling tycoon Philip Anschutz, while the former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, was exposed as a serial liar on a scale that might impress even Mohamed Al Fayed.
But nothing comes close to the events of last Thursday. These will, I believe, come to define the final, ghastly months of the Blair administration in the same way that Black Wednesday defined John Major.
It was a day that contained a series of momentous events: the bombshell (and very welcome) decision to drop the Serious Fraud Office investigation into whether BAe Systems paid £60 million in 'backhanders' to win a lucrative weapons deal with Saudi Arabia; publication of Lord Stevens' report into the death of Princess Diana; and the police interview with Tony Blair as part of the 'cash for peerages' inquiry - the first time that a serving Prime Minister has ever been interviewed as part of a police investigation.
Anyone familiar with the workings of Tony Blair's Downing Street and its careful manipulation of the political agenda by use of a diary grid system, which enables future news events to be charted and orchestrated, will spot a familiar pattern here.
The Prime Minister's aides chose the date of the interview - intriguingly, police sources have stressed that the timing was left up to Downing Street - because they knew that it coincided with the Diana report and the news would be partly 'buried'.
Downing Street officials, however, maintained that it was purely a coincidence that the two events took place on the same day. The trouble is that No 10 has misled the public so often that it no longer has the right to be believed.
Scepticism is all the greater because No 10 also lied, several times, during the course of Thursday. The first falsehood was uttered early in the morning, when Joe Murphy, the political editor of the London Evening Standard, rang Dave Hill, the Downing Street director of communications, to check a rumour that the police were set to interview Tony Blair that day.
Hill replied: 'Look, nothing is happening. I think that's pretty unequivocal.'
At 11 am, at the meeting of the Parliamentary Press lobby, the Prime Minister's official spokesman, Tom Kelly, was asked whether the police had been in touch. He replied: 'Nothing new to report.' But at the very moment he was speaking, the police were inside Downing Street quizzing the Prime Minister.
This astonishing and successful attempt to mislead journalists follows a long line of examples of the Government systematically lying to the Press and public about the cash-for-peerages crisis.
I know of cases where reporters have phoned No 10 to ask whether certain officials had been interviewed by the police. They have been told 'No' - and then discovered that they had, in fact, been questioned.
Another gross act of deception came in the form of a press release put out by the Labour Party on November 28 - the day that the Electoral Commission, an independent watchdog, published a document on party finances.
Yesterday, I asked Downing Street's Dave Hill to explain his conversation with the political editor of the Evening Standard early on Thursday morning. 'I knew nothing. I did not know anything. I did not know that the police were expected at the time,' he said.
I told him that I was prepared to accept his comments (although only with some reluctance, for since he is one of the three or four most senior figures at No 10, and, being director of communications, he would be expected to be consulted about the timing of a major event like the arrival of the police).
But his answer raised a further question. If he was, indeed, in this blissful state of ignorance, why didn't he just say he hadn't a clue what was going on? Hill seemed incapable of answering this question.
The horrible truth is that Thursday's episode is simply the latest in a line of evasions, lies, falsehoods and even smears to issue from Dave Hill and his colleague Tom Kelly - the man who so callously denounced Dr David Kelly as a 'Walter Mitty character'.
Yet I have known Hill for 15 years and know him well enough to be sure he is a fundamentally decent man. He went into Downing Street three years ago with a high reputation - but that is vanishing fast.
Before ending our phone conversation, I told him that he would be foolish to destroy his own integrity on behalf of Tony Blair, a man who - whatever the result of the current police investigation - is now certain to go into history as one of the most disreputable, duplicitous and dishonest Prime Minister in British history.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23378469-details/The%20final,%20ghastly%20days%20of%20Blair/article.do
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