The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries Read Online Free PDF Page A

Diaries

Tuesday, September 11, 2001
    I woke up to the usual blah on the radio about TB [Tony Blair, Prime Minister] and the TUC [Trades Union Congress] speech, all the old BBC clichés about us and the unions, the only new thing GMB [trade union] ads asking if you trust TB not to privatise the NHS. Peter H [Hyman, policy adviser and speechwriter] and I went up to the [12 Downing Street] flat. TB had done a good section on public-private, an effective hit back at the John Edmonds [GMB] line. With the economy, public services, Europe/euro and a bit on asylum which was really worrying, we had a proper [TUC] speech. We sharpened it and honed it a bit. He was furious at the GMB ads, said he intended to give Edmonds a real hammering. We finished it on the train to Brighton, were met and driven to the hotel. We were there, up at the top of the hotel putting the finishing touches to the speech, when the attacks on the New York Twin Towers began.
    Godric [Smith, deputy press secretary] was watching TV in the little room where the Garden Room 1 girl had set up, came up to the top of the little staircase leading to the bit where TB and I were working, and signalled for me to go down. It was all a bit chaotic, with the TV people going into their usual breathless breaking-news mode, but it was clearly something way out of the ordinary. I went upstairs, turned on the TV and said to TB he ought to watch it. It was now even clearer than just a few moments ago just how massive an event this was. It was also one that was going to have pretty immediate implications for us too. We didn’t watch the TV that long, but long enough for TB to reach the judgement about just how massive an event this was in its impact and implications. It’s possible we were talking about thousands dead. We would also have to make immediate judgementsabout buildings and institutions to protect here. TB was straight on to the diplomatic side as well, said that we had to help the US, that they could not go it all on their own, that they felt beleaguered and that this would be tantamount to a military attack in their minds. We had to decide whether we should cancel the speech.
    There was always a moment in these terrorist outrages where governments said we must not let the terrorists change what we do, but it was meaningless. Of course they changed what we did. At first, we felt it best to go ahead with the speech but by the time we were leaving for the venue, the Towers were actually collapsing. The scale of the horror and the damage was increasing all the time and it was perfectly obvious he couldn’t do the speech. We went over to the conference centre, where TB broke the news to [John] Monks [TUC general secretary] and Brendan Barber [Monks’ deputy] that he intended to go on, say a few words, but then we would have to head back to London. We would issue the text but he would not deliver the speech. John Monks said to me that it’s on days like this that you realise just how big his job is. TB’s mind was whirring with it. His brief statement to the TUC went down well, far better than his speech would have done. 2 We walked back to the hotel, both of us conscious there seemed to be a lot more security around. We arranged a series of conference calls through Jonathan [Powell, Chief of Staff] with Jack S [Straw, Foreign Secretary], Geoff Hoon [Defence Secretary], David B [Blunkett, Home Secretary]. We asked [Cabinet Secretary Sir] Richard Wilson to fix a Cobra 3 meeting as soon as we got back.
    We set off for Brighton station. He said the consequences of this were enormous. On the train he was subdued, though we did raise a smile when someone said it was the first and last time he would get a standing ovation from the TUC. Robert Hill [TB’s political secretary] was listening to the radio on his earpiece and filling us in every now and then. TB asked for a pad and started to write down some of the issues we would have to address when we got back. He said the big