- The Guardian, Saturday 29 May 2010
Would-be leaders: Ed Balls and Ed Miliband Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
… the would-be leaders
Ed Miliband 14 June 1995
'I kept pressing Ed Miliband to explain our economic message in a nutshell and what came out every time was an essay that went over my head and which also seemed to change every time I asked it.'
David Miliband 29 June 1995
DM and I had a row drafting TB's Times article on public services, which I felt had to have real cutting edge and DM kept defaulting to these policy wonk words that I found impenetrable.
Ed Balls 6 November 1996
Ed Balls spoke drivel, a never-ending collection of words that just ran into each other and became devoid of meaning.
… the 'left elite'
Wednesday 13 September 1995
Apart from the Guardian the speech [by Blair to the TUC] came out not too bad but there was loads more about me, Peter M and Philip Gould in the papers, which kind of drowned it out. TB was really fed up with the Guardian which was making life as difficult as it could within the party and fuelling as much dissent as it could. TB and I sneaked out for a walk on the beach. He was venomous about the Guardian. "There is a left elite that deep down couldn't give a damn whether we have the Tories in power for ever," he said. "We have to break it and change it."
… Cherie Blair
Monday 4 September 1995
I had a brief chat with CB [Cherie Blair]. She was pretty surly, and asked if she could count on my support to stop TB drinking caffeine. I told her I'd written to the editors asking them to leave Euan alone on his way to school [as a new pupil at the Oratory], for which she appeared grateful, though she couldn't resist pointing out the problem was people in the party – ie people like me – determined to make it an issue …
I called Fiona [Millar, Campbell's wife and an adviser to Cherie Blair] and inadvertently set off a dreadful chain of events. I told her that Cherie had been very chilly again … Fiona went off in a total rage, called Cherie, said she had no idea how awful our life was because of me working for TB, that I spent my whole life defending and looking after them, we got no thanks at all from her and it was an outrage that she could think I would tell the press about the Oratory. Cherie then called Anji [Hunter] and delivered what Anji called the worst tirade she'd ever received in her life, said she was trying to control Tony, and that if Carole [Caplin] didn't go to conference, she wasn't going to go either. Anji was in floods of tears, said she had never been on the receiving end of such venom in her life and was it really worth carrying on? … By the end of the evening Cherie had phoned them both to apologise. But until TB sorted out clearly what was expected of her, what the role was meant to be, what the limits were, it was going to be a potential running sore.
Tuesday, April 30 1996
Hilary said Fiona had had a call from a Mail journalist, asking if Cherie used a homoeopath called Jack Temple, who was featured in last week's Sunday Express having done something called dowsing, which involves swinging a pendulum over the body, for Diana and Fergie. Fiona spoke to Carole Caplin who said yes, she used him. Hilary spoke to Cherie who said yes, she did. I got her to come into a meeting with TB, Jonathan and Peter M and raised it.
Peter and Tony said we know about this, it is nonsense. We talked about it on Sunday because it was in the papers and Cherie said she had only had some homoeopathic pills from him. I repeated my view that Carole was a total menace and TB had his head in the sand about it. Peter seemed particularly keen, peculiarly so, to defend these fucking people and it later emerged, I think from Anji, that he had also been to see this character. TB, as ever, wanted to believe the best of Carole which was nice on one level, but unprofessional on the other. Fiona thought it was inevitable that someone would try to piece together a story of how Carole had some kind of weird control over Cherie. She was so rational on everything else but not on this. As it was Grace's birthday, I left early. Anji told me later that TB and Cherie had a furious row about it. Cherie blamed it all on the office, saying we exaggerated the problem to make it feel like a crisis.
Tuesday, May 7 1996
On to Cherie, where Fiona and Roz reported to me, Hilary, Jonathan, Anji and Kate that they were at the end of their tethers because she wanted a public role for herself and because of the diffi-culties of Carole's involvement, particularly in all the mad stuff. We decided that the next discussion must involve her and Tony and that they must confront our concerns about what was going on. We agreed, and even I did, that there could be a problem casting out Carole.
Fiona/Roz said they felt Cherie was dependent on her, because TB was so busy elsewhere.TB came into the room and we asked him, for example, whether they had thought about where they would live if we won, and whether Cherie would work. It was fairly clear from the look that they hadn't thought about it much at all. Re work, he said probably, but she wouldn't do cases to do with the government. I asked whether Carole would still be around, and he said no. He insisted Carole was not going to the house at all, but Fiona knew that not to be the case.