- The Observer, Sunday 1 April 2001
On the way to the airport for the flight back to London he spoke to a key Downing Street adviser by telephone. He said he was fearful that they were not controlling the foot and mouth outbreak. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food did not seem to have the resources or the will to control the epidemic, the National Farmers Union was threatening to withdraw its support, Downing Street would have to take complete charge. As far as he was concerned, unless things improved dramatically, the General Election meticulously planned for two years by the legions of Labour apparatchiks for 3 May was off.
'I think he had pretty much made up his mind then,' one of Blair's inner circle told The Observer yesterday. 'Of course there is no final decision until tomorrow, or maybe even Monday. But in his mind, I think he's known for a while. He feels he wants at least another week sorting out foot and mouth. That is all he has been concentrating on and that means he hasn't been able to focus on the politics of a campaign. At the moment he can't do both.'
Blair had many helpers on his way to deciding the election date: pages and pages of focus group work from his personal pollster, Philip Gould; the latest soundings from his party, courtesy of the whips office; bulletins on the funeral pyres of cattle around the country, courtesy of Maff. And a bloke with a watch.
Every day for the past three weeks one of Labour's key strategists has been scrutinising the major news bulletins on the BBC to see how much time they devote to foot and mouth. Every few days he tells Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's official spokesman, how it's 'playing in the media'. The news has not been good.
'The imagery is all wrong,' the adviser told Campbell last week. Charred cattle, legs sticking up in different directions as the flames lick their hides. Thousands of sheep being dumped into trenches. It is leading the news, 10, 11, 12 minutes every day on every BBC news programme. 'The question is, can you call an election in such an environment?' said the adviser, one of Labour's most trusted and longest-serving experts.
Campbell admitted he was now not so sure that 3 May was a viable option. Five days earlier he had told a Labour backbench MP and close colleague that the situation was 'a shambles'.
One Labour official complained: 'We have lurched from one position to another - go for May, go for June. It has not been easy, but now I think it is clear what will happen.'
This weekend Blair is at Chequers. After breakfast he will contact his most trusted lieutenants. Campbell will be called, and the 'press brief' put together by the Downing Street communications unit the night before will be gone through.
What have the Sunday papers been saying? What is the polling evidence saying? Blair will then speak to Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, and Gordon Brown, the Chancellor. Sally Morgan, his political secretary, and Anji Hunter, his diary secretary, will also be contacted for a final sounding.
And all the time he will be inching towards the decision that first entered his mind during that brief visit to Cumbria: Delay, delay, delay.
Later in the morning the Downing Street switchboard will contact Nick Brown, the Agriculture Minister, who will be put through to Blair's study. Brown will already have been briefed on that day's figures of foot and mouth cases by the Maff veterinary service. Blair will ask for a bullet-point summary of what is going on. Is the number of cases going up? Is the rate of increase levelling out? Has anything happened that is significant enough to change my mind? No, Prime Minister.
Blair will think of the advice he has received from the 'cautious wing', as they are now known in Millbank: Gould, whose focus group work revealed negative responses from a public who think the Government should be concentrating on the countryside rather than an election; Peter Mandelson, who urged his close friend to show a 'degree of caution' over the election date and plan for a short pause; Lord Falconer, who agreed with Mandelson.
Brown was always more 'go' than 'stop', but he can see that, as long as an autumn date is kept well off the agenda, there is little likelihood of either the polls or the economic figures lurching away from the Government before an election in June.
Campbell started off as 'the man that wouldn't blink' - but even he realised that the election couldn't go ahead.
'The major argument against delay was that tourism would be affected,' said a Downing Street source. 'But the fact is it has already been affected, to a quite ridiculous extent. The Prime Minister basically ran out of time. Another week before a decision had to be made and it would be a different picture, but we have to move on Monday.'
There have been two flies in the ointment. John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, is still pressing for May but is increasingly a voice in the wilderness. As the mood music around Blair has starting sending out the message 'June', so members of the Cabinet have started falling in line.
The other factor is the party, which still wants a May election. But Blair has always prided himself on being more than a party man. He did go as far as asking Ann Taylor, the chief whip, to canvass Labour MPs to get their views. The whips office said that the majority were still for May but there were significant changes. Rural MPs were showing more signs of nerves.
'What people don't understand is that fighting elections is what parties are for ,' another senior Labour MP said. 'If we don't go now, what are we going to do for the next month? There's nothing in the diary.'
Millbank officials were so concerned that the appeal for a delay from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Liverpool would knock them off course, they started ringing heads of tourism authorities around the country to try and get them to speak to journalists and say that Blair should get on with the election.
It was the last kick of a dying animal. Last week was the most carefully choreographed pre-election campaign week ever. The leaking of John Townend's comments on the 'Anglo-Saxon' nature of Britain being ruined by immigrants from the 'New Commonwealth' came after carefully planted stories on Conservative plans for an anti-asylum seekers party political broadcast and the defection of Ceri Evans, a key aide to William Hague, from the Tories to Labour. But Blair's mind is not for changing.
'We could go for an election now, and win,' said a Downing Street source who has been close to the negotiations which have continued in Downing Street all week. 'But the image of the Prime Minister as a unifying figure would have been lost.'
Last Wednesday morning in the first-floor board room at Labour's headquarters at Millbank, Blair arrived on time at 10am. The National Executive Committee, the decision-making body of the party, was about to meet, and the Prime Minister had just over an hour before he had to get back to Downing Street for yet another meeting with farming leaders.
Around the table were Margaret McDonagh, the party's general secretary, Gordon Brown and Prescott. Blair started with a 10-minute preamble about the foot and mouth epidemic. Prescott spoke about the mess facing the Tube. Brown talked about the election campaign and how Labour's policies would be sold to the voters. McDonagh spoke about election planning. The 20 or so members of the committee then asked questions - about the performance of the economy, about the Underground, about attacks on the Conservatives. And each question had a rider. What, Tony, do you think about the date of the election?
Blair pulled an agonised face. 'We have to be seen to be in control,' he said. 'We have to be sensitive to the problems that people are facing. We have to be on the path to eradicating it.' The message was clear. 'Tony Blair obviously had more reservations than most people in that room about the date of election,' said one of the people at the meeting. 'We all got the feeling then that he was for delay.'
Millbank officials still desperately point to the factors in favour of May. When 'Mystic Greg' Cook, the Labour Party's chief pollster, made the short trip from his Millbank offices to the Commons on Wednesday night to give a crucial briefing to MPs, he was able to soothe troubled brows. The poll lead was solid at around 19 points. And when the Times poll on Thursday still showed Labour with a lead of 20 points, many in Millbank breathed a sigh of relief and thought it would be the green light for May.
William Hague's diary has been cleared so that he can be back behind his desk in London early tomorrow morning, just in case an election is called. But Hague's closest advisers now don't think the election will be called this week. And Friday saw another bad day in the foot and mouth world, as another 51 cases were confirmed, 14 more than the day before.
When Blair, after weeks of delay, finally pulled on his wellies and started travelling the country he saw that bouncing the electorate into a May poll would send out the wrong message. Forty-five minutes in Cumbria on a cold spring day clinched it.
'If I were you, Tony': What are they telling the PM?
Alastair Campbell : Says Blair wants to contain foot and mouth, not indulge in electioneering. Campbell originally argued for 3 May, insisting that the Government should not appear to crumble under pressure. But by last weekend he had become convinced that Downing Street must consider June. Accepts it is difficult to argue convincingly that the outbreak is under control.
Peter Mandelson - Has believed for some weeks that postponement to June would be necessary. Argues that Blair must appear to govern for the whole country and not just Labour's interests. Back in regular contact with the PM, Mandelson's advice is keenly listened to at Number 10.
John Prescott - The Deputy Prime Minister originally pushed for an April ballot, wanting Labour to seize the initiative. Now wedded to May. Sympathises with arguments that farmers never considered it a national emergency when the coal industry was decimated. Modernisers may scoff but Blair has taken Prescott seriously.
