Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1900
- 1919)
WEDNESDAY 30 JANUARY 2008
Mr Alastair Campbell
Q1900 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
Greg Dyke, when he gave evidence to this Committee in a different
form some while ago, talked about the way in which you consistently
attempted to influence BBC editors and journalists in how they
presented stories or positions, and it became his perception,
and some of the people in BBC news, that you were almost aiming
to persecute the BBC over how it reported.
Mr Campbell: What shred of evidence was ever
supplied for that?
Q1901 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
The BBC took the backlash of what happened—
Mr Campbell: No, the BBC got something fundamentally
wrong and the most thorough inquiry into it exposed what Michael
Grade, rightly, called "a failure in BBC journalism",
and the top people resigned. So, it is not "taking a backlash";
that is what happens when you get things as badly wrong as they
did.
Q1902 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
What would you say was wrong in the culture of BBC journalism
that led to that issue?
Mr Campbell: Actually, this has been admitted
by several senior BBC people—I cannot remember if Michael
Grade made the same point in the same speech—but it is this
inability to say they get anything wrong at all. I did not see
the evidence that Greg Dyke gave but what I found absolutely extraordinary,
as you got to the events of the Hutton Inquiry itself, was the
admission that they did not even check into it in any sort of
basic way. So the top management are out there saying: "This
is preposterous; the story is right, the Government is wrong",
and then they are forced to say that they did not actually make
any kind of checks on it at all.
Q1903 Chairman:
When Greg Dyke and Gavin Davies gave evidence to us—I have
the quote in front of me—it was not just on Hutton, it was
on Iraq generally, and Gavin Davies said (and I quote): "We
heard frequently from Alastair Campbell at different levels of
the BBC and it became an almost incessant drumbeat of complaint.
We emphatically felt that we were put, not just the two of us,"
(he and Greg Dyke) "under pressure to cover the conflict
in a way that we did not think was fair." So he is going
beyond Hutton; he is saying that you put them under pressure by
constant complaint.
Mr Campbell: I would love to see the evidence
of these constant complaints—letters, emails, named individuals
talking about `phone calls that took place. There came a point
when I was in Number Ten where—and this, again, comes out
in the diary—the Prime Minster would sometimes be saying
to me: "Look, are you quite as engaged as you ought to be?"
because I sort of reached the point of thinking: "There's
not much you can do about these people". So for several—it
goes into years—I did not have a single conversation with
the Today programme or The World at One, on which
programmes people would routinely go around and say to people
like yourself that I was never off the `phone. For several years
I just did not bother because I had gone beyond thinking I really
could have had much influence. I accept that in the early days
if I saw something in a bulletin that I felt was wrong—
Q1904 Chairman:
When were the early days?
Mr Campbell: Opposition.
Q1905 Chairman:
In opposition.
Mr Campbell: Again, I would see it as a perfectly
legitimate part of my job to do that. The idea that people in
politics and public life should not be saying to the broadcasters:
"I think you got that wrong; I don't think that was fair"—
Q1906 Chairman:
I do not understand why someone like Gavin Davies, who, after
all, was the Chairman of the BBC, should actually use this phrase
"an incessant drumbeat of complaint" if it did not exist.
Mr Campbell: Because that is what they go around
saying to each other.
Q1907 Chairman:
Yes, but Gavin Davies was not imbued—
Mr Campbell: No, but I think it is fair to say—
Q1908 Chairman:—brought
up at the BBC.
Mr Campbell: I think it is fair to say that
Gavin Davies probably does think that I cost him the job that
he always wanted, so he would not necessarily be terribly favourably
disposed towards me.
Q1909 Chairman:
So you are saying, really, he made it all up.
Mr Campbell: No, I am not saying he made it
all up, but I am saying that that is what they say to each other.
Do not forget, within the Hutton Inquiry, every piece of correspondence
that related to that went to the Hutton Inquiry. Where there were
complaints that I was making, they were specific complaints about
specific reports where we were challenging them over facts. I
just think this is one of those things. I would guess I am just
one of those people around whom certain myths tend to develop,
and that is one. I reached a point—it is like the thing
with Dacre; the Guardianistas will say we were constantly sort
of chasing the Mail agenda, and all the rest of it—I
could not tell you how many years it is since either Tony Blair
or I saw people from the Daily Mail.
Q1910 Chairman:
However, on Iraq we have a total conflict of evidence, do we not?
We have Greg Dyke and Gavin Davies saying one thing and you saying
another.
Mr Campbell: No. Did I feel, and did the Government—more
importantly, the Prime Minister—feel that there were problems
relating to the way that the BBC covered Iraq? Yes. Did I—
Q1911 Chairman:
What were they?
Mr Campbell: Largely because of the events surrounding
the Hutton Inquiry, I think there is now an attitude in relation
to coverage of Iraq that goes back to the point about the general
culture of negativity. If there are stories suggesting things
are going quite well—"Well, let's not cover them".
If there are stories suggesting it is all terrible, they get on.
It is a cultural thing.
Q1912 Chairman:
So you think the BBC are only covering the bad news on Iraq?
Mr Campbell: When I was asked there what I think
about these issues, the truth is that I do not think about them
terribly much anymore. I have moved on from all this, so, however
I may be tempted to lash out at the BBC I don't intend to, what
I will say is that I know it is routinely said that these poor
cowed BBC journalists could not get out of bed without the phone
ringing and me telling them what to say, but it is utter hogwash.
Q1913 Lord King of Bridgwater:
The point is that you are talking about your personal approaches,
but you were the head of an office and you had people, I trust
and I imagine, monitoring every broadcast—
Mr Campbell: Yes.
Q1914 Lord King of Bridgwater:—and,
I think the phrase used is, "a blizzard of emails" at
all sorts of different levels.
Mr Campbell: So where are they? Like you say,
at the Hutton Inquiry, Lord Hutton had access to every piece of
paper that related to that and some of them were published and
some of my, admittedly, very angry letters to the BBC were published
and they were analysed as part of that inquiry, yet they would
still go round routinely, people I have never met, people I have
never spoken to in my life would stand up before public seminars
on BBC policy and say, "Oh, it was terrible. Alastair Campbell
was never off the phone".
Q1915 Lord King of Bridgwater:
But the people working for you did not do it?
Mr Campbell: Well, they may have done, but not
in this kind of systematic, what do you call it, drumbeat of complaint.
Again, with the BBC, we reached a point, not just with the BBC
but the media generally, particularly in relation to Iraq, but
there were other issues as well that I could go through, where
in a sense we knew we were pushing stones uphill in trying to
get an argument through to them. That is when, as I say, it became
far more important what was the policy, how was the Prime Minister
expressing it in Parliament, at press conferences and in the speeches
he was doing, and how they were covering it kind of became less
important than what the policy was.
Q1916 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
Just to make a link, lastly, with your Cudlipp Lecture on Monday
evening, you had five references in your lecture to the BBC, one
of which was neutral or a negative. The issue of the question
is that, given the nature of our inquiry which is around whether
independence of ownership and independence of editorial position
lead to better quality of news outcomes, given the BBC's independence
in its public position endorsed by the Government that you were
serving within, do you perceive now that that is a better news
outcome than it may be for some of the proprietor-owned newspapers
that you have been very easy to criticise this morning? Is the
BBC in a better news place and is it a more trusted organisation
as a result of its ownership?
Mr Campbell: As a result of its ownership?
Q1917 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
Its constitution.
Mr Campbell: I do not know. Your, and anybody
else's, views are as good as mine on that. You are right to say
that it remains a trusted organisation, but it is far less trusted
than it was, but that is not just about its news output, although
a lot of it is. As I said earlier, I think it has incredible competitive
advantages given to it by its status and its constitution and
the licence fee system. I thought it was very interesting, for
example, again in reading the evidence you took in America, the
extent to which the American broadcasters clearly do see the BBC
still as being foremost, so that is a general view and that is
good. One of the reasons why it became, I felt at the time, so
important that we did get some kind of correction in relation
to what was being said at that time is because the BBC is more
important than most media organisations and that is partly because
of its reputation, but it is also because of its size, and its
size in part comes from the fact that it is publicly funded, it
is different, but whether there is a direct link between ownership
and quality, I do not know.
Q1918 Chairman:
As far as Iraq is concerned, perhaps at some stage we can get
to an overall inquiry on Iraq, not by this Committee, but by some
more independent committee.
Mr Campbell: Well, that is debatable. It is
way, way above the pay grade I no longer have!
Chairman: I am sure you can use your influence
on that!
Q1919 Bishop of Manchester:
One area we have not explored this morning is the possibility
of influence by media owners, proprietors, on the passage of legislation
through Parliament. Several of us on this Committee were involved
in the process that led eventually to the Communications Act,
and indeed Sir Christopher was saying this morning that maybe
we need some more legislation to take us forward in the light
of further changes. Casting your mind back to the days when that
Bill was going through Parliament, can you recollect at all any
way in which you perceived any sort of influence being made to
you or anywhere else that you were aware of that could have affected
the way in which legislation was being framed?
Mr Campbell: I cannot, no. Again contrary to
one of the myths, as it were, particularly in this area, communications
policy just was not my thing and I guess this was a bit of a protective
mechanism for myself in that I just would not be engaged on that.
I think James Purnell would probably have been the special adviser
dealing with the policy within Number 10 and, had anybody sought
to engage me in discussion on it or a specific piece of the Bill
that was going through, I just would not get engaged. Would people,
insofar as they might have access to the Prime Minister and other
people within Number Ten at that time, raise issues—I have
no doubt that they would. That would, I think, just be seen as
the same as any other vested interest that might be trying to
influence legislation.
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