MEDIA STUDIES
The message of Martin Bell's fate: don't mess with New Labour
STEPHEN GLOVER
Klvin MacKenzie, who has been run- ning Mirror Group's newspapers for little more than a week, appears to have wrought amazing changes at the Mirror. He has gal- vanised his old protégé, Piers Morgan, the paper's editor. Almost every day brings a new scoop. It was the Mirror which broke the story about Martin Bell, revealing that the Inde- pendent MP had omitted to declare a £9,389 bill for legal expenses which had been footed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The Mirror was first off the block with a story about cash flow problems in Sir Elton John's companies. It was also first to interview Anne Bullen, the secretary fired by Robin Cook, who alleges that the Plan, later abandoned, was to give her job to Mr Cook's mistress, Gaynor Regan. All very hot stories presented in a dra- matic way carrying Mr MacKenzie's impri- matur. With the paper's sales sinking, Mr MacKenzie has gone with the old- fashioned idea that good stories sell news- papers. Let's hope he's right. The Mirror has spent the last 20 years as a poor imita- tion of the Sun, during which time it has lost half its sales. How glorious it would be if MacKenzie, a former editor of the Sun, helped the Mirror find a new identity. One story reflected no discredit on the Mirror but a great deal on the source that Provided it. I mean the piece about Martin Bell. It was extremely detailed and correct in almost every respect. The solicitors Nicolson, Graham and Jones had advised that Mr Bell should stand in Tatton as an Independent rather than an 'anti-sleaze' candidate on the basis that his opponent, Neil Hamilton, had not been convicted of anY offence. The bill for this word of cau- tion was £8,000 plus VAT, rather steep, I would have thought. It was met by Labour and the Lib-Dems, and not declared by Mr Bell.
How did the Mirror obtain this story? A careful reading provides no clue. Sources are not even hinted at. We can be pretty sure that Nicolson, Graham and Jones had no wish to advertise how much they can Charge for what would seem a pretty straightforward piece of advice. The Lib- Dems had no cause to embarrass Mr Bell, whom they find a sympathetic, if somewhat ineffectual, colleague. Only Labour had a motive, and it seems certain that Labour dished poor Mr Bell. He had made the mistake of annoying the party's apparatchiks. During the brouhaha over Bernie Ecclestone, the For- mula One boss who had donated fl million to the Labour party, Mr Bell rose to his feet in the Commons and asked Mr Blair what was deemed a rather embarrassing, as well as impertinent, question. 'Doesn't the appearance of wrongdoing do almost as much damage as the wrongdoing itself?' It was the only time that Mr Bell has made his mark as an MP. If we think back, it is Mr Bell's sepulchral stare, rather than any Tory criticisms, that lodge in the mind.
Mr Blair's abrasive press secretary, Alas- tair 'Bruiser' Campbell, rarely forgets a slight. There is a school of thought which believes that after a suitable period of time had elapsed he decided to pay back Mr Bell by telling a Mirror reporter, Will Wood- ward, about the legal bill. The disclosure would do very little, if any, damage to Labour, since it was already known that the party's candidate had stood aside for Mr Bell and its part-payment of the legal bill was consonant with that, but it would deal Mr Bell's image a heavy blow.
On Monday Mr Campbell telephoned Mr Bell to deny suggestions that Labour had leaked the story to the Mirror. 'We absolutely don't want to do you any dam- age,' he said. Presumably 'we' in this con- text refers to the godfathers who run the Labour party. There seems to me to be something slightly alarming about Mr Campbell's disclaimer, as in 'De boys donna wanta to do you any harma.' Mr Bell has nonetheless accepted Mr Campbell's assurance. He will not be putting on his bullet-proof vest in his Tatton constituency.
I am less sanguine. Apart from Labour there is no other conceivable suspect. The Tories did not know about the legal bill, so it can't have been Neil Hamilton. Fewer than ten people were aware of it, and none of them would have had reason to talk. I suppose in the customary way we must accept Mr Campbell's denial. But if it wasn't Mr Campbell, it must have been some other Labour apparatchik. The author of the Mirror story, Will Woodward, is a former lobby correspondent of the Hartlepool Mail. That noble town boasts as its MP none other than Peter Mandelson, Labour's spin doctor-in-chief.
Whoever leaked it to the Mirror commit- ted no crime. But it was a cruel thing to do. Mr Bell is so obviously an innocent, unsure of what he should and should not declare. There may, in fact, be no obligation to reg- ister legal expenses. (Mr Bell has repaid the whole amount to Labour and the Lib-Dems on his own initiative.) He may have been naive, but he didn't deserve the public embarrassment which has been visited upon him.
One moral of the tale is that Mr Bell was much safer with bullets whizzing around him in Sarajevo than he is surrounded by the likes of Mr Campbell. Another is that New Labour is pretty damn ruthless. If you should dare to speak out against it or its beloved leader, you too may find yourself swimming in the soup.
Last week I wrote that 'the general belief at Westminster' was that Peter Man- delson was the unnamed source quoted by the Observer who said that Gordon Brown had 'psychological flaws'. This didn't mean it definitely was Mr Mandelson, though the headline on my piece, 'It was Mr Mandel- son who talked of Mr Brown's flaw — though not on the record', left little room for doubt.* Mr Mandelson has since cate- gorically denied that he had anything to do with it.
Further enquiries confirm that Mr Man- delson is correct. The person who says that Mr Brown has 'psychological flaws' is described by the Observer as 'a senior source inside Downing Street'. This is prob- ably not Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's press secretary, but an assistant to Mr Campbell whom I have not been able to identify. It is certainly not Mr Mandelson.
However, Mr Mandelson did have a hand in the story. 'A second, ministerial source' is quoted by the Observer in the fourth paragraph. (Note the comma after 'ministerial', which points up that the first source was not ministerial.) This person says that Mr Blair believed that Mr Brown's decision to sanction the book was 'a silly and serious move that weakens the govern- ment'. Was this source our old friend Mr Mandelson? If so, I am sure he will not deny it.
*Stephen Glover has not asked me to do so, but I should point out that he had noth- ing to do with the headline, for which I alone was responsible. Mr Mandelson has given his word that he did not say what the headline attributed to him and, naturally, I accept it. —Ed.
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