Alastair Campbell

Masters of the political black arts go to war

A betrayed friendship is at the heart of the feud dividing Labour's best strategists

Special report: Mandelson

Kevin Maguire
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 10 March 2001 18.11 GMT

Peter blames Alastair who blames Peter. The Svengali of Spin and the Sultan of Spin are deploying their black arts against not the Tories but each other and this is politics as soap opera: a Downing Street tale of broken friendship, betrayal and revenge that would not be out of place on BBC1 or ITV.

Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell are now bitter enemies after one of the most spectacular Westminster falling-outs in living memory. The former Northern Ireland secretary may insist publicly that he has been undisgraced a second time but this feud promises to run and run.

"The private view of senior ministers is that Mandelson is dead," said a source close to the heart of government. "A question to be decided is the precise manner of his passing."

The source says he has no chance of rising from the grave: "He isn't coming back as a minister and he will not be allowed anywhere near the election campaign in Millbank. This is final."

Labour may be on course for a second election triumph but the Tories can at least look forward to the spectacle of an undignified family feud. The week has been dominated in public by the last Budget before polling day, but in private Downing Street has been preoccupied by the Hammond report.

Tony Blair and Mr Campbell have been at odds over how to handle its findings. The prime minister has rejected the advice of his official spokesman, effectively gagging him in the hope of keeping Mr Mandelson quiet in the future.

"He [Blair] has indulged Mandelson at a substantial cost to himself as well as others," said a government aide. "Alastair is fuming."

Mr Mandelson has been "spinning like a top" to prepare the ground for the report's publication. The Hartlepool MP has visited the offices of every national newspaper at least once to declare that he was the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice.

Early last month, he was discovered to be talking to the Labour-hating Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph on the day of a keynote speech by Mr Blair, triggering headlines that he hoped to be made a European commissioner.

It sparked a furious row and since, Mr Mandelson has gone to great lengths to cover his tracks and has insisted that his comments must be completely off the record.

Yet Mr Campbell and others are convinced that Mr Mandelson has been responsible for the series of leaks to the media predicting that he would be exonerated by the Hammond inquiry.

The Mandelson camp, primarily consisting of author Robert Harris and the man himself, is admittedly very much smaller than the Campbell clan, which has been actively briefing people about Mr Mandelson's culpability and Mr Campbell's own innocence in the affair.

Since an explosive diatribe against Mr Mandelson made to the Sunday lobby shortly after the resignation, Mr Campbell has been more circumspect. "His line is that Peter has proved why he had to go by his petulance and unstable behaviour since," said a tabloid journalist who has spoken to the press secretary. "Alastair knows what has been going on because the people who Peter speaks to tell him and he reads it in the papers."

Mr Campbell left yesterday's regular briefing to Westminster journalists to his civil service deputy, Godric Smith, rather than face the press.

The rift is a remarkable transformation in a friendship which dates back to before the 1987 election, when Mr Mandelson was Labour's director of communications and Mr Campbell was a journalist.

Mr Campbell opposed his friend's swift return to the cabinet after his first downfall over the £373,000 cheap home loan from Geoffrey Robinson.

Relations between the pair have been strained since and Mr Campbell believes that Mr Mandelson's second shaming vindicates his position. Mr Mandelson believes the Hammond inquiry vindicates his.

Two men who were once the best of friends now appear not to be even friends at all.

Hammond report
The Hammond Inquiry: full text
Summary of the main points

Related special report
New Labour in power