The Gatekeeper

THE GATEKEEPER

Kate Fall

Copyright

HQ

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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Kate Fall 2020

Kate Fall asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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Ebook Edition © 2020 ISBN: 9780008347819

Version: 2020-03-12

Praise for The Gatekeeper

‘Kate Fall was in many ways the heart and soul of the Cameron operation, a genuinely insightful and fascinating account of what it is like to be at the heart of power.’

Tom Bradby, ITV News at Ten

‘Kate Fall has a exquisite eye for telling details and a rare ability to express it.’

Anthony Seldon, Historian

‘For a decade, Kate Fall was the most influential woman in British politics. This is her fascinating, honest and sometimes hilarious story of life behind the door of No. 10.’

Alice Thomson, The Times

‘Kate Fall was David Cameron’s indispensable right-hand woman as he ascended from Leaer of the Opposition to Prime Minister. A highly readable account of the rise and fall of the Cameroons, which historians will scour … a touching account of the demands that modern politics makes on people and their families. I read it, gripped, in one sitting,’

Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow, the Hoover Institution, Stanford

‘Kate Fall was not just the gatekeeper; she was at the heart of the No. 10 operation.’

Camilla Cavendish, Financial Times

Dedication

For Olivia and Guy

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for The Gatekeeper

Dedication

Introduction

PART 1 JOURNEY TO POWER

1. Blackpool

2. ‘Come with Me’

3. The Clunking Fist

4. Plan A

5. The Giant Due Date

6. The Worm

7. The Election Bus

8. A Coalition is Born

PART 2 NO. 10

9. Welcome to the Bunker

10. How No. 10 Works

11. The House, a Home

12. Men and Meetings

13. Circle of Trust

14. On Our Watch

15. The Pitfalls of Foreign Travel

16. A Special Relationship

Photographs

17. Judgement

18. Phone-Hacking

19. The Doldrums

20. Reshuffles and Revenge

21. Scotland

22. Protect and Defend

23. Happy Warrior

24. The Sweetest Victory of All

25. Storm Clouds

PART 3 EUROPE

26. Journey to Bloomberg

27. Spitzenkandidaten

28. Starting Gun

29. Battle Lines

30. There is More That Unites Us

31. Referendum

32. Fallout

Afterword

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

For eleven years, I lived my life as one of David Cameron’s closest advisors. In No. 10 I sat right outside the door of the Prime Minister’s office, earning myself the title of ‘gatekeeper’. David called me his wingman. I wrote this book with the hope that it would shed some light on the world behind the public façade. The ‘blood, sweat and tears’. The chaos and camaraderie. The friendships and fall outs. The victories and regrets. I want to share with others what it is like behind that famous door of No. 10, and behind the less famous but more critical one to the Prime Minister’s den. And, what it feels like to live your life at the heart of power.

No. 10 is more than just an office for those who work there; it takes up so much of your time that it comes to signify a way of life. The pace is relentless and the work all-consuming. The time I spent working on ‘Project Cameron’ covered a good part of my daughter’s and son’s childhood – they were 6 and 3 when I started, and 17 and 14 when it was all over.

At its core, No. 10 is a 24/7, Rolls-Royce operation, whose purpose is to support the prime minister of the day. Ed Llewellyn and I were essentially there to run the show – in other words, to help Prime Minister David Cameron run an effective government: the strategy, the policies, the communication plans, the campaigns. We were involved in making decisions about what David was going to do and say each day, and for what purpose. We brokered relationships with the Cabinet, party, and others. Sometimes we were a shoulder to cry on, sometimes the deliverer of bad news. I sat at the centre of the spider’s web, working with some of the brightest and the best people I have known.

I attended nearly every meeting with David. I spoke to him beforehand about what we were trying to achieve, and afterwards about what we wanted actioned. In the end, everything comes down to your judgement. Does the PM want to hear your view, day after day?

As one of David’s closest advisors, I wasn’t afraid to ‘give it to him straight’. Sometimes you have to close the door and battle out the issues in a very small group, trusting that nothing of what is said will leave the room. This is why there is always ‘an inner circle’ of some sort around a prime minister, even if it forms to the consternation of some of those who do not find themselves in the room when the decisions are being made. As gatekeeper, one of my jobs was to decide who was in that room.

But the gatekeeper doesn’t just manage access of people; you also moderate the flow of information. What is the priority today? You are there to manage the PM’s time and attention.

The atmosphere of any No. 10 ultimately comes from the boss. Is it an effective, punctual, and decent operation that operates as one team? Or is it leaky, bitchy, and handicapped by rival factions? Can you see the PM if and when you need, or is there a bunker mentality? Here again, the skill of the gatekeeper is knowing when to keep the door shut – and also when to open it.

We were a close team, grounded by strong ties of friendship and political philosophy. We spent over a decade in each other’s company, so it is not surprising that we shared so much – not just in our political journey, but also in life. We weathered many highs and lows. Successes and failures. Births and deaths. The absurd and the tragic. We faced difficult decisions to send British troops to fight; we made attempts to hold the peace. There are decisions we are still proud of – and a few of which we are less so.

We were elected in 2010 to fix a problem: to restore economic security amidst the uncertainty caused by the global financial crisis, and the worst recession since the Second World War. From 2010 to 2015, while in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, we were a government prepared to make difficult, unpopular decisions for the long-term good of the country, working to put Britain’s finances back on track. We successfully spurred a recovery in jobs, though it was slower in boosting wages than we wanted. We tried to do other things too: reform schools, champion equality with gay marriage, stand by the world’s poor, and open up a conversation about what is fair in welfare. Despite our differences, the economic rescue plan was the glue that bound the Coalition over five years.

In the pages that follow, I describe how we grappled with and tried to confront these big questions rather than dodge them. We believed that if you sweep difficult issues under the carpet, they have a way of coming back to bite you.

I try to show how and why, during our time in power, Britain was beginning to face an impasse in Europe. The other countries of the EU were hellbent on going in one direction, propping up the euro, while we were striving to carve out a different relationship. The financial crisis drove the Eurozone countries closer together, and encouraged migrants to come to Britain seeking work when our economy grew stronger. Meanwhile, those who had paid for the financial crisis at home didn’t seem to be benefitting from our recovery. And all of this was playing out against the backdrop of a mandate that was fraying.

Our unexpected victory in the general election of 2015 gave us the prospect of five more years in power. We thought we were riding high. Instead, we crashed into a wall at full speed, falling out of Downing Street with all the harshness of abrupt defeat. Our strategy – to call out our relationship in Europe, and resolve it once and for all (by staying in) – failed. The sweetness of the election was short-lived, followed by the sadness, regret, and division surrounding the referendum.

I HAVE WORKED IN politics since I left university. I could have avoided it altogether and instead become a classical musician, which was my earlier trajectory – and might have been a more sensible decision. But I come from a political family (albeit with a small p). My father was a diplomat. His generation were the Cold War warriors, and his last post was as ambassador to Moscow, just after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

If I had to pinpoint the moment when my keen interest in politics began, it would have to be at a so-called ‘informal’ Sunday lunch at Lord Carrington’s house, Bledlow. It was 1981, and I was about 12 years old. We were there because Lord Carrington was the Foreign Secretary and my father’s then boss. At one point, Lord Carrington left the table to take a phone call. It was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

When he returned, he turned to me and asked my view on the latest foreign debacle. He was intently interested in my answer – or at least that’s how it seemed to me – and that was the beginning of my love affair with politics. When the time came, I chose to read PPE at Oxford instead of going to music school.

In 1996, at the end of the Major years, I started working at the Conservative Research Department as the desk officer for Europe. I was the junior member of the political team around the relevant Cabinet ministers, and I was responsible for briefing MPs on European issues. Apart from one other woman, the desk officers were an army of competitive young men, many of whom were eyeing a career in the House for themselves. But after nearly two decades of Tory rule, the party had begun to feel stale and tired, especially in comparison to the energetic young Tony Blair. The Major years came to an end with the massive Blair victory in 1997 and my situation changed.

With Prime Minister Blair came over a hundred female Labour MPs, who were irritatingly nicknamed ‘Blair’s babes’. The Conservatives had just thirteen women in Parliament. So, in 2001, with William Hague as our party leader and an election looming, there was a push to encourage more Tory women to be MPs. Some of my friends and direct contemporaries were selected to fight safe seats. I was on the candidates’ list. But although I still loved politics, I was not convinced that I wanted to be an MP. Plus, I was pregnant with my second child. I had faced a constituency association while pregnant with my first. The good people of Derbyshire had eyed my stomach and asked my husband if he was the candidate. I decided not to stand.

Not long afterwards, David Cameron, whom I had known since Oxford, offered me a job on his campaign in Witney, Oxfordshire. So, in the early hours of 8 June 2001, heavily pregnant, I sat on an uncomfortable chair in a leisure centre sports hall as the count drew to an end and David was declared Witney’s new MP.

That was my first campaign for David Cameron, but there would be many more. When David decided to run for Leader of the Opposition, he approached me again.

Then, five years later, life changed once more. It became normal for me to go home to my children and walk round the park with them, waiting for my phone to ring: ‘No. 10 Switch here. Prime Minister on the line.’

THE HOLY GRAIL OF prime ministerial ambitions is to make a dignified exit at the time of their choosing. But more often than not, the exit is abrupt and unexpected. Suddenly the solidarity of purpose disappears. The team you have spent an uncountable amount of time with is disbanded, and everyone goes their separate ways. I imagine that it is always a shock, and the events of June 2016 were shocking indeed. On leaving No. 10, I found myself in a ditch, of sorts, and so I began to write my way out of it.

I wrote in the hope that I could shed some light on the world behind the façade of politics, to share with others what it is like behind that famous door. The blood, sweat, and toil. The chaos and comradery. The victories and regrets. The friendships and fallings-out. I wrote about my own experience of being part of a dedicated, focused team during the Cameron years, as well as more generally about what life is really like at the heart of power. I wrote about why the atmosphere of No. 10 matters, about how it feels to live your life at such a pace under so much pressure, much of it private, yet under the public gaze. Mine is a book which focuses on the political plumbing.

The first part of the story starts with pizza nights around the kitchen table as we planned a leadership campaign. We won control of the party and then tried to change it before the party decided they’d had enough of us. It goes on to fighting the 2010 general election, with all the stress, hilarity, boredom, and terror of being out on the road with the candidate in the full glare of the public eye. This was amplified by it being the year of the first X Factor-style TV debates.

The second part looks at life at the heart of No. 10: how it feels on your first day when you realise this is where you work now. Who really runs No. 10 and how do they do it? Why does a circle of trust always form around a prime minister, and how can we make sure the important voices from outside it are still heard? In the final part, the story explores our relationship with Europe, from the creation of the European Union, the Eurosceptics and the Europhiles to the fallout of the 2016 EU referendum.

WE HEAR A LOT about unelected advisors these days, the so-called ‘spads’. This is the special political advisor who, for a time, acquires a semi-official status in government. At the most senior level, they form part of a prime minister’s inner circle. I was a spad. They may be amongst the most powerful people in the country, yet you might never have never heard of them. (If you have, though, don’t muddle power with profile; the two don’t necessarily go together.) Their power comes from one source only: their boss. They are unelected and their sole function is to serve their boss. Those who forget this do so at their peril.

Spads are not a new invention. They have always existed in some form and always will, because a prime minister needs a close team of people who they can trust. Kings and queens had similar coteries of advisors or courtiers. Like today’s spads, some of them got too powerful, too famous, or fell out of favour. Thomas Cromwell is perhaps the best-known spad in history.

A wider group of spads serves Cabinet ministers. Usually there are two spads for each minister – one to do the press and one to check the policy. They help their boss keep track of the large political operation that runs alongside their governmental role. Good luck telling them that their role is to support the prime minister of the day.

DO POLITICS AND FRIENDSHIP go together? I used to think so, but now I am less sure. Politics tests friendships with its conflicting priorities of loyalty, belief, and personal ambition. Sometimes you have to choose, and it’s not always pretty. I examine what happens when, as they say, the shit hits the fan. How does the PM execute a reshuffle and, more importantly, cope with the aftermath, which can morph into revenge?

All premierships are a race against time, where you try to do the things you said you would do while simultaneously sorting out all the other stuff you didn’t expect, which hurtles towards you from left field at great speed. The sand flows through the egg timer faster and faster – or so it feels – whilst the electorate eyes you up, wondering if they can bear seeing your face all over their TV for another five years. If you last that long, that is, because your future also depends on the people sitting on the benches behind you, the so-called faithful supporters, who are wondering the same. Over time, the sentiment of goodwill and loyalty towards a leader fades, as the number of those fired, added to the number of those who never got hired, reaches a critical mass. Then, like bees starved of royal jelly, they swarm in hope of better treatment by a new queen.

There have always been powerful, though mostly invisible, women running Downing Street, and in part this book tells how it felt to be one of them, working in what is still a relatively male world. I chose to work behind the scenes, but we still need more female MPs. So, I want to encourage women who set their sights on politics – whether in the front line or as an advisor – to be brave and push back on what can be a latent sense that a man’s view carries greater weight in the world of politics. This includes not getting stuck in jobs that pay you to ‘do things’ rather than ‘think things’, if that’s not what you want. There is still a sense that some topics are for women and others for men, as there is with domestic tasks. Men take out the rubbish and make fiscal policy; women do the dishes and look after ‘women’s issues’. At the time of writing, we have had two female prime ministers but, I wonder, when will we see a female Chancellor of the Exchequer?

POLITICS IS WAR WITH little peace. You fight for what you believe in and try to do the right thing, often to find your work is then unravelled by those who follow. And it is not just what you do that matters; it is how you do it.

Decency and tolerance in government matters. So does trying to rule for all, not just the majority. I have tried to show that the centre ground that we inhabited with our brand of modern progressive compassionate Conservatism was not a place of political compromise and watered-down policy designed to appease everyone, but rather a place of bold, brave, creative thinking about how to resolve our problems. And for a while, it resonated with the electorate.

Yet, alas, the Brexit fog clouds these months and years after our departure. As with all major political events, there is fury, division, and blame. The chaos and antipathy weigh heavily. Did David get it all right? Of course not. But find me someone else with the temperament and depth of judgement more suited to the leadership of our country. David the decisive leader; George Osborne the creative political intellect – this partnership dominated a decade of politics. Britain will wait a long time for another government that is as decent and effective, one that can achieve so much.

I believe that we were a government with a sense of purpose, a group of people who weren’t afraid to do what we believed was right to turn our country around. Some accused our team of being too close, but that seems like a small criticism when set against the deeply divided politics of today. Personally, all I can do is hope I did my best for my boss and the country – and didn’t let it go to my head.

It was the greatest privilege of my life to work in David Cameron’s No. 10 with some of the best and brightest people I have known. It was certainly life-altering. There will always be regrets; otherwise, you won’t have learnt anything. It was a roller-coaster ride, but I would not have missed it for the world.

PART 1

— 1 —

BLACKPOOL

Blackpool, October 2003. I have not been to a party conference since having had my two children, and I’ve left my job working at the Conservative Research Department, so I don’t strictly need to be here. However, I have decided to make a brief trip up because I am still officially on the parliamentary candidates’ list. I feel out of place wandering around the neglected conference hall wearing an old work dress, which is now a little tight-fitting. Why ever did I think I ought to come?

There’s no getting away from it: the Conservative Party Conference is a ghost town. Morale is low; the delegates seem quieter than usual. It’s no wonder. The Conservatives, stubbornly polling around 32 per cent of the vote, with a historically small number of Tory MPs, have now lost two general elections to New Labour and are well on their way to losing a third. Nobody seems to know what to do about it. Under Iain Duncan Smith, they have begun to look less and less like a party of government and more and more like a political movement. The party is languishing in a vacuum of leadership and of ideas. There is a sense that it has turned in on itself, forgotten how to reach out beyond its base, or even that it wants to.

A party conference is not just an opportunity to cheer up the party faithful. It is supposed to mark the start of the political year, the moment the leadership sets its course. And, especially if you are in opposition, it is a rare moment in the sun. For a few golden days, the spotlight will fall on you as the media gather to hear what you have to say. This is your chance to set out your stall to the party but also to the public at large. Above all, party conference week is show time (accompanied of course by a series of alcohol-infused, gossip-rendering after-parties).

Blackpool, with its strings of lights, amusement arcades, and air of faded grandeur, is a peculiar host. It seems incongruous when hordes of politicians, journalists, lobbyists, and activists, old and young, pour in to this unassuming town, mostly populated by pensioners, filling up every hotel, hostel, and bed and breakfast. But there is something about the freshness of the coastal wind and the kindness of the reception we receive that helps to propel us through an exhausting and totally unhealthy week. I loathe and love conference week in equal measure. Though this year I feel a particularly deep sense of relief when, exhausted, I get on the train to leave.

IDS lasts barely another month. Without a contest, the Tory MPs rally around to crown Michael Howard as the new party leader in November. Michael manages to take control of the party and draw it back, for which he deserves great credit. But while he saves the party from political oblivion, he does not transform it into something new and electable. That is to be another man’s job.

Michael announces he is standing down the day after he is defeated in the 2005 election, calling a leadership election for early autumn. There is a growing movement, especially amongst the 1992 and 1997 intakes of MPs, to avoid a full-blown competition. They want a coronation rather than a contest. And they want someone of their own political persuasion; the focus falls on David Davis. But there is pushback from those who think the party should be given a real choice. After all, they didn’t get to choose Michael Howard. There are also some who actively don’t want DD. He is not without talent, but he is the sort of old-school Tory – reciting a mantra of tax cuts, tough on crime, and Europe – that the electorate has rejected three times already. There is a mounting view that something more innovative and radical is needed if the Conservatives are ever going to be a party of government again.