Newly released official documents have revealed how ex-Blackburn MP Jack Straw warned Tony Blair about sleaze and spin during “ghastly” Cabinet away days.
Papers released to the National Archives have shown how annual cabinet “awaydays” became something of a tradition under Tony Blair’s Labour government – and not one their participants necessarily enjoyed.
Senior ministers would gather at the prime minister’s official country residence at Chequers in early September to discuss politics and policy ahead of the party conference season.
However, by 2000 some were questioning their value, and said they were run in a haphazard fashion, with papers also revealing concerns raised by cabinet members during the trips.
In 1999, when he was Home Secretary, then-Blackburn MP Jack Straw wrote to the prime minister warning a combination of spin and sleaze had left Labour looking no better than the previous Tory government in the eyes of voters.
“A combination of over-spinning, and the way we have reacted sometimes to allegations of sleaze now means that the sense that ‘we are like the last lot’ is very strong,” he cautioned.
“The great hope for the Blair administration that we would follow a different sense of values in how we did things is in danger of dissolving.”
On the next page, however, he argued Labour needed to adopt some of the very tactics they had so disparaged the Conservatives for using in order to “tie down” their opponents.
“We need a sophisticated campaign on this using the Tories’ example from the eighties,” he urged.
“This should not only involve public challenges in the House etc, but more subtle methods including correspondence, trusted party members masquerading as constituents and shadow cabinet members.”
Elected after Barbara Castle stood down as MP for Blackburn, Jack Straw represented the town for 36 years from 1979 to 2015.
He held the role of Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001 under the premiership of Tony Blair, before moving to lead the Foreign Office from 2001 to 2006, and then as Lord High Chancellor and Justice Secretary under Gordon Brown.
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