You Can't Say That: Memoirs by Livingstone Ken

Author:Livingstone, Ken [Livingstone, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780571280391
Publisher: Faber
Published: 2011-10-23T16:00:00+00:00

The NEC was very different from the one I had served on a decade earlier. Blair had little interest in the work of the committee, often leaving after he had delivered his report, which diminished the relevance of NEC proceedings. In November 1997, when the Bernie Ecclestone affair blew up, I believed Blair when he said the delay on banning cigarette advertising at Formula 1 motor races had nothing to do with Ecclestone giving £1 million to Labour. Ecclestone’s warning that the ban could lead to the loss of many jobs would have struck a chord with any Labour leader. I said this on Newsnight but added that there should be an investigation. Phyllis Starkey, an über-Blairite MP, ran around the tea room getting Labour MPs to sign a letter to the whips demanding that Diane Abbott (who had said the same thing) and myself should have the whip withdrawn from us. I started referring to her as Phyllis Stasi. She didn’t talk to me for years. The whips took no action, perhaps because MPs were joking about Downing Street becoming a Berni Inn or perhaps because Blair had not been honest. Andrew Rawnsley in his book Servants of the People reports that Blair agreed with Ecclestone to keep the size of the donation secret. The party’s accounts simply recorded a donation of ‘more than £5,000’.

Ecclestone won Blair over by having him driven round Silverstone while the crowds waved Union Jacks at him. No one told Frank Dobson or Tessa Jowell, who went ahead with plans to ban tobacco advertising. An alarmed Ecclestone asked Jonathan Powell to arrange a meeting with Blair, even though the Labour party were seeking a further donation from him, and he brought along Max Mosley, who had also made a donation to Labour. Blair did not check Ecclestone’s claim that the ban would cost 50,000 jobs and £900 million of exports. Following the meeting Blair told Frank to exempt Formula 1 from the ban, without mentioning the donation.

Now journalist Tom Baldwin asked Downing Street if there had been donations by Ecclestone, at which point an appalled Frank was told about the £1 million. He replied, ‘Cor, fuck me.’ Blair referred the matter to Sir Patrick Neill, chairman of the Commission on Standards in Public Life, and was shocked to be told the money should be returned and no more donations sought. When the story broke, Brown was asked on the Today programme if Ecclestone had given money. He answered: ‘I have not been told and I certainly don’t know what the true position is.’ But Gordon had indeed known, and is described by Rawnsley as leaving the interview ‘in a red mist which staggered even those who had long endured his titanic tempers’. Brown raged, ‘I lied. I lied. My credibility will be in shreds. I lied. If this gets out, I’ll be destroyed.’

Interviewed by John Humphrys at the time, Blair claimed, untruthfully, that Ecclestone was told Labour couldn’t accept further donations and that the issue had been referred to Sir Patrick Neill before there was any media interest.

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