PROJECT Fear, the new book from journalist Joe Pike is an incredible behind-the-scenes look at Better Together during the referendum campaign.
Pike has managed to speak to people involved in the campaign at all levels. And those sources have not been shy.
“Some of my sources just wanted to get across their side of the story” Pike tells The National. “For others it seemed a more cathartic experience.”
There is, as yet, no behind the scenes book of the Yes campaign, so it’s hard to truly properly, compare the organisation of the two. But that Better Together managed to achieve quite what they achieved is no small miracle.
The infighting between MPs, MSPs, campaigners, and others is spelled out explicitly in Pike’s book released today.
At one point Gordon Brown tried to run Labour's campaign. He was told no.
“A few months after Better Together’s launch, Brown met Johann Lamont. ‘He slid across the table a letter he had drafted with Johann’s name at the bottom,’ claimed a senior figure. If signed, it would have empowered Brown to act on behalf of Scottish Labour. ‘Johann slid it back.’”
Even hardened Yes voters might leave the book with a grudging respect for the then Labour leader Lamont. That she managed to lead the Labour Party in Scotland while dealing with so much sniping and attempts by colleagues to undermine her is impressive. No wonder she left in the manner in which she did.
At one point an adviser recommended putting Better Together’s commitment by carving a pledge to further devolution into a giant stone. Lamont kaiboshed the idea, warning that it would look like a massive gravestone. If only Miliband had remembered that advice…
Miliband and Lamont’s relationship first started to deteriorate over the probe into the Falkirk selection caused by Eric Joyce being kicked out of the Labour party.
When Miliband suggested coming up to Scotland Lamont told him: “Your problem isn’t that Scotland hates the Tories. People hate Westminster, and you’re part of Westminster.”
One of the final straws for Lamont was when Miliband went on a walk through the St James Centre in Edinburgh. It was a disaster. Media and No supporters stood about waiting for ages. A group of Yes-supporting protesters turned up. And then Miliband turned up and chaos ensued. Miliband was stuck outside, and photographed at a hairdressers called Supercuts, grinning, inanely.
“Miliband was pleased with the event.” writes Pike. “‘He quite liked the idea of a mob,’ revealed one Better Together source. But not all aides were supportive: ‘As a rule of life, I’m generally opposed to riots,’ said one.
The staff member behind the event was certainly not proud: ‘She burst into tears and walked out of the office,’ explained a senior Labour figure.”
Lamont, according to the book, went “ballistic”.
Money was always a bit of a problem for the campaign. In 2013, Better Together realised it was worse than they thought.
“Over past months, the increasingly frustrated board members had asked accountants Chiene + Tait to present a financial statement at each meeting. Now, interrogating the figures, there was a dawning, shocked realisation that, in two months, Better Together would be bankrupt.”
In an attempt to ward off the bankruptcy the campaign team hired former Hearts CEO Phil Anderton for £5,000 a month.
When Better Together colleagues realised quite how much Anderton was getting there was, “considerable resentment”.
“‘He talks an excellent game, is as smooth as anything, but did very little,’ according to one on the board.
It is not so much the referendum that is the defining moment of this book. Rather it is the morning after and David Cameron announcing his plan to introduce English votes for English laws.
“Labour and the Liberal Democrats were enraged” writes Pike. “Some senior Conservatives tried to spin the announcement as ‘unexceptional – it had, after all, been party policy since 2001’. But, privately, most conceded that ‘it could have waited a day, or even the weekend’.”
Project Fear by Joe Pike is out today.
The National View: Why we're still Yes ... and will fight on
Letters to The National, September 18: Should we 'move on' from the indyref and accept our lot?
Wee Ginger Dug: 'I felt connected to Scotland's beauty, even as I mourned the death of my beloved partner Andy'
Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp: The battle may have been lost but not the war
Sturgeon tells Cameron he’s ‘on borrowed time’ as she calls for PM to listen to Scotland’s voice
Project Fear: Story of how the Better Together campaign nearly fell apart
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