Spin-struck from the start

Alastair Campbell has fought back against spin claims

By BBC News Online political correspondent Nick Assinder.

Ever since Labour won the last election the issue of spin has been eating away at the government.

Its leading practitioners, Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, were rightly credited with helping the then Labour opposition sharpen up its act and turn it into a poll-winning machine.

But from virtually the day after the election, backbenchers started complaining that the government was continuing to act as if it were still in opposition.

Spin, they claimed, had replaced substance and the prime minister could not break himself of the habit.

The critics also point out that some of the government's worst disasters - from Bernie Ecclestone's £1m donation to the prime minister's Women's Institute appearance - should have been averted by any spin doctor worth his or her salt. Some argue they even made matters worse.

The spin merchants have also done themselves no good with their principle targets: political journalists.

There came a time after the election when, thanks to the spinners' antics, they lost the trust of many - if not most - journalists at Westminster. And that has inevitably undermined their effectiveness.

There is no point trying to spin a story if the person you are attempting to sell it to simply does not trust you.

New heights

Things got so bad that last year Mr Campbell was hauled before a Commons committee to defend his role.

So the row over the behaviour of people like him and Mr Mandelson is not new.

Ken Follett's attack was the most personal yet

Indeed it has been so much in the spotlight of late that Mr Campbell has dramatically cut back on the number of official, on-the-record briefings he gives to journalists.

But Ken Follett's stinging and highly personalised attack has taken the row to new heights.

His was the most bitter and, more importantly, the most personal assault yet on Tony Blair's alleged reliance on spin.

For the first time a senior Labour figure laid the blame for the problem - particularly the secret rubbishing of ministers - firmly at the prime minister's door.

He has now received some support from moderate former minister Doug Henderson, who declared: "The danger is that too many people believe that the spin doctors and policy advisors are running the government's policies and spinning them, rather than the members of the cabinet and other ministers who were elected to do the job."

And Chancellor Gordon Brown's former spin doctor Charlie Whelan has stoked up the row by insisting secret briefings against ministers did happen.

Meanwhile Mr Campbell has hit back with an article in the Daily Mirror in which he effectively accuses Mr Follett of lying.

He is particularly incensed that anyone should suggest he has ever been involved in the blackening of cabinet ministers.

Back-stabbing

What is certain is that such rubbishing does happen, although exactly where it comes from is sometimes less clear.

And, of course, the Labour Party is famous for its ability to expend more energy fighting itself than its political enemies.

It has always been a hotbed of back-stabbing, gossip mongering and division, and there is no reason to believe that has stopped just because it has won office.

It would also be untrue to claim that the rubbishing of ministers is a new phenomenon.

Margaret Thatcher's press spokesman Bernard Ingham once famously described John Biffen, the then leader of the House, as a "semi-detached" minister.

The difference is when Mr Ingham did that, the result was uproar because it was so exceptional.

Now most Labour backbenchers believe, rightly or wrongly, that such comments are routine.

The upshot of all this is that Mr Blair is now coming under intense pressure to "get a grip" on the spin merchants.

Labour backbenchers are now waiting to see if he can finally break himself of the habit.