Davies Resignation: Campbell on defensive as Lobby presses for answers

TONY BENN was in Downing Street at 11am yesterday to film the arrival of journalists for the regular morning briefing with the Prime Minister's official spokesman, Alastair Campbell.

Had Mr Benn been allowed to bring his video camera into the briefing room of No 10, it would have recorded Mr Campbell on the defensive over unanswered questions in the Ron Davies affair.

The Downing Street media strategy 24 hours earlier had looked like it would hold the line. There was to be no long, drawn-out agonising resignation giving the media a feeding frenzy for days, like the string of Tory ministers's departures under John Major, including David Mellor and Tim Yeo.

It was carried out with ruthless efficiency. Mr Davies resigned with immediate effect, a Cabinet replacement was found, the Blairite and Welsh Home Office minister Alun Michael, and two junior ministerial changes filled the consequent gaps.

Mr Campbell, who cut his teeth on tabloid journalism, avoided the horrors of past resignation scenes where the mobbed minister and his wife answering questions on the doorstep of their home.

Instead, Mr Davies was coolly presented to a single pooled television interview in his office, with Mr Campbell hovering in the background. Later the Davies family was spirited away to a secret location where it could recuperate.

Mr Blair avoided making the expected statement to the Commons on the European summit in Austria.

The only problem with the strategy was that it left too many unanswered questions. What did Mr Davies say to the complete stranger he met in the dark on Clapham Common, and why did he go with him and two accomplices in his car to Brixton?

Some of the answers offered by Mr Campbell bore a striking resemblance to the selective use of words deployed by Bill Clinton to avoid damage over the Monica Lewinsky affair.

At one point under the intense questioning, Mr Campbell said Mr Davies had told the Prime Minister that there had been no sexual encounter in this particular incident.

That left open the question of whether there had been sexual encounters on other occasions.

The journalists left after 45 minutes of questioning still on the hunt for more answers. But there was a chance that the pack could be put off the scent by another bigger story - welfare reform.

Although it was denied by Mr Campbell, the decision to bring forward the statement on welfare reform was seen by the Tories as part of the media operation to get the Ron Davies affair off the front pages.

"It's a straight damage-limitation exercise. They always tell the Opposition when a statement is about to be made, but this time they've told us nothing. It's obviously a smokescreen," a Tory aide said.

After a visit by Mr Blair and the Downing Street team to Washington, the United States President Bill Clinton sent a scribbled note saying he would not mind having Mr Campbell's skills to help him.

He is the best in the business, but the Ron Davies affair showed there are limitations to even Mr Campbell's talents, when the whole story is not told.