The Mail on Sunday May 31 • 2015 Mischievous. Moving. Marvellously indiscreet – the brilliant memoirs of BBC’s man at No 10 AMUSING, incisive, and rarely without a smile, the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson is one of the best-known faces on TV. So when on the eve of the General Election he was diagnosed with lung cancer, the messages of goodwill poured in – and never stopped. Here, in a Battling cancer. remarkable new diary of his life behind the camera during the most dramatic contest of a generation, Nick describes with touching candour the terror and the tears of his battle, the disastrous loss of his voice, and his unbreakable determination to continue telling the truth about our elected Asked to leaders. Emotionally draining, supremely well-informed, yet typically witty from start to finish, it is an utterly compelling read… Friday, February 6 Chest consultant’s clinic for Ed. And what I’ve been coughing and wheezing on and off since the autumn party conference season. I’ve been an asthmatic all my life, I’m over 50, I work stupid hours, and three weeks of early mornings and very late nights trapped in the company of thousands of perspiring, plotting political activists would be enough to make the fittest person ill. And yet and yet… what began as a routine review of my asthma treatment has turned they really tell into something rather different. My consult- ant, Mike Beckles, has done all the usual stuff and we are almost done when I drop in that I’ve lost weight. Actually, I’ve gone down a whole belt size. ‘In fact, you know what?’ I remark to the elegantly dressed guy behind the desk, ‘I’ve just treated myself to a slim-fit Paul Smith suit for the Election.’ No, I haven’t dieted. No, I’m not exercising any more than usual. I’ve just lost weight. In the short pause me when we turn that follows it feels as if a klaxon has gone off and red lights are flashing. ‘I’m sending you for a CT scan. Now,’ he says. Oh. Monday, February 9 Home, the study ‘He started it.’ ‘Did not.’ the cameras off! ‘Did so.’ ‘Liar.’ ‘Pants on fire.’ This is not a verbatim summary of the texts that have bombarded my phone from the moment I woke but it isn’t that far off. The fact that more than 1,000 wealthy Brits The must-read book of the year hid their money in HSBC’s Swiss accounts and were advised by the bank how to dodge tax was not, apparently, the fault of them or their bankers but all the fault of (delete as applica- ble) a) Ed Balls, who was the City Minister at the time of the offences, or b) David Cameron, for rewarding the bank’s boss with a peerage By and a ministerial red box. Nick Robinson Every story I report on has now become a contest between [Tory spin doctor] Craig BBC political editor Oliver and [Labour counterpart] Tom Baldwin – Team Cameron and Team Miliband – over whose narrative wins. Every broadcast and the story broke about the hacking of the as a ‘Milly Dowler moment’, run into the tweet is followed by a stream of complaints murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone. He Radio studio 3 studio, file the report and think no more that I’ve ignored this or not emphasised that. means they are both balance-tipping moments, I’ve only just finished my report for BBC about it. I’ve had enough. I tell Tom that if he really the point where an issue that hasn’t previously News at 6. Now radio want a piece, too. wants to decide what the BBC broadcasts he excited most people – in one case phone- My WDIAM – What Does It All Mean? – should apply for a job here, and Craig that if hacking within the Murdoch empire, in the focuses on why Miliband is pursuing tax My office he wants to know what I’ll be saying he can other tax avoidance – suddenly galvanizes the avoidance so aggressively. A moment to close my office door, to watch the News at Ten like everyone else. public. This is a moment when Ed can show Remembering my lunchtime conversation breathe, to pause. I’ve been playing phone he’s standing up to the rich and powerful. with Tom, I write that Ed’s advisers see it tag all day with my chest consultant. Finally Wednesday, February 11 Victoria line tube Disbelief! A job with Miliband – and a role at No 10 to follow... The newsroom want me to cover [SNP leader] Nicola Sturgeon’s speech but I’ve got a hunch has to come from someone with sufficient that we haven’t seen the end of the tax-avoid- PARTY INVITATION: Wednesday, July 9, 2014 stature to ensure he’ll listen to it. ance row. I text someone in ’s With Labour leader On a rather bad mobile line I was sure, office: ‘Help me out – where’s this story going Ed Miliband My office, Millbank at first, that I was being asked if I could next?’ In response I learn that The door is closed. I am looking round in recommend anyone to take charge of Ed website is about to publish a list of seven Tory disbelief. If only someone else had been Miliband’s presentational difficulties. I donors, including the former party treasurer there to hear what I just heard. began to rack my brains until it began to Lord Fink, who had those secretive HSBC There was, though, no mistaking the dawn on me that I had misheard. I was Swiss accounts. Miliband will challenge purpose of the phone call I have taken being asked whether I would consider Cameron on this at PMQs. from what, in the customary code, I must taking on the job of spin doctor, with a call ‘a senior Labour figure’. This would role at No 10 to follow, naturally. That’s be easier face to face, I was told, but the right – me. Chinese restaurant NEAR the office caller ploughed on regardless. The party For the rest of the conversation I had to Lunch with Tom Baldwin. The Labour spin knows it has a problem and is determined resist the urge to roar with laughter and doctor is still buzzing after PMQs. This to fix it. The leader needs advice, and it inquire whether the caller had got the moment, he tells me, is like the moment when May 31 • 2015 The Mail on Sunday  Mischievous. Moving. Marvellously indiscreet – the brilliant memoirs of BBC’s man at No 10

biopsy will tell. No, I don’t need to fly home but I should have a test as soon as I do. I wave at my wife Pippa to come over. She looks a tad irritated. She, too, thinks I’ve put work first. Again. I take her to one side and do what I do every day of my working life: sum- marise a stream of complex information on a subject I know very little about as simply as I can. But there’s a crucial difference. This time Battling cancer. it’s about me. And us. She looks numb. For now the priority is to

IAN McILGORM / PA / GETTYIAN McILGORM / BBC / PA keep going. Don’t scare Will and Harry. Don’t spoil the holiday. Don’t assume the worst. Friday, February 20 Cervinia, chairlift Lift the bar, lower skis, come to a stop. I can Asked to spin hear [Radio 4 presenter] Jim Naughtie filling in through my earpiece before he says: ‘And joining us now is our political editor, Nick Robinson.’ It is the first time – and I suspect it will be the last – I’ve ever broadcast from a ski slope. I couldn’t resist it. The Labour and tuition fees story I’ve been chasing is taking yet another twist. So here I am, ‘live from the Alps’, reveal- ing that Labour has not yet agreed on where to find the £1.7 billion a year they need to pay for for Ed. And what Ed’s promised fee cut. It might seem like a busman’s holiday but it sure as hell beats phoning hospitals about appointments for next week. Wednesday, February 25 Chest consultant’s clinic ‘I’ve got as long as you need,’ says Mike. It is, they really tell of course, cancer. Cancer in the lungs but not, he insists, your everyday killer. It is, apparently, a slower-growing, nicer sort of tumour which very few people get: a bron- chial carcinoid tumour. And it is ‘fixable’. Mike recommends swift surgery to cut out the tumour along with all my lung lymph glands. He says it’ll be possible to get me back to work within three weeks – in other words, in me when we turn time for the Election campaign. Thursday, February 26 A room near Broadcasting House I’ve asked Sue and Katy, my BBC bosses at Westminster, to meet me to discuss my flight plan now I’ve discovered, on the eve of a Gen- eral Election, that I have a cancerous tumour. I spell out my ludicrously simple agenda: I the cameras off! will have the tumour and any other nasties cut out and get back to work three weeks later. This can all be fixed, I tell them, quoting my consultant. Then I pause and think and cry – hot, shoul- der-shaking tears. If I don’t believe what I’m saying, what on earth can they be thinking? HOME, THE KITCHEN Over dinner with the boys, Pippa and I work hard to make normal conversation; to laugh UNITED before we break the serious news. Will and FRONT: Nick and Harry listen and seem to take it all in. They his wife Pippa at don’t say a lot – they’re teenage boys, after all. home last week Friday, February 27 By the river, Oxford we get to speak. Mike has the results of my Milly or raised her name first. I am going on a WE’RE in Oxford, about to buy lunch for scan. There is a shadow on my lung. I’m no Friday, February 13 half-term holiday tomorrow and I have ourdaughter Alice and tell her my news. But medic but I know that’s not good. Hold on, another scan this afternoon. I could really, first Pippa is having coffee with an old school he tells me, it might be a bad infection. It Home, the kitchen really do without this. friend. I lie down on a bench by the river and could be inflammation. Not since the days of Neil Kinnock – remem- stare into the sky. What will I do if Alice Yes, he agrees, it could be cancer, but that’s ber The Sun’s Election day headline in 1992: If cries? What will I do if she asks questions I not at the top of his list. Kinnock Wins Today Will The Last Person To Saturday, February 14 can’t or don’t want to answer? ‘ The only way to be sure is to have another Leave Britain Please Turn Out The Lights? – scan. Oh. have I seen coverage that is so personal and The runway, Turin airport politically motivated. Half-term. A week’s skiing. The second the St Peter’s college The Mail’s front page is dominated by the plane’s wheels touch the tarmac I switch on I text Pippa: ‘Black Dog has come.’ She headline: Red Ed The Tax Avoider. Beside it is my phone. There’s a message from my con- arrives to hold my hand and cheer me up Disbelief! A job with Miliband – and a role at No 10 to follow... a photo of Milly Dowler and the words ‘… and sultant. Can I call him? before we meet Alice. And guess what? It now Labour drags Milly into election battle’. goes just as well as last night. No tears. wrong number. Instead, I politely The Telegraph front page includes the story No unanswerable questions. Concern, sympa- expressed my thanks for being considered of the Dowler Family’s Dismay At Miliband. The luggage hall thy, smiles and then the gossip about college and explained I remained committed to Papers that regularly attack the BBC are now ‘Can you help Mum get the bags?’ I ask the life. Just what the doctor ordered. journalism (just as I did when the papers using my name to try to give extra credibility boys [my sons Will and Harry]. ‘I’ve got to reported a long time ago that I’d been to their attacks on Labour. take a call.’ They look at me as if to say: ‘What? approached to work for ‘the other side’.) I text Ed Miliband and those I know best on Work? On a Saturday morning? On holiday? Saturday, February 28 I hustle my bureau chief, Katy, into the his team to say that I don’t much like being Again?’ Mike is calm, clear and reassuring. Relief. Huge relief. Everyone knows who office, swear her to secrecy and tell her used in this way. As ever they are polite, but The scans show what looks like a tumour. It needs to know. A text arrives from The the whole extraordinary tale. I have no it’s pretty clear they blame me for providing still may not be cancer. May not. The balance idea whether this approach was made the bullets the Tory press have fired. of probability has clearly changed. Only a Turn to Page 10 ➤➤ with Ed Miliband’s knowledge or, as is It’s not just the Milly salvo. The tax-avoider more likely, by someone freelancing to headline comes from the answer to another try to be helpful, but as I walk down question I asked Miliband, about how his Whitehall, I phone my wife and say: ‘You’ll father’s will was designed to limit inheritance never guess what…’ tax. The complaints are already rolling in. without speech, I am nothing Many allege that I made up the reference to 10 The Mail on Sunday May 31 • 2015 After surgery, disaster: I may not work again

➤➤ From Page 9 Prime Minister tweets his good wishes but then Ed Miliband follows Sunday, March 1 Wednesday Sunday Times. The press release suit and so does Nicola Sturgeon. [about his illness] has not yet been Now that is a nice surprise. If Home, the kitchen March 4 issued and already they know every you work for the BBC you get impar- Messages from Pesto and the detail. It’s a quiet news day, appar- tial sympathy. Prime Minister are no match for a Royal Brompton ently, and this story is going to lead text that leaves the boys almost page 3. Bloody hell. I should be speechless. hospital, high breaking the news. Instead I am Home, the sofa ‘It’s from Fergie!’ they gasp. dependency unit breaking news. Texts continue to pour in. The Perhaps Sir Alex remembers that The boys start to follow it all from messages I’ve had from Robert I described him as ‘the greatest The operation was, home. Harry texts to tell me to Peston [the BBC’s economics edi- living Briton’ when he retired from I’m told, a great suc- check Twitter. I can’t bring myself tor], whose beloved wife Sian died Old Trafford. I pretend to be cool cess. But, but, but… to do it. I am afraid it will be filled of lung cancer, have been among the about it but I’m not. it also seems to have with the normal bile – ‘Good for the nicest and the most supportive. Given that we barely know each stopped my vocal tumour’, ‘Won’t be missed’, ‘Now at Few people call. One who does is other, I am hugely touched that he cords working. I can least we’ll get some straight report- Ed Miliband. made the effort. Will and Harry barely speak above a ing’, and so on. He is kind, generous and thought- agree that only a message from the whisper. There is a bit of that after the ful and sounds genuinely shocked. Queen could top this. My surgeon, Eric Lim, warned me that he might not be able to get rid of every last bit of nasty can- cerous stuff from the inaccessible bits of lung near my main airway and a critical artery. He was delighted to find that he could. Unfortu- nately, the nerve to that vocal cord took a bit of a battering in the process. I am assured that this sort of complica- tion is far from unheard of with this sort of surgery. It is, though, for me, a dis- aster. It’s funny how you can take for granted something as fundamental as your ability to make your- self heard, thanks to what are, it seems, just a couple of vibrating folds of mucous mem- brane stretched across your larynx and the nerves that THE BEST CURE: Nick still works send them electrical signals. while having treatment in hospital One of my folds ain’t twanging any more, which means that while I On the basis of a single fact and a might well be able to get myself fit single image, thousands and thou- enough to go back to work in time sands of words have been written for the Election, no one will be able about the meaning of all this. It has to hear a word I say. almost none. Everyone keeps telling me that my health is more important than the Election, than any story. Of course it Under the scanner again is. But it was the prospect of fight- I’m lying on another cold, hard slab. ing my way back for this Election I am rolled slowly into another vast that was keeping me going. Now I white tube and every minute or so am confronting the possibility not I’m told to stop breathing. I have just of missing it, but of never that feeling again. Pure dread. broadcasting again. At this point a cheery radiologist says: ‘Funny thing is, you remind me of someone on the news.’ I smile, Saturday, March 7 and only just stop myself replying: ‘Yes, it is a funny thing. That some- Royal Brompton hospital one on the news used to be me.’ Eee. Ooo. Rrr. I’m damn well trying but nothing more than a faint, husky whisper emerges from my flaccid Oncologist’s consulting room vocal cords. The oncologist beams. Your scan, The idea of these exercises is to he says, is completely normal. The rouse them from their post-opera- cancer has not spread. tive slumber. The vocal gymnastics It’s possible, he continues, that you have been set for me by Julia Selby, have been cured and that you my speech therapist. We’d been will never have cancer again. We’ll acquainted for only a few minutes have to keep checking you for the before Pippa confided something next couple of years, but I’m not she knew I hadn’t dared reveal to inclined to give you any further anyone else: I was more scared to be treatment. No chemo, then. No told I’d lost my voice than that I had debilitating sickness, no loss of the cancer. My voice is no mere tool. It little hair I have left. Pippa and I is who I am. Without spoken words, look at each other, waiting for the I am nothing. ‘but’. We test his reassurances. There can be no certainties, no guarantees, no way of knowing for Friday, March 13 sure whether cancer may return, in the lung or elsewhere, but this is The real world the best possible outcome. Our joy Hold the front page! Ed Miliband is unalloyed and overwhelming. has two kitchens! That’s right, two! And he chose to be filmed in the one l Election Notebook: The Inside that looks a bit grotty! This is what Story Of The Battle Over Britain’s passes for news just a few weeks Future And My Personal Battle before the country decides whether To Report It, by Nick Robinson, is to make Ed their leader for the next published by Bantam Press, priced five years. It is a story of our times, £20. Offer price £16 until June 21. one that should be used as an exam- Order at www.mailbookshop.co.uk, ple in future media studies classes. p&p is free on orders over £12. May 31 • 2015 The Mail on Sunday 11 After surgery, disaster: I may not work again

Dinner with the Milibands before the Election – The ‘Brand Show’ and Ed is full of doubt leaves me cursing PIPPA and I join Ed and Justine Ed Balls’ family in for dinner before the Election. We After a recording of Question talk about what polite, middle- Time, as Russell Brand poses class couples in smart restaurants for photos with his fans, I wait tend to talk about – children, patiently to ask him for an holidays, books and, of course, interview. We’ve had a bid in politics. What’s striking, though, is with his agent for weeks, and that Ed makes no attempt to use lederhosen. What again and again he’s told us this conversation, one of the that ‘Russell may not have longest we’re likely to have before time’. He has plenty of time the Election, to make a pitch as to now but no, he brushes past me why he’s ready to be PM. to pose with yet more fans. I detect, though, something more I return to the departing than natural political caution. It’s devotees and as they sing his doubt and uncertainty. Ed, who Obama calls ‘DDSS’. praises I find myself angrily is a clever, engaging and self- defending the politicians he so deprecating guy in private, jokes loves to attack. While Russell about the time Neil Kinnock was is being driven by his chauffeur, campaigning for him during the with his PR and his personal Labour leadership election. Neil make-up artist, to his multi- called on the audience to back Ed million-pound apartment, I for leader… ‘although I wouldn’t And why Russell point out that the Labour guest wish this job on my worst enemy’. on the panel, Mary Creagh, will Ed’s demeanour suggests that he is take the train, collect her bike thinking, ‘If only I knew then what and cycle home before heading I know now…’ to her Wakefield constituency It’s all in stark contrast with to hold a surgery the next day. a dinner I had with the last Who, I ask, is more in touch? leader of the Opposition. In 2009, I find myself cursing Brand David Cameron invited me to a Brand is a ****ing as ‘that f***ing sanctimonious restaurant and did everything he t***’. I’m not sure this complies could to convince me that he had with BBC editorial standards what it took to be Prime Minister, but it feels better out than in. inviting me to cross-examine him. My beef is straightforward. I In truth, that evening was less do not resent the fact that a enjoyable, even though privately stand-up comic has energised, David is also very good company. sanctimonious t*** excited and enthused people But it made more of an impact. about some of the great issues ‘Secret’ notes between of our time where politicians DECEMBER 1, 2014 and, yes, commentators like A lesson in diplomacy Ed Balls is, as ever, good company. Brown and Straw that me, have utterly failed. It is from the most powerful He’s much more worried about his everyone could read just that I am not impartial leader in the world Grade 4 piano exam than answering the when it comes to democracy. Autumn Statement. This despite the Labour’s Jack Straw is sitting I’ve long known how frustrated fact that his terrible performance the alongside me in the studio. On Cameron was with Barack previous year finished off any talk of arriving he asks to sit with his Obama’s initial reluctance to act him as a future Labour leader. good ear next to the presenter, first in Libya and then in Syria. Huw Edwards. He is pretty Recently the President schooled much deaf in the other. I reporters on Air Force One to joke that it must have been parrot the answer to a simple interesting serving with Gordon question. ‘What is my foreign Brown, who has only one policy?’ he asked the travelling functioning eye. pack. They chorused in reply: ‘It was worse than you think,’ ‘Don’t do stupid s***.’ His former he says. The official Cabinet Secretary of State and possible seating plan, based on status, successor, Hillary Clinton, required that Jack sat on observed, ‘Great nations need Gordon’s blind side, which organising principles,’ adding meant Gordon was on Jack’s waspishly that DDSS (as it is now deaf side. As a result they inevitably known) was ‘not an were never able to exchange a organising principle’. through to his and wife Yvette is that Ed, Yvette and their kids discreet word about what others IGNORED: Nick tries to speak to Cooper’s hotel room as there’s went inter-railing during the were saying, being forced instead Brand after BBC’s Question Time something he wants to show off. In summer, taking in a Sound Of to swap notes written in the fat, How Ed Balls went off to the middle of the room is an ironing Music bike tour in costumes made bold, black felt-tip pen Brown climb a mountain… in board and on top of that a portable by the Balls-Coopers themselves always used to ensure he could of No 10 he might not now be Sound Of Music costume fold-out lectern. Stepping forward from curtain material on the train read them. The only problem was facing prison. Without the to show me how it’s possible to to Salzburg – lederhosen for the that everyone else nearby could link, the hacking After we’ve talked about his 2014 practise his speech without ever boys, headscarves and read them as well. scandal might never have become conference speech and the state of leaving his room, he knocks it to neckerchiefs for the girls. front-page news, and the police politics, Ed Balls marches me the ground and breaks it. Now, if only the snappers had Coulson was straight would never have launched the The other revelation of the night caught that… and likeable (but I never massive investigation. asked him about hacking) Boris stand for the top Son’s shock as I’m caught in I didn’t know Andy Coulson when Tory job? Of course he will Over breakfast my son proud of his father, he begins to resurface. The he was at the News of the World. I – he aches with ambition Will tells me that he’s just quotes an inept Cabinet memory of a parting shot got to know him when he became caught up with The Thick Minister in an early to his team from Malcolm Cameron’s spin doctor and I dealt I’m not sure why anyone bothers Of It, the brilliant BBC series: ‘There’s more to Tucker, the foul-mouthed, with him virtually every day to ask Boris about standing for the political satire. He has life than drinks parties at testosterone-fuelled during the 2010 Election. I found Tory leadership. We all know the been devouring whole the Foreign Office and Glaswegian spin doctor him straight, professional and answer: of course he will stand. He series in a single sitting. having Nick Robinson’s played by : likeable. I took a decision not to aches with ambition. People warm ‘You’re in it a lot, Dad,’ number on your f***ing ‘I’m away to wipe my ask him about hacking on the to him because they think that, he says. BlackBerry.’ a*** on pictures of Nick grounds that he was never going to unlike other politicians, he’s Looking ever so slightly Will hesitates before Robinson. I’m getting tell me anything in private that he authentic. He is, but it’s an adding: ‘And then there’s good at giving him a hadn’t said in public. To do so authenticity that is carefully FOUL TEMPER: Peter that other bit…’ A quiff.’ There is absolutely would have been to admit to a crafted. His one weakness is that Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker suppressed memory nothing I can say. crime. Coulson believes that if he’s no team player and good he’d never crossed the threshold leaders of parties need to be that. NEXT WEEK: IS THE CANCER REALLY GONE?