Campbell: We must learn from e-mail scandal

Tony Blair's communications and strategy chief has admitted that the Government will have to "learn lessons" from the Pam Warren e-mail scandal.

In a letter to The Independent, Alastair Campbell said that e-mails sent between a special adviser and Labour Party officials to find out if rail crash survivors were Tories were "ill-judged" and "offensive".

He added that the intention of the e-mails had never been to "smear, discredit" or "dig dirt" on Mrs Warren, who was the leading member of the Paddington Survivors' Group.

However, government members attending a centre-left conference at a country house in Buckinghamshire yesterday, privately agreed that the Paddington and Jo Moore e-mail scandals had damaged the Government and were turning off voters.

At the meeting, which was attended by former US president Bill Clinton, as well as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, ministers drew up plans to reconnect with the public by allowing Labour MPs a week "off the whip" every year to spend time in their constituencies.

Yesterday, the veteran Labour MP Tam Dalyell warned Tony Blair that continuing scandals were damaging the Government. He said that the public was appalled by the treatment of Pam Warren, adding that Mr Blair should apologise personally to her meet her at Downing Street.

"He should be gracious in the circumstances," said Mr Dalyell, the father of the House of Commons, during an interview with The Independent.

He called on Tony Blair to stop ignoring his backbenchers' views. He warned that in the future, if Mr Blair's majority wanes or he faces a leadership challenge, he could find himself without crucial support and friends.

"I have the impression that he pays very little attention, if any, to informed backbench opinion in the Commons," he said.

He refused to join Ken Jackson, the head of the Amicus union, who predicted that Gordon Brown would become Prime Minister in the "medium term". But he hinted that the leadership question was an issue that would be addressed in the future.

Mr Dalyell, who criticised Mr Blair for passing over experienced Labour backbenchers in favour of young Labour loyalists in the recent reshuffle, said that ministers were so afraid of being sacked that they would not criticise the Government.

The Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith yesterday accused the Government of trying to "crush" members of the Paddington Survivors' Group.