Abstract
By the start of this book, Alastair Campbell has been out of government for two years, but still the tome is the size of house brick and we are only up to volume 6. At least one more is promised.
What an extraordinary figure Campbell is: obsessive, manic, driven, narcissistic, and unbelievably energetic. Never Machiavellian, as some misguided commentators have chosen to see him. Campbell is always warm and often burning white-hot. When it comes to liking the man, his humour and intelligence, his charm and loyalty, there are few people who will bow lower than I will. Nevertheless, this is in many ways a painful book to read.
Overshadowing all is the bitter hostility between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. How awful that was and how glad one feels to be away from it – and how miraculous that the Blair governments achieved so much despite this grotesque malfunction at the top.
The book opens with the 2005 election – a majority of just 66 for Labour: this seems like a terrible failure at the time, but gosh how today's politicians would saw off their limbs to have that kind of majority Blair is unhappy that the victory is being presented as a defeat; Brown is scheming to take over and furious with Blair for not setting a date to stand down. And the book starts much as it goes on – with Campbell and his partner Fiona Millar having a huge row, the first of many, this time over the diminished Labour majority, which Millar is, rather disobligingly I thought, pleased about.
Campbell is drawn in to help with the transition from Blair to Brown, so no wonder the old boy goes increasingly doolally throughout this book. What an impossible job. Brown, ever unco-operative, is always scheming away; Blair, feeling – rightly - that Brown will want to dismantle New Labour, is shifting the goalposts, enraging Brown more.
I was working at The Observer during this period and it was blindingly obvious to me and one or two senior colleagues that Brown would be a hopeless prime minister. He had been a reasonably successful chancellor – though clearly appalling to work with – and to his great credit kept Britain out of the euro. We felt he couldn't lead in the same way as Blair, and didn't really want to cope with the enormous complexities of modern government. And while the internal workings of the Labour Party were of no concern to me, I also felt that the prime ministership of this country should not be something that was simply parcelled up and handed over to a successor like a long service medal. Above all, I felt there should be some sort of election for the leadership. So we tried to run a “nudge” campaign to persuade someone else to stand. We liked Alan Johnson and David Miliband: all we wanted was for one of them to stand so it would not be a coronation for Brown. But Johnson didn't want it and would probably not have been good enough, and Miliband pulled out, quite rightly as it happens, as he could not even beat his brother.
Campbell's job in the book is to try to smooth things over. What a nightmare. He is almost permanently exhausted and ill: “Woke with searing headache. Depressed.” … “Another bad night on the sleep front”… “Still not sleeping”… “Feeling down again”… “Another big hit on the depression front”… “Really slept badly, awful dreams.” No wonder. The book is full of long-forgotten dramas … Blair's Education Act, John Prescott playing croquet at Dorneywood; Shilpa Shetty on Celebrity Big Brother (ye gods, this was a long time ago), and so on.
This is not an easy book to read. And not just because initials come flying at you like machine gun bullets: could CB and FM could be in the same room together? (not by the end as it happens), what TB said about the GB problem (it's growing constantly), why did TB get a hard time from DC at PMQs (over the religious hatred bill – remember that?), what the papers say about CC and JP (all bad), what was going on while PG, the Eds and DA were having a chat in No 11 (because TB and GB were having a “longish pre-meeting”).
Campbell doesn't just view the media with suspicion, he loathes it, though is always available to write long articles and appear constantly on TV. He has an irrational and obsessive dislike of the Daily Mail, a paper I admire and where (full disclosure) I am happy to work as a freelance.
The swearing is epic, but I don't mind that. Campbell is intense: first he hates something, then he obsesses whole-heartedly. First he despises fitness, then he becomes a fitness fanatic: long bike rides, marathon runs, huge swims every day.
He doesn't just enjoy football, he is obsessed with a rather poor football team, Burnley, though they are doing okay now. He faithfully sees every game and records the result, usually a defeat for his beloved team.
He is a terrible name dropper, playing golf with Jamie Rubin and Jamie Redknapp; being involved in a Comic Relief event with Ross Kemp, Cheryl Cole, Rupert Everett and the like. People tell him constantly how good he is, he should be in parliament, and it is faithfully recorded. It is true too: he is remarkably shrewd and insightful, and would benefit any enterprise, private or public.
The centrepiece of the book is a joyful celebratory account of a morning Campbell spends training at Old Trafford on his own with Diego Maradona before a Sport Relief charity match. As they shower afterwards he writes poignantly, “I think of Dad and I wonder what on earth he would think if he knew I was now in the showers at Old Trafford with Diego Maradona”. Ginola even tells Campbell: “Tu es le personnage complet – politique, parle des langues, lit des livres interessants …ça inspire, tout ça.” I am not sure too many of us would have recorded that quite so faithfully, Ginola or not.
Towards the end of this saga there is a rather touching birthday dinner for Campbell just days before the final handover from TB to GB, which means our diarist's work is done. Unknown seemingly to Campbell and at Philip Gould's instigation, everyone at the dinner makes a little speech about how much they love him and how marvellous he is. This device was used in a recent episode of The Archers when one of the most dislikeable characters in the show asks all the guests at her 40th birthday to point out her best qualities. The purpose there was to show what a total arse she was. In Campbell's hands though it is quietly moving and he is clearly a good and much-loved parent of three children. But again, I am not sure how many of us would faithfully write down a string of people saying how fabulous we are.
This is a riveting if exhausting self-portrait of a compelling individual at a peculiarly dysfunctional time in British public life.
It needs a health warning: the media saw everything through the prism of Campbell because he made it that way. He saw everything through the media himself. But it wasn't the whole picture - there is nothing here about what David Miliband, or Charles Clarke or Jack Straw might have been doing at their desks. There is little government in this book: it is all depression, media and friction.
In Blair's book, A Journey, for example, the media are hardly mentioned. His is a book about government. Campbell's is a lacerating narrative about himself, a massive, flawed, but nevertheless sympathetic figure. It is not the whole story, but it is enough. Ultimately, Campbell's job was to run communications for Blair. And now, of course, Blair is widely - and unfairly - reviled. Maybe that burning sense of injustice drives Campbell on. But please, Alastair, not too many more books like these.
