Controversy and criticism do appear to linger around Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin doctor-in-chief, like a bad smell. In August 2003, during the Hutton Inquiry into the suicide of a government weapons inspector, he resigned from his Downing Street position as Director of Communications and Strategy. Hardly an exit of spell-binding brilliance. Even Tony Blair admitted in his recent memoirs – “In the latter stages, before he left at the end of 2003, Alastair had probably gone over the edge.”
On the night of Tony Blair’s resignation he had to sit opposite Michael Howard while a furnace-hot roasting was administered by the former Tory leader (hardly noted for his rhetorical brilliance) on Newsnight. “The way in which Alastair Campbell has conducted his operations when he was in Downing Street, the way he bullied and lied his way across our political life consistently did more to lower the tone of our public life.” Campbell, probably surprised with the tenacity of the offensive, limply replied “I think it’s very sad that he thinks like that.”
CONTROVERSY
And probably most spectacularly, a few days after the 2010 General Election in a live interview on Sky News Campbell managed to annoy Sky News Political Editor so much that the usually harmless teddy-bear demeanour of Adam Boulton was lost.
Instead the public was treated to the youtube sensation of Boulton curmudgeonly yelping “DON’T KEEP CASTING ASPERTIONS ON WHAT I THINK… DON’T KEEP TELLING ME WHAT I THINK!” But, to be honest, Campbell probably came out best from that one.
So how does Campbell react to this somewhat rude, always controversial, image? “I can’t say I care too much” he retorts, wafting the proposition away. “If you have a profile and you are controversial you find that some people like you, some people don’t, and the media emphasises the ‘don’t’ side of things.” He then attempts to turn the idea on its head and replies “I was doing the job as the media age became a reality and part of that was their [the media’s] self-obsession. So going on about me was a way of going on about themselves.”
However, you can’t help but feel Campbell might not truly believe his own attempts to waft his image away. When questioned over his resignation he freely admits problems with his image. “I was certainly getting far too much media and political attention. I could have carried on but, to be frank, I had been trying to leave even before the row with the BBC over Iraq.
Campbell first made his name in journalism going from writing for pornographic magazine ‘Forum’, Sports Reporter for the Tavistock Times, Trainee Reporter at the Sunday Independent, Political Correspondant and eventually Political Editor of the Daily Mirror. Along the way Campbell became infamous for the now widely quoted journalistic gem that the Conservative Prime Minister John Major tucked his shirt into his underpants. Maybe it wasn’t Watergate, but it certainly added to Major’s dilapidated public image.
With the advent of Tony Blair as Leader of Opposition, Campbell left his job as Assistant Editor of (the now defunct) Today newspaper to join the New Labour camp. “He asked me to work for him…it was too big a challenge to duck – to help a new leader get Labour back into power.”
NEW LABOUR
However, before Tony Blair had even stepped foot in Downing Street the New Labour government would face the problem of expectations that were simply too high. This has been acknowledged by nearly every senior Labour figure from Blair to Blunkett to Mandelson. Campbell takes a similar stance, but says “I’m not sure there is much we could have done about it. There was so much joy at seeing the Tories out and also so much was invested in Tony Blair. We were conscious of it and from day one in government we tried to get expectations in a different place.”
As Tony Blair settled into the Prime Minister’s office, Campbell was down the hallway settling into his new job as ‘Director of Communications and Strategy’. A somewhat open title, so how does Campbell explain it? “Trying to get the government to follow an agreed strategy. So planning and co-ordination was a big part of it. Then managing events as they developed, which meant morning meetings first with Tony Blair, then my team, then the broader government team.”
However, others have used the openness of his title as a stick with which to beat Campbell, decrying him as a simplistic Spin Doctor, a thug, a bully and a Master of the Dark Arts. Campbell attempts to swipe this away by reaching into the past. “Go back in history and you will find leaders have always had people helping them lift the load. I remember during one of the controversies I was involved in when the Tory MP Nick Soames phoned me to express support. He is Churchill’s grandson and he boomed down the phone ‘Do you think my grandfather didn’t have a fucking spin doctor?’ Quite!…Today more spin is applied by journalists than by politicos.”
IRAQ WAR
This negative publicity all came to a head in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq. Campbell appeared to be at the centre of all the problems of the selling of the war – the lies, the publicity, the propaganda. So what was his role? “I played the same role I played throughout my time with Tony Blair – as an advisor and in particular as someone who was developing the communications strategies. Tony always had the view that as his main comms advisor I should be privy to the meetings and discussions he had so as better to understand his mind.” However, such explanations haven’t stopped critical impressions of Campbell’s role, such as the satirical character of Malcolm Tucker in the 2009 film “In the Loop”.
Probably because his reputation has become so heavily invested in the Middle Eastern conflict that saw his demise Campbell is happy to energetically voice the traditional reasoning for the war. Asked if it was wrong to invade he briskly states “I don’t think so, but I know a lot of people disagree.” He continues on the same track “Saddam had defied the international community for so long and in the context of September 11th the calculus of threat changed. You have to remember he had used chemical weapons on his own people before, he had provoked a war with Iran, he was a brutal oppressor…an Iraq without Saddam and his sons in power is a better place.”
But as the embarrassing aftermath of the Iraqi invasion unfolded and the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly rolled on, Campbell increasingly found himself in an untenable position. On the evening of his resignation Nick Robinson (then Political Editor for ITV News, now for BBC News) solemnly announced “Alastair understood that political communication is all about impressions. That, of course, is why he had to go. He’d become the symbolic link between Tony Blair, spin and, tragically, the death of Dr Kelly.” Campbell tells things differently saying the Iraq war “kept me in longer because I felt I had to stay with it. I think in some jobs there comes a time when you know it is time to leave and I had reached it. The main reason was probably to do with my family as opposed to politics.”
WORKING WITH BLAIR AND BROWN
While Campbell exited stage left, the Blair government continued for five more years and the Labour government kept its hold on government until 2010 under Gordon Brown. So what were relations like between the Prime Minister and his famously impetuous Chancellor? “At times they were good, at times bad. I thought Tony dealt with this quite well in his own book when he said Gordon could be both brilliant but also impossible.” However, Campbell avoids the sour anti-Brownite tones of some of his colleagues, such as former Home Secretary Charles Clarke who attempted to organise a vote of no confidence against Brown. Instead, Campbell diplomatically says “It was a difficult relationship and towards the end pretty dire to be honest but along the way they achieved a lot together.”
When asked why Gordon Brown couldn’t win the 2010 General Election the former spin doctor demonstrates just why he was so conversely revered and loathed in political circles. “It was always going to be tough to win a fourth successive term. Then throw in an economic crisis, expenses, the Iraq inquiry going on, problems in Afghanistan, and the party having next to no money compared with the Tories. You could ask, why, given the playing field he was fighting on, David Cameron didn’t walk it!” Hate him all you like, but you have to admit Campbell is a good PR man.
THE COALITION
And with this the conversation turns to the new coalition government. In this odd political climate Campbell has adopted a similar position to many on the left – disgust at Conservative policies, a respect for their style of governance and an utter detestation of the Lib Dems.
On government spending cuts Campbell is clear “I think the cuts are as much about small state ideology as they are about economic necessity. It is a Conservative government propped up by Lib Dems.” But there is a certain begrudging acceptance of the Tories themselves. On David Cameron he graciously concedes “He looks and sounds the part [of Prime Minister] to the extent that when he comes on telly I don’t think how ludicrous it is that he is Prime Minister, as I would have done if someone like Michael Howard had won when leader.” But Campbell is happy to lay criticism. “He didn’t win a majority because he lacked a clear vision for Britain.” Maybe Campbell could name a few people who would make good PR men.
With the Lib Dems Campbell has no sympathy or begrudging respect. Prompted as to whether they have sold out he answers “To a large extent yes. They go on about how awful ‘the books’ were when they entered government. Yet they spent the whole election saying how bad they thought the finances were. Once in they had to find reasons for going back on very specific pledges they had made. I think Clegg is in a very bad place with the public.”
THE FUTURE
So what does Blair’s former right hand man find himself doing now? “I have published two political books, first extracts from my diaries, then the first full volume and I have another volume out now. I have also written two novels… I write something most days, including a blog. I do speeches and a bit of consultancy work and I am involved with two big charity projects, one on mental health, the other as chairman of fundraising for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research… I like the freedom and would be loathe to give it up.” Add to this a new TV show out in February where Campbell and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver take a group of school dropouts and try to re-inspire them about learning. “Most TV is pretty dire” he sweepingly says, but “I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of respect for teachers before and have a lot more now.”
Campbell is a difficult person to place. Everyone who knows him personally is ready to defend him to the hilt and anyone who has crossed him politically speaks about him like he has just vomited in their eye. As always he is the arch partisan, inspiring admiration and disgust in equal measure. But his former boss Tony Blair probably got it closest to the mark when he described Campbell as one of those crazy people “whose craziness lends them to creativity…the problem with them is that they can be mercurial, difficult and on occasion erupt with damaging consequences.”
Volume 2 of Alastair Campbell’s diaries, ‘Power and the People’, was published on January 20th, priced £25. The paperback of volume 1, ‘Prelude to Power’, is published on the same day, priced £9.99.