The first thing that strikes you about Alastair Campbell’s diaries, “The Blair Years” is that it’s big – a doorstop of a book. And that’s after it had been edited down – both voluntarily by Campbell and his editorial sidekick Richard Stott, and by interested parties at No10 – hence the cover describes it as “extracts from”.
As Campbell refers to lots of the key protagonists by their initials, I’ll use the same convention and call him “AC”.
In case anyone was wondering what happened on the days AC hasn’t seen fit to share with us, here’s a generic ordinary day I’ve written that you can read each time there’s a day missing – just to give you a flavour of the style:
“Got up. Ate some [expletive deleted] cereal. Ran ten miles. Wrote some [expletive deleted] press releases. Spoke to some [expletive deleted] journalists. Told TB he was a pillock. Called Bill to advise him on world affairs. Cheered on Burnley. Huge row with Fiona. Must quit soon. And so to bed.”
Don’t be put off by the size though. This is a cracking, pacy read, as you would expect given the writing and editing was by two former national red-top editors. And a helpful innovation is the little italicised footnote on every page summarising it, so you can dip in and out to see AC’s take on key events.
I couldn’t help thinking in the middle section of the book, “hang on, I’ve read this before”. I had – Lance Price’s “The Spin Doctor’s Diary: Inside Number 10 with New Labour” (Hodder & Stoughton 2005) has of course covered many of the same events and experiences from the perspective of Campbell’s assistant. But Campbell was in on some meetings that Price wasn’t, and closer to Blair, and his story starts earlier, so it’s worth putting up with the overlap.
The early years are in some ways the most fascinating bit of the book, given the extent to which all the decision-making before the Iraq War and the Kelly affair have been dissected in detail in other places. Campbell was there “at the creation” of New Labour – and claims to have invented that very phrase (though Mandelson and Gould and Blair himself might dispute that). You forget how much of a gamble Blair took with the new Clause IV – no one knew if the party would support it and AC reports Blair saying he would have to resign if he lost the vote.
The Blair vs Brown relationship has been analysed so minutely by the press and other books such as Jim Naughtie’s “The Rivals” that it is beginning to get a bit tedious. Yeah they didn’t get on. So what? They kept the show on the road somehow for ten years and that’s what matters. The only really interesting new revelation on this from AC is Mandelson’s claim over lunch that the animus was not about the Granita dinner but about a later incident at a Shadow Cabinet Away Day at Chewton Glen when Brown is alleged to have tabled a list of demands which Blair rejected.
Campbell himself comes across as a likeable guy: Labour-to-the-core and intensely loyal to his boss. He swears constantly (almost to Tourette syndrome levels) and one wonders quite why he actually wrote down all the expletives in his diary as well as saying them. He is admirably frank about his breakdown whilst Editor of Today in 1986. But boy does he have an ego. He is, we are led to believe, on first name terms with “Bill” et al. And we are also informed that Blair suggested that he should consider becoming an MP so he could be a senior Cabinet Minister.
Politically, AC presents himself and Fiona Millar as the Labour guardian angels whispering into Blair’s ear to try to get him to be more distinctively centre-left whilst staying New Labour. I’m with him on his robust criticism of Blair and Harman for not sending their kids to local comprehensives. Unfortunately they didn’t listen.
AC is appallingly lacking in deference to his boss Blair. Probably at the time Blair needed someone who was used to being top dog as an Editor to stand up to him and tell him when he was wrong, but I doubt he is that happy about it all now being in print.
The two major villains in Campbell’s eyes appear to be Clare Short who comes across as a completely untrustworthy prima donna, and Carole Caplin, presented as the Rasputin-esque rival to Millar at the court of Cherie Blair.
Two unlikely heroes are John Prescott and Robin Cook, whose contributions to the 1997 victory and the early successes of the government get proper recognition.
There’s a host of incidental trivia for political anoraks – for instance, I had forgotten that Yvette Cooper beat Jack Dromey for the Pontefract parliamentary selection, which must create some tension in the relationship between two of the Brown administration’s power couples, the Harman/Dromeys and Balls/Coopers.
A shortcoming of the book is that the perspective it offers is necessarily that of a spin doctor – albeit one of such seniority he attended kitchen cabinet meetings. So events are often recounted not as they happened, but as the guys in the press office saw them on Sky, or as the next day’s press coverage. And everything is tactical, not strategic – presentation not policy. We need a book from someone in the Policy Unit – David Miliband or Matthew Taylor – to get the full picture – along the lines of Bernard Donoghue’s “Downing Street Years” account of Wilson’s final premiership.
The other disadvantage is that Campbell’s account is that it is an incomplete story of Blair’s leadership, cut short when he left No10 in 2003. So all the drama and pathos of the last four years, by far the most interesting part of the story, is missing. It’s as though an account of Napoleon’s career (whom no doubt a 19th century AC would have called “NB” or “Napo”) stops at the moment the retreat from Moscow begins.
Personally, I dread to think what stuff got edited out, because what is left in diminishes both Campbell for publishing it and its subjects. I don’t want to know about Blair losing his temper or writing speeches in his underpants. Or about Mo Mowlam in the bath. Too much information! There are very personal and private conversations – for instance Neil Kinnock’s pool-side doubts about Blair on a family holiday with AC – let alone conversations Blair had with AC as one of his most trusted advisers – that were clearly conducted on the understanding they were not for wider circulation. I guess they will be bemused by why such a loyal servant of the party and Blair has chosen to betray so many confidences so soon after the event.