Well here's the whole sorry saga in Diary entries. Sadly, I can't find a copy of either letter from the Beloved One, so if anyone would like to pass them on to me as a service to rumour mongers everywhere, I'd be extremely grateful. But not grateful enough to pay, obviously. All the extracts below are from the Guardian Diary by Matthew Norman.
I am saddened to learn that my old friend Alastair Campbell is displeased by findings of the police investigation into Jill Dando's murder. It was reported on Friday that detectives have established that Miss Dando had at least 10 former lovers, all of whom they have interviewed and eliminated from enquiries. However, according to Alastair - and who are we to disbelieve him? - there is an 11th whom detectives have oddly failed to approach at all. That person, would you believe it, is Alastair Campbell. Ali doesn't mind not having been interviewed himself, he tells friends, only that that there are so many others who have. Presumably the romance took place before Alastair entered public life, and also before he settled down with Fiona Millar; but when exactly and for how long we do not know. A call to Number 10 proves surprisingly fruitless. Asked if anyone at Downing Street ought to be helping police with enquiries into an unsolved crime, some insolent pup replies: "I think that's Guardiandiary@no-stories.com again. See ya." Very droll, of course, but is the fact that Alastair Campbell is claiming once to have been Jill Dando's lover really a non-story? I think we'll leave that to the news judgment of others.
You may notice the letter today from Alastair Campbell concerning yesterday's report that he recently claimed he once had an affair with Jill Dando. Although this missive makes it clear that he never did so, it is a little on the brief side and he will forgive the presumption if I fill in the gaps. When, over lunch on Sunday, a friend remarked on the facial similarity between him and the Photofit of Jill Dando's killer, Alastair launched into a fantasy in which he had indeed been her lover. Another friend tuned in to this after it began, and took it to be a straightforward historical account. He then informed Alastair three times that he planned to pass on the story, and each time Alastair (thinking he was kidding, presumably) smiled in what was taken to be acceptance. And this is how it came to appear in the Diary. Alastair lacked the time to make clear publicly what he privately acknowledges - that this was, however fiascoid, a simple misunderstanding. In the knowledge that he would be mortified if his letter was misread to imply we had published in bad faith, I am happy to clarify the matter.
Yesterday's attempt to clarify the issue of Alastair Campbell and Jill Dando has led, if anything, to further confusion. Mr Campbell did not, during a private lunch on Sunday, engage in any fantasy whatsoever about having once had an affair with Miss Dando. I could go into another long and turgid explanation of how this misunderstanding arose, but I don't think any of us have the energy for that.
Distressingly, we must begin with an apology. According to a Sunday Times front-page report ("Dando murder squad interviews PM's spin doctor") inadvertently I caused Alastair Campbell to be pulled by the Bill. No one will wish to dredge up the grievous confusion whereby it came to be written (note the sudden Biblical tone; where did that come from?) that Ali had claimed over lunch to have once been Miss Dando's lover. No such claim was made, either seriously or in jest, as he assured us, and in fiasco terms, this is well up there with Cherie's car pass and the separation of Gordon and Sarah. However (and this doesn't do much for public confidence) the only people unaware of my absolute unreliability appear to be the police - and a detective who saw the item interviewed Alastair before eliminating him from inquiries. I hope no one is amused at the thought of my old friend's face while being questioned because of a cock-up here. I know I don't. In fact I'm very, very sorry about it. Now then, let that be an end to the whole sorry business
I am, meanwhile, intrigued by two dates. The first time Andrew Gilligan made his full upsexing accusation against Alastair, in the Mail on Sunday, was June 1. The first time Ali publicly denied it was to the committee on June 25. Mmm, 24 days seems a sluggish reaction from the laureate of rapid rebuttal. He wasn't always such a tortoise when on the wrong end of wildly inaccurate accusations. Indeed, when I wrongly reported that he'd claimed to have had an affair with Jill Dando, he was on the phone to the editor at 8.10am on the day the item appeared.
Well, what can you say? After so many years, so much fun and laughter - and yes, let's not yield to mawkishness, a few tears as well - how to say an adequate farewell to Alastair Campbell? To paint the full picture of what he meant to this column would require a special supplement. So all we can do today is give a flavour of his contribution by recalling the Jill Dando Fiasco. It was in June 1999, following a mutual friend's honest misunderstanding over Sunday lunch, that we reported Ali's claim once to have been a lover of the murdered newscaster. The short corrective letter published the next day, not to mention the longer missive Ali sent in response to a heartfelt apology, appeared to have ended the matter. But no. In November 2000, the Sunday Times revealed on its front page that Ali had been called in and questioned by a Scotland Yard detective. Yet neither Ali nor his crack team at No 10 ever held this against us. While we look forward to a close working relationship with David Hill's new regime, it would be absurd to pretend that things will ever be quite the same again.
Finally, the fiasco of fiascos. In September 1999, I related Alastair Campbell's claim, made over Sunday lunch, to have once been Jill Dando's lover. At 8.23am the next day, a full seven minutes ahead of schedule, the editor rang to say that Ali had been on, sounding displeased. The ironic apology did little to calm him, and a more sombre one swiftly followed. It was 14 months later that the Sunday Times front page reported, beneath the headline Dando Murder Squad Interviews PM's Spin Doctor, that detectives had acted on my original item.