In the Hall of the Mountain King
"It took about a year, but I totally sorted myself."
I'm not sure you ever recover from that kind of breakdown - not in the sense of becoming again the person you were before. There's always this damaged part of you lurking inside: when you first recover, it is protected by a glass shell, fragile and just waiting to be shattered. Then with time you find your new self, and that shell protecting the old, damaged part becomes stronger and stronger, so that you don't have to think about it, you hardly ever consider yourself as different from other people. But part of that strengthening is a deadening of scary emotions; emotions that don't go away, or get lost, but are stored away somewhere. There are days when you find yourself crying inexplicably about a news story, a picture, or a tale told by a friend, but you don't ask yourself why, because you don't want to know the answer. You look forward instead of back, you become more the person you are now, and you try to forget that even concrete can crumble. Maybe I'm projecting, but I think there's something of that behind the brash Campbell exterior.
After a period of about six months' recuperation, Alastair rejoined the Mirror on the political desk, becoming deputy political editor of the Sunday Mirror within a few weeks. In autumn 1987 he became political editor, and two years later earned the same position on the Daily Mirror, working closely with the owner of the Mirror group, pension-pilfering Robert Maxwell. Alastair has often been described as loyal, and he gave ample proof of this when Guardian writer Michael White joked about "Captain Bob, bob, bob, bobbing" shortly after his death by drowning in November 1991. Alastair felt no qualms about punching him (as you do). The less generous have since put this down to him just having one of his usual cobs on at the time, or to personal animosity between the two journalists.
He also became a close advisor to Neil Kinnock, then leader of the opposition Labour Party; helping him with speeches and strategy, babysitting, picking up his shopping, holidaying with his family and promoting him in the paper. He also made sure that 'problem' figures such as Ken Livingstone and Ron Todd got a bad press. Alastair traded unlimited access to the leader of the opposition for on-message jounalism.
In 1992 Neil Kinnock's Labour Party suffered a shock defeat in the General Election. I think every Labour supporter was gutted by that one (I seem to have been the only person in the country misguided enough to think they stood a chance in 1987), and devastated to be facing another 5 years of Tory rule. If Alastair Campbell believed that the media rather than the Tories had defeated Kinnock, then he wasn't alone. The whole 'Jennifer's ear' thing should have been a Labour coup, but ended up as a public relations disaster; John Major and his populist soapbox somehow won the day over Labour's more- slick-than-usual campaign, which included a misjudged US-style rally in Sheffield. But the death knell of Labour's hopes was the front page of the Sun on polling day, which ran the headline headline "If Neil Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights." By the end of the day it was clear that to win an election, the Labour Party needed the Press on-side.
Following this second defeat, Kinnock resigned, and John Smith became leader. Alastair spent his time writing articles undermining John Prescott's attempt to become Deputy Leader, painting him as jaded and error-prone: a Mirror article of 27 May 1992 called him "a big girl's blouse" who "appeals to Tories no end." A refutation of the claims was made by Prescott in the paper a week later in an article ghosted by Alastair.
John Smith saw no need to court the media,although his actions appeared to please the Press efortlessly. He replaced the trade union block vote with 'one member, one vote', and gained a lead over the Tories in polls, but was still believed to be over-cautious by the likes of Alastair, Peter Mandelson (MP for Hartlepool), Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, Philip Gould and of course the Evil Troll. Alastair published multiple articles calling for more radical change.
Meanwhile, back at the Mirror, David Montgomery took over as Chief Executive of the Mirror Group, and in 1993 he appointed David Seymour as Group Political Editor, a clear snub to Alastair, who celebrated hearing the news by losing the plot totally and leaving the hapless messenger with no choice but to throw a chair. Amanda Platell was eventually able to calm Alastair down and sort him out (suggesting she's better at counselling than PR). He resigned, and accepted a severance payment of around £100,000.
Alastair accepted a post as assitant political editor at Today; the post just vacated by David Seymour. He had John Major in his sights and he gave no quarter, referring to him as "the piece of lettuce that passes for Prime Minister" and calling him "a second-rate, shallow, lying little toad of a man." He also claimed that Major tucked his shirt into his underpants, though Edwina says it's just plain pants.
John Smith died of a heart attack on 12 May 1994, and the Evil Troll became Labour Party leader.
The Evil Troll had known Alastair since 1985, and had been taking his advice on how to handle the press since at least 1989. The Blairs and the Campbell-Millars had holidayed together in 1993 and Alastair had supported ET during the leadership election, writing his campaign leaflet. So the ET interrupted the Campbell family holiday in Provence and persuaded Alastair to take a £25,000 pay cut to become his press secretary and spokesman. This appointment was announced at the TUC's annual conference that September in Blackpool.
"Why did Tony want me to do the job in the first place? Because he knows that I'm Labour to my fingertips, he knows that I've got a capacity for very hard work, I can work phenomenally hard for phenomenal periods of time, he knows that I'm committed, he knows that I've got drive and energy and creativity, right?"
At that year's Labour Party Conference, the Party's change of approach was memorably signalled - 'New Labour, New Britain'. The Evil Troll also announced his intention to ruthlessly modernise Labour Party politics, scrapping Clause IV of the party constitution. This would remove Labour's commitment to 'the common ownership of the means of production' and leave the way open for the continued privatisation of public services. Alastair held back the final three pages of this speech from the copies given to journalists, only distributing them as the ET got to his feet. The surprise announcement left journos stunned and ensured headlines the next day.
In 1995 Clause IV was rewritten and New Labour became a party of the free market and the middle classes.
Now that Labour was giving the people what they thought they wanted, Alastair needed to show the country that rather than being an Evil Troll, the Party leader was just a normal, down-to-earth guy. Enter Kevin Keegan, just in time to play football with ET at the 1995 party conference in Brighton. Cue favourable TV coverage in the evening news bulletins.
Whilst some party members were worried about the reliance on spin doctors and the new strict discipline, there was general approval of the direction in which the party was moving. Under the Road the the Manifesto process, party members were balloted on party policy, leading to five key policy pledges being adopted: reducing class sizes; fast track punishment for young offenders; cutting NHS waiting lists; reducing youth unemployment; and maintaining low inflation.
But Alastair felt unable to spin absolutely everything. When Harriet Harman, one of ET's most enthralled followers, was criticised by the press for sending her son to a private school (almost the entire Labour Party opposed private education), Alastair was faced with a quandry. He and Fiona vehemently support state education, but the Evil Troll was keen to keep Harman as a central member of the Shadow Cabinet. Alastair also found that ET had known about the situation since the previous winter, but had kept it secret. So he did a runner and conveniently disappeared. The Labour Party PR offensive collapsed, and though Harman was reprieved, she was picked off later. It's probably the last time Alastair put his own principles before the good of the Party.
Alastair was determined that Labour would never again suffer a media savaging. Along with Peter Mandelson he coordinated the 1997 Labour General Election campaign and together they convinced the country that New Labour was no longer a party of 'tax and spend', that John Major's gvernment was drowning in a mire of sleaze, and that only Labour could be relied upon to be 'tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime'. Alastair was not above intervening personally when journalists ran stories which were unhelpful to the campaign, but most importantly he continued to woo Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Sun and press baron: his News International owned 30 per cent of British newspaper circulation, and he was vital to Labour's election plans.
Murdoch papers received exclusive articles from Tony Blair from as early as August 1994. They were usually written by Alastair, although eventually the workload was too great for one person. Alastair favoured Sun jounalists and spared them the worst of his scorn. The Sun was always the first with a New Labour exclusive. And then Alastair slapped the Labour-supporting Mirror in the teeth. In 1996, Mirror editor Piers 'Morgan' Moron got hold of a copy of Kenneth Clarke's budget on the eve of budget day, an enormous scoop. Rather than publishing, Moron virtuously handed it back to Downing Street, but not-so-virtuously leaked some of the contents to Labour, to help Gordon Brown. So you can imagine he wasn't best pleased to read all his leaks in the Sun the next morning. Moron has hated Alastair ever since.
Murdoch switched his support, Labour's election win was a landslide, and all the spin and modernisation appeared to have been justified. Alastair was made the Evil Troll's chief press secretary; but already there were rumours that when the Prime Minister spoke, it was Alastair's words; when he moved it was his press secretary who pulled the strings.
From the earliest moments of Blair's first day in office, Alistair's influence was apparent. In the small hours of May 1st, the Evil Troll flew down from his Sedgefield constituency and arrived just before dawn at the Festival Hall, where Labour celebrations were taking place. Alistair had phoned the Meteorological Office to find out the exact timing of daybreak and held back the Prime Minister-elect's car until the appropriate moment. There was no point, he said, in the Prime Minister-elect making a speech about the dawn of a new age in the dark. And you didn't think those cheering crowds outside Downing Street happened spontaneously did you?
When the Labour cabinet met for the first time, the new era in British politics was summed up by the Evil Troll's decision that minister's call him by his first name. Did I say the ET's decision? Sorry, make that Alastair's.
A commonly repeated story tells how a Fleet Street photographer was sent to get a photograph of the Blairs shortly after the election victory. As he set them up for a cheesy nose-to-nose shot, Alastair walked unto the room and yelled, 'what the hell do you think you're doing?' The photographer turned, expecting to get an ear-bending, but found that Alastair was actually talking to the Prime Minister.
Another time, during a visit to the offices of the Guardian, as Alastair sat listening to the Evil Troll speaking to a group of journalists, he slouched in the editor's chair and put his feet on his desk in an attitude that apparently radiated contempt. Unfortunately, all I can think of now is those long legs, dunno how I'm supposed to write a serious piece of political analysis.....
Alastair Campbell’s position was certainly different from his predecessors. They had come from a civil service background whereas his was a political appointment. They had been prevented from getting involved in party politics by Civil Service rules. Alastair was not. He was an increasingly influential member of the close circle of staff Blair relied on for advice, having far more influence than his job title suggested. He directed Civil Servants, even though he was not a minister (the Evil Troll had passed an order to allow this on his election victory), and had control of the lobby system. This system allowed a small group of accredited journalists privileged access to the Prime Minister’s spokesman, and meant that Alastair wielded huge power over the media. No wonder he was sometimes referred to as "the real Deputy Prime Minister".
What's most interesting about all of this is that contrary to the popular belief that the Evil Troll was Alastair's puppet, it would seem that Alastair believes in a more traditional form of Labour politics than Blair: certainly Fiona Millar (grrrr) has spoken in opposition of Labour policy on education. So my take on this is that Alastair was all the time doing his best to protect the Labour government and get across its message in a media-friendly way, regardless of what his own beliefs may or may not have been. Whilst we might now deplore sound-bite politics, he was doing what he had to do, because the alternative would always be Tory.
So-called 'New Labour English' came about as a means to an end; a way of communicating difficult policies through key phrases. The Evil Troll's speeches, and maybe even his off-the-cuff remarks, were drafted for him. Labour MPs were kept in line and on-message by pagers rather than Whips. And when things went wrong Alastair was Mr Fix-it. "Tony needs a hard man, and that’s what I am."
He'd end up being his fall-guy too.
