Interview: Alastair Campbell

“I hear that’s a good read.”

Leafing through Alastair Campbell’s debut novel in a Glasgow cafe, it’s only when he taps me on the shoulder that I realise the man at the adjacent table is the author himself. But then, Tony Blair’s former director of communications has always liked to blend into the background.

During almost a decade as the Labour party’s spin doctor-in-chief, Campbell cultivated an intimidating reputation as an “attack dog,” a bullying, Machiavellian figure who provided the “bad cop” routine to counterbalance Blair’s fresh-faced charm. It’s a surprise, then, to see him cut so mellow a figure as he willingly chews the fat with this student hack over the ensuing half-hour. Five years after his departure from a job that saw him dubbed “the real deputy prime minister,” Campbell has the air of a man enjoying a new lease of life.

“I just don’t want to do a full-time job at the moment,” he says, as he recounts the formidable workload he endured on the political front line. “I mean, I didn’t really do anything else; work, taxi, home – that’s all I did. I didn’t have a social life outside of that.”

The pressures of a life in politics are conspicuously present in Campbell’s novel, All in the Mind, which features an alcoholic cabinet minister alongside a troubled psychiatrist and a Kosovan rape victim in a thoroughly readable treatment of mental illness. As a former alcoholic who has battled depression for over 20 years, this is familiar territory for Campbell. While he has readily discussed his troubles, I suggest, there must be many more politicians who live in fear of similar problems becoming public knowledge.

“It’s inevitable,” he agrees. “It’s difficult to admit vulnerability in those jobs where you’re expected to understand everything, have all the answers. Maybe we put people in an absurd position because they’re expected to be too good at what they do.”

Given Campbell’s tempestuous relationship with journalists—a profession he once accused of following a “mission to discredit politicians”—I can guess what’s coming. “I think it’s the media, to be honest – there’s no give at all. They really have got into a mindset where the only story they can do has got to be a bad story about a politician. Our negativity is so gross.”

Campbell knows all about negative press, of course. In May 2003, he was accused by the BBC of “sexing up” reports on Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, in order to strengthen the case for an invasion of Iraq. Campbell was cleared of misconduct – but before the year was out, his full-time political career was at an end. In any case, the invasion happened. Was it worth it?

Campbell’s eyes drop as he kneads the back of his neck – the first occasion on which he betrays any sign of discomfort. “Well, it was certainly very, very difficult. And it’s taken longer than people hoped or expected. Two things I’d say: the first is that politics is not done in hindsight; it’s done here and now, and the decision to be taken had to be taken then.

“And the second thing: I think, long-term, I could see a situation where historians do look back and say, that was the beginning of a more peaceful, stable Middle East. Now there’s a long way to go on that...” He pauses. “It was never black and white. It’s never, ever been black and white.”

It was Iraq that spelled the end of Blair’s honeymoon with the British public, as voters fumed at his perceived pandering to an American agenda. Campbell’s eyes blaze briefly at my mention of the familiar “poodle” jibe, but he quickly suppresses the pugnacious instinct. “Look, the idea that the British prime minister would send troops to war because a foreign leader wanted him to – it doesn’t work like that. He knew it was unpopular, he knew that there was a lot of opposition, he knew that the ‘Bush’s poodle’ line was around. But however difficult the politics, he thought it was the right thing to do.”

And Bush? “On a personal level, he’s so not like the caricature. Well...he is and he isn’t. There’s a warmth and a humanity about him that really doesn’t come across in his public perception. He’s very funny, he’s very self-deprecating; a lot more likeable than people would ever imagine.”

These generous words for old friends come as no surprise – even Campbell’s bitterest critics are forced to admit his unflinching loyalty. His devotion to Labour this autumn saw him take up an unpaid role assisting Gordon Brown – a move that raised eyebrows, given the pair’s famously tense relationship. “If you read my diaries, sometimes it’s tricky, it’s tough,” admits Campbell, who continues to deny having labelled Brown “psychologically flawed.”

“But the bottom line becomes: who do you want to be prime minister, Gordon Brown or David Cameron? I think Cameron has been just incredibly flaky. When we were in opposition, when we had these big international events happening, we had to have answers.” (Campbell is back in full, snarling attack dog mode now.) “But he won’t do any of that. He just sort of wafts around. All the Tories have got really is, ‘Time for a change.’ They’ve got no positive platform to put forward.”

While Brown’s handling of the financial crisis has won him international acclaim, most opinion polls still give Cameron's Tories an intimidating lead – but Campbell is cautiously optimistic. “It’s still winnable for Labour. I think the most important thing is that the Labour party from top to bottom really engages in it now. I don’t find it difficult to persuade people that the Labour party is not divided.”

But Campbell’s confident, cohesive New Labour of a decade ago—perhaps the slickest political machine in British history—is now a distant memory. “Farewell, New Labour,” cries The Economist, as the government tears up its economic agenda in a bid to alleviate the looming recession. Campbell brushes away such obituaries like a proud father defending his child.

“I do think it’s still New Labour. The basic objective of New Labour was to marry a rigorous approach to the economy with the belief that that could deliver social justice. That’s all it is really. That’s what we tried to do.” History will judge whether Campbell succeeded. And for all his insistence that his front-line days are over, one feels there are a few chapters still to be written.