Alastair Campbell, by contrast, was at the centre. His comparatively lowly title of press secretary, enhanced to director of strategy and communications after 2001, gave no hint of his true importance. He spoke to the prime minister dozens of times a day. For long periods he and Tony Blair would see more of each other than of their immediate families. From 1998, the year that Campbell established personal dominance over his rival Peter Mandelson, he was to all intents and purposes the main political and strategic adviser to the prime minister. He maintained this status till 2003, when he hurriedly left Downing Street in the wake of the death of the government scientist David Kelly.
Normally a figure in this kind of dominant position would lack the time and the motivation to write a diary. However, Alastair Campbell was an extremely skilful tabloid journalist to whom words came easily. Second, and probably more important, he was a reformed alcoholic. Most busy people, at the end of a long and stressful day, simply lack the energy to compile a diary. If they are sensible they probably have a couple of drinks and unwind by putting their feet up in front of the TV. This option was not open to Campbell the teetotaller. He seems to have found his solace instead in setting down a record.
In his introduction, Campbell states that he wrote two million words, or perhaps more (not all of his entries have been transcribed from the A4 notebooks in which he scrawled his daily record, so he cannot yet be sure), during the nine years or so that he worked with Tony Blair. This is the equivalent of approximately 750 words a day. When all these words finally come to be published — and Campbell intends that they will be — these diaries will provide a very full portrait of the Blair years in power, of a depth and intimate knowledge that exists for no other major premiership. Jock Colville’s record of the Churchill government is the closest analogy, but Colville was a deferential and junior observer, not embroiled at the most
senior level of the central decision-making apparatus.
This means that the Campbell diaries have the potential to be an historical record of outstanding importance. Alastair Campbell did not merely control Tony Blair’s public image during the time that he was prime minister; he will also help to decide his legacy. These diaries will be a primary resource for historians, and play a luminous role in determining the way future generations interpret the Blair government. Campbell claims that his record will ‘paint a rounded picture of a man of enormous drive and vision, who was determined to use his time in power to make a difference, and brought about a lot of change for the better’. However, as he himself notes, the volume ‘is a diary, not a paean of praise’. The portrait that emerges of Blair is a rather peculiar one.
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