This is a dark and paranoid book. Campbell is troubled by an attentive valet while on a trip to India, and concludes he is either a spy, or in the pay of the newspapers. There is no humour and very little lightness of touch. Campbell perceives threats everywhere, and hates or despises many of the people with whom he comes into contact. He is contemptuous of most Cabinet ministers, though Clare Short and Mo Mowlam come off worst. Gordon Brown is a constant menace. Above all, Campbell hates journalists. Adam Boulton, political editor of Sky News, is called a ‘c***’. So is Jonathan Oliver, lobby correspondent of the Mail on Sunday. Paul Eastham of the Daily Mail is a ‘silly f*****’, while Matthew Parris gets away with being a ‘little s***’ and Simon Jenkins is merely a ‘total w*****’. Roy Hattersley is a ‘fat, pompous b*****’ and Bernard Ingham, Campbell’s predecessor as Downing Street press secretary, is a ‘silly old f*****’. There is nothing feigned about all this hatred, which amounts to an extreme form of self-loathing, because Campbell is nothing more or less than a journalist himself.
His allies in the press corps come off even worse, however. Andrew Marr — described as ‘OK’ — escapes lightly. So do Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Wade, editor of the Sun. But Campbell tells how he all but dictated a front-page story to the political editor of the Times: ‘The words went to Webster, the spin was applied, and away we went.’ Campbell describes handing a scoop to Tony Bevins, political editor of the Observer: ‘I told him what it was, and I saw tears welling up in his eyes. Are you serious? I said I was. I love you, he said, and I love him. I want to kiss you.’ So much for the feral media.
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