No one expected this day to come – but here we are. Alastair Campbell, former Labour spinner and full-time Tony Blair fanboy, has – possibly for the first time ever – admitted his ex-boss and forever idol did actually get something wrong. Talk about a curveball!
Speaking on the latest episode of his podcast with Rory Stewart, The Rest is Politics, Campbell revealed the one thing on which he did not see eye to eye to with Blair. Responding to a listener question on the ex-Labour PM’s remarks that ‘it’s hard to see what the objective reasons’ are for Britain now ‘spending vastly more on mental health’ than in the past, the former spin doctor turned on his friend:
I didn’t actually like what he said – and I think at a time when we’re struggling to keep mental health properly on the NHS agenda, and I think we’re going backwards in terms of the media debate around mental health as well.
Campbell didn’t stop there. Slamming his old boss’s intervention for not being ‘very helpful’, the podcaster described how the pair fell out over Blair’s description of his ex-spinner’s ‘craziness’ in his autobiography.
He goes on to say: ‘In my experience there are two types of crazy people. Those who are just crazy and are therefore dangerous and those whose craziness lends them creativity, strength, ingenuity and verve. Alastair was of the latter sort.’
I called him out for that at the time because I just think it misunderstands what we mean when we’re talking about mental illness… I think one of Tony’s great strengths is a kind of optimism and a vibrancy in the way that he looks at like, but I think there’s a danger that he doesn’t understand that for a lot of people, depression is real, anxiety is real.
In a podcast usually filled to the brim with Blairite bootlicking and gushing praise about the former Labour PM’s time in office, Campbell’s deviation comes as a rather welcome surprise. Will it last? Don’t hold your breath…
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