Oh dear. It seems that the king of spin’s onetime winning touch has deserted him. The omnipresent Alastair Campbell popped up again on Newsnight to continue his latest ‘forever war’ – this time the never-ending crusade against Brexit. Campbell was up against Alex Phillips, the former MEP, and managed in the space of just seven minutes to patronise both her and the host Victoria Derbyshire in an astonishingly ill-judged performance.
Following a barrage of Campbell’s huffing and puffing, Phillips remarked on the irony of how ‘It’s very rich a man who essentially was part of telling lies to invade a country to accuse me of dishonesty.’ Campbell sneered ‘I think you may have lost the argument there, my dear, if I may patronise you even more’ before raising his voice and turning on Derbyshire: ‘You bring these people on, you never challenge them. You let them talk utter rubbish about Brexit. And it’s happened on the BBC for year, after year.’
An admirably cool Derbyshire retorted that ‘I am not going to take that from you, with respect Mr Campbell’ to which the onetime Downing Street spin doctor retorted ‘Fine!’ like a sulky adolescent. Finger-jabbing, raised voices and a patronising tone? Good thing he’s not a Cabinet minister, otherwise some in the Labour party might call that bullying.
Given his current behaviour and past reputation, Mr S wonders at what point the Europhiles cut ties with angry Al Campbell. Surely he’s now doing more harm than good..?
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