Reshuffling ministers annually is no way to govern
‘Annual reshuffles are crazy,’ remarked one of the prime minister’s most trusted advisers in July 1999 as I hovered outside…
Alan Johnson: the rock and roll years
We’ve had Alan Johnson the lad from the slums of north Kensington, Alan Johnson the postman and Alan Johnson Member…
Alastair Campbell’s mix of football and terrorism makes for an accomplished thriller
Alastair Campbell is a man of many parts. Journalist, spin doctor extraordinaire, diarist and now novelist. For this, his third…
Welcome to the age of media feeding frenzies
Tabloid-style hysteria has infected political news coverage
Don’t hold your breath for my follow-up to A Very British Coup
To the Business School at the University of Edinburgh to be interviewed on the theme of ‘Great Political Disasters’. Main…
Jeremy Corbyn for PM?
He could follow in the footsteps of Harry Perkins
What’s next for Comrade Corbyn?
‘Ah, Jeremy,’ remarked Tony Blair at a smart dinner party in Islington not long before he became prime minister, ‘he…
Chris Mullin’s diary: The unexpected wisdom of Donald Trump
While browsing in Barter Books, the wonderful secondhand bookshop in Alnwick that is fast becoming a national institution, I came…
Chris Mullin’s diary: Murdoch’s men couldn’t face even a fictional Corbyn victory
With four days to go until the result of Labour’s leadership election, a call from the Sunday Times. Would I…
Keeping the lid on
For all of the nine years that he worked, first as official spokesman for Tony Blair and then as Director of Communications for the government, Alastair Campbell was obliged to defend a huge lie: that all was well at the heart of the New Labour project when, manifestly, it was not.
‘It’s the PM for you.’
Chris Mullin MP offers prospective junior ministers a survival guide to the ‘foothills’ of government