What Campbell's diaries tell you about the Blair years

Have been cross-eyed reading the Campbell diaries - there are more than 750 pages. Others will look for the stories, I am sure, so I have been trying to read it for themes, for what it tells you about the Blair Government. I am particularly looking forward to Peter Riddell's take.

In the meantime here are a few of my thoughts:

The centrality of Blair. The diaries show that Blair was the chief strategist, driving the party on and always more notably centrist and big tent than the team around him (with the possible exception of Philip Gould). Without him Labour will be very different and inevitably more partisan and aggressive. The best glimpse into his mind provided by the diary is when Blair is asked what gives him his edge. "I'm less Labour than the rest of you," he replied.

The discipline. That traditional figures in the Labour Party - Neil Kinnock, Robin Cook, John Prescott, Jim Callaghan - were all, at times, very unhappy with new Labour but in a disciplined way kept their reservations quiet. An early story involving a row with a violently angry Neil Kinnock shows how bad things got at points. Yet in public there was very little of this. It suggests that by 1994 Labour simply wanted it more badly than many Tories do now.

The centrality of Northern Ireland. I suppose we knew this up to a point, but it is fascinating just how much time the PM spent on peace in Ireland. There is page after page, after page.

The seething and resentful Gordon Brown. Alastair does his best, but he can't hide tensions with Mr Brown, nor avoid completely making our new PM look, ahem, a little driven.

The centrality of exhaustion and Fiona. Right from the word go there is tension between Alastair's desire to be with his family and the back-breaking nature of the work. This is a big theme of the book. Fiona, his partner, was clearly unhappy with the time he was spending and the nature of new Labour.

It's impossible for a press secretary to delegate that much. I think the constant physical and emotional pull produced by being on call 24 hours-a-day and 7 days-a-week, when you've young children and an intelligent, articulate partner who doesn't fully approve, is an important explanation of Labour's press relations.

Over time Campbell's tensions, surprisingly high even when he starts, turned to anger and resentment at the interruptions and what he saw as the obtuseness of the press. In the end, I think the exhaustion got to Blair too.

Comments

[John Charlesworth]

I suspect the constant adrenaline fix and the Ego trip, that being in the spotlight and in power brings on, wore them both down.

They need a rest!