UPDATED EVERY THURSDAY Thursday 19th August 2004 All content New Journal Enterprises, 2004

REVIEWS

BY ILLTYD HA RRINGTON

Labour saviours face tough verdict of history

The tide is turning against Blair and Campbell, despite two electoral triumphs, writes Illtyd Harrington A lastair Campbell by Peter Oborne and Simon Walters A urum Books 8.99 Tony Blair by Philip Stephens, Politicos 8.99 BLAIR and Cam pbell sound bland enough to be an old Victorian firm of gentlem en outfitters. O ne the sanctim onious m oral m an living a perpetual Sunday, the other a com bination of Al Capone and Rasputin, a m enacing floor-walk er snarling We Dont Do God. Westm insters version of the O dd Couple com es in two parts. Cam pbells two biographers are right wing hatchet m en while Blairs is the associate editor of the Financial Tim es and is calm and distant in contrast. Blairs rise and electoral success is phenom enal. Born in 1953 he joined the Labour Party in 1975, was elected for Sedgefield in 1983, becam e party leader in 1994 aged 40 and prim e m inister in 1997. Cam pbell was born in May 1957 and progressed effortlessly to university while Blair strum m ed his guitar in St Johns O x ford. Ali went off to Gonville and Caius College, Cam bridge, where he seem s to have engaged him self in the robust irreverent style of life but went on to get a very good degree. Neither m en showed any interest in politics, nationally or internationally. For them the late Harold W ilson had com e and gone. Blair, if anything, sees him self as a Gladstonian Liberal. Alis epiphany cam e after he m et his partner and fellow journalist Fiona and her fam ily. His political learning curve was steep and dram atic. A lastair Campbell. Below: Tony Blairs 1983 I saw it at close quarters. Bob Millar, an old Tribune m an, Fionas father, general election poster becam e his m entor. His dedication to the bottle, tediously docum ented, cam e to a sensational end in 1986. Thereafter an obsessive process of m ental and physical change began. At 31, he was the political editor of the Sunday Mirror. A year later he rose to becom e the political editor of the Daily Mirror. Neil Kinnock , leader of the opposition, m ade daily use of his developing gifts. Alastairs new choice of drug was politics. The defining year for the future prim e m inister and his head of com m unications cam e in 1994 when John Sm ith, the Labour leader, died suddenly. That very night Alastair, who lives in Gospel O ak , declared for Tony Blair when questioned by Jerem y Pax m an. Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, Cam pbell and Philip Gould were in place to tak e over the Labour party. W hile the solid rank s of O ld Labour turned up at Black pool for the annual conference in 1994 in which m agicians were at work along the seafront, Cam pbells appointm ent was announced and he brilliantly encapsulated their philosophy. New Labour New Britain. And for good m easure Clause IV was throttled in a sm ok e-filled room . John Prescott spluttered but they gave him a new cloth cap to rem ind him of his work ing class roots and sent him to the funeral of the lost ideal. May 1997 dawned and John Major had his m arching orders. Blair and Cherie m oved regally into Downing Street through an orchestrated, ecstatic crowd proceeded by Cam pbell who im m ediately took on the m ost entrenched forces of the civil service and intim idated them for the nex t six years. Blair at first seem ed enraptured while Cam pbell laid the foundation of a future presidential style. He proved a m aster builder. Power and control quick ly gravitated to Num ber 10. No one dared challenge his decisions not even Blair. Big Brother had arrived. The cabal form ed in 1994, k nown as Capital P5, virtually becam e the effective cabinet. Blair, Gordon Brown, Alastair Cam pbell, Peter Mandelson and Philip Gould. Parliam ents role dim inished and New Labours ideology took over. Sym bols lik e private finance initiatives were the m ystical stones. Gould convinced Blair of the parallel of the new Dem ocrats in the United States. It was a com forting philosophy em bracing liberalism as their natural ally. Roy Jenk ins and Thatcher both approved. The new century brought further trium phs in the June election of 2001. Labour again swept back to power and 70 per cent of the British press back ed it. Alastair had been successful but a dark cloud appeared over the golden horizon. Blair, a form er m em ber of CND, was in charge of the k eys to Britains nuclear weapons. George W Bush was elected president and Saddam Hussein, that evil genie, had clouded out of his bottle. Blairs relationship with Bill Clinton did not stand in the way when Bush drew us into his deadly conflict. Not even Churchill had been as fulsom e in his support of the United States. Blair flew 50,000 m iles pushing Bushs philosophy not very successfully. Cam pbell now suprem ely confident sat in at the intim ate heads of states m eetings. He even clashed with the deplorable vice president Dick Cheney. Then on the day of Blairs acclam ation by a joint session of congress on July 17 2003, scientist Dr David Kelly died in an O x fordshire wood. It was a shattering event. After non stop involvem ent for six years, Cam pbell left ex onerated by the Hutton Inquiry. The sub-plots and characters are interesting too. Sir Alex Ferguson, Robert Max well and Rupert Murdoch were all in Alastairs little black book . The bag-piper of Gospel O ak is a star while the verdict on Blair is awaited. These parallel lives are the stuff of our post-dem ocratic age. top

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