Former No10 spin doctor joins the Glenda and Ken supporters

Campaign mastermind Alastair Campbell

THE General Election will be held before June 4, because Alastair Campbell, who is masterminding the Labour Party’s election campaign, plans to travel to the Southern hemisphere for the British Lions rugby tour, which starts on that day.
Mr Campbell confirmed the worst kept political secret in Britain at Burgh House in Hampstead on Thursday when he was interviewed by the Friends of the House’s chairman - and Campbell’s Gospel Oak neighbour - Matthew Lewin.
A sell-out audience filled the house’s music room to hear Mr Campbell talk about his early days, his time at Number 10, the nature of spin and how Burnley versus Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup is the sporting event of the century. He fielded tough questions from the audience, including a grilling over the government’s intelligence dossiers on Iraq.
He revealed that he admired his former boss’s bete noire, Mr Campbell’s constituency MP Glenda Jackson.
He said: “I would like Glenda Jackson to be re-elected.
“I’d be happier if she supported the government’s policies but you do want to be challenged, and I would always rather have a Labour MP than a Conservative one. I will vote for her. She does a good job.”
He also had kind words for another Labour rebel, London Mayor Ken Livingstone. He said: “I was sceptical about him being mayor, but he has done a good job.”
The argument over comments Mr Livingstone made to a reporter also drew tacit support.
Mr Campbell said of the Mayor: “One of the reasons he is popular is because he says what he thinks. He has every right to feel aggrieved when some papers attack him. But I think in his quiet moments he must regret what he said, and perhaps he should just say sorry and move on.”
Mr Campbell, who for 10 years was Tony Blair’s chief press secretary, revealed how he got the job.
He said: “On the day John Smith died, I was in a car coming back from the BBC. My phone rang with the news and I knew instantly Tony Blair was going to be the next leader of the Labour Party, and that I was going to work for him.”
It was a job, when offered, he accepted instantly. He said his time at Cambridge University, where he read modern languages, shaped his politics.
He had always been left leaning and believed education was a way of improving opportunities, but his experience at an elite university underlined his political views.
He said: “There were people and attitudes there I did not like. There was not equality of opportunity.”
He added: “I knew Tony Blair before he was PM and I liked him. I like him even more now I know what the job of being Prime Minster entails.”
Mr Campbell said he felt a lot of the criticism he attracted from sections of the media – “from the Daily Mail, which I despise” – was due to his former role as a reporter.
He said: “It’s the case of the poacher turned gamekeeper. When I got the job, I had to call my friends in the press and tell them clearly that our relationship had to change.”
He added: “The political media do not see their job as covering straight politics, it’s about deconstructing politicians and making life as tough as possible.
“Most papers used to give some straight coverage of what was being said in Parliament and leave the comment to the editorial pages. But not any more.
“The big media change has to be the fusion of news and comment.”
And the audience were keen to give him a tough time over the Iraq war.
Asked about intelligence said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and whether he told the truth over the Dr David Kelly affair, Mr Campbell said: “I know what I did and I know what I did not do. To have a situation of being blamed for the death of someone you have never met is awful. I had protesters and the press on my doorstep, which I didn’t mind - it was the reasons why they were there I didn’t like.”