The Blair Years: The Alastair Campbell Diaries [DECKLE EDGE] (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Tony Blair was one of Great Britain's youngest and longest-serving Prime Ministers, and Campbell was Blair's Press Secretary from 1994 to 2003, accompanying Blair through his initial, hugely succesful campaign for Prime Minister, the reform of the Labour Party, the death of Princess Diana, the Clinton presidency, 9/11 and the war in Iraq. The style of Campbell's diaries, full of shorthand and acronyms ("TB" for Tony Blair, "BC" for Bill Clinton), takes some getting used to but pays off in immediacy and candor; rather than a polished account of events, Campbell gives readers refreshingly unvarnished impressions of what occurred at the time it was occurring, free of spin or second-guessing. People behave badly-swearing, losing tempers, perspiring, dressing inappropriately and lusting after women-and political fortunes, as well as marriages, suffer the strain. Appearances by Bill Clinton (in the midst of the Lewinsky fallout) are remarkable for the vulnerability they reveal, and the arrangements for Diana's funeral, made by the Blair cabinet and the Royal Family together, exhibit a fascinating mix of compassion and calculation (Blair comments, shrewdly, "She will become an icon straight away. She will live on as an icon.") As readers watch Blair navigate the shoals of political life, they, like the author, will emerge admiring him, and appreciating the frank and ultimately flattering portrait that Campbell provides.
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From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Martin Kettle

Superficially, Alastair Campbell may seem more an American political type than a British one. Traditionally, the 10 Downing Street press secretary was -- and under Gordon Brown is once again -- an anonymous career civil servant. Tony Blair's larger than life press secretary, by contrast, was a partisan warrior spokesman of a kind more familiar in Washington.

Yet Campbell was forged in a specifically British crucible. Battle-hardened as a tabloid political reporter, he was brought into government by the newly elected prime minister in May 1997 with a mission to stop the British media -- which only this year Blair described as a "feral beast" -- from doing to his Labor government what it had done to John Major's defeated Conservatives.

Campbell remained on the job for more than six years, a key confidant and a massively controversial figure, as obsessed by the media as the media were obsessed by him. He quit in August 2003, as Blair's domestic popularity started to dim in the aftermath of the Iraq war, but their mutual dependency continued. When Campbell left Downing Street for the last time, Blair said to him, in words that illuminate something about both men: "You do realize I will phone you every day, don't you?"

From early in the Blair era it was an open secret that Campbell was keeping a diary and, more recently, that he would go into print with it as soon as Blair left Downing Street, which the former premier finally did on June 27. Initial expectations in the London political world were immense, not least because Campbell mischievously referred to the diary as his pension plan. Later, those expectations were heavily discounted after it became clear that the book, already reduced to less than 20 percent of the original material, was heavily self-censored.

The published version reportedly has been purged of most of the entries that might show Brown in a bad light (though the new prime minister does not appear glowingly in what remains), might upset the Bush administration (likewise), might distress Cherie Blair and her children, or might indicate Campbell spent much of his time bad-mouthing reporters. In its British edition, The Blair Years is accurately described on the cover as "Extracts from the Alastair Campbell diaries." For the U.S. edition, the publisher has removed the important reference to extracts.

Campbell's book must therefore be read with care. It is not the full, unexpurgated, inside story of the Blair era. For that we must wait at least until Campbell publishes the whole text -- which is unlikely as long as Labor remains in power. What we have got is both spun and doctored. Yet much remains, not least the author's -- and Blair's -- obsession with soccer (Manchester United coach Sir Alex Ferguson gets more references in these diaries than any of the journalists with whom Campbell spent most of his waking hours) and celebrity (Princess Diana was "absolutely, spell-bindingly, drop-dead gorgeous, in a way that the millions of photos didn't quite get"), and his expletive-filled language.

It would have been deeply misleading if Campbell's pungent English had been excised, too. Happily, it remains mostly intact, though some of Blair's expletives -- less frequent to begin with -- apparently have been removed. In an August 2003 entry, Campbell records being instructed to turn over part of his manuscript to Lord Hutton's inquiry into the suicide of British defense scientist David Kelly. With tensions mounting over Iraq, Blair telephones from vacation to be told that there is "a fair bit of bad language" in the sections handed to Hutton. The premier is alarmed. " 'How much?' A fair bit. '[Verb]?' Yes. '[Noun]?' Probably, can't remember. 'Bloody hell, Alastair.' "

Yet even with these cautions, this is beyond question the most important and revelatory book so far written about the inner workings of Blair's government. Along with Brown, strategist Peter Mandelson and pollster Philip Gould, Campbell was at the heart of the New Labor project that transformed an ailing party that had lost four successive British general elections into a dominant party that won the next three and may yet win more. After 1997, he was at Blair's side in Downing Street through all the key events -- from the death of Princess Diana to Kelly's suicide, the ebbs and flows of the Northern Ireland peace process, and selling the government's foreign strategy, with increasing desperation, from Kosovo to Iraq.

Visits to Washington and dealings with U.S. administrations inevitably figure large in his account. Campbell was dazzled by Bill Clinton, spooked by Dick Cheney, and respectful (at least in the published version) of George W. Bush, with whom he discussed drinking problems (Campbell's was worse than the president's), running and God (Campbell is a believer in the former and a non-believer in the latter). Visiting this newspaper with Blair in 1996, he found chairman Katharine Graham "impressive" and the editorial board "very right-wing."

By turns arrogant, brilliant, combative, demotic and emotional, Campbell delivers his impressions and verdicts in a wholly committed, staccato style. It is an earthy account of life in the Blair government's 24/7 media-centric world. As Campbell might say, he doesn't do reflection.

As with so much of Blair's career, the big question raised by this book is whether Blair's approach to politics was a paradigm for others to follow or an aberration for others to avoid. Whether governments can keep the modern media at arm's length, as Brown, borrowing from the Bush White House, is now trying to do, or whether they are doomed to scrap it out, is a crucial question.

Campbell's diaries scream that the daily combat is inescapable. His career suggests it will end in tears. Watching the media coverage of Campbell's last day in No. 10, Gould observed that "You'd have thought the Pope had died." Campbell's own view of the media, however, was less elevated: "God, I hate these people." They could carve those words on his tombstone.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 816 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (July 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307268314
• ISBN-13: 978-0307268310
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #508,872 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brings it all back, September 11, 2007

By	Mark O'Neill "International Man of Mystery" (Boston) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Until Tony Blair himself publishes his account of his time in office, this has to be the next best thing. Although most of the daily entries are short, it conveys the mood. Sunday morning confabs to determine the appropriate response to a breaking story, speechwriting on airplanes, careful feeding of information to journalists, it is all here. I found myself thinking " *that's* how they did it".

There are also many amusing/bizarre anecdotes such as Campbell walking in on Mo Mowlan in the bath.

The Diana parts felt set up to me. We hear about how she wanted to meet Campbell, then they met, she asks for him later, and then of course her crash and death. His affection for her seems somewhat overblown, and it says something of his reputation that I found myself believing his portrayal in "The Queen", coldly feeding the "People's Princess" line to Blair, more than his own diaries. The cartoonish version of Campbell as the arch spin doctor is now a cultural fixture of its own, turning up not only in "The Queen" but in books like "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen". I wonder what Campbell must think about that.

Ambition and rivaly are never far from the surface. When describing Blair's lengths football header session with Kevin Keegan, Campbell is careful to note that it was easier than it seemed, since "of course a professional like Keegan can head the ball towards a target in the same way most of us can throw it, so it wasn't that difficult."

I found it amusing that Campbell goes out of his way not to to use the word "spin". I expect that he became thoroughly sick of hearing that word.

Note that this is "Extracts from" Alastair Campbell's diaries. The really secret stuff is, well, secret.

16 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You decide, August 3, 2007

By	Joseph P. Naughton (Bronx, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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We'll see in a hundred years if Blair's leadership was meaningful, a bridge or a failure. Until then the book allows us to see a side that we have not had an opportunity to study yet - if you want to see it. If you don't, then you've already decided history, I guess, which is a brave thing.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Blair must, September 8, 2009

By	Melissa J. Waldo (Joplin, MO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am really into Tony Blair and am especially fascinated with his dealings with the War on
Terror. I wrote a research paper on that very subject and checked this book out from a library as a source. I like it because the information is first-hand, straight from the confines of Number 10. I enjoy reading about Blair and made this the first "chronicle" really, to my Blair library. It's an easy read, though long, because of the journal entry-like style. It's also really gritty, not polished over like many things you might read about someone in government. It's fantastic.