Alastair Campbell is a Survivor
Alastair Campbell plays a ruthless game - and generally he wins. Is Alastair Campbell on the ropes? His primary enemies at Associated Newspapers think so. They are piling on the pressure, with stories about a rift between him and the Blairs, after his robust defence of his own position during Cheriegate.
Is Alastair Campbell on the ropes? His primary enemies at Associated Newspapers think so. They are piling on the pressure, with stories about a rift between him and the Blairs, after his robust defence of his own position during Cheriegate. The Tories' Oliver Letwin believes Campbell can be tied to discussions over the deportation of Peter Foster, and is pushing for an inquiry. Iain Duncan Smith's burly press officer, Mike Penning, has got in on the act, challenging Campbell to a boxing match. Penning, an ex-policeman, can no doubt see the headlines now: "Campbell KO'd!"
But Campbell himself is unconcerned, betraying more worry over whether or not he'll finish the marathon, for which he's training hard. He describes the current spate of attacks on him as merely "cyclical". In one sense, he must know that they are a high form of praise, for he is now regarded as the most valuable scalp for the government's enemies to slice off, short of Tony Blair himself.
Indeed, the No 10 analysis sees a pattern to the attacks. After the fall of people close to Blair, such as Stephen Byers and Peter Mandelson - and Campbell's hand was bloodied then too - the plan was always to get the spinmeister next. The original excitement surrounding the Cherie affair was not about her, since the prime minister's wife could hardly resign, but about proving that Campbell and his team had lied. Removing Campbell from public life would have been a tremendous coup: he has been so important to Blair for so long that surely New Labour's emperor would be fatally weakened too.
We can never be sure what will happen to the bagpiper this year. Downing Street politics is court politics, a slippery and dangerous little game. Looking at newspaper reports, it's clear that some senior civil servants are now briefing against Campbell, as well as the usual mix of Brownite ministers and influential backbenchers. But he has played this game with ruthless success for more than five years. Although he has been nosing around for the right job "after Downing Street", he shows no sign of having found it yet. After all, as one colleague points out, where else would he wield such power?
More to the point is the battered state of his media strategy itself. In the early days of New Labour, he really did seem a puppet-master. Different papers were briefed in different ways. Favours were granted or denied. The press was more supportive of Blair then than it had ever been for a Labour leader or a Labour prime minister. But long since, the puppets cut their strings and revolted. Today the press has never been more hostile - not even in the dark days of Callaghan's struggling administration.
Campbell lost Labour's once staunchest supporter, the Daily Mirror, which is now vitriolic. The early flirtation with the Daily Mail collapsed long ago, and it is now violently, almost insanely, angry with the Blairs and everything they do. The Telegraph was never with them in the first place, and minuscule effort was made to keep the liberal broadsheets onside. But it had all been a price worth paying, in Campbell's mind, for his greatest coup, the winning over of the Murdoch empire - above all, the Sun.
Yet with the departure this week of its editor, David Yelland, that too is now crumbling. The new incumbent, Rebekah Wade, used to be a close friend of Cherie but fell out over Carole Caplin. Her first editorial would have made ominous reading for Number 10, declaring that "it's time to say we're very disappointed" over New Labour's failures on crime, education, welfare, health, tax and immigration. It concluded: "The big smile and the warm words are wearing thin, Prime Minister." This leaves open the prospect of every single mass-market paper being hostile to the government - hardly a great triumph for the country's most famous spin doctor.
To read the foaming conspiracy theorists of the right and left, this is all Alastair Campbell's fault. His cynicism, his "lie machine", his ruthless bullying of innocent journalists, his lust for power, have all come home to roost. He is the worm in the rosebud, the maggot in the Labour apple, the sneering snake in a socialist Eden. He was ready to brief against anyone, stick the knife in, say anything - and now he has been rumbled.
I hold no brief for Campbell - he's as rude to me as to every other journalist, regarding us all as noxious vermin. But as serious political analysis, all this is breathtakingly naive. For, if you look across the landscape today, the real story is not failure, but the awesome and perhaps dangerous success of Tony Blair's electoral strategy. He and Campbell devised the notion of New Labour as a "big tent" centre party, constantly able to frustrate its parliamentary enemies. And it has worked.
With an unpopular war looming, the economy in trouble, taxes up, violent crime up, the fire strike and little sign of success in public services, you would have expected the government to be facing strong electoral challenges by now from both left and right. But what has happened? The Liberal Democrats, the obvious left challengers, finally gearing up over Iraq, find it hard to pose a wider leftist threat because they need to win in Tory areas to stay in business. As for the Tories - they too are frozen, but this time by their wholehearted support for Blair's unpopular war. They cannot outflank him on the right when it comes to the overwhelming issue of the hour.
Yet politics thrives on challenge and the struggle for power. All the hostility and energetic opposition to Blair that should be bubbling through party politics has diverted into the media. If Rupert Murdoch is indeed moving the Sun to a more anti-government position, it will be because his most trusted lieutenants, such as that paper's political editor Trevor Kavanagh, have told him it's the only game in town. The spectacle of the media becoming the opposition may be unhealthy, compared to the old days; but it is inevitable and was made inevitable once Blair's wider strategy began to work.
Campbell is popularly blamed as the man who never takes the blame, ever the hatchet-man, never the hatcheted. Blair, by contrast, was painted as the grinning puppet, the amiable public school dolt manipulated by the cynic from Burnley. But this underestimates Blair himself, always the ultimate strategist, who since Campbell retired into the shadows has become his own frontman, as well as everything else.
And - I never thought I'd say this - it is unfair to Campbell. His own political instincts are to the left of Blair's. He bites his tongue as often as he savages anyone else. And now he is the fall guy, though far from KO'd yet. He was at a Westminster party this week, where Rory Bremner, doing a turn, told the guests he had to leave early because "I'm off to Alastair Campbell's leaving party". Campbell grinned broadly. One day it will happen, but I suspect it will at a time of his own, not his enemies', choosing.
But Campbell himself is unconcerned, betraying more worry over whether or not he'll finish the marathon, for which he's training hard. He describes the current spate of attacks on him as merely "cyclical". In one sense, he must know that they are a high form of praise, for he is now regarded as the most valuable scalp for the government's enemies to slice off, short of Tony Blair himself.
Indeed, the No 10 analysis sees a pattern to the attacks. After the fall of people close to Blair, such as Stephen Byers and Peter Mandelson - and Campbell's hand was bloodied then too - the plan was always to get the spinmeister next. The original excitement surrounding the Cherie affair was not about her, since the prime minister's wife could hardly resign, but about proving that Campbell and his team had lied. Removing Campbell from public life would have been a tremendous coup: he has been so important to Blair for so long that surely New Labour's emperor would be fatally weakened too.
We can never be sure what will happen to the bagpiper this year. Downing Street politics is court politics, a slippery and dangerous little game. Looking at newspaper reports, it's clear that some senior civil servants are now briefing against Campbell, as well as the usual mix of Brownite ministers and influential backbenchers. But he has played this game with ruthless success for more than five years. Although he has been nosing around for the right job "after Downing Street", he shows no sign of having found it yet. After all, as one colleague points out, where else would he wield such power?
More to the point is the battered state of his media strategy itself. In the early days of New Labour, he really did seem a puppet-master. Different papers were briefed in different ways. Favours were granted or denied. The press was more supportive of Blair then than it had ever been for a Labour leader or a Labour prime minister. But long since, the puppets cut their strings and revolted. Today the press has never been more hostile - not even in the dark days of Callaghan's struggling administration.
Campbell lost Labour's once staunchest supporter, the Daily Mirror, which is now vitriolic. The early flirtation with the Daily Mail collapsed long ago, and it is now violently, almost insanely, angry with the Blairs and everything they do. The Telegraph was never with them in the first place, and minuscule effort was made to keep the liberal broadsheets onside. But it had all been a price worth paying, in Campbell's mind, for his greatest coup, the winning over of the Murdoch empire - above all, the Sun.
Yet with the departure this week of its editor, David Yelland, that too is now crumbling. The new incumbent, Rebekah Wade, used to be a close friend of Cherie but fell out over Carole Caplin. Her first editorial would have made ominous reading for Number 10, declaring that "it's time to say we're very disappointed" over New Labour's failures on crime, education, welfare, health, tax and immigration. It concluded: "The big smile and the warm words are wearing thin, Prime Minister." This leaves open the prospect of every single mass-market paper being hostile to the government - hardly a great triumph for the country's most famous spin doctor.
To read the foaming conspiracy theorists of the right and left, this is all Alastair Campbell's fault. His cynicism, his "lie machine", his ruthless bullying of innocent journalists, his lust for power, have all come home to roost. He is the worm in the rosebud, the maggot in the Labour apple, the sneering snake in a socialist Eden. He was ready to brief against anyone, stick the knife in, say anything - and now he has been rumbled.
I hold no brief for Campbell - he's as rude to me as to every other journalist, regarding us all as noxious vermin. But as serious political analysis, all this is breathtakingly naive. For, if you look across the landscape today, the real story is not failure, but the awesome and perhaps dangerous success of Tony Blair's electoral strategy. He and Campbell devised the notion of New Labour as a "big tent" centre party, constantly able to frustrate its parliamentary enemies. And it has worked.
With an unpopular war looming, the economy in trouble, taxes up, violent crime up, the fire strike and little sign of success in public services, you would have expected the government to be facing strong electoral challenges by now from both left and right. But what has happened? The Liberal Democrats, the obvious left challengers, finally gearing up over Iraq, find it hard to pose a wider leftist threat because they need to win in Tory areas to stay in business. As for the Tories - they too are frozen, but this time by their wholehearted support for Blair's unpopular war. They cannot outflank him on the right when it comes to the overwhelming issue of the hour.
Yet politics thrives on challenge and the struggle for power. All the hostility and energetic opposition to Blair that should be bubbling through party politics has diverted into the media. If Rupert Murdoch is indeed moving the Sun to a more anti-government position, it will be because his most trusted lieutenants, such as that paper's political editor Trevor Kavanagh, have told him it's the only game in town. The spectacle of the media becoming the opposition may be unhealthy, compared to the old days; but it is inevitable and was made inevitable once Blair's wider strategy began to work.
Campbell is popularly blamed as the man who never takes the blame, ever the hatchet-man, never the hatcheted. Blair, by contrast, was painted as the grinning puppet, the amiable public school dolt manipulated by the cynic from Burnley. But this underestimates Blair himself, always the ultimate strategist, who since Campbell retired into the shadows has become his own frontman, as well as everything else.
And - I never thought I'd say this - it is unfair to Campbell. His own political instincts are to the left of Blair's. He bites his tongue as often as he savages anyone else. And now he is the fall guy, though far from KO'd yet. He was at a Westminster party this week, where Rory Bremner, doing a turn, told the guests he had to leave early because "I'm off to Alastair Campbell's leaving party". Campbell grinned broadly. One day it will happen, but I suspect it will at a time of his own, not his enemies', choosing.
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