And another thing…

THERE are (too) many people who view Malcolm Tucker, the foul-mouthed, bullying spin-doctor of The Thick Of It, as identical in almost every way to Alastair Campbell, on whom the fictional character is allegedly based.

So deeply is their conviction that when Campbell seemed to break down momentarily on The Andrew Marr Show, he was accused of a clumsy attempt at audience manipulation.

I’ve only ever met Campbell on a few occasions, but was convinced each time that here was an entirely sincere and intelligent, if combative, individual with a fierce devotion to the Labour Party. He’s also someone who I don’t believe would offer his devotion and loyalty to anyone without good cause. His loyalty to Tony Blair was based on many years working closely with the former Prime Minister; Campbell judged that he was someone who deserved that loyalty.

Yet loyalty is only a part of the reason why Campbell continues to defend him. He genuinely believes that he and Blair acted honestly, courageously, honourably and in good faith.

It would be even more surprising if Campbell didn’t occasionally buckle under the tremendous pressure he has been subjected to over the years by a small section of the public and the great majority of the media.

His critics’ dismissal of Campbell’s “moment” as dishonest cynicism betrays not just their own lack of humanity, but their complete lack of human understanding.

TO MARK our success in the Total Politics Blog Poll, the top five Labour bloggers – Yours Truly, Hopi Sen, Alex Smith (out of Labourlist), Alastair Campbell and Luke Akehurst – got together earlier tonight for a celebratory drink.

Well, one thing led to another, and before we realised it we were getting into the spirit of the evening. As you do.

LISTEN carefully — there are instructions associated with this particular blogpost: just make sure you press “play” and read the post while the music’s playing. You’ll understand what I mean when you hear it. Honestly, the effort I go to for you lot…

 

 Tom's Top Ten Blogs: Play Now | Play in Popup

Introducing my Top Ten Blogs, as submitted to the Total Politics Blog Poll 2009:

And kicking off this year’s Top Ten, at Number 10, it’s Scottish Unionist, who is still keeping the (Union) flag flying and winding up nationalists on a daily basis. Okay, I admit that’s not difficult, but SU does it with enthusiasm and style.

At Number 9 we have the “citizen legislator” himself, Tory MP Douglas Carswell, whose blog rarely features anything I agree with but is well-written, succinct and consistent. Totally bonkers, of course, but a good read (and if Douglas chooses to use any quote of mine as an endorsement, guess which bit of that last sentence will be edited out…?)

At Number 8, Hopi Sen’s A blog from the backroom, one of the classiest and best-written blogs around. I don’t always agree with his analysis (though a touch more than I do with Douglas Carswell’s…) but it’s always well reasoned. He’s dead brainy, is Hopi.

At Number 7 it’s Alastair Campbell. Too much about soccerball for my liking, but as well written as you would expect and as sound as a pound politically.

In at Number 6 it’s another parliamentary colleague, Kerry McCarthy, with Fun and Japes With Veganism Shot By Both Sides. Really well written and relevant, Kerry is one of the best political bloggers around.

Sadie’s Tavern is at Number 5 and could never conceivably have been left out of my Top Ten. She just makes me laugh every time I visit her blog. Totally brilliant.

There’s no such thing as a Top Ten list of political blogs that doesn’t include Iain Dale’s Diary, which is my Number 4. Love him or loathe him, Iain has defined political blogging in the UK. Frankly, I probably wouldn’t be blogging if it weren’t for the example Iain has set over the years.

Jeff Breslin of SNP Tactical Voting is my Number 3. Though Scottish nationalism is utterly odious to me, his blog is a great read: pithy, clever and occasionally wise. Probably the best political blog in Scotland.

Just missing my top spot is Dizzy Thinks. Okay, so he’s a Tory, but he’s done more than most to persuade us that blogging can be a serious form of journalism. His tireless efforts to scan lists of EDMs and parliamentary written answers put many mainstream journalists to shame and he regularly comes up with some political nuggets. Wish he was on our side…

And at Number 1 (are you still hitting that “play” button?) it’s a new entry: the totally brilliant Blackburn Labour. These guys really ought to get a day job, but until they do, long may they continue providing some great entertainment. They make having a go at the Tories look like fun — a precious commodity in the Labour Party these days. If the only post they did in the last year was the Tory logo generator, that alone would have been enough for them to grab the top spot.

Remember — you have until the end of this week to submit your own personal Top Ten blogs. You can vote here. And don’t be swayed by any shameless appeals by self-publicising egotistical MPs to vote for them.

So that’s it for another year. These are simply my personal favourite blogs, the ones I read most often. I’ve tended to exclude those which aren’t updated all that often and those written by professional journalists on their media organisations’ websites; my view is that voting for the likes of Ben Brogan in this poll is akin to playing David Beckham in a Sunday league football game.

Okay, you can switch the music off now.

GUIDO is unimpresed by The Guardian’s “monomania” over The News of the World hacking story:

Peter Wilby writes The Biggest Media Story in Years – So Why the Silence? Hmm, possibly because it isn’t news that newspapers hack mobiles and has not been since we listened to Diana’s squidgygate recordings over a decade ago.

Fair enough, I suppose. But if the likes of Guido aren’t concerned that a private company may have hacked into people’s phones specifically in order to reveal their personal details in a newspaper, can we assume that libertarian types throughout the country will adopt the same approach to the so-called “surveillance society”?

Guido’s and Tory-supporting blogs’ relaxed attitude to the alleged activities of The News of the World wouldn’t, by any chance, have anything to do with the role Andy Coulson may or may not have played in the scandal?

And if Alastair Campbell, rather than Coulson, had been editor at the time, can we assume that those claiming this is a “non-story” would still be saying that?

I will be intrigued to observe the intellectual contortions performed by commenters in their efforts to justify opposition to RIPA on the one hand, with being “relaxed” about a private multinational (allegedly) going much, much further in the name of newspaper sales.

BLACKBURN Labour really do know how to entertain, what with their Tory logo malarkey and all manner of what have you since then.

They’ve now succumbed to Dale-esque numerology and have come up with an utterly pointless, though rather entertaining, Top Ten Labour Twitterers, based on the number of followers each entrant has.

I’m there (well, of course I am — do you think I’d be posting this if I weren’t?) at a modest number 8 with 802 followers. But as I have said on many occasions, it’s not size (of your following) that matters, it’s what you Twitter.

Anyhoo, courtesy of Blackburn Labour (I mean, really guys, does Jack know what you get up to at night?), here’s the list:

1: Alastair Campbell 3875 followers
2: Derek Draper 3427 followers
3: Tom Watson MP 2978 followers
4: John Prescott MP 2423 followers
5: “Twitter feed of the UK Labour Party“ 2217 followers
6: David Lammy MP  1312 followers
7: Sadiq Khan MP  954 followers
8: Tom Harris MP  802 followers
9: “The official twitter page of the Labour Party“ 784 followers
10: Luke Pollard PPC  728 followers

SUZANNE Moore is having a bit of a strop, it seems.

The former New Statesman columnist and contributing editor used the pages of the Mail on Sunday to denounce the decision to offer Alastair Campbell the chance to guest edit the weekly magazine (not that I’m averse to using the MoS to get a point across now and again). Alastair, as you might expect, filled with pages with his favourite stuff: football (Sir Alex Ferguson), Tony Blair (talking about — shock! horror! — God) and the Labour Party (in support of).

This was all too much for Suzanne, who clearly prefers it when magazines of the Left spend all their time criticising the Labour Party.

I actually bought the Alastair Campbell issue and, apart from the football stuff, found it a decent read for the first time in years. My relationship wit the NS has been something of an on/off affair. I first started buying it on a semi-regular basis in the 1980s, but quickly tired of its pro-Charter 88 nonsense (“Hey, come all you masses of unemployed and fight for the right to have the number of elected representatives in the legislature exactly proportional to the number of votes cast. Rad!”).

Then, in the few years running up to the 1997 election, I became a proper subscriber. It was a great read in those days, speculating on what a new Labour government (its editorial policy forbade it to capitalise “new” in that context) might do or not do. It was generally supportive and positive about Tony and the party, and my favourite column (long since ditched) was the Diary of Lynton Charles MP, a fictional character trying to make his way in the parliamentary party under the tutelage of Peter Mandelson. Brilliant.

Then, once we were in government, and certainly after the 2001 election, it reverted to type, and went back down the oppositionalist road. You could almost hear the editorial sighs of relief. Supporting any government is just so establishment, don’t you find?

I finally got round to canceling my subscription a couple of years ago. But if Alastair decided this was a permanent gig, I’d certainly consider renewing it.

Me with that bloke who used to work on The Mirror

I WAS invited by The Mail on Sunday last week to write a review of Alastair Campbell’s debut novel. It’s in today’s edition, if you’re interested.

“All In The Mind” is a cracking read. Highly recommended. (That’s a summary, incidentally – not the full review. I may publish it here later.)

UPDATE at 5.50 pm: Et voila:

Given Alastair Campbell’s notorious history of mental health issues, it is perhaps understandable that the publishers of his debut work of fiction, “All In The Mind”, chose to insert the subtitle “A novel”; this is neither a psychological textbook nor, on the face of it, an autobiographical account of the battle with his own demons.

Yet it is infused, on every page, with a level of understanding of the nature of depression and an empathy with its victims that one is never quite sure how much of the detailed, intimate nature of the central characters’ thought processes is the result of research or of experience.

“All In The Mind” is a short novel detailing the lives of its main protagonists over the course of a weekend that is dramatic and consequential for all concerned. There is Arta, an asylum seeker who, having fled Kosova with her husband and child, finds herself the victim of a brutal rape in her adopted homeland; Emily, a young primary school teacher who cannot come to terms with the terrible facial scars she suffered during a house fire; David, a lonely, sensitive and intelligent man whose abandonment as a child by his father seems to be the root cause of his debilitating bouts of depression; and Ralph, a chaotic alcoholic who just doesn’t want to admit it, and whose self-destructive behaviour threatens not only his marriage but his career as a member of the Cabinet.

Linking all of these characters is Professor Martin Sturrock, a revered and successful consultant psychiatrist whose devotion to his patients not only threatens his own home life but hides the fact that he is fighting a few serious demons of his own.

But despite the dark tone of much of the book and the serious issues it seeks to illuminate, “All In The Mind” is often very funny and charming. At least one figure, Matthew Noble QC, is strangely inconsequential to the wider narrative and seems to have been included to lend light relief. But his labelling as a sex addict by his cuckolded wife and his consequent attempts at a “cure” are nevertheless highly entertaining.

It is Campbell’s eloquent and touching depiction of depression’s victims and the description of their thought processes that define this novel; anyone tempted to dismiss mental ill health as somehow less serious than various physical ailments would do well to read “All In The Mind”. Possibly more than once.

He inevitably, and fruitfully, delves into his own political and media background, referring to the prime minister (who we never meet) as “young” and whose strategy for sacking a Cabinet colleague is choreographed for maximum positive publicity. And Campbell can’t resist a dig at the cynicism of the tabloid press with a disparaging reference to The Sun hiding behind a local news agency in an attempt to avoid direct culpability for a “sting” operation against a politician.

The prose flows smoothly and naturally, Campbell showing off writing skills he would not have been able to use to full effect when a tabloid journalist himself. His harrowing depiction of the rape is intimate and personal without being mawkish or explicit.

His most courageous decision as an author, though, is in piling on the paradoxes of his central character. Here is the hero of the piece, a healer who needs healing himself, but who is not only a regular user of prostitutes but who also lusts after one of his own patients who has herself been raped and forced into prostitution.

Campbell’s triumph is in his portrayal of ordinary people’s ordinary lives, and his exploration of the imperfection of heroism. They could only have been successfully delivered by someone with the appropriate levels of skill, sensitivity and empathy, which Campbell clearly has in spades.

For all its dark subject matter, “All In The Mind” is surprisingly uplifting and optimistic. It is also one of the few books I have ever read which has brought me close to tears in its closing pages.

 

“All In The Mind” by Alastair Campbell is published by Hutchinson. Available from Amazon.