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Alastair Campbell won’t stop spinning Blair's bag-carrier is still airbrushing the past

Do bagpipes have erotic appeal? David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images

Do bagpipes have erotic appeal? David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images


May 11, 2023   7 mins

A gentleman, runs the old joke, is someone who can play the bagpipes, but doesn’t. Alastair Campbell, podcaster, novelist and sometime press secretary to Tony Blair, plays the bagpipes. Indeed, one of his earliest published pieces — in the pornographic magazine Forum — boasted of the erotic appeal of the instrument to women. But then, as he later admitted, his work for the magazine was “mainly fiction”.

It would be unfair to suggest that the same was true of his journalism, but his stint as political editor of the Daily Mirror, starting in the late Eighties, was not distinguished. He was tribally loyal to Labour, and these were dark days for the party, which had lost three elections in a row and was shortly to lose a fourth, in 1992. His response was to fill the paper’s news pages with relentlessly partisan abuse. As a hack, his best-known contribution to political debate was starting a rumour that John Major tucked his shirt into his underpants. (“I am only 90% sure of the accuracy of the claim,” he acknowledged.)

Perhaps some of the bitter triviality reflected his own thwarted hopes. In the run-up to the 1992 election, he was widely touted as the front-runner to become Neil Kinnock’s press officer should Labour win. But when Labour didn’t win, Campbell had to wait instead for the election of Tony Blair as leader in 1994 before getting the summons to become his press secretary. The job title didn’t reflect the role, Blair hastened to add; “it’s much more than that,” he said.

So it was to be. Campbell was generally referred to as a spin doctor, a relatively new term that had crossed the Atlantic in 1988 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary the following year. The job of the spin doctor, according to Peter Mandelson, the first British figure to be so described, was “to create the truth”. There were limits, though. “They can cajole and protest and manipulate and bully if they want,” Campbell explained. “They can explain their master’s thinking. But the master’s thinking and actions are what count.”

That was the role occupied by Bernard Ingham when he was Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary, but many felt that the master-servant image was no longer entirely accurate. “When you heard Bernard Ingham speaking, you heard Margaret Thatcher,” observed ex-Labour aide Joy Johnson. “When you heard Tony Blair, very often you heard Alastair Campbell.” It was a common perception, and Blair did little that might correct it; in his memoirs, he wrote of Campbell: “He was indispensable, irreplaceable, almost an alter ego.”

In any event, Campbell was — with Blair, Gordon Brown, and Mandelson — one of the Four Horsemen of New Labour. Following the election triumph of 1997, he accumulated still greater power. He ran an ever-expanding empire of press officers and political advisers at the expense of the civil service, he attended cabinet meetings in a way that his predecessors had not, and he took on the role of party discipline at Westminster: in a symbolic move, the press team moved into 12 Downing Street, traditionally the preserve of the Whips’ Office. Charges of control freakery were widely aired.

He was, everyone agreed, supremely good at his job. A large part of that job, however, seemed to include dragging politics down to the level of his commentary at the Daily Mirror. “Alastair tabloidery,” Blair called it, the tendency to pursue headlines rather than deliverable policies. “Political coverage in this country is a joke,” Campbell complained in 1999. “Most of the national media treat politics as a soap opera.” He made his contribution to that.

He contributed too to the growing distrust of politicians. Blair had been elected as the alternative to Tory sleaze, but by 1999 The Sun, which had backed Labour in the general election, was calling the prime minister “Tony Bliar”. Much of the criticism was aimed at Campbell’s media operation. Back in 1996, he’d appeared in a libel case and been castigated by the judge for being “less than completely open and frank”; he was “not a witness in whom I could feel 100% confidence”. By the turn of the century, there were many who agreed with that judgement.

It came to a head, of course, in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. An intelligence dossier was released to justify the war, and when the BBC queried the degree of political interference in its preparation, Campbell decided that the best form of defence was attack. The ensuing battle cost the jobs of the BBC’s chairman and director general, and the life of the UN weapons inspector David Kelly, who killed himself after being identified as a source for the story. “If Alastair Campbell hadn’t started his war against the BBC, then Dr Kelly would still be alive today,” said Sky’s political editor, Adam Boulton, while the headline in Campbell’s old paper the Daily Mirror was: “Spun to death — Iraq expert driven to tragic ‘suicide’.”

Campbell resigned in 2003, but returned to run the 2005 election campaign, completing Blair’s remarkable hat trick of victories. After that, though, the magic seemed to have been lost. He helped with the unsuccessful elections of 2010 and 2015 and was an adviser to the equally unsuccessful People’s Vote campaign to get a second referendum on Brexit. Nonetheless, it was Brexit that gave him a new lease of media life: he became editor-at-large of The New European, and launched The Rest Is Politics podcast with fellow Europhile Rory Stewart.

Now comes a new book, But What Can I Do?, about the deplorable state of politics today. His analysis will come as no great revelation. He’s sympathetic to the idea of a written constitution; he thinks social media “has done much to harm thoughtful public debate”; he deplores “the culture war distractions of the radical Right”; he recycles lame gags about “Kamikwasi Trussonomics”.

As a state-of-the-nation address, it comes with inbuilt obsolescence, with all the temporary nature of journalism, full of references to what happened “last autumn” or “last November”. Despite which, it seems stuck in 2018, so that former US president Donald Trump gets five times as many mentions as current British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. It feels like reading yesterday’s papers.

Much of it is a rambling, sometimes ranting, denunciation of “the Trumps, Johnsons, Netanyahus, Putins and Bolsonaros”, the populist leaders who have wrecked the democratic process. That’s a fairly disparate collection of individuals, but Campbell argues that there are common traits. Populists, he writes, are those who denounce “the elite”, and use the polarising language of “us” and “them”. And they’re not just to be found on the Right; there are also “populists of the Left”. There are those who divide the nation into “the forces of progress and the forces of conservatism”, while railing against “the cynics, the elites, the establishment”. Oh, hang on, that was Blair in a 1999 conference speech, which doesn’t get a look-in here.

These new populists are also barefaced liars. When did this casual attitude towards the truth start, one might ask? Certainly not on Campbell’s watch; he’s keen to point out that there were “several official and parliamentary inquiries” into Iraq, “none of which concluded that I lied”. In fact, not even his political enemies were deliberately deceitful in the old days. From Margaret Thatcher to Theresa May, he says of the prime ministers before Johnson, “none were in my view liars”. This wasn’t always his view. “Truth. Remember that,” he challenged in 1992. John Major and Norman Lamont “lie because it comes easy to them and because it is the only way they can survive”.

He sometimes sounds like one of those academics who is triggered by the sight of a Union Jack and takes to Twitter to announce that we’re now living in a fascist regime. Mention referendums, for example, and we’re straight onto Vladimir Putin staging a rigged vote in the occupied parts of Ukraine. In 1975, Thatcher quoted Clement Attlee’s description of referendums as “a device of dictators and demagogues”; Campbell notes this approvingly, but forgets to mention that it was New Labour that made referendums part of normal politics in the first place.

Similarly over-wrought is Campbell’s claim that the British Right-wing press “would not look out of place in North Korea”. To be fair, though, it does take him until p. 34 to go for the inevitable comparison, segueing effortlessly from Nigel Farage to “Europe in the Thirties”. But once it’s out in the open, we get an entire chapter on “The Threat of Fascism”. This would all be more convincing if we hadn’t been here before. “Britain is being run by a dictatorship,” was Campbell’s implausible verdict on Major’s government in 1992.

One could go on. He’s shocked — shocked! — at the sight of Johnson’s government “attacking the BBC”. That’ll be the same BBC that he denounced as a “down-market, dumbed down, over staffed, over bureaucratic, ridiculous organisation”, even before the War of the Dodgy Dossier.

But the point is not just that Campbell is wildly forgetful of his own time in politics and journalism. It’s more that, by airbrushing the past, he’s avoiding the issues. He leaves the big questions unasked, let alone answered. Why did Farage’s populist rhetoric about “the elite” resonate with so many? Might it be because of the extraordinary accumulation of wealth by the super-rich during New Labour’s time in office? Was disillusionment prompted by a government that the public thought was on their side proving instead to be “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”?

If you’re looking at disengagement from the political process, it’s worth considering the 2001 general election, when turnout was so low that the number of abstentions was greater than the number who voted for Labour.

In Campbell’s analysis, however, the rot only set in with the global financial crisis of 2008, an event so massive that it warrants an abbreviation: the GFC. His coverage is so brief, however, that those initials only get used once. Maybe he doesn’t like to dwell, lest he has to explain why Britain was so exposed to the banking meltdown that started in America. After the event, Gordon Brown complained that a “shadow banking system had proliferated without politicians being aware of it,” and it’s hard not to think that the man who’d been chancellor for a decade perhaps should have been aware of it.

On a personal level, Campbell’s problem — the reason he worries about whether he’s “Dadsplaining” — is that he’s been overtaken by the world he helped to create. He would obviously disagree, but surely Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings are part of his legacy. So too, perhaps, is Brexit itself. Partly because even Campbell’s famed tabloid instincts failed to alert him to the impact of the huge rise in immigration. But even more for squandering the chance of moving closer to the European Union.

Because the biggest issue in Blair’s first term — even if it was ducked — was the single currency, and the imminent arrival of the euro. Should Britain join this venture or not? Blair was in favour. Gordon Brown was not. Nor was Rupert Murdoch, whose views carried some weight. And Campbell? Well, he wasn’t much fussed one way or another. “I was not that bothered about the euro,” he wrote in his diary. “It didn’t move me like a Labour v. Tory battle did.”

Maybe he should have cared a little more. Regardless of whether one thinks it would have been good for the country, being part of the single currency would have been transformative. It would have tied Britain so closely to Europe that it would have made a Leave vote very unlikely, indeed would have made a referendum unlikely.

Without Brexit, though, where would Campbell be now? His belated rallying to the European cause has been the re-making of his reputation, wiping away much of the stain of Iraq. As he was during his time at the Daily Mirror, he’s now fighting rearguard actions for the losing side, and it’s a role that suits him admirably. The player of the pipes might not call the tune, but he does get his voice heard.


Alwyn W. Turner is a cultural and political historian.

AlwynTurner

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polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

At what point can a lack of self awareness be identified as a mental illness?
He is, alongside Tom Watson, one of the most loathsome creatures in British political life. And that is against some pretty stiff opposition.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Talking of stiff opposition, Campbell will no doubt continue spinning in his grave.

Nik Jewell
Nik Jewell
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

He makes me wish that hell does really exist.

Stephen Walsh
Stephen Walsh
1 year ago
Reply to  Nik Jewell

Hell is not hot enough, nor eternity long enough…

Stephen Walsh
Stephen Walsh
1 year ago
Reply to  Nik Jewell

Hell is not hot enough, nor eternity long enough…

Ben Jones
Ben Jones
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

He’s a tortured soul, I suspect, fully cognizant of his complicity in the war and the Kelly affair. A more dignified person would retreat to the shadows and ponder their guilt. Campbell’s ego won’t allow it. He isn’t that person. He has to rage against the dying of the light to distract him from the truth.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

At what point can a lack of self awareness be identified as a mental illness?

The tendency to try to explain men like Campbell in terms of ‘mental illness’ arises from our post-modern reluctance to believe that genuine evil exists. In Campbell’s case. though, I think the latter is a much more reasonable explanation.

Josh Allan
Josh Allan
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Ha! I was about to say the very same thing.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Since he is a former pornographer I thought the metoo lot would have cancelled him ages ago

David Watts
David Watts
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

I honestly believe this mans obsession with the left and his manipulation of the truth is dangerous. His selective memory is remarkable, it was in fact Gordon Browns deregulation of the City in 2001 that led to the UK banking crisis. And his total lies about 45 minute warnings relating to Iraq that actually led to the War. I understand he has had mental health issues, I am not completely sure they are over.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

A complete t**d, to keep it short.

Peter Styles
Peter Styles
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Campbell was a drunken nobody until becoming Blair’s press Sec. He influenced Blair way beyond his station and sadly, David Kelly, a just and honest man, paid the price.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Talking of stiff opposition, Campbell will no doubt continue spinning in his grave.

Nik Jewell
Nik Jewell
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

He makes me wish that hell does really exist.

Ben Jones
Ben Jones
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

He’s a tortured soul, I suspect, fully cognizant of his complicity in the war and the Kelly affair. A more dignified person would retreat to the shadows and ponder their guilt. Campbell’s ego won’t allow it. He isn’t that person. He has to rage against the dying of the light to distract him from the truth.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

At what point can a lack of self awareness be identified as a mental illness?

The tendency to try to explain men like Campbell in terms of ‘mental illness’ arises from our post-modern reluctance to believe that genuine evil exists. In Campbell’s case. though, I think the latter is a much more reasonable explanation.

Josh Allan
Josh Allan
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Ha! I was about to say the very same thing.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Since he is a former pornographer I thought the metoo lot would have cancelled him ages ago

David Watts
David Watts
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

I honestly believe this mans obsession with the left and his manipulation of the truth is dangerous. His selective memory is remarkable, it was in fact Gordon Browns deregulation of the City in 2001 that led to the UK banking crisis. And his total lies about 45 minute warnings relating to Iraq that actually led to the War. I understand he has had mental health issues, I am not completely sure they are over.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

A complete t**d, to keep it short.

Peter Styles
Peter Styles
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Campbell was a drunken nobody until becoming Blair’s press Sec. He influenced Blair way beyond his station and sadly, David Kelly, a just and honest man, paid the price.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

At what point can a lack of self awareness be identified as a mental illness?
He is, alongside Tom Watson, one of the most loathsome creatures in British political life. And that is against some pretty stiff opposition.

Ian McKinney
Ian McKinney
1 year ago

Was at a conference yesterday where there was a panel with Campbell, Osborne, Hammond and Balls. Never in my life have I seen such a lack of self-awareness. It was a superb demonstration of the complete failure of our politicians over the last 30 years or so to get to grips with the public. They rail about populism because it goes against their cosy status quo. They moan about brexit because it affected their easy solution to the countries productivity and demographic problem – their only answer was more cheap labour from Europe. Anything else was too hard.

They don’t get it, and they will never get it.

Ian McKinney
Ian McKinney
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian McKinney

The censored word is, of course, referring to Ed B*lls.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian McKinney

I hated Ed Balls since he tried to crack down on homeschooling. That’s the Labour Party state apparatchik all over

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian McKinney

I hated Ed Balls since he tried to crack down on homeschooling. That’s the Labour Party state apparatchik all over

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian McKinney

Grief, that really is a ministry of no-talent. Osborne! Hammond! Maybe they were there to make b**ls and Campbell look a bit better

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian McKinney

Perhaps it will eventually dawn on these people that, now we have the Internet, we no longer need the fiction of ‘representative democracy’, we can have the real thing.

Ian McKinney
Ian McKinney
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian McKinney

The censored word is, of course, referring to Ed B*lls.

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian McKinney

Grief, that really is a ministry of no-talent. Osborne! Hammond! Maybe they were there to make b**ls and Campbell look a bit better

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian McKinney

Perhaps it will eventually dawn on these people that, now we have the Internet, we no longer need the fiction of ‘representative democracy’, we can have the real thing.

Ian McKinney
Ian McKinney
1 year ago

Was at a conference yesterday where there was a panel with Campbell, Osborne, Hammond and Balls. Never in my life have I seen such a lack of self-awareness. It was a superb demonstration of the complete failure of our politicians over the last 30 years or so to get to grips with the public. They rail about populism because it goes against their cosy status quo. They moan about brexit because it affected their easy solution to the countries productivity and demographic problem – their only answer was more cheap labour from Europe. Anything else was too hard.

They don’t get it, and they will never get it.

Jeff Butcher
Jeff Butcher
1 year ago

‘His belated rallying to the European cause has been the re-making of his reputation, wiping away much of the stain of Iraq.’
It really hasn’t – he has blood on his hands , not least David Kelly’s. He should stay at home and stop bothering the rest of us with his tiresome nonsense. He’s done enough damage already.

Jeff Butcher
Jeff Butcher
1 year ago

‘His belated rallying to the European cause has been the re-making of his reputation, wiping away much of the stain of Iraq.’
It really hasn’t – he has blood on his hands , not least David Kelly’s. He should stay at home and stop bothering the rest of us with his tiresome nonsense. He’s done enough damage already.

Robin B
Robin B
1 year ago

What always strikes me about the likes of Alistair Campbell is the irony of how similar he is to the people he loathes. When you listen to his podcast you realise pretty quickly that he’s a bully. I’d like Rory Stewart to stand up to him way more than he does.

Last edited 1 year ago by Robin B
Phil Rees
Phil Rees
1 year ago
Reply to  Robin B

Why would anyone listen to his podcast? Isn’t the authorship of both Campbell and Stewart enough to guarantee it’s something to avoid like the plague?

Peter Styles
Peter Styles
1 year ago
Reply to  Phil Rees

Campbell the onetime drunkard sought rehabilitation and was ultimately saved by Blair.
Beware Rory!
Lying with dogs…

Peter Styles
Peter Styles
1 year ago
Reply to  Phil Rees

Campbell the onetime drunkard sought rehabilitation and was ultimately saved by Blair.
Beware Rory!
Lying with dogs…

Phil Rees
Phil Rees
1 year ago
Reply to  Robin B

Why would anyone listen to his podcast? Isn’t the authorship of both Campbell and Stewart enough to guarantee it’s something to avoid like the plague?

Robin B
Robin B
1 year ago

What always strikes me about the likes of Alistair Campbell is the irony of how similar he is to the people he loathes. When you listen to his podcast you realise pretty quickly that he’s a bully. I’d like Rory Stewart to stand up to him way more than he does.

Last edited 1 year ago by Robin B
Christopher Peter
Christopher Peter
1 year ago

Malcolm Tucker without the laughs or charisma. A man so used to telling lies he apparently no longer even knows he’s doing it, his self-regard, sanctimony and lack of self awareness are monumental. Few people have done so much to poison the well of politics and national debate. He should do us all a favour and go away, and stay away.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

I think you’re being much too kind.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

I think you’re being much too kind.

Christopher Peter
Christopher Peter
1 year ago

Malcolm Tucker without the laughs or charisma. A man so used to telling lies he apparently no longer even knows he’s doing it, his self-regard, sanctimony and lack of self awareness are monumental. Few people have done so much to poison the well of politics and national debate. He should do us all a favour and go away, and stay away.

Andrew Horsman
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago

Also part of his legacy was the insouciance with which government propaganda and “narrative” could “create the truth” about covid. His attitude to those who could see through that propaganda was utterly deplorable. “Just wear an effing mask”, I recall hearing him say. I thought, “Just cheer the eff up, Alastair”. Appalling lack of empathy and humanity from someone who should know better. But that’s what self-deceptive ideology can do to people.

Andrew Horsman
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago

Also part of his legacy was the insouciance with which government propaganda and “narrative” could “create the truth” about covid. His attitude to those who could see through that propaganda was utterly deplorable. “Just wear an effing mask”, I recall hearing him say. I thought, “Just cheer the eff up, Alastair”. Appalling lack of empathy and humanity from someone who should know better. But that’s what self-deceptive ideology can do to people.

Jaden Johnson
Jaden Johnson
1 year ago

Michael Howard was right. No-one did more to degrade political discourse in Britain that Alastair Campbell. He’s a liar and and a bully – an entirely contemptible figure.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jaden Johnson
Jaden Johnson
Jaden Johnson
1 year ago

Michael Howard was right. No-one did more to degrade political discourse in Britain that Alastair Campbell. He’s a liar and and a bully – an entirely contemptible figure.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jaden Johnson
Malcolm Knott
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago

Campbell’s contribution to political discourse was to coarsen and degrade it.

Malcolm Knott
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago

Campbell’s contribution to political discourse was to coarsen and degrade it.

Phillip Bailey
Phillip Bailey
1 year ago

I rarely comment – especially if I have nothing positive to say – but I find myself compelled to type just one word – forgive me
Scum.

Nikki Hayes
Nikki Hayes
1 year ago
Reply to  Phillip Bailey

Yes – I decided not to waste my words on Campbell but if I was going to use one then “scum” it would be.

Nikki Hayes
Nikki Hayes
1 year ago
Reply to  Phillip Bailey

Yes – I decided not to waste my words on Campbell but if I was going to use one then “scum” it would be.

Phillip Bailey
Phillip Bailey
1 year ago

I rarely comment – especially if I have nothing positive to say – but I find myself compelled to type just one word – forgive me
Scum.

Andrew E Walker
Andrew E Walker
1 year ago

“the War of the Dodgy Dossier.”
There were two dossiers. The first, published in October, was the one which allegedly led to the “suicide” of Dr Kelly. The Dodgy Dossier was published in February 2003, and so called because Campbell pinched it almost in its entirety from the Internet, to the extent of retaining spelling mistakes by the original author.

Andrew E Walker
Andrew E Walker
1 year ago

“the War of the Dodgy Dossier.”
There were two dossiers. The first, published in October, was the one which allegedly led to the “suicide” of Dr Kelly. The Dodgy Dossier was published in February 2003, and so called because Campbell pinched it almost in its entirety from the Internet, to the extent of retaining spelling mistakes by the original author.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

“Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.” *

Sadly not the case here!

(*Dr SJ.)

Gordon Black
Gordon Black
1 year ago

Keighley is not in Scotland.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Gordon Black

Surely you don’t deny he is one of yours?

Gordon Black
Gordon Black
1 year ago

Absolutely. It’s bad enough having TB, we don’t want both of them.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Gordon Black

Understandable!

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Gordon Black

Understandable!

Gordon Black
Gordon Black
1 year ago

Absolutely. It’s bad enough having TB, we don’t want both of them.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Gordon Black

Surely you don’t deny he is one of yours?

Gordon Black
Gordon Black
1 year ago

Keighley is not in Scotland.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

“Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.” *

Sadly not the case here!

(*Dr SJ.)

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago

The legacy of Blair and AC – mass migration and caving to post-modern, woke identity politics – is that liberalism is dead. There is no middle ground any more – and I don’t think it can be resurrected.
This is partly an ideological problem – the David Goodheart/Embery somewhere/anywhere problem. But that is now compounded by the fact that the UK and the world economy is heading into a period of chronic financial crisis and stagnation.Growth is not coming back. Biophysical limits and resource constraints are kicking in. Geo-political instability will only get worse.And domestically that means that neither the global-liberal nor the national Keynesian paths to growth are available. Fiscal crises will get worse from now on, every year (if you need persuading of this read Tim Morgan https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/ – former head of strategy at Tullet Prebon, and now professional doomer).
If spending solutions are not available; if UK-Plc is not generating jobs (and AI will wipe out whole sectors), then the ‘survival unit’ for most individuals will cease to be the STATE/MARKET. Not able to rely on a pension, unemployment benefit, health benefits, the centre of gravity will shift back to the family and place-bound community (what I refer to as LIVELIHOOD)
What does this mean politically? There are only two ideological foundations for a low energy, low growth ‘post’ liberal form of economy.
One is old style green politics rooted in sotto voce religion – Tolkien, E.F. Schumacher, Wendell Berry, http://www.frontporchrepublic.com …Gandhi Tolstoy….
The other is straight forward non-liberal conservatism – Burke, social catholic distributism, GK Chesterton, Belloc….
It’s a peculiar function of the hyper-liberalization of the Green parties and movements (they have largely turned their backs on Tolstoy, Schumacher, Gandhi -and other critics of modernity) – that this potential intersection between non-liberal conservatism and green politics hasn’t come together – although Paul Kingsnorth indicates the direction of travel.
What would it look like? Decentralized, parent driven schools. Homeschooling. Self-build housing. Libertarianism for households (inverting the regulatory/tax pyramid so that costs plummet with smaller household enterprises. A free for all in farm-gate production and sales. Micro manufacturing and repair (bottom up 4th industrial revolution stuff). Much greater decentralization. Far few much more localized universities (I fleshed this out for an SDP blog https://sdp.org.uk/sdptalk/a-localist-model-for-higher-education/ )….local and national forms of life long conscription and service…. Pro-natalist incentives for marriage and children.
all sorts of things united by taking the household, family and community as the unit of analysis rather than individuals.
Welfare state? Lower expectations. Arguably some kind of low, universal basic income could be a cheaper minimal safety net that could work in tandem with such green/conservative – family/community based projects (that is individuals rooted in and dependent for the most part on family and a place-bound tissue of face-to-face relations)….. But this would be lower than, and in place of, ALL means-tested welfare benefits AND all tax allowances…. Such a minimalist safety net could underwrite household subsistence….a distributist family based economy where households are able to mobilize whatever means of production they have, without regulation or massive taxation (e.g. making sandwiches on the kitchen table – This is Kevin Carson’s Homebrew Industrial Revolution https://kevinacarson.org/pdf/hir.pdf )
So if the UK, Canadian, Australian conservatives and mainstream US Republicans are basically (classically) economically liberal and unable to channel genuinely conservative politics; and the green parties are now congenitally socially liberal…..where might this intersection of green localism and conservatism express itself.
In the UK there are only two places. One is the heart warming but insignificant National Distributist Party https://www.nationaldistributistparty.com/
The other is the Social Democratic Party https://sdp.org.uk/ – also small but conceivably, if the Labour Party ever imploded….they could make a bid for an new and completely orthogonal centre-left/conservative hegemony.
Apologies for rambling. When I realized that as a member, my comments are neatly stored on an archive – I have begun unconsciously to use this facility as a morning ‘not to self’ with my coffee (which is 5 hours later than most of yours)

Last edited 1 year ago by Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago

The legacy of Blair and AC – mass migration and caving to post-modern, woke identity politics – is that liberalism is dead. There is no middle ground any more – and I don’t think it can be resurrected.
This is partly an ideological problem – the David Goodheart/Embery somewhere/anywhere problem. But that is now compounded by the fact that the UK and the world economy is heading into a period of chronic financial crisis and stagnation.Growth is not coming back. Biophysical limits and resource constraints are kicking in. Geo-political instability will only get worse.And domestically that means that neither the global-liberal nor the national Keynesian paths to growth are available. Fiscal crises will get worse from now on, every year (if you need persuading of this read Tim Morgan https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/ – former head of strategy at Tullet Prebon, and now professional doomer).
If spending solutions are not available; if UK-Plc is not generating jobs (and AI will wipe out whole sectors), then the ‘survival unit’ for most individuals will cease to be the STATE/MARKET. Not able to rely on a pension, unemployment benefit, health benefits, the centre of gravity will shift back to the family and place-bound community (what I refer to as LIVELIHOOD)
What does this mean politically? There are only two ideological foundations for a low energy, low growth ‘post’ liberal form of economy.
One is old style green politics rooted in sotto voce religion – Tolkien, E.F. Schumacher, Wendell Berry, http://www.frontporchrepublic.com …Gandhi Tolstoy….
The other is straight forward non-liberal conservatism – Burke, social catholic distributism, GK Chesterton, Belloc….
It’s a peculiar function of the hyper-liberalization of the Green parties and movements (they have largely turned their backs on Tolstoy, Schumacher, Gandhi -and other critics of modernity) – that this potential intersection between non-liberal conservatism and green politics hasn’t come together – although Paul Kingsnorth indicates the direction of travel.
What would it look like? Decentralized, parent driven schools. Homeschooling. Self-build housing. Libertarianism for households (inverting the regulatory/tax pyramid so that costs plummet with smaller household enterprises. A free for all in farm-gate production and sales. Micro manufacturing and repair (bottom up 4th industrial revolution stuff). Much greater decentralization. Far few much more localized universities (I fleshed this out for an SDP blog https://sdp.org.uk/sdptalk/a-localist-model-for-higher-education/ )….local and national forms of life long conscription and service…. Pro-natalist incentives for marriage and children.
all sorts of things united by taking the household, family and community as the unit of analysis rather than individuals.
Welfare state? Lower expectations. Arguably some kind of low, universal basic income could be a cheaper minimal safety net that could work in tandem with such green/conservative – family/community based projects (that is individuals rooted in and dependent for the most part on family and a place-bound tissue of face-to-face relations)….. But this would be lower than, and in place of, ALL means-tested welfare benefits AND all tax allowances…. Such a minimalist safety net could underwrite household subsistence….a distributist family based economy where households are able to mobilize whatever means of production they have, without regulation or massive taxation (e.g. making sandwiches on the kitchen table – This is Kevin Carson’s Homebrew Industrial Revolution https://kevinacarson.org/pdf/hir.pdf )
So if the UK, Canadian, Australian conservatives and mainstream US Republicans are basically (classically) economically liberal and unable to channel genuinely conservative politics; and the green parties are now congenitally socially liberal…..where might this intersection of green localism and conservatism express itself.
In the UK there are only two places. One is the heart warming but insignificant National Distributist Party https://www.nationaldistributistparty.com/
The other is the Social Democratic Party https://sdp.org.uk/ – also small but conceivably, if the Labour Party ever imploded….they could make a bid for an new and completely orthogonal centre-left/conservative hegemony.
Apologies for rambling. When I realized that as a member, my comments are neatly stored on an archive – I have begun unconsciously to use this facility as a morning ‘not to self’ with my coffee (which is 5 hours later than most of yours)

Last edited 1 year ago by Stephen Quilley
tom j
tom j
1 year ago

Great piece until the bizarre suggestion at the end: that the UK should have joined the Euro.

tom j
tom j
1 year ago

Great piece until the bizarre suggestion at the end: that the UK should have joined the Euro.

Adrian Smith
Adrian Smith
1 year ago

Phoney Blair should be in jail for war crimes with Campbell in the next cell.

Adrian Smith
Adrian Smith
1 year ago

Phoney Blair should be in jail for war crimes with Campbell in the next cell.

Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago

Ah yes, Blair’s unelected Minister for Information. Good riddance.
Though actually a man who’s done some valuable work on mental health awareness outside politics. If he went “full Portillo” and moved on from campaigning, he might actually become likeable.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

“full Portillo”!
What a splendid expression and one that Lord Tebbit might appreciate.

Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago

I do really think that Alastair Campbell might have something useful to say and do if he could just stop being a tribal politician. Most of these marmite politicians do seem to have something about them once they get out of Westminster.
For all his faults – which I think he’s well aware of – he does actually believe in what he’s campaigning for, which is something I can respect (even though I disagree with most of it). We can complain all we like about having no choice and all politicians being the same. Having a few Campbells is the price you pay for having more choice and more honest debate (you can at least usually tell when Campbell is lying – it’s anyone’s guess with people like Starmer which version is the lie and which the truth).
There you are – I’m the Campbell apologist for today here.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

You’re correct, and in the interest of fair play someone must speak for him.

I often think this by Kipling* rather suites Campbell:-

I could not dig; I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

(*1865-1936.)

Jeanie K
Jeanie K
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

“you can at least usually tell when Campbell is lying “….
yes, it’s when his lips are moving and sounds come from his mouth.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

You’re correct, and in the interest of fair play someone must speak for him.

I often think this by Kipling* rather suites Campbell:-

I could not dig; I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

(*1865-1936.)

Jeanie K
Jeanie K
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

“you can at least usually tell when Campbell is lying “….
yes, it’s when his lips are moving and sounds come from his mouth.

Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago

I do really think that Alastair Campbell might have something useful to say and do if he could just stop being a tribal politician. Most of these marmite politicians do seem to have something about them once they get out of Westminster.
For all his faults – which I think he’s well aware of – he does actually believe in what he’s campaigning for, which is something I can respect (even though I disagree with most of it). We can complain all we like about having no choice and all politicians being the same. Having a few Campbells is the price you pay for having more choice and more honest debate (you can at least usually tell when Campbell is lying – it’s anyone’s guess with people like Starmer which version is the lie and which the truth).
There you are – I’m the Campbell apologist for today here.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

“full Portillo”!
What a splendid expression and one that Lord Tebbit might appreciate.

Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago

Ah yes, Blair’s unelected Minister for Information. Good riddance.
Though actually a man who’s done some valuable work on mental health awareness outside politics. If he went “full Portillo” and moved on from campaigning, he might actually become likeable.

Nikki Hayes
Nikki Hayes
1 year ago

David Kelly killed himself did he? I am not, and never have been, convinced by that. As for Campbell, he is not worth wasting my words on.

Last edited 1 year ago by Nikki Hayes
Nikki Hayes
Nikki Hayes
1 year ago

David Kelly killed himself did he? I am not, and never have been, convinced by that. As for Campbell, he is not worth wasting my words on.

Last edited 1 year ago by Nikki Hayes
Tony Taylor
Tony Taylor
1 year ago

The Rest is Politics started off interesting, but I gave it the flick after a couple of months because they never talked about anything that interested me, like the ABC. I don’t want right-on opinions. How about pairing Campbell with someone more right-wing than Rory.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Taylor

How about Nick Griffin?

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Taylor

How about Nick Griffin?

Tony Taylor
Tony Taylor
1 year ago

The Rest is Politics started off interesting, but I gave it the flick after a couple of months because they never talked about anything that interested me, like the ABC. I don’t want right-on opinions. How about pairing Campbell with someone more right-wing than Rory.

Hibernian Caveman
Hibernian Caveman
1 year ago

Airbrushing the past? Sound like the job of Winston Smith in Nineteen-Eighty-Four,

Hibernian Caveman
Hibernian Caveman
1 year ago

Airbrushing the past? Sound like the job of Winston Smith in Nineteen-Eighty-Four,

Charlie Two
Charlie Two
1 year ago

Campbell is a total cockney rhyming slang hunt.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Charlie Two

Berkeley.. fine pack.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

VWH much more fun!

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

VWH much more fun!

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Charlie Two

Berkeley.. fine pack.

Charlie Two
Charlie Two
1 year ago

Campbell is a total cockney rhyming slang hunt.

DenialARiverIn Islington
DenialARiverIn Islington
1 year ago

Nailed the democracy-hating scoundrel. Nailed him completely.

DenialARiverIn Islington
DenialARiverIn Islington
1 year ago

Nailed the democracy-hating scoundrel. Nailed him completely.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago

“His belated rallying to the European cause has been the re-making of his reputation, wiping away much of the stain of Iraq.” Not possible. The lies told to justify the invasion taint everything said by either this gentlemen or his enabler, and such will always be the case.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago

“His belated rallying to the European cause has been the re-making of his reputation, wiping away much of the stain of Iraq.” Not possible. The lies told to justify the invasion taint everything said by either this gentlemen or his enabler, and such will always be the case.

Richard Abbot
Richard Abbot
1 year ago

There is, at the heart of this, a profound tragedy, a deep-rooted illness that has a vice-like grip on him and his ilk.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6.12

Last edited 1 year ago by Richard Abbot
Richard Abbot
Richard Abbot
1 year ago

There is, at the heart of this, a profound tragedy, a deep-rooted illness that has a vice-like grip on him and his ilk.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6.12

Last edited 1 year ago by Richard Abbot
Judy Johnson
Judy Johnson
1 year ago

In the second paragraph the author uses the phrase ‘relentlessly partisan abuse’. That describes his article rather well. (I write that as no fan of Alistair Campbell!)

Judy Johnson
Judy Johnson
1 year ago

In the second paragraph the author uses the phrase ‘relentlessly partisan abuse’. That describes his article rather well. (I write that as no fan of Alistair Campbell!)

Philip Clayton
Philip Clayton
1 year ago

I dislike Campbell, but not as much as I loathe Madelson, the current leader of the Labour Party. As a socialist I wasn’t a huge fan of New Labour either with its abject kowtowing to finance including the disastrous PFI programme and the banking sector, including letting the Buy To Rent sector balloon while neglecting public housing. But it is indisputable that for a brief period there was a real increase in funds for the NHS, Sure Start and schools, as well as social services and youth services. The social fabric of this country has been absolutely shredded by 13 years of Tory government. One thing I am not sure about is Campbells role in Major’s tucking in his underpants image. I always understood that Steve Bell created that image from his imagination. I certainly would find it difficult to imagine Bell as a pal of Campbell’s.

Philip Clayton
Philip Clayton
1 year ago

I dislike Campbell, but not as much as I loathe Madelson, the current leader of the Labour Party. As a socialist I wasn’t a huge fan of New Labour either with its abject kowtowing to finance including the disastrous PFI programme and the banking sector, including letting the Buy To Rent sector balloon while neglecting public housing. But it is indisputable that for a brief period there was a real increase in funds for the NHS, Sure Start and schools, as well as social services and youth services. The social fabric of this country has been absolutely shredded by 13 years of Tory government. One thing I am not sure about is Campbells role in Major’s tucking in his underpants image. I always understood that Steve Bell created that image from his imagination. I certainly would find it difficult to imagine Bell as a pal of Campbell’s.

gavinbraine22
gavinbraine22
1 year ago

Alistair Campbell listed as a regular visitor on Epstein island inline with Blair! You do the math.

David Watts
David Watts
1 year ago
Reply to  gavinbraine22

There is a whole World regarding Campbell and Blairs activities that needs closer scrutiny. Epstein’s island is only one of them.

Kerie Receveur
Kerie Receveur
1 year ago
Reply to  gavinbraine22

What about Mandelson, I wonder? There’s a slimeball who has managed to slither into the shadows effectively, but he’s as pernicious as Bliar and Campbell.

David Watts
David Watts
1 year ago
Reply to  gavinbraine22

There is a whole World regarding Campbell and Blairs activities that needs closer scrutiny. Epstein’s island is only one of them.

Kerie Receveur
Kerie Receveur
1 year ago
Reply to  gavinbraine22

What about Mandelson, I wonder? There’s a slimeball who has managed to slither into the shadows effectively, but he’s as pernicious as Bliar and Campbell.

gavinbraine22
gavinbraine22
1 year ago

Alistair Campbell listed as a regular visitor on Epstein island inline with Blair! You do the math.

R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago

Seeing this evil butcher’ book being pushed by teenagers at my local Waterstones made my bile rise. Political memories are very short, it seems.

R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago

Seeing this evil butcher’ book being pushed by teenagers at my local Waterstones made my bile rise. Political memories are very short, it seems.

Jane Watson
Jane Watson
1 year ago

“The remaking of his reputation”?

Seriously? I thought I’d misread. If you’d said that in the first para, I could have saved myself the trouble of reading to the end.

Jane Watson
Jane Watson
1 year ago

“The remaking of his reputation”?

Seriously? I thought I’d misread. If you’d said that in the first para, I could have saved myself the trouble of reading to the end.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

UnHerd does this every now and then. Probably helps with subscription renewal and some pattern in imminent renewal volumes. An Article it’s base can all get a proper mouth froth going about. The other regular is something about the the Guardian. It’d be comical were it not such a cliche. In fact it still is comical, but only because of the reactions.
It’s the ‘go to’ one suspects Ed in Chief knows necessary, but offers v little in intelligent new thinking one can get thoughtful about.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

UnHerd does this every now and then. Probably helps with subscription renewal and some pattern in imminent renewal volumes. An Article it’s base can all get a proper mouth froth going about. The other regular is something about the the Guardian. It’d be comical were it not such a cliche. In fact it still is comical, but only because of the reactions.
It’s the ‘go to’ one suspects Ed in Chief knows necessary, but offers v little in intelligent new thinking one can get thoughtful about.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

Petty article. A rant about a ranter. Any mirrors in your gaff, mate?
The irony of course is that the hard left also hate him; you lot are in good company lol.

Last edited 1 year ago by Frank McCusker
Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Campbell was do different to any counsel in court putting his clients case?

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Campbell was do different to any counsel in court putting his clients case?

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

Petty article. A rant about a ranter. Any mirrors in your gaff, mate?
The irony of course is that the hard left also hate him; you lot are in good company lol.

Last edited 1 year ago by Frank McCusker
j watson
j watson
1 year ago

Suspect Campbell would be delighted to know he’s still so relevant that UnHerd devotes an Article to his latest book. Someone useless wouldn’t attract as much attention.
‘The Rest is Politics’ podcast success to date been a surprise to many, some delighted, some less so of course.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

Suspect Campbell would be delighted to know he’s still so relevant that UnHerd devotes an Article to his latest book. Someone useless wouldn’t attract as much attention.
‘The Rest is Politics’ podcast success to date been a surprise to many, some delighted, some less so of course.

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago

Interesting to see ‘Honest’ Bob Jenrick all over the media the last couple of days telling and retelling the blatant lie that the UN 1951 Convention on Refugees mandates refugees to seek asylum in the first safe country they pass through, so people coming here from France on small boats have no right to claim asylum in the UK.

It’s not true, there is no such provision; Jenrick knows it’s not true but he keep lying to the people he’s elected to serve, and who pay his wages. The ‘safe country’ provision was part of the Dublin Convention, agreed as a member of the EU, which we voluntarily left as part of Johnson’s fantastic oven ready deal, without replacing it with any other reciprocal arrangement.

So Campbell is yesterday’s man but the culture he did so much to foster is very much alive and well.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

Except if they are coming from France, the EU law applies in France – or any other EU country they pas through….so it does apply I would have thought.

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago

No. Because we left the EU so the Dublin Convention no longer applies.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

I know JM, it’s another ‘doh, nobody told me about that when I voted for it’ moment.

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

Brexit is the gift that just keeps on giving.

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

Brexit is the gift that just keeps on giving.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

But it does apply within France. And even if it doesn’t it surely doesn’t mean that the UK can’t decide not to take refugees who have not claimed asylum in Europe

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

I know JM, it’s another ‘doh, nobody told me about that when I voted for it’ moment.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

But it does apply within France. And even if it doesn’t it surely doesn’t mean that the UK can’t decide not to take refugees who have not claimed asylum in Europe

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago

No. Because we left the EU so the Dublin Convention no longer applies.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

Except if they are coming from France, the EU law applies in France – or any other EU country they pas through….so it does apply I would have thought.

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago

Interesting to see ‘Honest’ Bob Jenrick all over the media the last couple of days telling and retelling the blatant lie that the UN 1951 Convention on Refugees mandates refugees to seek asylum in the first safe country they pass through, so people coming here from France on small boats have no right to claim asylum in the UK.

It’s not true, there is no such provision; Jenrick knows it’s not true but he keep lying to the people he’s elected to serve, and who pay his wages. The ‘safe country’ provision was part of the Dublin Convention, agreed as a member of the EU, which we voluntarily left as part of Johnson’s fantastic oven ready deal, without replacing it with any other reciprocal arrangement.

So Campbell is yesterday’s man but the culture he did so much to foster is very much alive and well.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
1 year ago

Campbell is only a bad guy if you lived through history or read history books. Who cares about history today?

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

“Lies about crimes”.*

(* late Dr John Mann.)

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

“Lies about crimes”.*

(* late Dr John Mann.)

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
1 year ago

Campbell is only a bad guy if you lived through history or read history books. Who cares about history today?