By Tash Shifrin
Jeered and cheered in equal measure, Alastair Campbell gained notoriety as Tony Blair’s Rottweiler of a spin doctor. And he’s as forthright as ever, as Tash Shifrin discovers
** Alastair Campbell will be speaking on ‘Leadership in hard times’ at the close of the CIPFA conference on June 25 **
Alastair Campbell has lost none of his legendary dislike of the media. Surveying the fallout from the MPs’ expenses scandal, he accuses it of trying to ‘exaggerate and exacerbate’ public anger.
‘The whole of politics got hit by the expenses scandal and Labour more than most,’ he says. ‘There was no sense of an election campaign because everything was drowned out by the expenses noise.’
But Tony Blair’s former official spokesman and director of communications and strategy at Number 10 adds: ‘Listen, I’m not defending people who’ve done the really bad stuff, all this horseshit, moats and Margaret Moran [Labour MP for Luton South] doing up her house hundreds of miles away. I’m not defending any of that.’
Campbell – who turns out to be remarkably unscary in conversation, despite his fiercely combative reputation – is still closely connected with the centre of government and advises Labour’s leaders informally. There is, he acknowledges, ‘a crisis in terms of Parliament’s reputation’. But this could be rebuilt, Campbell believes, with a bit of fresh blood.
‘Now I don’t know what’s going to happen at the next general election. None of us do. I hope that Labour win,’ he says. ‘But I think what’s obviously going to happen is there’s going to be an awful lot of new blood across the parties because so many people are going to leave as a result of this.’
It would be great if there was a rush of new MPs in their 20s, 30s or 40s, he says.
The 1997 general election that swept a youthful Tony Blair to power on a wave of optimism seems a long time ago. But Campbell’s recipe for restoring public faith in politics sounds oddly familiar. From the dynamic young intake of MPs, ‘some will emerge – a bit like Tony emerged – who will just be a bit special and who will shake the place up’.
Between now and this new dawn, Campbell says: ‘What has to happen is the MPs, the political class if you like, have to do a better job of defending themselves – explaining that they’re not all corrupt, they’re not all venal. And where there has been bad stuff, it’s got to be dealt with.’
Campbell, who is speaking about leadership at next week’s CIPFA conference, urges the politicians to fight their corner. ‘In the end, leadership is about people fighting for what they believe in, winning arguments, winning popular support and then they should be empowered to make important decisions.
Most MPs are hardworking, he argues, adding: ‘A lot of people get paid a hell of a lot more than MPs.’ Surely not? ‘Well, a fair few. And certainly the ones who are criticising the most at the moment. Look, there’s Jeremy Paxman every night on television taking the piss out of MPs.’
Campbell won’t leave that media thing alone. But he does concede that hospital workers, for example, don’t rake in a huge pile of money.
In fact, people are happy to remind Campbell how those less well paid feel about politicians and their expenses. Campbell, a besotted fan of Burnley football club, went to celebrate the team’s promotion to the Premier League at the end of the season. Other fans, instantly ready to take the rise out of a well known political figure, greeted him with a chant: ‘You’re only here on expenses!’
That was ‘really funny’, Campbell says, adding that he did pay his own way to the festivities.
‘When I was at Number 10… I honestly didn’t know MPs could claim all this stuff. I certainly never claimed anything like that. I was a civil servant. The systems were very tight,’ he says. For example, he turned down a car and driver, explaining at the time that he ran to work ‘and if I go anywhere, I’m with Him’.
During his stint working with ‘Him’ at Number 10, Campbell was regularly portrayed as the wily master of spin – something he claims was ‘overblown’ by the media.
Now, considering the state of the economy and the squeeze on future public spending outlined in the Budget, he suggests straight dealing is the answer. ‘It’s always best to be candid about the difficult choices you face.’ But he adds: ‘Politically that can carry difficulties.’
He cites an interview with Alistair Darling, published last August, in which the chancellor said the economic times were ‘arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years’. Campbell says: ‘Alistair Darling said, look we could be in for the roughest ride... everyone pounced on him. As it happens, he was being candid. People say they want candour. When they get it, they go: “ooh, what are you doing?” ’
That was ex-US president George Bush’s difficulty, too, he says. Bush is ‘obviously a very divisive figure, lots of people didn’t like him, lots of people didn’t rate him’, Campbell says. ‘But I think one of his problems as a politician was he said what he thought.’ He recounts Bush’s blunt words when refusing to let Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat into the White House.
This was ‘probably not great’ for relations in the Middle East, Campbell says. ‘But actually it’s a politician doing the things the public says it wants.’
But although the next UK government – whichever party wins the general election – is set to impose harsh restraint on public spending, this is difficult to present in a straightforward non-partisan way. ‘Politics is political. It’s about political choices and the arguments you make for the choices you believe in.’
As Conservatives and Labour dance around each other over their precise plans for future spending, Campbell says: ‘What you have within that is an exaggerated political battle, through the smoke of which the public get a sense of what they think is going on. It’s not ideal.’
He argues that people will listen to ‘reasoned arguments’ over spending and cuts, although the figures can be hard to grasp. The £4.47 cost of one MP’s expense claim for dog food sparked ‘outrage’, while £10m for a new Sure Start children’s centre ‘sounds a lot’. When you move on to the defence or social security budgets in billions of pounds, Campbell says, ‘the figures become almost meaningless to people’.
The economic crisis has shaken up relations between the politics of the main parties too, he suggests. ‘What’s happening is some of the dividing lines... they’re still there, but they’re changing.’
Viewed from behind Campbell’s Labour lens, the 1997 election was about freshly ‘modernised’ New Labour. But the party’s second general election victory was ‘all about public spending’, he says. The third, in 2005, was about the government reforming public services.
The Tories have been trying to avoid fighting on Labour’s public spending ground – but that could change, Campbell suggests. Cameron's Conservatives could position themselves as the politicians ready to act firmly when they must – although ‘lots of Tories’ would see this as a risky ploy.
‘Far be it from me to advise the Tories because I don’t want them to win,’ he begins. ‘But actually, for them to come out and say, “we’re going to cut this – because we have to. And yes, it’s going to be painful and yes, people are going to have to lose their jobs and yes, we’re going to have to shut down stuff that the Labour government did” – that might be the place for them politically to be. I don’t know.’
An election battle fought over which party can best rein in public spending would certainly be a new departure for politics in this country. For those working in the public services, that is not a happy thought.
Alastair Campbell was former prime minister Tony Blair’s director of communications. He will be speaking on ‘Leadership in hard times’ at the close of the CIPFA conference on June 25
