Alastair's Blog

I was in Paris for part of the aftermath of former Presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s spectacular fall. The mood in the Parti Socialiste at the time was one of real anxiety, for all the considerable unpopularity of President Sarkozy. DSK had looked like a shoo in not just for the candidature but for the Presidency. [...]

Something has gone wrong with the paragraph numbering but if you can ignore that, here is the second submission I made to the Inquiry in advance of giving evidence earlier today. SECOND SUBMISSION TO THE LEVESON INQUIRY FROM ALASTAIR CAMPBELL April 30 2012… INTRODUCTION/MY ROLE Thank you for your letter asking me to provide a [...]

I was at the European Parliament in Brussels earlier this week, taking part in a seminar hosted by Labour MEP Glenis Wilmott on the need for both the EU and member states to face up to the need for better strategies to deal with alcohol abuse, a huge problem across Europe. As well as me [...]

Not much doubt which will be the most read newspaper in Whitehall today… the Daily Telegraph, which leads on a story headlined ‘worst civil servants to be sacked,’ and includes the remarkable line from a ‘minister’ that he is in favour of sacking 90 per cent of them, and paying the remaining 10 per cent [...]

It is a sign of the Prime Minister’s new found defensiveness that he is saying to the Daily Mail things they want to hear, and his team are stressing that today’s Queen’s Speech is no big deal compared with the ‘plan’ to get the economy sorted and growing again. Indeed, such is the playing down [...]

I have been around long enough to know it is unwise to believe everything you read in the the Sunday papers, but the whiff of U-turn in the Tory air has a credible aroma to it. One word for David Cameron on this … don’t. If it is true that he is dropping the Bill [...]

It is remarkable how slowly the media moves from a pre-ordained narrative that turns out to be wrong. Boris Johnson having failed to win anything like the support being predicted for him, the win over Ken Livingstone is being seen both as a big step towards Boris being the next Tory leader, and a rare [...]

I hope someone at Tory Central Office is minting a medal for Michael Fallon, the MP who so gamely trots from studio to studio defending whatever Cameron-Osborne shambles happens to be trending at the time. But last night, as he sat with others waiting for election results to come in, there came a little sign [...]

So tomorrow London decides whether Boris Johnson gets another bash at being Mayor, or Ken Livingstone a return to City Hall. Whizzing through my morning media brief, I see Ed Miliband correctly exposing the strategy that Johnson is hoping will get him over the line. This from the Independent Page 17… Ed Miliband has accused [...]

In its latest morale-destroying assault on State school teachers (a breed not terribly well-acquainted with the current Cabinet) ministers are considering performance-related pay for them. Perhaps if they go ahead with this, they could see it as a pilot for a similar system for ministers. At the current level of performance, this could lead to [...]