Alastair Campbell

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Alastair Campbell (disambiguation) .

Alastair Campbell (2012)

Alastair John Campbell (born May 25, 1957 in Keighley , West Yorkshire , England ) was the head of communications and strategy in the British government of Tony Blair and is considered one of the "architects" of New Labor .

Early media career

Campbell is the son of a Scottish veterinarian and was born in Keighley, Northern England. He went to school in Leicester and then studied German and French at Gonville and Caius College , Cambridge. He took an early interest in journalism and worked as a reporter for the Tavistock Times . He then moved to London to join the Daily Mirror as a political correspondent. The rapid rise and the work overload led to a personal crisis with alcohol abuse and a nervous breakdown in 1986, but Campbell recovered and subsequently made more contact with the Labor Party, which was close to the Daily Mirror as a left-wing paper. Campbell became a close associate of Neil Kinnock and worked with media entrepreneur Robert Maxwell . Campbell left the Daily Mirror in the early 1990s for the tabloid Today .

Government spokesman

After Tony Blair's election victory and his takeover in 1997, Campbell became his spokesman and " Spin Doctor ". In the run-up to the election campaign, he had played an important role by coordinating it with Peter Mandelson , where he occasionally verbally attacked journalists who were critical of New Labor. Blair named Campbell his Director of Communications, as he was responsible for public relations at 10 Downing Street. In this role he was so influential that he was sometimes viewed as a secret vice-prime minister. After Blair's election victory again in 2001, Campbell was confirmed in office. However, he met with increasing criticism from within the party, as the newcomer was accused of reducing the role of established ministers and Labor MPs. At the same time, however, he was considered an absolutely loyal supporter of Blair, and his dealings with the media were generally rated as professional and effective.

Role in the Iraq dossier controversy

He played a decisive role in the controversy over a dossier that spoke in the run-up to the Iraq war in February 2003 of an imminent threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which were ready for use within 45 minutes. This representation of Campbell, in which he relied on intelligence sources, was largely responsible for the decision of the British House of Commons in favor of the operation in Iraq. Later, in a BBC report, reporter Andrew Gilligan alleged that Campbell "sexed up" the news service reports for the public and exploited information he knew was factually inaccurate. Campbell then requested an apology from the BBC and the citing of their sources. This was initially denied, but after continued pressure from the Labor government, the BBC eventually named biological weapons expert David Kelly as its informant. Kelly then committed suicide. The Hutton Commission then examined the background to the affair. It turned out that Campbell actually personally made suggestions for the wording of the intelligence reports on which the dossier was based. In his notes, Campbell also stated that he hoped that exposing Kelly as a source would do the BBC the desired damage. Nevertheless, the final report acquitted Hutton Campbell of a share of responsibility for Kelly's death. The public pressure on him had increased so much that Campbell drew the political consequences on August 29, 2003 and resigned from his post.

After the resignation

Even after his resignation, Campbell regularly interfered in politics and the media business and criticized z. B. Often the coverage of the Daily Mail. In 2005 he again supported the election campaign of New Labor, albeit without an official function. In addition, he dealt with sports reporting , for example around his favorite football club Burnley FC or when he accompanied the rugby club British and Irish Lions on their tour to New Zealand in 2005. An email that Campbell wanted to send to a New Labor party official, but which was misdirected to a journalist, caused a scandal; In the mail, Campbell criticized the reporting with the drastic expression that is typical for him ("Now fuck off and cover something important you twats!", in German: "Fuck off and report about really important things, you idiots!").

On the day of the European elections in the UK , May 26, 2019, when the election campaign was mainly about the question of the imminent exit from the EU, Campbell declared on BBC television that this time he was "for the first time in his life" Liberal Democrats voted. It was a strange feeling for him, but the Labor Party had abandoned its voters, its party members and the whole country. The following day, Campbell was expelled from the Labor Party. The official reason given was that voting for another party was incompatible with Labor membership. First, Campbell announced that he would take legal action against the expulsion from the party. In July 2019, he announced in an open letter to party leader Jeremy Corbyn that he no longer wanted to be re-accepted into the party. He justified this with Corbyn's mistakes on the Brexit question and the rampant anti-Semitism within Labor. He also called on Corbyn to draw the conclusions from his failure on these issues and to resign.

Publication of the diaries (2007)

During his time on Downing Street, Campbell wrote a diary that is believed to contain two million words. Selected excerpts were entitled on 9 July 2007. The Blair Years ( the Blair years published) and learned much media attention in Britain. A major concern was anything that might have been left out, particularly the relationship between Blair and Treasury Secretary Gordon Brown . Campbell expressed that he did not want to make things more difficult for Brown as Prime Minister and did not want to damage the Labor Party, and suggested a later, more complete publication, in 2010 and 2011.

Publications

• Prelude to Power 1994-1997 , Vol. One. Hutchinson, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-09-949345-7 .
• Power and the People May 1997 - June 1999 , Vol. Two, Hutchinson, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-09-949346-4 .
• Power and Responsibility 1999-2001 , Vol. Three, Hutchinson, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-09-179736-2 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alastair Campbell expelled from the Labor Party. BBC News, May 28, 2019, accessed May 28, 2019 .