Hvis man skal have sig en gut til at håndtere pressen, hvorfor så ikke tage en høj skotte, der ikke er bange for at “forsexe” et krigsgrundlag, eller som gladeligt giver sig selv kompetence til at kunne give ordre til samtlige offentlige ansatte? Ja. Hvorfor ikke bruge den formidable Alastair Campbell – verdens mest berømte og berygtede spindoctor.
Det var selvfølgelig også hvad Tony Blair gjorde. Allerede i årene op til parliamentsvalgene i 1997.
I en ny bog, der udkom den 9 d.s., kaldet “The Blair Years”, fortæller Alastair Campbell om sine, kollegaers og politikernes gerninger igennem den tid, hvor han var en del af Tony Blairs maskineri. Men selvom Campbell har foretaget en gevaldig selvsensur, og selvom denne selvcensur (desværre) ikke skader Gordon Brown, er der stadig et par guldkorn i bogen, som kan få ens søndag-eftermiddag til at virke mindre regnfyldt. The Sunday Times har nogle underholdende udpluk:
Brown locked in the loo
Mr Blair told the story of Gordon Brown managing to lock himself in the toilet during a discussion on who should take the Labour leadership after John Smith’s death.He was sitting twiddling his thumbs and wondering if Mr Brown had done a runner after saying he was going to the toilet. “Eventually, the phone went. TB left it, so then the answering machine kicked in and GB’s disembodied voice came on: ‘Tony. It’s Gordon. I’m locked in the toilet’. They both ended up laughing about it. TB went upstairs and said ’You’re staying in there until you agree’.”
Gordon Brown doodling
The atmosphere in the Labour Party was getting more oppressive and Mr Campbell was “bored, demotivated and depressed”. He recalls that the Prime Minister was becoming increasingly frustrated, saying, “This is the old Labour Party at its worst”The mood was also strange at Cabinet, in one meeting “GB was doodling with a big thick pencil, covering page after page with odd scribbles”.
September 11
Tony Blair was immediately making diplomatic calculations according to Mr Campbell. He said that the American people would feel under attack and insisted that “we had to help the US, that they could not go it all on their own”.As the Prime Minister was making arrangements for European discussions on the ramifications he spoke to Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, “who had a real ‘I told you so’ tone, said he had been warning us about Islamic fundamentalism”.
Two powerful ex-alcoholics compare notes
Mr Campbell and George Bush compared notes on their recovery from alcoholism while on President Bush’s ranch in Texas in 2005. Campbell says Bush asked him why he wasn’t drinking. When he replied that he was a recovering alcoholic, Bush revealed that he, too, had given up in 1986. “I asked him how much he drank. He said two or three beers a day, a bit of wine, some bourbon,” recalls Campbell. I went through the kind of quantities I was drinking at the end and said they dwarfed his efforts.”
Bush promises to kiss Campbell’s ass
On the eve of the Iraq vote, Mr Campbell asked George W. Bush to sponsor him to run the marathon. The President had a better idea: “He said ‘If you win the vote in Parliament, I’ll kiss your ass.’”
Blair threatens to shoot Short
Mr Campbell remembers a war Cabinet meeting when Clare Short was “rabbiting on more than ever” about the Iraq invasion. Mr Campbell recalls: “I slipped TB a note about the time Saddam shot his health minister because he was annoying him and did he want me to get a gun.” “Yes,” Blair wrote back.
Of course Churchill had a spin-doctor
Alastair Campbell came under great pressure during the Andrew Gilligan, BBC, Dr David Kelly fiasco. Just as he was feeling the strain, he got a supportive call from an unexpected source. Nicholas Soames, the Conservative MP, called him and bellowed that the media were “total shits”. He continued: “Do you think my grandfather [Sir Winston Churchill] had a spin doctor? Course he f**king did”
Clinton on Lewinsky
The former US president unburdened himself to Mr Campbell over a lunch in the Ritz in July 2003. Urging him to be more understanding over the Blairs’ attachment to Carole Caplin. “Clearly talking now about Monica Lewinsky, he said: ‘I wasn’t hungry but I was angry, lonely and tired.’”
Jeg kan især godt lide den med Gordon Brown, der sidder og savler til et kabinetsmøde.
