Blair on Campbell: ‘He went over the edge’
By Ian Dunt
Alastair Campbell “had probably gone over the edge” just before he stepped down during the Hutton Inquiry, Tony Blair has written in his memoir.
The description of Mr Campbell’s “craziness” sheds some light on the behaviour of the former communications boss during his war with the BBC and the bad-tempered battle which followed the death of weapons inspector David Kelly.
“In my experience there are two kinds of crazy people: those are just crazy, and who are therefore dangerous; and those whose craziness lends them creativity, strength, ingenuity and verve. Alistair was of the latter sort,” Mr Blair wrote.
“The problem with them is they can often be mercurial, difficult, and on occasions erupt with damaging consequences.
“Above all you must realise you cant tame them; you can reason with them, but the thing that makes them different and brilliant is the same thing that means they don’t conform to normal predictable modes of behaviour,” he continued.
“And they are always on edge. In the later stages, before he left at the end of 2003, Alistair had probably gone off the edge. Like all creative people, he can snap.”
Mr Blair detailed how he had censored Mr Campbell’s demand that “heads should roll” at the BBC in the wake of the Hutton report, only to find it appear again in his speech “in milder form” when he delivered it.
The former-PM said he had had private conversations about not pressing for resignations in the event of a pro-government judgement with Gavyn Davies, chairman of the BBC, before the Hutton report was published.
“For him [Mr Campbell], this was a moment of enormous emotional release,” Mr Blair wrote.
“But all the anger bottled up inside – and Alastair had a lot of that in him – also erupted. He wasn’t thinking, he was lashing out.”
The memoir, A Journey, was released today. A one hour TV interview – the first since Mr Blair left office – will be shown at 19:00 BST tonight on BBC 2.
