Diaries Volume One: Prelude to Power (The Alastair Campbell Diaries, 1)

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Chilcot concludes that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action “were far from satisfactory”. Yet, in the Campbell version, it is more often a grim and grinding tale than an inspiring and uplifting story. This is partly because the diary is grouchily coloured by the chronically depressive nature of its author, a man who presents a pugilistic face to the world as a mask for frequent despair about his life. Even on the night of the first, sensational election triumph, when Tory seat after seat is tumbling to Labour, he is miserable. "Fiona [Millar, Campbell's partner] asked what was wrong. I said it was probably the anticlimax and the worries about the future." The worries one can understand: Labour was coming into office after an 18-year absence from power. But an "anticlimax"? Labour has just won a crushing landslide and one of that victory's architects is grey with gloom. That persists when Blair makes his "A new dawn has broken, has it not?" speech at the Royal Festival Hall. Writes Campbell: "It was weird. I felt deflated. All around us people were close to delirium but I didn't feel part of it."

Straw told Blair: “We will obviously need to discuss all this, but I thought it best to put it in your mind as event[s] could move fast. And what I propose is a great deal better than the alternatives. When Bush graciously accepted your offer to be with him all the way, he wanted you alive not dead!” Clare Short The military and the civil service both asked for more clarity on whether force would be legal. Goldsmith did so but failed to provide written advice explaining his decision. Sir John ScarlettShort, though an opponent of the war, repeatedly pressed for plans for the aftermath of the invasion. But she is included in the failure to undertake post-invasion planning.

Testifying at the Royal Courts of Justice during the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, Alastair Campbell said of his diary: "It is not intended for publication." Either the size of the advance changed his mind or, more likely, that was always a cynical fib. He published one version of his jottings in 2007, just two weeks after Tony Blair left No 10. Now comes the first of an intended four further volumes. They compete for thumping length with Winston Churchill's multi-volume chronicle of the second world war. In Campbell's view, they will be barely less important. With characteristic self-effacement, he describes himself as "the nexus of some of the key political and personal relationships which shaped New Labour and therefore recent British political history".

The report notes that Hoon – early in 2002, before Blair went to see Bush in Texas in April – identified Iran as being a bigger problem for the UK than Iraq in terms of weapons of mass destruction proliferation. But he did not follow through on this and joined the rush to war in Iraq. Hans Blix References to Dearlove are dotted throughout volume four of the report dealing with the faulty intelligence about Saddam allegedly possessing weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile politics follows him around everywhere he goes. Even a consultation with his GP descends into a debate about Iraq, and his days are peppered with calls from old mates in government moaning about other old mates in government, like squabbling children begging a parent to intervene – often to Campbell’s frustration, now that he’s out of the daily fray. As he says, apropos a friendlier than expected lunch with Balls, “It was interesting how a little bit of distance was making me look at people in a different light.” That question is the inspiration behind this book. It's a question regularly posed to Alastair Campbell, not least in reaction to The Rest is Politics, the chart-topping podcast he presents with former Tory Cabinet minister Rory Stewart. His answer, typically, is forthright and impassioned. We cannot afford to stand on the sidelines. If we think things need to change, then we need to change them, and that means getting involved. He is criticised in the report for failing to properly articulate to his commanders the scope and direction of Britain’s strategy in southern Iraq after the invasion. She has written that “on balance, I am pleased we stayed together through it all”. On balance – how romantic, like, on the one hand, it is sometimes bearable, and on the other, it’s not. As Alastair Campbell said in the introduction to The Blair Years, it was always his intention to publish the full version, covering his time as spokesman and chief strategist to Tony Blair. Prelude to Power is the first of four volumes, and covers the early days of New Labour, culminating in their victory at the polls in 1997.He told Iraq that many countries still believed it had WMD. But the council wanted to offer Iraq a last opportunity, one that the UK and the US in the end did not wait for. John Williams

He is criticised for failing to make the case for the military ahead of the invasion and for being not a strong enough personality to stand up to pressure from Downing Street. Straw also identified the need for a “Plan B” for the UK not to participate in military action in the event that the government failed to secure a majority in the parliamentary Labour party for military action. This was Campbell not being mendacious, but simply faulty. One diarist, scribbling away late at night after long and stressful days, and writing from a self-serving perspective, will not be wholly trustworthy. This is a problem with all the memoirs from actors of the New Labour years, those which have already been published, and those which have yet to come. While diligent journalists and historians try to gather as much evidence from as many different witnesses as they can, the political diarist relies on just one uncorroborated source: themselves. Houghton, noting in 2006 the problems with equipment, said: “Do not look for too big a dividend this year … The reality is that Warrior [an armoured vehicle] gives us confidence and a protective edge … The boys can manage Snatch - just: but they have no inherent confidence in it.” Alastair Campbell

By volume four – Iraq, protesters and photographers outside the house, the kids fed up with us bringing arguments home, no such thing as a quiet weekend or an uninterrupted holiday – we were close to breaking point, but thankfully didn’t break. Good job really. On balance, I am not sure I would survive the practicalities and vicissitudes of life without her. Is it OK to say I don’t know how to access online banking, change a plug, use the coffee machine, let alone make a moderately sized decision without talking it through with her from every angle? So, the commitment always having been clear, why did we decide to put pen to paper, and take part in a ceremony to confirm that commitment legally at Camden Register Office in front of – Covid restrictions meant only four witnesses – our three children and our elder son’s partner? The answer is really quite simple – because we could. The spur was the change in attitudes, and then the change in laws. The Blair government legalised civil partnerships for same-sex couples, David Cameron then brought in the right to same-sex marriage, leaving heterosexual couples disadvantaged in law. POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY is the third volume of Alastair Campbell's unique daily account of life at the centre of the Blair government. It begins amid conflict in Kosovo, and ends on September 11, 2001, a day which immediately wrote itself into the history books, changing the course of both the Bush presidency and the Blair premiership.