The lifestyle guru

On meeting Carole Caplin in 1994, Alastair Campbell was confused by the woman who said she was an old friend of Cherie Blair. He found her “pretty and odd in equal measure”.

She professed not to want any attention, “but my instinct said otherwise”. “It was hard to dislike her, but she made me feel very uneasy.”

Anji Hunter, the head of Mr Blair’s office, told Mr Campbell that Ms Caplin had introduced herself as the Blairs’ guru, which he found “weird”.

Robin Cook opposes Clause 4 break

Mr Campbell and Mr Blair were finalising the Clause 4 speech in October 1994, when Robin Cook came in and told the party leader he was making a terrible mistake and dispensing with the clause would cause divisions with the Labour Party.

When Mr Blair insisted that he could win the debate, Alastair Campbell says that Mr Cook replied: “You may well win but by the time the blood is cleared from the carpet, I doubt you will think it was a fight worth having.”

Campbell apologises to Cherie

The Sun got hold of topless photographs of Ms Caplin, who initially denied to Mr Campbell that she had ever posed for the pictures. She later admitted that she had, and Mr Campbell warned Cherie Blair that: “Carole had the potential to be a real problem for all of us.”

Cherie Blair did not enjoy Mr Campbell telling her who she could be friends with, and he said he was sorry for being so direct. He wrote: “I may be overreacting but I may not be.”

Euan Blair going to the Oratory

The Daily Mail found out that Euan Blair was to attend the London Oratory School, a grant-maintained Roman Catholic comprehensive. On December 1 1994, it was the front page story “I went in to see TB, who was standing stark naked reading the Mail,” wrote Mr Campbell.

Mr Blair was surprised they had not put any of his side of the story. Mr Campbell told the party leader: “The press were bored with kicking Major and praising you.” The change was inevitable and Mr Campbell said the greatest danger was if the party also called him a hypocrite.

Mr Blair was well aware that Mr Campbell did not approve of sending Euan to the school and after a bad reaction to the story from the public, “he went potty when I said he should calm down”.

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’.”

Cherie complains about Campbell

Ms Blair made a beeline for Fiona Millar, Mr Campbell’s partner, at a party and complained that he “was running their lives”. Ms Millar put up a good defence of her partner suggesting that it was actually Tony Blair that most often initiated yet another tactical conversation, but Cherie was “pretty heavy”.

Kinnock angry at the new Labour project

In July 1995, Mr Blair spoke at a News Corporation event in Australia. His decision to go upset Neil Kinnock, who was already unhappy at the direction Mr Blair was taking. The Kinnocks visited the Campbells on holiday in France and a furious row broke out, with Kinnock at one point picking up “a kettle of newly boiled water which I feared was heading my way”. He accused Mr Blair of selling out on everything “and all that before you go and take your 30 pieces of silver.”

When Mr Campbell asked what that meant Mr Kinnock spat out: “Murdoch.” The Sun front page on the eve of the 1992 election had obviously been lodged in the former leader's memory. "You imagine what it’s like having your head stuck inside a f**king light bulb."

How to sell Cherie

Mr Campbell says Cherie Blair demanded that her role in the campaign be discussed ahead of the party conference in 1995. “I was convinced that the moment she developed a political profile of her own. . . it would be bad for both of them..” Tony Blair was getting “irritated and ratty” during the discussion telling his wife her role would be “simple”. Cherie agreed that she would make occasional speeches and write some articles, but not do any interviews. It was decided that Fiona Millar would be employed as an adviser to Ms Blair.

Blair on Roy Hattersley

Tony Blair clearly expressed his feelings towards Roy Hattersley before a foreseen attack during an education debate in 1995. “He is a fat pompous bugger,” he told David Blunkett, who replied: “You are very wise.”

No top rate of tax increase

Mr Brown and Mr Blair had a discussion in October 1995 where Mr Campbell recalls they decided not to increase the top rate of tax. “GB was still not totally decided but TB was pretty clear.”

At a meeting of the “Big Four” the two men put the case to John Prescott and Robin Cook. Mr Campbell remembers it being one of the tensest of the meetings between the four men, Mr Prescott nodded along but “Robin was being tricky”.

TB's bald patch

Alastair Campbell told the Labour leader in 1995 that the Sun were going to run a story on his bald patch. “Sometimes these little things got to him more than the big things. He said he wasn’t sure the public would want a bald leader, and I fell about.”

Blair and Campbell arguing

“TB was in one of those agonising and demanding moods. . . We had a spat and he just stared out of the window.” Mr Campbell said he was in a foul mood as well and was rude to a member of the public when they arrived in Manchester. Mr Blair told him to behave.

God is a disaster

In the run-up to the 1997 election Tony Blair wrote a piece on his Christian beliefs in a Sunday paper, which was spun in a displeasing way that allied Labour to God. Mr Campbell spoke to Gordon Brown: “GB called and we agreed God was a disaster area”.

“I felt fully vindicated,” recalls Mr Campbell who says he told Mr Blair to remember three things: Never believe journalists who say they are doing you a favour, never do an interview without someone else in the room and, finally, never talk about God.

Clare Short a ‘crap friend’

After she stormed out of a BBC interview, Mr Campbell said Clare Short was paged seven times telling her to go and talk to Mr Blair, but she completely ignored the messages. “TB said she’s crap as a friend but I think she could be even worse as an enemy.”

Brown is ‘difficult’

Mr Campbell and Anji Hunter discussed how to handle the temperamental Shadow Chancellor in September 1996. They decided: “GB is brilliant but difficult so let’s allow him to decide when he wants to be brilliant and work around him when he’s difficult.”

Brown says only he can discuss tax

In January 1997, Mr Campbell says there was an “awful” meeting with Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and Mr Blair. Mr Brown said only he should be allowed to discuss economic issues, “the whole thing was ridiculous” as the others tried to get back to planning future speeches, Mr Brown kept insisting no one else would speak on tax, eventually “TB just laughed out loud”.

Brown drops secret tax bombshell

Gordon Brown was uncooperative and non-committal when it came to the top rate of tax policy, according to Mr Campbell. Without warning he faxed a speech to Mr Blair on a Sunday evening, before making the surprise announcement on Monday morning that Labour would go into the 1997 election committed to retaining the basic and the top rate of tax. “It was such a ridiculous way to go on. GB was doing what TB wanted him to, and having conceded on the substance, he was being difficult on the process.”

Blair scared of Oasis

Just after the election, the Oasis leader Noel Gallagher was invited to a party at No 10. Tony Blair didn’t trust that the star wouldn’t do something “crazy” so Campbell called Gallagher’s record company, who reassured him that he wasn’t going to “mess around”. “He said if we had invited Liam, it might have been different.”

The first sex scandal

The News of the World obtained pictures suggesting that Robin Cook and his secretary Gaynor Regan were having an affair. Two months after coming to power Labour were faced with their first sex scandal.

“What the hell do I do about this?” Blair said to Mr Campbell. The two men did a mental tour of the Cabinet considering other expected skeletons in various closets. “I said if you’re not careful you’ll be left with [Donald] Dewar and [Gavin] Strang.”

Mandelson back in Europe?

In June 2001, Mr Campbell and Mr Blair discussed giving Peter Mandelson a new job in Europe after he had been forced out of Government. Mr Campbell thought there would be repercussions “GB would go mental. The media would go mental.”

The Prime Minister was minded to give him the job anyway, but eventually decided not to, “Peter really lost it and stormed out”. Mr Blair said he “must cure himself of this egocentric view that makes him think he's a law unto himself'”

Blair on the Euro

Tony Blair was keen on early entry into the euro, but he was “dismissive and contemptuous of the pro-euros” who wanted to fight a referendum before they would be able to win it. He said there was an outside chance of a referendum in June 2003, even autumn 2002, when the British population had begun to get used to the currency.

Party threatening to lose discipline

Mr Blair told his press secretary he felt a “real sullen mood” within the Parliamentary Labour Party, and said he was “pi**ed off” that they were behaving like that so soon after he delivered another big majority in 2001.

Blair looking shaky

After the 2001 election, Mr Campbell felt the Prime Minister was looking “weak and nervous”. Mr Blair was also more gloomy than usual saying it’s “not impossible I will be gone in a couple of years”.

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”.

The War on Terror

Tony Blair had read the Koran over the summer and kept referring to passages as it became increasingly likely that Osama bin Laden had been behind the attacks. The Prime Minister said it was “a new war, Pearl Harbor in the 21st century”.

Hilary Armstrong, chief whip, warned the Prime Minister that the PLP might be difficult on this. Mr Campbell remembers “TB said: 'Are they mad? Do we just let these people get away with killing thousands of people?'”

Blair worried by Bush reaction

Mr Campbell says the Prime Minister was concerned that President Bush was not calling a meeting of the G8. “They should be using now to bind in Russia and France. He also felt we had to do more to bind in Pakistan.”

After a call with Mr on September 14, 2001, “TB was quite troubled afterwards”, he said it was vital that he could have a face-to-face meeting with the American President and “look in his eyes” if they were to “make sure they did nothing too rash”.

Iraq emerges as a target

“Geoff [Hoon] said [Donald] Rumsfeld had been looking for reasons to hit Iraq,” says Alastair Campbell. Jack Straw said the idea of attacking Iraq after the Trade Center attacks was “mad”, the Prime Minister agreed that Iraq had to be kept separate from the plan to bomb Afghanistan. “TB said ‘My job is to try to steer them in a sensible path.’”

No proof that bin Laden was behind 9/11

Intelligence services assured us that more and more evidence pointed to Osama bin Laden. “But as TB and I agreed later, nothing that would stand up in a court of law.”

Blair threatens Brown not to push him out

In December 2001, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor shared dinner. Mr Campbell says Tony Blair told his rival that he would still back him to become the next leader of the party, “but he was not going to support him in circumstances where he felt he was being forced out”.

Blair’s Austin Powers moment

In April 2002, Mr Campbell came across the Prime Minister wearing “ludicrous-looking lilac-coloured pyjama-style trousers and a blue smock”. He told him he looked like Austin Powers, to which Mr Blair replied he was the second person to tell him that. “Probably one of the kids."

The next day “another Austin Powers moment”, Mr Campbell went upstairs at No. 10 to find Mr Blair wearing yellow/green underpants and nothing else, “what a prat he looked”.

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 likens his dog to Blair’s fourth child

When Alastair Campbell arrived at George W. Bush’s ranch, the President’s dog Barney came over. “[Mr Bush] said 'This is my Leo. I said hold on, Leo's not a dog. Yes, he said, but Barney's the substitute for the little boy I never had."

The conman

When it was exposed that Peter Foster was linked to Cherie Blair and Carole Caplin, Mr Campbell says he was not given all the information he required from Ms Blair, “I was absolutely livid”.

“This problem arose, like others before, because TB and CB so often wanted to believe the best.” Tony Blair felt that they only had to answer the accusations because they lived “in a world infested with this media scum”.

As further allegations emerged in the newspapers, Alastair Campbell questioned the honesty of Ms Caplin. The Prime Minister “got very defensive and we had another row about it”.

Mr Campbell and Peter Mandelson wrote the infamous “superwoman” speech, which Ms Blair made one or two changes to before reading.

If Blair lost the Iraq vote – Prescott in charge

As a House of Commons vote on a second UN resolution on Iraq loomed, Mr Blair had the assurances of the Conservative Party that they would back the Prime Minister’s war motion, but they offered no such promise over a vote of no-confidence. If he lost the vote the Prime Minister would have to go.

“Andrew Turnbull was quietly looking into how a JP [John Prescott] caretaker premiership would operate,” says Mr Campbell.

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.’”

The first British casualties in Iraq

Tony Blair learnt about the death of eight British Marines on March 21, 2003 while he was attending a European Union summit in Brussels. He was initially down but bounced back quickly and won a surprisingly high number of plaudits from fellow leaders at the summit. “On the way out to the airport, he said: ‘God, it is is awful, this war business.’ Yes that’s why it is usually best to avoid it.”

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.

Putin and Blair argue over the war in Iraq

In the aftermath of the Iraq war Tony Blair travelled to Russia in May 2003. Having been denounced by President Putin at a joint press conference, Blair and the Russian premier retired to a private room for dinner. “Putin looked a mix of surly and worried. He could sense that TB was angry but he was also totally unapologetic. He said the US had created the situation.” Although Blair defended the US and the Iraq action he was “taken aback by the vehemence” of the Russian President.

Mr Campbell says lots of vodka was being poured into glasses, but little of it was being drunk. The President declared that the post-September 11 response was designed to show American greatness. “TB was about to respond but he didn’t let him. ‘Don't answer - there is no answer. That is the truth, Tony. You have to know it. There are bad people in the Administration and you know it.”"

Short would have been sacked

Clare Short resigned on May 12, 2003 Tony Blair was intending to sack her anyway and Mr Campbell feels she probably knew it, so she jumped first, but with little credibility intact. Mr Campbell recalls that the Prime Minister’s only regret was not sacking her sooner, he told his press secretary: “I doubt that any Cabinet minister has ever been indulged so much by a prime minister.”

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.’”

Copyright: Alastair Campbell 2007. The Blair Years is published by Hutchinson, The Random House Group Limited.

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