You could fairly say of Campbell's period of tenure that it only accelerated a dance of death between media and government that had been going on in Britain since Suez. After leaving university and doing casual jobs Campbell was accepted as a trainee reporter with the Mirror Group Newspapers.

The Tiree Community Songbook was made into a CD, which won a Community award at the Traditional Music awards. Campbell added: “It goes without saying that there should be nothing published that you and they are not 100% happy with. Yet despite all the problems - not least the most accident-prone manifesto launch in history, complete with deputy prime minister John Prescott punching a voter - Labour won a second successive landslide election victory. Alastair John Campbell (born 25 May 1957) is a British journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster and activist, known for his political roles during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. Far from attempting to “sex up” up the dossier, Campbell comes across as one of the voices of reason.Alastair Campbell announces his resignation as Tony Blair’s director of communications, August 2003. In response, shadow minister Dawn Butler stated that it was common knowledge that voting for another party would result in automatic exclusion.

But when our turn came, the sun shone brightly and we were able to have a Rule of Six celebration in the garden with the family on what felt like a midsummer day. Yet an exhaustive and exhausting number of entries are concerned with spats with the media or rows within the New Labour team about the media, battles which were rarely of any long-term consequence. A bad man like Dick Cheney ("He was not one to speak too much for the sake of it") escapes Campbell's scorn, while far less sinister souls attract it. His first published work was Inter-City Ditties, his winning entry to a readers' competition in Forum, the journalistic counterpart to Penthouse magazine. Scarlett produced the first draft of the “dodgy” dossier in September 2002, which included the infamous claim that a British target – the UK base in Cyprus – was only 45 minutes from an Iraqi attack.The report notes that he told the UN security council in the run-up to the invasion that Iraq had promised to provide full cooperation in checks that it had no weapons of mass destruction, in spite of scepticism expressed by British intelligence. Of interest to journalists and political aficionados, these repetitive tales will test the stamina of the general reader. He acknowledged the vulnerabilities of the lightly armoured Snatch Land Rover and the muddled attempt to find a replacement vehicle for it. At the opening of the edition, presenter David Dimbleby said that the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition would not allow a frontbench member of the government to appear on the show unless Campbell was dropped.

He then became Downing Street director of communications and spokesman for the Labour Party (2000–2003).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. Campbell wrote the speech that led to the party's review of Clause IV and the birth of "New Labour". Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images Alastair Campbell’s diary includes a brief but fascinating passage about Tony Blair’s promised (and ultimately abandoned) referendum on the EU constitution. Thankfully, nor has the woman with whom I have now lived for twice as many years as I lived without her. Perhaps in part because of this new perspective, Blair comes across slightly less likably this time; needier, more self-interested but also more self-doubting, and increasingly preoccupied with the soul-sapping war of attrition with Gordon Brown.