But What Can I Do?: Why Politics Has Gone So Wrong, and How You Can Help Fix It

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Then my phone rang. It was my deputy, Godric Smith, calling for a chat. He was unaware that I had been asked for my diaries and that I had been advised to get my own independent legal advice. He exploded, on my behalf, at the unfairness. Then he exploded at the fact he, who was also being called to the inquiry, had been given no advice from the Cabinet Office at all. His explosion was so huge it became comic, and helped my suicidal feelings pass.

In July 2019, in the week Boris Johnson became prime minister, Campbell penned a 3,500-word open letter to Jeremy Corbyn saying he no longer wished to be re-admitted to the party despite legal advice saying he would win a court case against his expulsion. He called on Corbyn to step down and cited his "failure" on Brexit, antisemitism, broader policy and "above all the failure to develop and execute a strategy". The story was broken in The Guardian and the full letter published in The New European. Corbyn said he was "disappointed", prompting Campbell to ask why he had been expelled. [75] [76] Fiona Millar leaves Downing Street with her partner Alastair Campbell after his resignation from Tony Blair’s government, August, 2003. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters Sengupta, Kim (23 October 2010). "Forget conspiracies: the official version is scandalous enough". The Independent. London: Independent Newspapers Ltd. p.11. Archived from the original on 24 October 2010 . Retrieved 24 October 2010. Alastair Campbell defends 'every word' of Iraq dossier". BBC News. BBC. 12 January 2011. Archived from the original on 15 January 2010 . Retrieved 29 January 2010.Alastair Campbell, Speaker Mentor – "Define your key message" ". The Speaker. BBC. April 2009. Archived from the original on 11 April 2009 . Retrieved 10 May 2009. White, Michael (5 November 2001). "White vs Campbell". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 24 November 2007 . Retrieved 19 July 2007.

In 2012, Campbell made his first appearance in an acting role with a small part in an episode of the BBC drama Accused. [37] Campbell splits his book into two halves: the first focuses on what has gone wrong in our politics; the second on what can be done to fix it. And for Alastair Campbell, that answer lies largely with young people.Campbell was born on 25 May 1957 in Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire, son of Scottish veterinary surgeon Donald Campbell and his wife Elizabeth. [4] [5] Campbell's parents had moved to Keighley when his father became a partner in a local veterinary practice. [6] Donald was a Gaelic-speaker from the island of Tiree; his wife was from Ayrshire. [7] Campbell grew up with two older brothers, Donald and Graeme, and a younger sister, Elizabeth. So if one and 10 are out of bounds, how does the rest of my scale work? Two feels great. I wake, having slept well; Fiona [Millar, a journalist and education campaigner] is alongside me and I feel blessed that she has stayed with me for four decades of considerable ups and downs; I have a day ahead that will keep me busy, motivated, doing something vaguely important. Three and four are slightly downscale variations on the same themes.

In the old days, I would live with that feeling, get up, carry on, pretend I was fine, drink to drown the depression, work to chase it away. Now I tell Fiona straight away. She always asks, though she knows what my answer will be, “What triggered it?” and I say, “I don’t know.” At this point, someone arrives to whisk him away. Showtime approaches, and I duly take my seat in the Royal Hall. I look around. The audience is so mixed: here are entire families, politics A-level students in tow, and here are also thirtysomething couples, in corduroy and trainers. I do see a few groups of women, drinks in hand, but they are, perhaps, less excitable than billed. When the curtain rises – Campbell sits beneath a red spotlight, and Stewart beneath a blue – they begin by asking the crowd where they’ve travelled from. A show of hands reveals that more than half the audience is from outside Harrogate. One couple has come from south Wales, and another group from the Channel Islands. Absolutely. It is frankly shameful, and an indictment of the parties, the media and the education system that the day after the Brexit referendum the most googled question in the UK was “What is the EU?” We teach our kids that PE is good for them. We should do the same with citizenship and we should make sure that anyone who goes through the schools system has a basic sense of how our politics works and their role within it.’ In 2018 Campbell worked for the People's Vote campaign's planning and organisation of a march on Parliament on 20 October, which drew an estimated 250,000 people [58] onto the streets. The march was described by the media as the second biggest ever, after the protest against the Iraq war in 2003. In November 2021 Campbell was featured in the BBC series Winter Walks, walking in the Yorkshire Dales along Ribblesdale, from a waterfall above the market town of Settle, to Catrigg Force near Stainforth, 5mi (8.0km) to the North. [96]

Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell's odd-couple podcast". Financial Times. The Financial Times. 28 March 2022. Archived from the original on 20 April 2022 . Retrieved 5 April 2022. From 1st July 2021, VAT will be applicable to those EU countries where VAT is applied to books - this additional charge will be collected by Fed Ex (or the Royal Mail) at the time of delivery. Shipments to the USA & Canada: In 2018 Campbell became part of the top table team at the People's Vote campaign fighting for a referendum on the Brexit deal. This included overseeing the production of campaign films, including one written by and starring his daughter Grace, called The Brexit Special, for which Campbell persuaded actor Richard Wilson to revive his most famous character, Victor Meldrew. [56] [57]