Alastair Campbell

Alastair Campbell   (journalist, broadcaster, political aide, author)
Born	Alastair John Campbell 25 May 1957

Alastair Campbell (born 25 May 1957) is a British journalist, broadcaster, political aide and author, and was Director of Communications and Strategy for Prime Minister Tony Blair between 1997 and 2003.

On 27 June 2003, Alastair Campbell was interviewed by Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow. In the interview, Campbell accused the BBC of lying, after a Today Programme report claiming that he had 'sexed up' a government dossier about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq War

In the run-up to the Iraq War Alastair Campbell was involved in the preparation and release of the "September Dossier" in September 2002 and the "Iraq Dossier" (or "Dodgy Dossier") in February 2003. These documents argued the case for concern over possible weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. Both have been criticised as overstating or distorting the actual intelligence findings. Subsequent investigation revealed that the "September Dossier" had been altered, on Campbell's orders, to be consistent with a speech given by George W Bush and statements by other United States officials. On 9 September 2002, Campbell sent a memo to John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, in which Campbell directed that the British dossier be "one that complements rather than conflicts with" the US claims.

Later in 2003, commenting on WMDs in Iraq he said, "Come on, you don't seriously think we won't find anything?". He resigned in August 2003 during the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly. Kelly's view that the government exaggerated the Iraqi threat in the Iraq Dossier, told to BBC journalists Andrew Gilligan and Susan Watts, had led to Campbell battling with the BBC. When Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon revealed to Campbell that Dr Kelly had talked to the BBC, Campbell had then decided, in his own words, to use this fact to "fuck Gilligan". The counsel for the Kelly family said to Lord Hutton: 'The family invite the inquiry to find that the government made a deliberate decision to use Dr Kelly as a pawn as part of its strategy in its battle with the BBC.' He claimed in June 2013 that Tony Blair had "greater commitment to wartime truth" than Winston Churchill.

Campbell gave evidence to the Iraq Inquiry on 12 January 2010.

Psychological help

On 1 March 2015, Alastair Campbell wrote in the Sunday Express that politicians ought to follow the example of Olympic athletes by seeking psychological support to help them face the enormous pressures of office. Campbell admitted he should have sought psychological help while working in government – he left in 2003 – but he did turn to Andy McCann, Wales’s rugby team mental skills coach, for help before giving evidence in 2010 to the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War.

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Craig Murray	“For me, the death of millions of people in the Middle East, and Alastair Campbell’s role in the deliberate manufacture of a dossier of lies to cause an aggressive war that led to those deaths, were life-changing events. It led me to pursue the end of the imperialist British state.”	Craig Murray	23 March 2019

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:The Centre Blows Itself Up: Care and Spite in the ‘Brexit Election’	Article	13 January 2020	David Graeber	At the 'Brexit Election' of 2019, the anti-Semitism accusations weakened Labour immensely. But it was the – ultimately successful – campaign by the 'Centrists' to force Jeremy Corbyn to reverse his position on Brexit that really ensured their party’s electoral disaster.
Document:The Death of David Kelly and the "Sexed Up" WMD Report	article	21 February 2008	Stephen Frost David Halpin Christopher Burns-Cox Paul Brandon

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