A former communications director for Tony Blair, he seemed less Machiavellian than, say, Dominic Cummings, and instead determined – often belligerently – to do the right thing by his country, even if half the country was convinced he was wrong. He opened briefings to the foreign media, which were among a raft of modernisation and efficiency strategies he introduced.

He won a phone-hacking case against News International, and was a witness for Prince Harry in his case against the Mirror Group. He subsequently worked with Armstrong, campaigning for cancer charities, but drew criticism from Armstrong's nemesis David Walsh for being so supportive and defending him so passionately.The Scottish Nationalists, who had more realistic prospects of doing well in a general election, and using their success to step up their fight for another independence referendum, fell even more willingly into the trap. Later, I will hear Stewart do exactly this, and each time he does, it is a bit like being in a John le Carré novel. Campbell made his first appearance on the BBC One political discussion programme Question Time on 27 May 2010.

He then worked briefly for Today under new ownership in 1994 before being asked by Tony Blair to be his press secretary when Mr Blair became leader of the Labour Party.Exklusive Mitglieds-Angebote und Sonderrabatte, die du jederzeit auf beliebige Titel anwenden kannst. He was a long-standing critic of Labour's Brexit strategy and in the May 2019 European elections, he voted for the Liberal Democrats as a protest vote. His second novel Maya, a gripping analysis of fame and the obsession it attracts, was published in February 2010. Having recovered and become teetotal, he told Blair about his alcoholism, which Blair did not see as a problem. If a soft Brexit was possible in 2016 or even 2017, by the time we launched People’s Vote, such a compromise was the least popular of all the options.