Diaries Volume One: Prelude to Power (The Alastair Campbell Diaries, 1)

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Fiona immediately got in touch with them, and for the last six years has been part of a campaign for equal civil partnerships, which has meant we and many other couples and families can enjoy the same rights and protections as the married, but without the cultural baggage of marriage.

She is one of the few to come out of the report with her reputation enhanced. Manningham-Buller told the Chilcot inquiry that the invasion of Iraq substantially increased the terrorist threat to the UK and helped to radicalise young British Muslims. Campbell is one of the few to emerge relatively unscathed from the report. Far from attempting to “sex up” up the dossier, Campbell comes across as one of the voices of reason. He initially argued that military action would require a second United Nations resolution but it never came. In spite of that, he said there was legal cover. As Alastair Campbell said in the introduction to The Blair Years, it was always his intention to publish the full version, covering his time as spokesman and chief strategist to Tony Blair. Prelude to Power is the first of four volumes, and covers the early days of New Labour, culminating in their victory at the polls in 1997.

He would clearly like his diary to be treated as the definitive source on New Labour. Historians will certainly find them very useful for atmosphere. They capture the brittle combination of arrogance and neuroticism during this period when New Labour swaggered towards power by day and sweated that it might yet lose by night. 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. Power & the People covers the first two years of the New Labour government, beginning with their landslide victory at the polls in 1997. The report notes that “it was the responsibility of the chiefs of the defence staff and the chief of joint operations to ensure that appropriate rules of engagement were set, and preparations made to equip commanders on the ground to deal with it effectively. They should have ensured that those steps were taken.”

By volume four – Iraq, protesters and photographers outside the house, the kids fed up with us bringing arguments home, no such thing as a quiet weekend or an uninterrupted holiday – we were close to breaking point, but thankfully didn’t break. Good job really. On balance, I am not sure I would survive the practicalities and vicissitudes of life without her. Is it OK to say I don’t know how to access online banking, change a plug, use the coffee machine, let alone make a moderately sized decision without talking it through with her from every angle? So, the commitment always having been clear, why did we decide to put pen to paper, and take part in a ceremony to confirm that commitment legally at Camden Register Office in front of – Covid restrictions meant only four witnesses – our three children and our elder son’s partner? The answer is really quite simple – because we could. The spur was the change in attitudes, and then the change in laws. The Blair government legalised civil partnerships for same-sex couples, David Cameron then brought in the right to same-sex marriage, leaving heterosexual couples disadvantaged in law. Testifying at the Royal Courts of Justice during the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, Alastair Campbell said of his diary: "It is not intended for publication." Either the size of the advance changed his mind or, more likely, that was always a cynical fib. He published one version of his jottings in 2007, just two weeks after Tony Blair left No 10. Now comes the first of an intended four further volumes. They compete for thumping length with Winston Churchill's multi-volume chronicle of the second world war. In Campbell's view, they will be barely less important. With characteristic self-effacement, he describes himself as "the nexus of some of the key political and personal relationships which shaped New Labour and therefore recent British political history".The report notes that Hoon – early in 2002, before Blair went to see Bush in Texas in April – identified Iran as being a bigger problem for the UK than Iraq in terms of weapons of mass destruction proliferation. But he did not follow through on this and joined the rush to war in Iraq. Hans Blix Goldsmith comes out badly from the Chilcot report – maybe second only to Blair in terms of damage to his reputation.