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  • Published: 1 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099493464
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 816
  • RRP: $52.00

Diaries Volume Two

Power and the People




The second volume of Campbell's riveting diaries, rejoining New Labour as they come into power.

Power & the People covers the first two years of the New Labour government, beginning with their landslide victory at the polls in 1997.

This second voume of Campbell's unexpurgated diaries details the initial challenges faced by Labour as they come to power and settle into running the country. It covers an astonishing array of events and personalities, progress and setbacks, crises and scandals, as Blair and his party make the transition from opposition to office.

  • Published: 1 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099493464
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 816
  • RRP: $52.00

About the author

Alastair Campbell

Alastair Campbell was born in Keighley, Yorkshire in 1957, the son of a vet. Having graduated from Cambridge University in modern languages, he went into journalism, principally with the Mirror Group. When Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party, Campbell worked for him first as press secretary, then as official spokesman and director of communications and strategy from 1994 to 2003. He continued to act as an advisor to Mr Blair and the Labour Party, including during subsequent election campaigns. He now splits his time between writing, speaking, politics in Britain and overseas, consultancy and charity, as chairman of fundraising for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, and a leading ambassador for the mental health campaign Time to Change.

He lives in North London with his partner of thirty-five years, Fiona Millar. They have three children. His interests include running, cycling, bagpipes and Burnley Football Club. He has published six volumes of diaries, including the number one Sunday Times bestseller, The Blair Years, a memoir on depression, The Happy Depressive, and three novels.

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Praise for Diaries Volume Two

A fascinating, candid account of recent history

Financial Times

Like the Bloomsbury Group of the Twenties, the New Labour clique is churning out an apparently inexhaustible number of memoirs, diaries and memorabilia. Alastair Campbell's diaries are by far the most important record to have emerged. Nothing like them exists in British political writing. They are a product of almost monastic self-discipline. No matter how gruelling the circumstances, Campbell found time to settle down and make a daily record of events, which at the most frenetic times could extend to several thousand words . . . The account of Blair's wise and agile handling of the crisis that followed the death of Princess Diana is powerful and authentic

Telegraph

Plunging into the second volume of Alastair Campbell's diaries is like opening a Samuel Richardson novel. The tone is breathless and excitable and the dramatic world of backstabbing, tittle-tattle and palace intrigue is instantly captivating. Historians will scour the book for valuable new information. Practitioners of media management will regard it as a classic

Spectator

The real value of the 'complete' diaries lie in their total immersion in the fierce urgency of the present tense . . . The diaries capture what seemed to be important at the time, without knowing where it would lead or what was coming next. So, huge issues creep up without historical fanfare, as the author, at the end of a long day, has no idea how important they will seem the next day . . . Campbell is a great diarist, and precisely because he is not a stylist. His is spare, Orwellian prose, compelling by virtue of his position and his narrative grip - a favourite Campbell word. Whatever you think of Blair and the Blair years, this is what is was like at the time.

John Rentoul, Independent on Sunday

It should be required reading for coalition MPs because, despite a sometimes exhausting level of detail, there is still no better minute-by-minute account of what life is like at No.10.

Gaby Hinsliff, Guardian

Although there has been no shortage of memoirs from the new Labour era, this is without doubt the most authoritative. Campbell is no ordinary spin doctor. He enjoyed total access not only to Tony Blair and the New Labour court but also to just about every mover and shaker in the global power elite up to and including the US President.

Chris Mullin, The Times