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“... to do and had then arranged to be sheltered from any information that might have given him pause. (Alastair Campbell to John Scarlett, 17.9.02: ‘He is not exactly a “don’t know” on the issue.’) He could therefore genuinely believe in the existence of threatening weapons of mass destruction, just as he could genuinely believe that the invasion ...”

“... by James Dingemans QC (Lord Hutton’s chief – and, currently, chiefly benign – inquisitor) to Alastair Campbell: ‘Mr Powell told us yesterday that you had told him that Mr Baldwin had told you that the person who told him this information was Mr Sambrook.’ Campbell’s answer: no, it was more complicated than ...”

“... the other loses. The Government has entered into a bitter tactical skirmish about whether it was Alastair Campbell who manipulated the evidence. But suppose he is totally and utterly exonerated of this specific charge. This simply sharpens the infinitely more damaging strategic issue: if Campbell did not exaggerate ...”

“... lot. So far we have had diaries from two of its central figures, David Blunkett and Alastair Campbell, and from a spin-doctor hanger-on (Lance Price); a memoir by its most senior diplomat, the former ambassador to Washington Sir Christopher Meyer; and now memoirs by the former prime minister’s wife, his deputy and his bagman. The ...”

“... Sky, which had adopted a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach to drug cheats. So he called his friend Alastair Campbell for advice and turned to a book he was reading, The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse – about big business. The trouble with all this, from the point of view of the sports fan, or even the sports-books fan, is that business speak (at least ...”

“... they’re not categorically different from the early ruthlessness of New Labour operators such as Alastair Campbell, Philip Gould and Peter Mandelson. Nor is there any reason to assume that New Labour’s 1990 analogue methods of data analysis – focus group and polling – are less informative or useful than automated psychometrics. As for Nix’s ...”

“... the foul-mouthed spin doctor in The Thick of It, who may or may not bear a passing resemblance to Alastair Campbell. For Tucker the only line of defence is attack, because whatever you do, you can be sure the other fuckers are doing more. When he is finally cornered at the end of the last series, trapped in a lie before a lightly fictionalised version of ...”

“... examples in Flat Earth News. Davies, informed by his knowledge of PR, even has a fresh angle on Alastair Campbell and the Kelly affair. In his account, ‘Campbell used it as a decoy to distract attention from a highly embarrassing story, which was emerging slowly in May and June 2003, that the long-debated Iraqi ...”

“... NUS’ type, many not well received by much of the Party. (Kinnock, however, declined to appoint Alastair Campbell press adviser for the excellent reason that he was more use to the Labour Party at the Mirror.) Kinnock’s, in fact, was the first of the New Labour ‘courts’. Wilson had a kitchen cabinet, and all Labour leaders have had ...”

“... prime minister’s press secretary. Michael McAra is in pretty much every way the opposite of Alastair Campbell, for all that they both have Scottish names. For a start, McAra is dead. He apparently fell off the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard in the middle of January, having had a few drinks in the bar (...”

“... glance, career civil servants), and then of Blair’s media manager, the former Mirror journalist Alastair Campbell, who was given special executive powers to command civil servants by an order of the Privy Council. However, the subdivision of roles and knowhow is such, both on the policy side and in party politics, that in certain respects the humblest ...”

“... to buy Manchester United was referred to the DTI in September, when Mandelson was Trade Secretary. Alastair Campbell, Blair’s spokesman and Britain’s unelected minister of propaganda, worried that the takeover would expose the contradictions in the ruling ideology of élite populism. (On the one hand, New Labour is Murdoch’s facilitator. On the ...”

“... seemed ends in themselves. Yet there is another less exalted political figure the mayor recalls: Alastair Campbell. A journalist like Johnson, Campbell tried to shorten the old PR sequence that traditionally went from politician’s policy, through spin doctor’s presentation, to journalist’s story. Why not run ...”

“... telling descriptions of Adams have been made by those who saw him working closely with McGuinness. Alastair Campbell recorded in his diaries that at an early stage of the peace process Blair asked both men whether they would be able to sign up to a settlement that didn’t explicitly commit to a united Ireland. ‘Adams was OK,’ Blair reported, ‘but ...”

“... and what she eventually gave was a mendacious little speech composed for her with the help of Alastair Campbell, in which she spoke about how she felt as a queen and as a grandmother. No one believed she really meant it, but that didn’t matter; she got through by showing she wasn’t above sharing, and that was enough. Still, she was bested ...”