Lisa Owen interviews Tony Blair's former press secretary Alastair Campbell

Lisa Owen: You're back with The Nation, and my next guest is Britain's most famous political spin doctor. Alastair Campbell was former Prime Minister Tony Blair's press secretary and confidante. So how does the man who helped mastermind Labour's landslide in 1997 think this campaign is shaping up with just under three weeks from the election? I spoke with Alastair Campbell in London, and I began by asking him, since he'd correctly predicted the result last time, is he still picking Labour and the Liberal Democrats this time.
Alastair Campbell: Well, I may have got it right last time but I didn't put any money on it, and I certainly wouldn't put money on this one, because I think what's making this election so interesting is the extent to which, actually, it's one of the few where it's very, very hard to predict. I sometimes wake up and think Labour are going to win, and I wake up other days and I'm not so sure. The one thing I do think is that I think the country's rejecting David Cameron. I feel that quite strongly, and I know that I'm biased, and I admit that, but I can't quite see how he's going to get the seats that he needs to get a majority, even with the Liberal Democrats should they not do as badly as people might be predicting. I do think that Labour is still in with a good chance of forming a government. But the reality is that, you've seen in the television leaders’ debates that we've had, that, in a sense, politics is changing. I mean, to have seven leaders on there and to have the Scottish Nationalist Party clearly being now such a big force in Scottish politics, which makes them a big force in UK politics, this is a very, very different election to the ones that I was involved with Tony Blair.
In saying that it is so tight, saying that you think maybe one day it will be this person, another day you're thinking someone else will win, the fact that it is so close, though, is that energising the campaign? Are people, the voters, getting excited about this at all?
It's hard to tell. I think so. What I'm hoping is going to happen is a bit like in the Scottish referendum campaign which went on and on and on for months and months and years, in fact, and then it was just towards the end that people really, really started to engage, and I think people are engaging in this campaign maybe more than in 2010, because I think the choices are very, very clear. I think that there are big differences between the main parties, and you have all these other dynamics going on with the smaller parties, but the reality is, we have a pretty cynical electorate. We have a very negative media. We have an electorate that tends to say that politicians are all the same, when they're not. And nothing ever changes, when it does.
So for the people who are engaged and they are interested, where are the battlegrounds? What are the issues?
Well, the economy is obviously always fundamental, and what's been interesting in the last couple of weeks, really, is that the Conservatives, who started their campaign absolutely convinced that all they had to do was to say the economy's improving, which it is a bit, and that David Cameron is more prime ministerial than Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party - they thought those two things would just take them home. And the reality is that there is a lot of disgruntlement within the Conservative campaign, that it hasn't really taken hold. And one of the reasons for that is that Ed Miliband is actually outperforming against expectations, particularly on television, because, of course, we have such a biased right-wing media that when the debate is just set by the newspapers, it tends to be very unfavourable for him and for what he is trying to do. And, also, on the economy, the Conservatives do seem to have blown a bit of a hole through their entire strategy, because they've started to come out with massive, unfunded spending commitments on the health service, on transport. And they're just starting to look a little bit to me like a party of opposition, because the parties that tend to do this sort of fiscally incredible stuff, they tend to be the ones that don't think they're going to win, and I do have this feeling that the Conservatives just don't think they can get over the line.
In saying that, everybody is going to need friends — whoever has the numbers is still going to need buddies to get them over the line, so in terms of that, in terms of coalition partners — UKIP, the nationalist party, is it capitalising on a sense of, sort of, dissatisfaction, this, kind of, hating on immigrants; is it doing well out of that still?
Well, it has done over the course of parliament. Where it's done particularly well, I think, is in driving David Cameron — stupidly in my view — to promise a referendum in the European Union. That was a tactic, I think, that was designed to try to appease the UKIP support, but actually all it did was feed it. I do think that as we get nearer to an election is that people see more of what UKIP are really about, and the, kind of, awful candidates that they've got. I think that it's possible that they can be— can be squeezed, as it were.
If it came down to it, would the Conservatives be happy to get in bed with UKIP, to have that kind of coalition? Would they work with a guy who says, you know, breastfeeding mothers should stay out of public view and women are worth less because they have children and are unreliable in the workplace? Do they want to sign up with that?
No, they don't. Well, some of them do, because you've got to remember that with the Conservative Party there's quite a sizeable very right-wing fringe that is not that far off from UKIP, and one of the problems David Cameron has had through his entire leadership is that part of the right wing — and he's had some defections — constantly, sort of, try to drag him in that direction. So the answer is that they don't, but the fact is that apart from the Liberal Democrats with whom they've been in opposition, there is nobody else that, I can see, is even going to think about a coalition or a partnership with David Cameron, so I think he is going to be pretty short of friends, so ultimately he has to win seats that he appears not to be winning.
So then let's say Labour is in the position to do the deal; where are they left with, because it's kind of looking like a bit of an uncomfortable position for the left as well when you look at their prospects with the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Nationalist Party.
Well, there's no doubt at all that since the referendum something quite extraordinary has happening in Scotland. I think it's been an extraordinary thing where, if you like, the winners have, kind of, felt like the loser, and the losers have felt like the winners, and there's no doubt — you just have to look at the numbers — that the Scottish National Party are doing well and are likely to be a significant force in the next parliament. Now, Labour and the SNP have ruled out any form of coalition, and I think it's difficult for any party that is a United Kingdom party to have, if you like, coalition thoughts with a party that its founding goal, its dedication, its raison d'etre, is to break up the United Kingdom, but I think that— I mean I think what's interesting is, as well, even though the Liberal Democrats are— they're really struggling to get into the debate, and they will lose seats — there's no doubt about that — but I think that Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, he is— my sense is that he's positioning himself, if you like, to be in an influential position if there is an unclear outcome on May the 8th.
So potentially, you're saying there, the guy that's perhaps been the butt of all the jokes over the last five years is going to be a kingmaker?
Well, I don't know. I mean I think that— I mean our system, we're so used to it. If I think back through my whole lifetime, not just my political career, my whole lifetime, you're so used to this idea of majorities and strong governments, and, you know, I worked— It's not that long ago that Tony Blair was winning three-figure landslides, and you now have politicians that are, sort of, looking at each other and saying, 'Do you think that can ever happen again?' Now, you know, I think that it probably can, but what you’re seeing at the moment, day after day, polls coming out saying, you know, 35, 33, 34, 35, 33, 32 -- whatever it might be, not really changing.
We’ve seen some nastiness on this campaign. If you read the newspapers, it seems to be aimed at Ed Miliband. Is it worse than previous campaigns?
Well, we’ve just passed the 150th anniversary of the death of Abraham Lincoln, and I did a speech on that day to talk about Lincoln’s enduring legacy. And one of the things I talked about was some of the things that people said in the newspapers about Abraham Lincoln, who is the most sainted American president of all time and one the great leaders in history, and he had some pretty rough stuff in the media. So I think it’s been nasty, it’s been unpleasant, it’s been very one-sided, but I’m not sure that it’s been that bad. And one of the qualities that I think Ed Miliband showed and one of the reasons why I think he’s being re-evaluated by the public is he doesn’t really go around whingeing about it. He’s very calm about it, he’s very resilient about it, and I think he’s always understood that if he can get his message through direct to people, he’s got a better chance at being heard.
You’ve written a new book, ‘Winners and How They Succeed’. Putting your bias to one side for a second, when you look at these two, who looks like a winner now? At this stage, who looks like a winner?
I mean, I’ve written about Cameron in the book not as a winner, but I’ve tried to explain why I think he lost in 2010 when the playing field could not have been better laid for him. And I think that his big mistake has always been that he confuses strategy and tactics. And the great winners in the book, whether it’s in sport, whether it’s in business, whether it’s in politics, is they tend to be the people who are very strategic; who know the big things that they want to do and that they want to achieve. And I find him a very, very, very tactical leader. I think that if you’re asking me to look – when the book came out in Britain, people said, ‘Why isn’t Miliband in your book?’ And the answer to that is he’s won the leadership of the Labour Party fine, but that’s not going to put him on par with Angela Merkel or Bill Clinton or Tony Blair or let alone the great figures in history. But I think in terms of who looks like a winner, I’d say he does look more like a winner at this moment.
Don’t you think he actually looks awkward and slightly out of place, though? Out of his depth? Do you not think he comes across that way?
Looking slightly awkward and out of your depth, they’re two very different things. He’s not. The reason why you’re asking that question, I think, is because he has been projected in a certain way. He’s had more coverage in Britain for a picture that was snatched of him eating a bacon sandwich when he looked a bit tired than he’s had for his speeches on the health service. But what happens when you get into a campaign, that’s the froth that gets blown away. Now, I don’t deny it, you do have people saying David Cameron looks like a prime minister and Ed Miliband looks less like a prime minister. I totally accept that is said, but never, ever forget that one of the things that used to be said about Margaret Thatcher; when she was opposition leader, people used to say you could not imagine that woman as a prime minister.
OK. Well, this is going to go against the grain, Alistair, but very briefly because we’re running out of time, there’s three weeks to go. You’ve worked in the area of spin. Spin it for me – how would you make Cameron a winner?
You talk about me being the king of political strategy – one of the real kings of political strategy is Bill Clinton, and I can remember him saying to Tony Blair in 2001 when we were way ahead in the polls and it was our second election coming up, I remember Bill Clinton saying to Tony, ‘You’ve got to fight this like every fibre of your being wants this more than it wanted it before.’ And I don’t feel that sense zeal of passion and hunger. What I see someone as David Cameron as is somebody who talks about being passionate, but you don’t sense that real zeal and hunger to do the things that he’s talking about. So I suppose if I were – I mean, it would never happen; they wouldn’t want me and I wouldn’t want to be there – but if I went up to him and said, ‘You’ve got a few weeks left. Just stop all the crap. You’ve got to focus on what are the things you really, really, really believe in, and go out and show that you’ll fight for them and let the public see that.’ At the moment, I think they’re zoning out a bit, because he’s passionate one night about this, one night about that, and there’s no thread to it, whereas I do think with Ed – even though lots of people say they don’t see him as a prime minister – although people don’t agree with what he says, you know what he’s about and what he believes in.
All right. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. Just before I go, have you given Ed Miliband a signed copy of your book yet?
Well, he’s a friend of mine.
So that’s a yes?
That may well be yes. Whether he’s the type to read it– I’m not entirely convinced it’s a good use of his time right at this moment.
All right. Thank you so much for joining us this morning, Alastair Campbell.
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