On 12 October, as the BBC broadcast a documentary about his breakdown and subsequent depression, Alastair Campbell was in Australia. The film was moving – Campbell confessed he still suffers from bouts of depression – but for hardened political observers it revealed little about his present position on the Gordon Brown government and, more generally, on domestic politics. It is known that Campbell is once again working behind the scenes for the Prime Minister, preparing to help out at the general election.
He remains fiercely loyal to the leadership of a party he has promoted for decades, first as a journalist and then as Tony Blair’s director of communications. But Campbell is an obsessive, as he acknowledged in the documentary. Once back in politics, as he now is, will he be able to stop himself from becoming fully consumed? And how much work is he really doing for Gordon Brown?
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