The lesser-known memoirs of Tony Blair’s former king of spin, edited by john gibb |
 |
The late-summer publication of Alastair Campbell's memoirs, The Blair Years, announced last week, will be keenly awaited by politicians and the media.
For those who can't wait, The First Post is serialising the spinmeister's diaries from a previous age – written long before he joined the Daily Mirror or told the PM what to think.
The diary entries began at Cambridge when he was a 21-year-old reading modern languages at Gonville and Caius, half-mad with sexual frustration and class hatred. They were published in Forum magazine – a stablemate of Bob Guccione's Penthouse – from 1978 to 1981.
Campbell began with three tales of erotic fiction. Though he came up with the memorable line "He sat back in his chair and smiled at her pubic hair", he wisely decided to put a lid on the fiction and concentrate on
|
|
 |
 |
|
Our dogged reporter shags his way from
the icy wastes
of Norway
to
the nudist beaches
of the south of France
|
|
|
reporting. Thus he was able to hone the red-top narrative style that would serve him proud at the Mirror and later at No 10, when anything needed 'sexing up'.
Even a busker needs PR
Our extracts begin with Campbell's 1979 masterpiece of reportage, Busking with Bagpipes: Alastair Campbell on a little known aphrodisiac – the dangling pipes of Scotland.
In this epic tale of a sexual pilgrimage across Europe, our dogged reporter shags his way from the icy wastes of Norway to the nudist beaches of the south of France, playing the pipes and teaching English to pay his way.
"Even a busker needs public relations," he writes. "I let the press do mine. Find a busy bar, find a journalist, preferably pissed. Buy him a Bloody Mary, tell him you love his town, and the morning paper does a nice article. The Germans even pay you.
"Eight pm. In Dusseldorf and the rain looked as if it would never stop. I roamed the back streets of the Altstadt in search of a  |
