I remember when the Hutton Inquiry into the death of government weapons inspector David Kelly was under way. I got a fax while on holiday in France saying that Lord Hutton wanted to see my private diaries. Its three-part structure is a formula for successful campaigning. His audience? Well, the book tour has felt as much like a campaign as a sales drive. Campbell is in a fight to prove that, for all its faults, politics can make a difference in an age of apathy and anger. Campbell took part in the Mental Health Foundation's takeover of Channel Four for Mental Health Awareness Week 2017, acting as a celebrity continuity announcer. For the Mental Health Awareness Week two years later he broadcast the documentary Alastair Campbell: Depression and Me, exploring different ways of dealing and coping with depression. It was part of a BBC series drawing attention to different mental health conditions. [68]

I was wrong about our political system – compulsory voting is

Campbell is a master communicator. He knows the power words have to change the world. Such is his love of language and the ideas it conveys, he’s even coined his own neologisms. Combining ‘reliance’ with ‘perseverance’ saw him invent a word sitting at the epicentre of his thinking and his book’s can-do optimism - ’Perseviliance’… Perhaps the most important reform needed, however, is a change in how we elect our MPs. There is no such thing as a perfect electoral system. But our first past the post system is so far from perfect that it too must be revised and made fit for the very changed politics of today.

The Tory voter ID experiment is like Trussonomics - but based on even less evidence

In May 2012, Campbell took a role at PR agency Portland Communications, at the invitation of Tim Allan, a former adviser to Tony Blair. [39] [40] Along with Tony Blair, Campbell has also provided consultancy services to the government of Kazakhstan on "questions of social economic modernisation." [41] [42] [43]

What Can I Do? by Alastair Campbell | Goodreads But What Can I Do? by Alastair Campbell | Goodreads

I know my depression will always be a part of me. I’ve accepted that now. I still have suicidal thoughts and dark days, and I always will. But at least now I can recognise them, I feel them coming on, and I can deal with them better than I used to. There may one day be a vaccine for Covid-19. But I doubt there will ever be a vaccine or a cure for depression. It is part of the human condition; it is certainly part of mine. I’ve spent decades learning to live with that. And now, through trial and error, through medication and therapy, through highs and lows, above all through grief and love, I have finally got to know my enemy. I live better for having dealt with it. And I deal with it, through living better. I hope that for some of you out there, this book can help you do the same. In May 2022 it was announced that Campbell would appear in the Channel 4 political entertainment series Make Me Prime Minister, due to broadcast at the end of September 2022. [98] [99] Roll of Honour March 2022" (PDF). The Royal College of Psychiatrists. March 2022 . Retrieved 15 October 2022. In August 2016 Campbell's older brother, Donald, who had schizophrenia, died at the age of 62 due to complications resulting from his illness. Campbell has talked extensively about how Donald, the Principal's official bagpiper at Glasgow University and a competitor in high-level Piobaireachd competitions, had inspired him to fight for better mental health services and understanding, and to become the ambassador for several mental health charities. [80] [81]By seven, even the act of speaking is hard. With eight, I will try to clear out as much of the day’s diary as I can, certainly no social engagements, only professional ones that really cannot be called off. At nine, even they go, because now bed is the only place to be. I think, a politics that recognises that the country is in a real mess. And that is honest that we won’t be able to fix everything all at once. It’s going to take time and hard work. A politics that says we support what teachers do; we value what nurses do, we know we can’t get anything done without front-line workers, and we can’t keep the country safe without the police and military”. So though, yes, Johnson is out of power, as we are seeing in the United States, defeating a popul ist is not the same thing as defeating popul ism. Rishi Sunak is still having to bow to its pressures from people who feel, some with their huge Parliamentary majorities, that it really doesn’t matter what they say or do.

What Can I Do?: Why Politics Has Gone So Wrong, and How But What Can I Do?: Why Politics Has Gone So Wrong, and How

He has on a number of occasions turned down the opportunity to sit in the House of Lords. In 2010, Gordon Brown offered him a senior ministerial position alongside a peerage, but Campbell is a long-standing opponent of the House of Lords.In May 2019, he announced that he and his daughter Grace, a comedian and feminist, had launched a joint podcast, Football, Feminism and Everything In Between: a series of interviews with figures from politics, sport and other walks of life. Their first interview was with Ed Miliband, followed by Rachel Riley, Jamie Carragher, Kelly Holmes and Maro Itoje. [49] Our politics is a mess. Leaders who can't or shouldn't be allowed to lead. Governments that lie, and seek to undermine our democratic values. Policies that serve the interests of the privileged few. It's no surprise that so many of us feel frustrated, let down and drawn to ask, ' But what can I do?' VIDEO: Alastair Campbell teams up with Scottish musicians to release NHS charity single". The Sunday Post. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020 . Retrieved 4 May 2020. There are many reasons for political disengagement. But one of them, among the young in particular, is that they do not feel their voice is heard. Too few young people in elected positions; too many places where majorities are so large for one party or another as to be undentable; and policy skewed towards older people because politicians know they are more likely to vote. As with any system, proportional representation of course poses risks. Opponents argue that it would open the doors to extremists entering Parliament. But I would respond that we already have extremists in power, and they have been able to gain and wield that power in no small part because of our voting system.

Alastair Campbell - Wikipedia Alastair Campbell - Wikipedia

That question is the inspiration behind this book. It's a question regularly posed to Alastair Campbell, not least in reaction to The Rest is Politics, the chart-topping podcast he presents with Rory Stewart. His answer, typically, is forthright and impassioned. We cannot afford to stand on the sidelines. If we think things need to change, then we need to change them, and that means getting involved. For god's sake': Alastair Campbell in angry Newsnight exchange over Brexit 'lies' ". The Independent. 12 May 2023 . Retrieved 16 May 2023. Sengupta, Kim (23 October 2010). "Forget conspiracies: the official version is scandalous enough". The Independent. London: Independent Newspapers Ltd. p.11. Archived from the original on 24 October 2010 . Retrieved 24 October 2010. In recent weeks, we’ve had Ian Dunt’s How Westminster Works and Rafael Behr’s Politics: A Survivor’s Guide, both of which adopted the perspective of: politics is broke – here’s how to fix it. Now comes Alastair Campbell’s But What Can I Do?, a book whose entire text should have been printed in italics to give a better immediate sense of the exasperation contained within. I’ll resent, to the day I die, that on those three election wins I didn’t enjoy them. I was already thinking of the next thing.”This event will explore the hopes and concerns of young people from across UCL and London about engaging in politics and consider how our political system can That the current government has to be shown the door is surely now clear to all but the most committed Tories. Austerity. Brexit. Covid corruption – a disastrous ABC contributing to, and being topped by, a cost of living crisis that is pushing millions to the brink and beyond, and exposing Rishi Sunak’s regime as horrifically out of touch. He was awarded the Gold Medal of Honorary Patronage by the Philosophical Society of Trinity College Dublin on 16 October 2019. [103]