The former firebrand political adviser is enjoying later-in-life acclaim due to his acute political insights and relaxed demeanour.
Sometimes Alastair Campbell lies in bed at night convinced that the current global mess is all his fault.
It says something about the dynamic between the political celebrity – and the mere political leader – that it is Steve Bracks, the former premier of Victoria, who stands in a graffiti-scrawled Melbourne laneway awaiting the arrival of Campbell, and not the other way around. A waitress arrives with three little cast iron teapots. Such is Campbell’s authoritativeness that his order counts for us as well.from the question people always ask him. “Politics is shit, the government is awful, the country’s falling to bits, there are massive challenges no one seems to be confronting. What can I do?”His simple answer: get involved, and the book shows how to do that while also protecting people from the crushing nature of politics.
“What impressed me was they spoke like human beings. They were young. I sensed real empathy about them. I sort of felt they were all in politics for the right reasons.” He explains his continual fascination as a product of leaving full-time work in 2003, partly through burnout. “I decided that I never wanted a full-time job again, but I also decided that I wanted to try and make a difference.”
“There’s populism of the left as well as the right. But I do think that populism, it almost gives a kind of big intellectual upper towards just nasty extremists.
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