He also questioned the speed of his expulsion compared to the treatment of Labour colleagues accused of anti-semitism. So far, Campbell's commentaries and views have garnered media attention and generated interest among various online communities.

The former journalist and Labour adviser Tom Baldwin, who I had persuaded to take on the formal role of strategy and communications director, put it like this: “We had to get noticed, to get on the pitch.Campbell claimed in June 2013 that Tony Blair had "greater commitment to wartime truth than Winston Churchill". After helping Mr Blair win a second landslide election victory, he became Director of Communications and Strategy. By “we” she meant the People’s Vote campaign, on which she and I had worked together, trying to secure a referendum on the final Brexit deal. He is also a fan of the rugby league club Keighley Cougars, as it had been a childhood dream of his to play for the team.

View image in fullscreen Rory Stewart trekked across Afghanistan in 2001 for his book The Places in Between. He published Inter-City Ditties, his winning entry to a readers' competition in Forum, the journalistic counterpart to Penthouse magazine. Campbell seems to be writing this from somewhere close to the end of his tether, furious that the current Government has tainted politics so thoroughly that voters might feel it best to disengage entirely, for ever.Campbell attacked the news media for their obsession with him, and eventually began to pull back from frontline work and delegated direct briefing of the media to others, but, if anything, his profile continued to grow. Outside it, football is his principal other interest (though he makes time for park runs and cold water swimming). During the COVID pandemic, he performed on the bagpipes in a charity song written by Martin Gillespie of Scottish band Skerryvore, “Everyday Heroes”, which topped the iTunes download charts within hours of release. First a handful, then dozens, then hundreds, before, in 1939, they produced a book, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism.