And then there were two. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown are now the sole surviving members of British politics' most exclusive, and garlanded, club: the men who founded New Labour.
Peter Mandelson was the first to go -- twice. Now Alastair Campbell is stepping out of the golden circle that reshaped a party and went on to govern a nation. Like Mandelson, and the pollster Phillip Gould, who can also claim a creator's hand in the New Labour project, he will not disappear. He may continue to whisper advice from the shadows. But he will no longer be at the heart of the enterprise. Instead, only two of those original pioneers will push on: the prime minister and the man who doubles as both his co-architect and greatest rival.
For Blair it will be a grievous loss. He depended on Mandelson like a political soul brother, famously casting him as Bobby to his Jack Kennedy. But his reliance on Campbell was of a different order. If there was room for only one other person on the back seat of a prime ministerial limo or around a negotiating table, it was Campbell Blair wanted at his side. He was more than a chief aide: he was like an extra limb.
Campbell was there from the very beginning, an ally and co-conspirator in those days when Blair was a young shadow energy secretary in a hurry. Once officially installed, he gave advice on everything: from when to smile on TV, to what to say and how to say it. Campbell was not just a co-founder of New Labour; he was a co-creator of Blair.
They complemented each other perfectly. Campbell gave Blair, nicknamed "Emily" at school and "Bambi" in opposition, some macho cover. Campbell is not just the tabloid newspaper bruiser of modern myth. He is one of those men whose bullying charisma makes other men crave his approval. You would see it whenever he was surrounded by a pack of hacks, which was often. He had locker room magnetism, which he deployed to great effect. Blair has none of it.
Different as they are, the two men built up an understanding that verged on the telepathic. The director of communications needed to give only the baldest of prompts and the PM knew what to do: Campbell was like the unseen TV producer who feeds raw lines into the earpiece of a smiling anchorman, who magically turns them into poetry. How will Blair cope, now that he has to face the world alone?
But Campbell's place at the founders' table was earned through more than media mastery. Together with Gould, he boasted an unerring instinct for middle Britain. Gould had his poll numbers, but Campbell had his gut -- telling his charge what would "play" out there and what would not. This was the New Labour revolution, to put the party back in touch with the British mainstream; and Campbell was as much a part of that turnaround as the two men who now head the government.
For proof, look no further than the rewriting of clause 4 of Labour's Constitution (which referred to common ownership of the means of production and allowing the worker the full fruits of his industry), to reassure the voters that state socialism was dead. It is said the idea came to Campbell while on holiday -- with Tony Blair.
This is what Blair has lost. A servant who, as the premier's own farewell statement put it yesterday, was "immensely able, loyal and fearless" and a man whose dedication was not only to the transformation of Labour but to Blair himself -- and who saw the two as inseparable. Like Mandelson, Campbell was prepared to confront anyone who stood in his boss's way, including the biggest beast of them all, Gordon Brown. He was said to be the source of the description of Brown (the British finance minister) as "psychologically flawed" and that would have fitted: he always seemed ready to destroy anyone who imperilled his man. Now Blair will face Brown bereft of both Mandelson and Campbell; within New Labour's innermost circle, the balance of power has evened up.
Campbell will leave a wider gap too. Spin is not about to end: in a modern, 24-hour media culture there is little alternative to some form of news management. But big personalities have a habit of embodying the period they dominate, and so Campbell's going will mark the end of one kind of era. The late 1990s Labour insistence on party discipline, staying "on message," pagers and bleepers, initiativitis, rapid rebuttal -- when people remember all that, they will think of Alastair Campbell.
And Tony Blair will miss him. Perhaps he will poke his head around Campbell's old office, hoping for some spine-stiffening advice. But the room will be empty. He is on his own now. The New Labour adventure that began a decade ago is down to two, and they will be eyeing each other closer than ever.
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