This coalition malarkey is proving to be even more consensual than we thought. It now appears that whatever immigration policy people voted for, what they are probably going to get is neither the one the Tories campaigned on, nor the Lib Dems', but Labour's.

Business appears to have won the argument that the Tories' idea of a rigid cap on non-EU immigrants risks cutting off workers that the country needs and wants from abroad. Er, like wot Labur sed.

The reason we know this is because of the new approach of briefing out the deliberations of Cabinet committees chaired by Nick Clegg, presumably so that we can all be impressed at how terribly busy he is.

But it is also evidence of how keen he is to support his boss that he seems to have been the one defending the Tories' election-time gimmick - oops, sorry, of course I meant their thought-through policy - whilst Tory ministers Michael Gove and David Willetts (three and a half brains) are doing the 'hold on a minute' routine we assumed was Cleggo's role.

The shift appears to be driven by worries that banks and multinationals, among the Tories' closer friends, need to be able to hire and fire globally if London is to remain a key financial centre.

So step forward a variation of the Australian points-based system GB never tired of mentioning during the election campaign. I don't suppose it is much consolation to Gordon that the coalition parties, having for different reasons and with different emphasis rubbished this policy, now appear set upon embracing it. Nor will it be much consolation to Aussie PM Kevin Rudd who has gone very quickly from stratospheric ratings to the exit door marked internal putsch. At least David Cameron has never had the stratospheric ratings to worry falling from.

So as to show I am not wholly driven by loathing of all things Tory, may I express qualified support for their attempts to raise the pension age.

The French were out revolting yesterday at the idea of a rise from 60 to 62, so the Tories might have their work cut out with a long-term goal of 70.

But governments have a responsibility to adapt to changed circumstances. State pension ages were set in 1940, when the average life expectancy beyond retirement was seven years. It is decades beyond that now. 

Provided the shift is matched by an anti-ageism agenda, so that older people can find the jobs in the first place, I cannot get as worked up about it as the unions appear to be.

*** Buy Prelude to Power here at Amazon.

Breakfast in London, lunch in Berlin, so a chance to read the Fussball-mood now that England and Germany are drawn together in the last 16 of the World Cup.

On yesterday's outings, you would have to give it to Germany if football was the only judgement. Their win over  Ghana was one of the fastest, most skilful and most entertaining matches so far, with the added spice of two brothers playing on opposing sides. The Milbands have nothing on the non-speaking Prince-Boatengs.

But when a game is as big as this one, other factors, relevant and irrelevant, come into play. England, I can report, is winning on the heatwave front. It is a nice day here, but nothing like as warm as when I left home. England also wins - narrowly it must be said - on the number of flags flying from cars. England wins by a landslide on the nationalist fervour pouring from news-stands, but then German news-stands are always more sober.

So it is only really the football that might be the problem, and surely with the new found mood that had even Fabio Capello smiling and chortling, they ought to be able to fix that by Sunday. That being said, England fans might have cause for concern at the sight of their players celebrating so wildly the winning of a match which Clive Tyldesley had suggested in commentary was the international equivalent of Premier League v League Two.

Having just had a brief run, there is one factor I must concede unequivocally to the Germans. Clean streets. I know this is an obsession of mine, and has no bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the match, but it is very noticeable. This is what a Tory Mayor and a Tory-Lib government does for us, eh?

I did not see the whole of the Cameron-Clegg 'Face the audience' programme on the Beeb last night, but I am assuming they edited in the best bits for the packages I saw on the news ... in which case the question is bound to be asked ... what is Nick Clegg for?

Cameron seemed to be doing all the talking, and when Clegg tried to get a word in, his boss shut him up and answered for him. All a bit embarrassing, and the body language not as good as when they first got into bed together. Nick had the look of a man who wished he had not had that last drink and ended up doing something he regretted. And what was the red tie all about? Too late, Nick.Stick to gold. It suits you.

It is not just Cameron who ignores Clegg though. I was in the BMI lounge when the deputy PM came onto breakfast telly this morning. I know airport lounges are not the liveliest of places, but of 24 people in the room, I reckon one bothered to look up and listen. Moi.

Out on my run, I went by Madame Tussauds, which had pictures of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy outside. I popped in to ask if they had any plans to get waxworks of the new coalition leaders in Britain, Herr Cameron und the multilingual Herr Clegg.

Sometimes it can be really good fun being stared at as though you're stark staring bonkers. Cleggmania ist Geschichte, as we say in these parts.

In this spin-free (sic) world of the new coalition government, I draw your attention to a piece in today's Guardian.

It is but a tiny molehill amid the mountainous coverage of George Osborne's first and, alas, not last Budget.

It is tucked away at the bottom of page 5 beneath the headline 'Osborne's £104,000 claim "not based on real cases."'

I must admit that even I, immune though I am to most Tory spin, let out a little 'tut-tut' when the Chancellor reported that 'some families' receive £104,000 a year in housing benefit.

Yet the little Guardian report suggests this may not be so. In this era of Freedom of Information, surely if such sums were being paid in such a controversial benefit, we would know how many, where they lived and who they were. Not so. 'We don't have any figures on how many people are claiming that rate,' a spokeswoman for the Department of Work and Pensions is quoted as saying.

But the same spokeswoman admits the £104,000 is based on what a family who were housed in Kensington and Chelsea, one of the wealthiest parts of the UK, WOULD receive IF they were given a five bedroomed home. In other words the chances are there are no such families taking £104,000 at all.

In a weird form of mitigation the spokeswoman says that whilst they have no records of such large claims (we are only the government, eh?) a search of the websites of the Sun and the Daily Mail would 'throw up stories of people being paid the same if not more.'

So let us be clear, dear, if I may patronise you as much as you appear to be patronising the Guardian reading public. The Chancellor made an eye-catching claim, one that will be used to justify major cuts, without any government knowledge that such a claim was justified, beyond reports published on the websites of two tabloid newspapers not best known for their objectivity. Interesting approach to communication of major policy decisions.

There were a lot of measures announced yesterday but a lot of unanswered questions about the impact. Chief secretary Danny Alexander seemed not to have a clue, nor even to have thought much, about  how many jobs might be lost as a result of the huge public sector cuts coming down the track.

He was so happy to be sitting alongside David Cameron and his nodding dog party leader, Cleggo, as Osborne delivered their Budget, that he had perhaps not asked the kind of questions a progressive might have done.

He was so happy to be able to have a table in the Red Book showing that the rich would pay the most that he did not think through the disproportionate impact on the poor of departmental cuts which as of today are just figures but will quickly become programmes scrapped, progress halted, people thrown on the dole. And he seems not to have thought much about the idea that people who go on the dole cost the State money, rather than the other way round, and do not give much back by way of tax or spending.

The £104,000 figure may be a myth. But the lost jobs and the impact on spending (government spending up, private sector spending down) will be all too real, once cuts in theory become people, real people as opposed to the ones not on £104,000 a year housing benefit.

*** Buy Prelude to Power here at Amazon.

You may remember during the election that I was somewhat dubious about Labour targeting George Osborne as the Tories' 'weakest link.'

What you saw today was a right-wing Tory Chancellor setting out, with considerable confidence, a major package of measures that fit with his right-wing Tory view of the world. Nick Clegg may be deputy Prime Minister, but the real Number 2 in this government is Mr Osborne.

In so far as there were sops to the Liberal Democrats, they tended to be rhetorical. Progressive alliance my rump.

Osborne was fairly clear during the election campaign about what would be required to fulfil his desire to tackle the deficit, make substantial cuts and put up some taxes. What he has done very cleverly since is use the presence of the Lib Dems in government to develop political cover.

As he gave the speech, Cameron was blocked from view by Osborne at the Despatch Box. So we saw Nick Clegg in best nodding dog mode on one side of the Chancellor, and Danny Alexander constantly leaning in to Cameron for approval of the measures George was announcing.

Danny Boy should not look so worried. David Cameron likes this Budget; and likes the fact that the Lib Dems have to support it.

I thought Harriet Harman did well in her response. It is not easy to respond on your feet to the Budget. But she was right to throw back at Cameron his words on VAT being a regressive tax, right to point out that the new Office of Budget Responsibility has blown a hole in the government's claims that the economy is worse than they expected it to be, and right to remind the Lib Dems that as with so much that was in the Queen's Speech, they are basically now standing on their heads.

The basic argument between Tory and Labour is largely unchanged since the election. Cut the deficit now, when the recovery is fragile - or continue to support the economy precisely because of that fragility.

The arguments around that, and the considerable impact of the many specific changes announced, and the many more cuts that will flow from the big figure announcements, and disproportionatgely impact upon the poor, will define our politics for some time.

But I ended the main exchanges feeling that however much I disagree with the content of his Budget, Osborne at least has an agenda and is making sure he takes it forward, whatever the impediments seated around him, Harriet Harman responded well, and the Lib Dems are heading for big trouble, and they deserve every bit of it.

Vince Cable looked like he felt the pain of Harriet's jibe that he had gone from national treasure to Treasury poodle. I confidently predict an entrepreneur somewhere will do Clegg as a nodding dog and we will one day see him in the back windows of cars, which is where and how he will be best remembered. And despite being surrounded by BBC journalists saying - and I agree - that George Osborne had shown the courage of his convictions, Alexander is currently looking very uncomfortable as he says he is very comfortable with the changes Osborne announced.

*** Buy Prelude to Power here at Amazon.

When John Major put himself up for re-election as Tory leader, whilst still a serving PM, it was on one hand an act of desperation, but on the other a chance for him and his Party to show they had a bit of fight left in them.

As Prelude to Power records, TB and I were a little alarmed by the extent to which we were suddenly written out of the main political script, and how the various Tory factions fought for attention, not least by showing which could best attack us.

Today's political situation is different, with a new coalition government in power, and Labour's leadership election taking place from Opposition. But the leadership contenders need to take a leaf from the Tory book of a decade and a half ago.

Because among the judgements Labour members need to make is who is best at attacking the Tories. Yes, the positive forward agenda for Labour is important. But in opposition, you need a strong and credible critique of the government.

So tomorrow, when George Osborne puts the fragile recovery at risk with his ideological onslaught on public services, by pretending the economy is worse than it is, and using the quisling Lib Dems as political cover, it will be up to acting leader Harriet Harman and shadow chancellor Alistair Darling to lead the Labour response.

But it is also important that the David and Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott pile in, and do so with real impact. Not just as a way of highlighting the risk Osborne and Co pose, but as a way of showing party and country what they have by way of argument, strategy and fight.

It is harder to get heard in Opposition. But all of them have to rise to the challenge of showing they can analyse a complex situation, mount an argument about it, and make sure it cuts through to the public. On how they fare in that, a lot will depend.

*** Buy Prelude to Power here at Amazon.

When Iain Dale interviewed me for his Total Politics magazine interview, he asked me, with my mental health campaigning hat on, whether I was surprised no MPs had committed suicide over the expenses furore.

I avoided the question, perhaps remembering the mild opprobrium that fell upon the head of Tory MP Nadine Dorries, not least from her leader, when she suggested something similar at the height of said furore. There is also something that just holds you back when being asked to speculate on the death of others, particularly with their own hand.

But had I given a straight answer to Iain's straight question, rather than dance around it, I would have said yes, I am somewhat surprised; and therefore not totally surprised, albeit shocked, to hear that Tory MP David Ruffley had leapt in front of a train.

My only real experience of Mr Ruffley, who was not among the worst offenders on expenses but got a fair bit of stick from his local media, was when he tried to rough me up a bit at a select committee in 1998. He came over as a real Tory, a bit bumptious, not the kind of guy I would want to sit down with to watch Brazil v Ivory Coast tonight.

But I feel nothing but sympathy for him over whatever was going through his mind in the run up to his leap in front of the train.

I also hope that his extraordinary escape means he will now be able to view it as such, a miraculous escape which gives him a chance to see all the good things in his life and career, not just what he felt to be the bad.

And I hope it means members of the media and the public might take stock of the largely one-sided view of MPs and their expenses.

At a Q and A session on Prelude to Power a couple of weeks ago, a young woman who had read the book said she was 'amazed to see that basically the people in it are just human beings'.

Why amazed, I asked? They are indeed just human beings, with strengths and frailties, ambitions and egos, good sides and bad, good days and bad.

What's more, the vast bulk are in it for good reasons not bad, because they want to make a difference for the better.

David Ruffley and I are never going to be on the same page politically. But if, as I read, he has been suffering from depression, then I wish him nothing but the best, and hope he gets all the support he needs, from friend and political foe alike.

*** Buy Prelude to Power here at Amazon.

Even though he was a bit grudging in his review of Prelude to Power (aka 'perfect Father's Day gift' according to some publicist via some twitterer called @campbellclaret) George Parker of the FT remains a political journalist I don't mind reading (this is high praise in my lexicon of judgements on political journalists).

In his pre-Budget report today is tucked away a fascinating line, namely ... 'Senior Lib Dems whisper that Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Business Secretary, never really believed his pre-election rhetoric that cuts should be delayed until 2011.'

I think this is worth repeating ... 'Senior Lib Dems whisper that Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Business Secretary, never really believed his pre-election rhetoric that cuts should be delayed until 2011.'

Fascinating, fascinating, fascinating. So the man who became, variously, 'everyone's favourite politician,' 'the  politician who got it right all along,' 'the politician who really understands the economy', 'the one politician you can trust to tell the truth' believed none of it all along. He was just waiting for Dave and Nick to cuddle up in bed together, plan the cuts, and he would happily leap from one set of economic and political beliefs to another.

Now it could be of course that the Lib Dem whisperers are not Mr Cable, or anyone close to him, but what might be called Clegg-ites, or Danny Alexander-ites, who are so pleased to be in government that they will do and say pretty much anything Dave or George tell them to.

And it may further be that they hear the noises of Vince's discontent, and possible rumblings that he doesn't think the coalition is sustainable, so they feel they have to do a bit of VC re-education programming via the paper they know he is most likely to read.

Of course we all remember from the election that if you voted Lib Dem, you would see an end to spin, and also you would see politicians who did the old-fashioned thing of saying one thing to get elected, and then doing it when they got elected. Remember that one? Oh, it was one of Cleggy's favourites.

But that was before this amazing thing happened a few days after May 6. They discovered GREECE. Yes, they had never heard of Greece until then. We know Clegg speaks a few hundred languages but Greek is not one of them, so we can forgive him for not having heard of Greece until he was in his nice big office close to Dave's place.

Not only did he hear of Greece, but also they discovered, via the new Office for Budget Responsibility, that the economy was in an even worse shape than Dave and George had been saying during the campaign when they said we were Greece (Nick can't have been listening at the time because he only heard of Greece on May 11) Only in fact the OBR was not saying that at all, but Dave and George told Nick and Danny they had to say that the OBR HAD said that, because the media loves them, you see, and if they say it often enough, the media will ignore what the OBR actually says, and report instead what D and G, and N and D, say they said. It's not spin, you understand, just that we're all in this together.

So Greece, OBR and then of course all those terrible Labour people throwing around money that didn't exist... like a loan to a company in Sheffield (note the word loan btw ... something that can come back with interest once its job has been done). Then there were all those big ticket items like free swimming for kids and pensioners. I mean, come on, these are bank-breakers...

I was presenting awards at a dinner after the England match last night and for the second time this week, I found Clegg really does work as the butt of humour, much better than D and G, because the public sense that when it comes to waving the axe at things like free swimming or new hospitals, the Tories really enjoy it and believe in it, but the public know Clegg campaigned - and somehow became DPM - on a totally different tack. He used to believe that if you cut back on the stimulus to the economy before it is growing properly, you risked pushing up unemployment and risking a double dip recession.

So did Cable, who looks increasingly like a Prisoner of War. The 'Senior Lib Dems whisper' briefings of re-education are part of his punishment routine, but over time they hope a version of the Stockholm syndrome will kick in. But I hear from inside Lib Dem HQ that he continues to let people know of his doubts and concerns, whilst simultaneously facing the other way - or trying to - in public.

It is not very seemly though, is it, when the only way these people can justify the total volte face they have made on their economic agenda is to say they never believed the one they fought on at the election? I thank Mr George Parker for this piece of reporting. At least the Tories are the same old Tories. Increasingly the Lib Dems are coming over as a bunch of charlatans.

*** Buy Prelude to Power here at Amazon. Or, as it is the 'perfect Father's Day present', give Holland v Japan a miss and get down to Waterstone's. They might even have it properly stocked by now.

I know the new Tory-Lib boys and girls think they are the new masters of the universe, and with a tame media blowing wind into their sails, they are enjoying being in government, and to some extent nobody will blame them for that.

But might I humbly suggest they are letting the skirts of their strategy show a little too much. With the message of cuts well established, the first batch announced under David Laws, the Office for Budget Responsibility up and running and setting out the context, and a Budget due any day now, yesterday's statement by chief secretary Danny Alexander was as much about further messaging as it was about the detail he was announcing.

Though there will be pain and irritation for some of the projects he was reversing, the figures involved, set against the Budget as a whole, were tiny. It was in part an attempt by Alexander to get noticed, and to ally himself to the cuts message which Nick Clegg wants him to embrace so whole-heartedly, but above all another place to make Labour rather than the coalition the issue.

It is a highly political strategy at a time their main message for the public is that they are taking the difficult decisions required to get the economy back on track. It is an easier one for the Tories to execute because they did at least have a different message and a different approach during the run up to the election, and because the public have an instinctive understanding of the Tories as small state enthusiastic cutters.

But ... was in Newsnight that had a clip of Nick Clegg lambasting the Tories during the campaign for the early cuts they would make and the fierce resistance he would put up? Yet look how tamely he rolled over to Cameron and Osborne on the loan to Sheffield Forgemasters. And look how eagerly Alexander stepped in to do Osborne's dirty work.

I was pleased to see David Miliband hitting back hard on the notion that these were sound economic decisions as opposed to political positioning. I think Danny would have shown a bit more nous to have left it to George to deal with in the Budget, when a lot more will be going on, than to have sought out this rather odd moment in the spotlight.

The game was all a bit too obvious. And once people see it is a game, in the Tories' case to justify cuts they always wanted to make, in the Libs' to justify the near complete reveral of their position on many of these issues, their grumpiness will outweigh even the honeymoon warmth being generated by a media love-in.

*** Buy Prelude to Power here at Amazon.

*** Buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Had a very nice evening at the Grassington Festival. Lovely little place, home of the legendary Calendar Girls, and surrounded by some of the most fabulous scenery on earth.

For a small place, they put on a terrific festival of arts and music. Good crowd last night, market forces failed in that the organisers sold out of Prelude to Power (good sign I guess) and after my opening spiel we had a very enjoyable Q and A mixing heavy and light.

Now I think for people to shell out hard-earned cash to hear me speak, they are likely to be interested in politics and current affairs. And they were. As is often the case at these festivals, the audience was predominantly white, middle class, middle aged, though with a few younger types scattered around.

But it is always good to get a feel for what they know and don't know, and how differently things can feel outside the Westminster and media bubble.

Someone asked me whether I was secretly flattered by the idea that Malcolm Tucker was based on me. I asked the audience if they all knew who Malcolm Tucker was. A gentle 'no' murmur could be heard. I asked for those who had never heard of the fictional star of The Thick of It to raise their hands. I reckon between a fifth and a quarter went up. If you add in a few for people who don't like to admit ignorance to anything, or don't like being asked to raise their hands by some bloke on the stage, that means a fair proportion of educated, informed, middle class opinion had no idea who he was.

It allowed me to explain in the context of my favourite examples of swearing - for another day.

Then someone asked what I had said to wind up Adam Boulton (a subject I have been asked about by someone every day since he lost it live on air). Yet although there was quite a loud chuckle throughout the hall, I also sensed a fair few people not getting the joke. So I asked if they knew what the question referred to. Again, quite a few 'Nos'. I asked for a hands up if people had heard of Adam Boulton. Well over half. Then hands up if they had heard of him before our spat. A lot fewer. Yet in Westminsterland it is hard to imagine anyone doesn't know who he is.

I was told to let the Q and A run as long as I liked and it was well past ten by the time we were done. The questions ranged far and wide - bigotgate, TV debates, what will GB do next, Labour leadership election, TB and charisma, spin, truth, not doing God, mental illness, religion, Iraq, Ireland, how to sell cuts, BP, Burnley, Murdoch, Peter Mandelson, Scots in politics, bonus culture, we must have got through a few dozen, including who was the best PM we never had from the last 30 years. I put that to the audience too and from a choice of Healey, Ken Clarke, Heseltine and John Smith, John won by a landslide.

The 'hands up' exercise did confirm that we can now safely say that Nick Clegg  is a household name - no hands went up when I asked if anyone had not heard of him.

I also sensed he is quite close to being a potential figure of fun. Are the satirists on the case?

The media is still doing the honeymoon bit, but the feeling is out there that the Lib Dems are being used pretty ruthlessly by the Tories and that a lot of what Lib Dem voters (there were plenty of them) voted for is not what the MPs they sought to elect are now promoting.

At these kind of events I give out prizes for the best questions as a way of encouraging people to ask questions I am unlikely to have been asked before.

In third place - have you ever accidentally left on a microphone and what did you say?

In second place - what will you say about Grassington in your diary tonight? (I can definitely say I have never been asked that before)

But the winner of a signed Prelude to Power came from a lady named Lindz who asked 'which was the greatest act of betrayal - Owen Coyle's or Nick Clegg's?'

By then I was well into the 'hands up if you have never heard of' routine. Given we were not that far from Burnley, Owen Coyle may be a little hurt to know that more hands went up than for Malcolm Tucker. Still, I guess for people to come out to hear me on a night Brazil are entering the World Cup suggests they were not massive football fans.

As for the answer, I went for Coyle in that his leaving Burnley was in some ways a bigger shock and affected me more personally at the time. But the mood of the audience, if I read it right, seemed to think Clegg won the betrayal game by a mile. And once the cuts really bite, and his MPs are voting for legislation they used to campaign against, and people tire of the 'everything's Labour's fault' line of defence, I think things could get sticky for Nicky.

Anyway, thanks to all who organised and all who came, and good luck for the rest of the Festival.

*** Buy Prelude to Power here at Amazon.

*** Buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

And to think that a couple of weeks ago, if you heard people talking about  'vuvuzela', you'd think they were pissed and reminiscing about their holiday in South America.

Now, thanks to the universal appeal of football, just as all English people are suddenly experts on goalkeeping, so everyone has a view on the vuvuzela.

But it has quickly become one of those issues where it is hard to have a nuanced position. You're meant to love it or hate it. There can be no in between.

So when I tweeted that the annoyance at the vuvuzela was becoming more annoying than the annoyance caused by the vuvuzela, I was castigated by the anti-vuvuzelans as a pro-vuvuzelan crusader who therefore deserved to have them played outside my bedroom window as I tried to sleep.

Yet it is possible both to be irritated by the constant hornets' nest hum, and yet still speak up against the waves of whingeing and hatred it seems to have inspired.

I am more for singing, shouting and chanting than I am for the vuvuzela. But I cannot stand the small-mindedness of people who think that because something is different to what they're used to, we ought to get out the banning orders.

South Africa is not Britain. The blowing of the vuvuzela is an act of joyous celebration. Yes, when hundreds are going at once it can mean that even the cheering which greets a goal can be drowned out. But so what?

I speak as someone with very low noise irritation threshhold. Indeed I may have blogged not long ago about my desire to throttle slow-sweet-unwrappers and Coke-slurpers and pick'n'mix-chompers in cinemas. That is because they interfere with the concentration required to enjoy a good film.

I have also at times embarrassed my family by leaning over to complete strangers and asking them if they would mind not clicking their pen top incessantly on and off.

But noise at football is part of what football is. Go to a Scottish international and expect to hear bagpipes. Go to England and expect to hear the band playing The Great Escape. Go to South Africa and hear the vuvuzela.

It is not going to be banned, and nor should it be.

And to those who said how would you like it if everyone at Burnley had one? They won't. A few might for a game or two, but it is not our culture. It is theirs and we should embrace it for the duration of a tournament on their soil.

And if you don't like it, turn the sound down. Ah, but then it's not the same is it? Proves my point. Football without crowd noise is like a book without words.

*** Buy Prelude to Power here at Amazon.

*** Buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

For reasons I may dilvuge at a later date, I didn't have time to do a blog yesterday, and today I have just a few minutes before going out to complete the BBC Lifeline Appeal film on behalf of Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research; then off to Grassington in Yorkshire for their annual festival where I will talk books, politics and meet up with some of the Calendar Girls, the nearest LLR have to pin-ups.

Sorry for the long 'intro' (at journalism school we were urged to keep it under 30 words, preferably 20) but it shows I am rushing I guess.

Time simply to say that in various snatches of car radio news yesterday, I was glad to hear Alistair Darling refuse to lie down and die in the face of a ConDem spin operation that, as one of the right-wing bloggers says this morning, would have made me in my heyday blush.

Despite the spin, the reality is that the Alan Budd report is not quite what Dr Osborne ordered. Yes, it says that growth is likely to be lower than forecast. It also says borrowing will be lower, which tends to blow a fairly big hole in the Osborne-Cameron-Clegg argument mounted in recent days.

And while the spin went for a 'game, set and match' to set the tone of the debate for years to come, by the end of the day, it was more like a tie-break situation. And if, as many now seem to fear, the rush to cut helps usher in a double dip recession, then the Tories' 'everything is Labour's fault' strategy (so much for taking politics out of the economy) will look a bit lame.

Must rush.

*** Buy Prelude to Power here at Amazon.

*** Buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Poor Rob Green ... even as the words go down on the screen, I can hear the fulminations to the phone-ins as one horrific moment is allowed to define a man's career, even his life.

He is a professional footballer, and it was a playground error. Had it happened in the last minute of the Final, and been the difference between World Cup success and World Cup failure, then the wailing and teeth-gnashing might have been justified.

But it helped contribute to a draw in the most difficult of three games in the easiest group in the tournament. That's all.

I watched the match at a fundraiser in Milton Keynes for England's World Cup 2018. Quite a nice way to see the game, in the company of former England player Tony Woodcock, referee Dermot Gallagher and MK Dons rising star Sam Baldock. We were all asked for a prediction. The other three said England wins by one to three goals. I, the only non-expert on the panel, said that I thought America were better than people reckoned, and England would do well to win by a single goal (code for 'I think it will be a draw but I don't want to get booed in this flag-waving  atmosphere').

Typing this having just watched Algeria v Slovenia, it is unthinkable for England not to qualify and when they do, the Green save will be largely forgotten and some other drama will take over.

As I left Milton Keynes I tweeted about what good sense the Radio Five live 'pros' Dean Kiely and Perry Groves were talking in refusing to go o.t.t, and how over the top the papers would be about Green. I ended up being asked onto Stephen Nolan's show to elaborate.

Perry had already made my main point - that the press only do hero and zero, no shades of grey in between.

So when the event - a draw - did not live up to the hype - England to beat the world - then the automatic default position is to go into zero-meltdown mode. So it has proved, judging by thew news-stands I saw when out on the bike this morning.

Green's one mistake does not make him a terrible goalkeeper overnight. And though England were not brilliant, they were not dreadful and will get better as the tournament goes on. You could delete England in that sentence and insert Argentina, South Korea, Mexico ... (France were dreadful).

One thing I really like about Fabio Capello, as I said yesterday, is that he takes his time to make his judgements and when he makes them, he stands by them and accepts the consequences.

He and his staff know more about how the players are, and how they are likely to operate with each other and under pressure, than any of the pundits.

In selecting Green yesterday, he will have had sound reasons. If he decides to keep him for the game against Algeria, fine. If he decides that Green's confidence is too low as a result of what has happened, and he leaves him out, fine too. Both tough calls. The choice of David James or Joe Hart is another tough call, and the phone-ins will have a field day on that too, now that the whole country is made up of experts on goalkeeping, many of whom had not heard of Rob Green till last night.

In the 24 hour media age, it is not easy to insulate people from its noise and its frenzy. But the England camp should be making sure Green, who knows better than anyone that he cocked up, is as shielded from it as he can be. And Capello is best making the decision without any reference to to noise and frenzy at all.

Only one question matters for Capello arising out of Green's mistake ... which of my three goalkeepers is best placed to do the job against Algeria (whose manager will now be facing a similar issue following his goalkeeper's cock-up against Slovenia)? Only they can decide, however many million advisers they may have.

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Well after all the excitement of the build-up and the opening match, the French soon bought things crashing down to earth. I normally have a bit of a soft spot for France but what with Henry's handball against Ireland and the utter negativity of their approach last night, by the end I was a fully-fledged Forlan-cheering Uruguayan.

Anyway, enough of the onfield, it meant by far the most interesting aspects of last night's BBC coverage came off it, in the form of build-up interviews with Fabio Capello and Wayne Rooney, the two most important members of the England set up.

Capello is an impressive type. I have only met him a couple of times, once when he did a private q and a session, the other time at a social event, but as with all good leaders, he exudes strength and calm in varying quantities according to the moment.

A lot of has been made of his 'losing it' with cameramen trying to take pictures inside England's dressing room and medical quarters, with the media suggesting it showed the pressure getting to him, and that to the watching players it would have suggested a chink in his armour.

Nonsense on both fronts, I would suggest. What players like to see in a manager is someone who knows his own mind, expresses it clearly, and who stands up for them.

What the players will have taken out of his blast at the media is that he stands up for their interests, not the media's.

Even the players who court the media, some with a view to a future career, have something of a love hate relationship with the press, whereas the bulk of top athletes probably veer closer to the hate than the love.

But one of Capello's undoubted strengths is his determination always to set his own agenda, not have it set for him. (Modern politicians take note) We saw that in his handling of John Terry. We are seeing it again in his handling of the team announcement. He knows the team. They will hear first. Two hours before kick-off. That's it.

So he was polite but firm with Gabby Logan, and it all added to that sense of strength and calm. If England fare badly in this World Cup, it will not be because they picked a dud manager.

As for the Rooney interview the Capello influence was again clear. Did you see how engaged and happy Rooney seemed when he was talking Alan Shearer through some of the manager's rules - no mobiles, no leaving the table at mealtimes until everyone had finished, obsessive attention to detail in filming and analysing training sessions ('he can take 20 minutes to go over a thrown-in'). The respect for the manager - vital in any team in any walk of life - shone through.

Earlier I had been at Queen's having a bit of a barney with Will Greenwood's wife who was saying it was a shame footballers couldn't be better role models.

I'm not sure I quite buy this role model thing in the way it is sometimes presented. They are footballers. They have been footballers from an early age. Their dedication has often meant other aspects of learning have gone by the wayside. Someone like Rooney, from an early age, was on a conveyor belt to where he is now. Why should we expect him to be hyper-articulate, lose sleep about social issues, reject the offers of corporate largesse that make him a young multi-multi-millionaire?

Could modern footballers behave better? Some of them, yes. Do they earn too much? By most people's standards, yes. But would they still be footballers if they had lived in a different era when film stars were the biggest names, and their wages were capped? In Rooney's case, without a doubt.

Because what also came through last night is that all he wants to do is get out there tonight and play football. And in that, the pursuit of excellence and commitment in a chosen path, he is a role model. I just don't think we should expect him to be a mix of politician, diplomat, campaigner and world seer too.

I was at Manchester United's Carrington training ground visiting Alex Ferguson on the day Rooney suffered that freak injury when he stepped on a piece of equipment left lying around, which put him out of a massive game. The look on his face as he lay on the treatment table said everything. 'You can have all the money and the Coke deals and the adulation. But I feel sick to my stomach that I won't be playing.'

The flipside of that attitude, added to a young life honing skill under the watchful eyes of David Moyes, Fergie and Capello, is the reason why he was inside every American defenders' head as they awoke this morning.

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Dear George and Danny,

Apologies for being a bit late in the day with this but what with the World Cup and a trip to Queen's to see the big guys fall, sport came ahead of my attempts to help you cut public spending.

However, as luck would have it, and as I am always on the look out for ideas, one came to me whilst I was enjoying a bit of hospitality in between the Murray defeat and the Nadal defeat. I bumped into a billionaire - you know how it is George - and as I hoovered in information about how this particular billionaire gave money to this cause and that, carefully putting down markers for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, I had one of those once in a lifetime brainwaves that only comes when you have a new coalition government casting round desperately for ideas.

It is so so simple and I think the logic will appeal to both of you.

You see, you've asked the public to tell you what they want you to cut. You're hoping that will soften them up so that they don't go too crazy when you break DC's pledge not to hit frontline services.

But let us now take this involvement of the public to another stage - and ask them for more money. No, not tax, but donations!

Part of the new Clamberon vision appears to be public services run as and in some cases by charities, so let us extend that spirit to government itself.

Ah, you say, but people feel taxed enough already, and will feel even more so when you put up VAT in the Budget, trotting out our old friend OTIB, (the oldest trick in the book,) aka BWTTB (books worse than thought bullshit). But even if they do feel highly taxed, many continue to give more of their hard-earned cash away. I do my bit for various causes. I'm sure you do. And my billionaire lunch partner certainly does.

Then think how much Ashcroft gave to one of your parties, or tot up how much Danny's boys in the Lords gave to his, (I am not suggesting a link, far from it) and ask yourself if we couldn't persuade them to chuck a few more million the Treasury's way.

I've often wondered what would happen if, when doing my tax returns, I decided actually because I support schools and hospitals and all the other things that government has to provide, I should add on a few quid.

The need was never as urgent as you guys now tell us it is, so I never got round to it. 

But if you think the idea has merit, I will happily send a few bob your way.

Maybe you could add a 'WAITT' box (we're all in this together) on the tax return. Every little helps. The man from Tesco said that. And look how well he did.

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Dear George and Danny,

I trust you have been busy getting on with looking at the idea of ending charitable status for private schools, and so have not had time to reply to my letter on the subject posted here yesterday. No offence taken, and I will continue to 'engage' (Danny ... you don't need to say it in every sentence of every interview, one in ten will do) in the debate on the process of cuts consultation you have launched.

May I also wish you well in seeking to reconcile what now appear to the diametrically opposed Con/Lib positions on student financing with George's boys seeing students as a burden on the taxpayer (copyright D Willetts) and D Alexander, N Clegg etc having garnered many of their votes with a pledge to oppose tuition fees rather than raise them. Oh dear, it could start to get very tricky inside that Treasury boiler-room.

Anyway, nil desperandum, onwards and upwards, and I have another one for you to help you along.

No longer having access to those bright young things at the Treasury, I cannot claim to have all the figures at my fingertips, but I reckon you could save a lot of money by doing something I tried to do but failed - namely implementing proper centralisation of communications and advertising budgets.

Now you may think I was a control freak, and you may even believe the claims put around by my opponents that I gripped the Whitehall machine with a fist of iron. You might be right on the first bit, but wrong (in some respects at least) on the second.

Every now and then someone would run a story about all the money being spent on advertising and comms, and it would all be laid at my door, for the obvious reason that George's party and most of the papers liked it that way.

But twixt me and you, I was as hacked off as anyone at some of the sums being spent on campaigns that frankly either didn't strike me as worth doing or, if they were, lacked the effectiveness to justify the budget.

There was of course a Central Office of Information but frankly departments tended to do pretty much what they wanted. I tried of course, but you know, there are only so many hours in the day, and so many fights you can fight.

Of course many of the campaigns are needed ... one thinks of pubic health information campaigns, or public sector recruitment (not that there will be much of that) ... but quite a few are not. So spare us too many glossy telly ads explaining what you're up to. However, IMHO (ask your kids George, Danny's are still too young) real savings in this area will only be made by the kind of centralisation I was often accused of but never quite managed.

So you guys agree what you think is a reasonable budget for comms and advertising, place it somewhere central with your own person in there with the right mix of political, policy and comms judgement, and then make departments bid from within it according to what they believe their needs to be. Job done. All in the spitir of consultation too. But never forget - to quote that gripping tale of politcal derring-do penned by Norman Fowler - MINISTERS DECIDE.

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Dear George and Danny,

Many thanks indeed for the expression of interest in my views, and those of every other citizen, as to where you should consider making cuts in public expenditure. I hope you will ignore that old cynic Nigel Lawson and his preposterous suggestion that this consultation exercise is all a Public Relations ploy designed to buy a little time to build a bit more support for cuts you (George) have more or less decided on already.

A couple of presentational points to begin with if I may. George, I think you need to watch that thing you do with your right hand at the Despatch Box. Well, two things actually. First, you tend to bang it on the Despatch Box when you are not actually making strong points. This is an unwelcome and rather confusing distraction. Banging is good for genuine emphasis (Khrushchev took it a bit far with his shoe, though an occasional hand-bang is ok) but you tend to do it making rather routine points.

Second, when you raise your hand from the Despatch Box, you have a tendency to shape your fingers into an odd kind of claw shape. This is not attractive. Take a look at Bill Clinton making a speech or doing an interview. Try to model your hands on his. If you feel he is too left-wing as a model, John Major was not bad at hands, except when he got defensive, when he would stick his fingers together and waddle them from side to side. But Clinton/Major compromise would serve you better than bang/claw.

Danny, I imagine any media-related budgets will be close to the top of the cuts-list, but I think you should spare a few bob for media training. Your predecessor David Laws may have overdone the Bond vilain, 'show me a programme and I'll show you a sharp axe' body language, but he did at least look like a man with a plan and the balls to see it through. I caught a couple of your interviews yesterday and they were a bit 'um ... er ... kind of .... um .... er' ish, added to which you repeat subordinate clauses which weakens any point you are making. These problems are easily ironed out provided you are conscious of them. George is clearly setting you up to do a lot of the media dirty work, so I think early remedy on this is the order of the day.

Now, to my first suggestion for saving a few million quid. Danny, as a State schoolboy (Lochaber High School, Fort William) I think this may appeal to you more than it will to George (Norland Place and St Paul's, own kids in one of the most expensive private schools in the country.) But I hope you will both consider it on its merits, rather than as a result of your own backgrounds.

I refer to the £100million a year benefit that private schools get by dint of their charitable status and the tax advantages that gives them. This is defended, by George if not by Danny, on the grounds that these schools provide a broader public benefit. Establishing it is not easy, and the debate on it rather muted, as most editors and many other key opinion formers use the private sector, and so tend to assert rather than explore the weakness of their assertions. Hilariously, George's old school claims its places are not offered on the basis of race, creed, background or wealth.  

The charity commission is aware of the problem, which is why it set a more stringent test to establish this so-called broder public benefit. Most private schools now get round it by offering a few bursaries. However, these are  academically selective so tend to go to more advantaged pupils anyway and disadvantage local state schools which lose pupils who would otherwise contribute to a more balanced intake.

Other schools make a virtue of opening up their facilities to outsiders, including other schools. But as they tend to charge for this, it again undermines the need for public money to be spent on supporting them.

It is interesting too - and Danny, I think that you need to take a look at this - that whilst many private schools make claims to supporting the less advantaged in their communities, the Independent Schools Council can't even say how many pupils on free school meals they educate. I am assuming they know the answer but are too embarrassed to reveal it. Close to zero possibly?

To be fair to you, George, I know you believe the private sector is almost always better than the State, and believe also that if people can afford to go private, they should, not least so their kids can avoid the hoi-polloi. But Danny, this is a coalition, and you need to start making and winning a few arguments.

Like the argument that private schools are bad for society as a whole, and cost the tax payer dearly; that they act as a break on social cohesion and social mobility; that they cream off able students and aspirant parents from the state system and reduce every other child's chance of being educated in a genuinely comprehensive school, still the best route to high outcomes for all children rather than simply an affluent few.

Above all, Danny, the argument that they divide young people by race, class and family income at a time when more than ever we should be bridging those divides. After all, as George said every day during the election campaign, and Danny said (albeit looking a bit embarrassed to be doing so) on TV last night ... we are all in this together.

Only we're not, are we? Not really. But we could be if we cared more about education for the many rather than the few.

So go for it Danny. £100million. And a good argument to win, to show you are not just there to do the dirty work, but to show that the coalition is a coalition rather than a Cameron/Osborne walkover, which is how it seems right now.

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I have only seen the The Guardian and the FT today, but it is evidence of the effectiveness of the Government's softening up process that the front page of the former carries not a single word on David Cameron's cuts plan, whilst the FT has a single sentence proclaiming Alistair Darling's rejection of the PM's claims of Labour figure-fiddling.

To be fair to both papers, there is plenty of news, comment and analysis inside, but if it is the case that the cuts are going to change life as dramatically as Cameron claims, then we might have expected more dramatic coverage.

But then even as I look at the rival stories which squeezed out cuts, I give the papers the benefit of the doubt and imagine that they realised that when you actually looked at Cameron's speech, there was less new in it than we might have gathered from the build up and the breathless broadcast coverage.

He was desperately trying to give the impression of a new context, new information, new facts and figures that allowed him to explain a shift from his election campaign position - the deficit is key, there will have to be cuts but we will cut fairly and sensitively and frontline services will be protected - to his government position - the situation is far worse than we anticipated (it's not by the way) and the cuts will have to go much much deeper and it is all Labour's fault.

What he does not articulate is the real position, namely that right-wing Conservatives (indeed quite a few left-wing Conservatives too) see the State as problem not solution, have an ideological commitment to shrinking the State whenever possible, and the combination of a post-recession deficit and the political convenience of a marriage of convenience with power-hungry Lib Dems gives them the perfect cover (or about as perfect as it gets from their perspective) to get on and do what they always wanted to do, but which would have been rejected even more comprehensively at the ballot box had they been open. Sorry for the length of the sentence but sometimes the unstated position is harder to explain than the glib clip for the 6 o'clock news.

What is intriguing, in this honeymood period for the Clamberons, is that the media know the figures he was quoting yesterday are not new, and there is no firm evidence to support his 'things worse than expected' claim (aka OTIB, oldest trick in book) and yet the broadcasters in particular, constantly desperate for new-ness, so readily accept the new context he seeks to construct.

'Today we spend more on debt interest than we do on education,' he 'revealed' in shock horror tones. Just as he revealed it virtually every day of the campaign.

Great too how Canada is becoming to the Tories' economic plans what Sweden is to schools - a catch-all popular-sounding country that nobody finds too offensive, so if they did it well, why shouldn't we?

But former finance minister Paul Martin, speaking to the FT, has some interesting observations on the differences as well as the similarities. 'If you prepare them well, people will understand. They will not stay with you unless they feel that the sacrifice you're asking of them is going to succeed.'

One of his advisers, speaking on Newsnight last night, said that Cameron was getting the pain message out there, but not the hope of a better future. There is an important reason for the difference in approach though.

The Canadians wanted to deal with the deficit but in a way that allowed for investment in public services to grow again. For Britain's Tories, the cuts themselves are every bit as important as bringing the deficit down. Like I said yesterday, when right-wing parties get elected proclaiming themselves to be compassionate Conservatives, there is only one of those two words that counts.

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Been running around all over the place, not seen the papers, nor heard the news, so unable to  offfer much by way of comment on the Cameron cuts/pain strategy. Just remember one thing, however, about compassionate Conservatism, which is what he tried to emphasise in his campaign ... the important word in that is Conservatism. The compassion gets laid aside quite quickly once power is won. Read the history books.

And just be aware that 'things are worse than we expected' (the deficit figures are not btw) is one of the oldest and least convincing tricks in the book. More anon.

Despite my last encounter with Andrew Marr getting a bit tense, I enjoyed Start the Week, and in particular meeting Burnley-born playwright Joy Wilkinson, who has written a short play based on Margaret Beckett's bid to be Labour leader back in 1994, which is running as part of the Tricycle Theatre programme on women, power and politics.

We ended up, on and off air, discussing whether what Joy sees as Margaret's 'being somewhat written out of the script' has anything to do with the fact that she is a woman. I'm not so sure.

Both Joy and Thea Sharrock, there to talk about the Terence Rattigan play she is directing at the National Theatre, felt that it seemed harder for women to get noticed in politics for their politics, and Joy pointed out that sometimes she got the sense that the men in my diaries behaved as often men perceive women to behave - histrionically (my word not hers).

As anyone who knows me is aware, I am a huge fan of Margaret Beckett'. I did not vote for her, either as leader or deputy, but I always admired her as a team player and someone who whilst not naturally New Labour always understood its importance and - as Joy captures in her play - TB's broader appeal.

The other main character in the play is Clare Short and it is likewise no secret that I was never a fan of Clare's. Indeed, as I record in the uncut version of the diaries, I was pleased when I heard Margaret had appointed Clare as her campaign manager because, as a TB supporter, I felt it would narrow her breadth and appeal within the party.

I feel that Clare is someone who in a sense reached a higher level in politics than her talents merited, whereas Margaret did achieve the heights she earned, whilst accepting that her lack of interest in personal profile for its own sake may, in the modern media age, have been a contributing factor in Joy's argument that MB does not get the recognition she ought to.

But don't forget that she was Leader of the Party between John Smith and TB, and occupied a large number of ministerial positions under TB and GB, including Foreign Secretary.

I was also chuffed to learn that Joy had used details for her play (with which Margaret did not co-operate btw) which she had found in my diaries, including one observation I never tired of making, namely Margaret's habit of keeping a bundle of pens and pencils wrapped in a rubber band.

So it's nice to see the diaries contributing to art and culture as well as politics. On which point, congratulations to the Thick of It team for their three Baftas. Given the whole Armando Ianucci spin thing started with his spoof Alastair Campbell column, which then morphed into Malcolm Tucker, I think it would not be unreasonable for them to give me a share of the takings, which I could pass on to the (cash-strapped) Labour Party.

I hope meanwhile they are now working on a coalition equivalent. There's comedy in there aplenty if you look beneath the honeymood period headlines.

First of all, thanks to the Independent on Sunday for devoting two pages to an interview pegged to the publication of Prelude to Power, which also mentions (and has pictures of the front covers of) All In The Mind and Maya, my two novels.

But ... and I think journalists know me well enough to know there is likely to be a but after such lavish thanks ... a modest grumble if I may about its presentation in the rest of the paper, which rather lends support to my argument about the real spin doctors being the editors, reporters and headline writers.

Here's a quote (and to be fair to interviewer John Rentoul, who had one of those old-fashioned tape recorders, I am sure all the quotes are accurate) from the section of the interview where we were talking about the four former Cabinet ministers vying to succeed GB as Labour leader, David and Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham ...

'They have all grown. I got on very well with Ed [Balls] during the campaign. But in the end you've got to make a judgment. Of all of them, I think David [Miliband] has got the most rounded political and policy skills that you need. I'm a pragmatist about this. I think about who can take on Cameron best. They've all got strengths. I think the thing with Ed Miliband is that he's a really nice guy, but you've got to differentiate between making the party feel OK about losing and actually then making the party face up to what it needs to do to get into shape again. It's the latter that you have to look for, and I think David's got that.'

And here is a Page 1 strapline ... Alastair Campbell exclusive interview: 'Ed Miliband is a nice guy but he'd only make Labour feel OK about losing.'

Now, if you can bear with me, go back to the actual quote, and note the subtle but significant change secured by inserting the word 'only' in the strapline. I was trying to explain why I was backing David M over the other three, without denigrating his opponents. The quote just about achieved that, I think, but the strapline moves close to denigration territory. And it is in quote marks. Therefore you would be entitled to think I said it, exactly in those terms.

Then there was a small news story on Page 2, and here the headline is even starker ... 'Campbell: Ed Miliband isn't up to leading Labour.' Again, I think you would be hard-pressed to say that I actually said that. He has many strengths and there are clearly serious people in the party who think he is the man to lead Labour into the future, and I can see why. I just happen to have reached the view that his brother would be better. It does not mean that he 'isn't up to leading Labour.'

I go through this in some detail not because it is that important but, in a way, because it is so typical, the kind of mild misrepresentation that occurs almost routinely. Indeed, in the interview, when discussing the row with the BBC caused by Andrew Gilligan's untrue report seven years ago on the WMD dossier, I make the point that an awful lot gets written that is wrong or misleading, and you just let it go, as I will let the Ed Miliband story go, but sometimes the allegations and the misrepresentation are too serious to let lie.

As it happens, I think John Rentoul is one of those journalists who would acknolwedge that the media-politics breakdown that happened under New Labour was every bit as much the product of changed media attitudes and tactics as the product of our determination to do things differently. And this is not a big whinge, just an observation of the kind of small, quite subtle editing change whose overall effect can be to create a misleading impression.

It meant that last night, as Fiona and I came back from a night out, and someone alerted me to the headline, I was texting Ed M to say the quotes were accurate but the headlines were not. Small whinge over ...

... Good luck to those taking part in Soccer Aid at Old Trafford tonight. I am moderately gutted not to be there, as the two I have taken part in - especially the first when I lined up alongside Diego Maradona - have got to be among my top lifetime experiences.

Plenty of reminiscing about the experience last night because I was seated at a party next to Peter Schmeichel, who was our goalkeeper in the first one, and a volunteer coach for the second one at Wembley a couple of years ago.

We spent part of the evening comparing notes on our best all time Premier League team ... I went for Schmeichel: Neville, Stam, Terry, Cole: Ronaldo, Keane, Scholes, Giggs: Shearer and Rooney.

My main doubt was right back, where Lee Dixon was in the frame, and at one point I was bringing Dennis Irwin over from his usual left-back berth. I also felt Tony Adams and possibly Ricardo Cavalho might push Terry out. Hard to beat that middle four (all United) which meant the likes of Beckham, Vieira and Gerrard have to fight for a spot on the bench, and hard to leave out Henry and Bergkamp too, not to mention all the Chelsea and Liverpool strikers but Shearer and Rooney would have been quite a pairing.

Schmeichel was too modest to put himself in goal, so he left it blank. Yet I have never met anyone who has not put him between the sticks in a best ever team. He was torn between Pallister and Adams alongside Stam, and had both Irwin and Evra ahead of Cole. He toyed with Gerrard sneaking ahead of Scholes, but then club loyalty won the day. He reckoned Ronaldo was simply the best ever player in the Premier League, but also felt Shearer was not far behind.

Andy Gray was a a few places away down the table. He had Ferdinand and Adams at centre back, and Beckham instead of Giggs with Ronaldo switched to the left, and he put Henry ahead of Rooney.

No Burnley players made it, but I could tell they were both thinking Tyrone Mears might make right-back if Neville got injured.

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I was slightly dreading my session at the Hay Festival last night. Such a long way to go (Wales, and the part of Wales that is motorwayphobic). Plus I was expecting the massed ranks of anti-war, anti-'spin' Guardianistas, like a Lib Dem conference in the days before they realised politics is about the pursuit of power not merely the art of protest.

The scenery made up for the distance. As a country, we don't make nearly enough of our natural beauty. So did my overnight lodgings, Moccas Court, a stunning Georgian house ten miles out of Hay, with a lovely view from my bedroom over the river Wye.

And whilst there were plenty of Guardianistas around, both those who work for it and those you can spot as Guardian readers even before you see the paper protruding from their recycled cloth bag, the 'real people' mixed in among the hacks and the over earnest (not that Guardianistas aren't real people of course) made it a rather good audience.

I was taken aback by the scale of the whole thing. It's a small town, but a big event.

The audience was overwhelmingly middle-aged, middle-class, almost totally white, and the questions ranged widely over the political and the personal, the serious and the trivial, past, present, future, the supportive and the critical.

I get asked a fair bit about the media and its role in politics. I do think that one of the reasons these book festivals seem to get bigger and bigger is that people really are tired of the rata-tat-tat nature of the modern media, the sense that it can only deal with one big story at a time, can only allow the same voice (unless a journalist's) to be speaking for a few seconds without interruption, and operates on the assumption that we all have the attention span of a gnat.

There are exceptions of course, but the trend is all in the direction I describe above.

What I think large audiences at events like last night's show is the desire for deeper engagement, and an interest in real conversation as opposed to the manufactured nil-nil draws that most political interviews have become. The audience seemed amused and bemused by the fact that the interview which worried TB more than any other in the period covered by Prelude to Power was the one he did with Des O'Connor. How could anyone be scared of Des, when they have had so much experience of the Paxmans, Dimblebys and Humphrys of the world? But that is the point. Politicians - the good ones - have so much experience of the so-called tough interview that they become almost routine. Of course you prepare for them, think about them. But by and large you can always work out where the question is coming from and where the next one is going. The interviewer wants to make an impact, either by getting you to say something unexpected or getting you to cock up. It becomes a bit of a game, often a tedious one at that, and most do indeed end in a draw.

So Des O'Connor, or Frank Skinner (the other one TB moaned about for ages before doing it) take you out of the comfort zone. What I find about most of the extended sessions I do at book festivals is that the public, in the main, want a proper conversation, neither Paxo nor Des, just a conversation where one question leads to an answer which leads to another question, and then bring the audience in and let's see what they have to say.

So it was all very enjoyable, including the critical bits, and thanks to Francine Stock for kicking it off and chairing it so well.

I did not have a clapometer on me but I reckon the loudest applause came for a defence of Labour's record, and the observation that once the coalition gets going, 'you'll miss it' (Labour in power) and the loudest laughter (mixed with panto-style 'oooohs') possibly for my tweaking of the tail of The Guardian in pointing out its role in supporting the party that helped deliver David Cameron as our PM.

Alas, I had to get up at the crack of dawn to get back in time to talk to Ken Livingstone on his LBC show this morning.

But despite the mild sleep deprivation, I feel moderately energised by my visit to rural Guardiana, which I was not expecting when I set off yesterday.

So thanks to my agent Ed Victor for bullying me into going.

*** Buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labourhttp://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

*** Buy Prelude to Power here at Amazon.

There are a few grumbles online about David Cameron and Teresa May hotfooting it to Cumbria to meet victims and emergency services who dealt with the terrible tragedy there.

But I think the visit is both understandable and right. Yes, some police resources will have to be diverted to look after them, but not much. And yes, there is not that much that the Prime Minister can actually do. As he said yesterday, this may just be a dreadful one-off case of one indivdual snapping, from which no broader lessons can be learned. But it was still right to go.

Sometimes, as with visits to regions hit by floods, it is possible that a visiting Prime Minister will learn things which lead to resources being allocated differently, or a different tack being taken. Sometimes, as when TB met the victims of the Omagh bombing with Bill Clinton, such encounters merely serve to fulfil a broader political purpose, namely the expression of a determination not to be knocked off course by those seeking to disrupt a peace process.

And sometimes it is just the right thing to do for leaders to visit a community that has been shocked by tragedy.

I can remember when the Dunblane massacre took place, and both Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth and Labour shadow George Robertson pressed for then PM John Major and Tony Blair to visit the next day. Major was very wary, but the two Scots politicians persuaded him it was what the commuinity needed and wanted. And that is how it felt the next day.

They had nothing to offer but expressions of support. But those expressions of support meant something.

I would count the visit to the scene of the massacre, a primary school, as one of the most upsetting and moving experiences of my life. I know that Tony Blair felt the same, and I could see that John Major did too. There really were no words to sum it up, but both of them had to find them as they talked to doctors, nurses, paramedics, teachers, and of course parents who had lost children.

I don't doubt that David Cameron will be moved and upset by what he sees today. But the community, whatever the grumbles from some, will feel a little better than the Prime Minister took time out to pay his respects.

OMG, as the yoof says, if they (the BBC top brass of course) could see me now .. all alone in a BBC studio, sitting at a BBC computer, eating a BBC tuna melt. They're very trusting these BBC people -- I reckon if I twiddled enough of the hundreds of knobs in the vicinity, I could get on air somewhere.

Not that I want to. My voice is starting to go a bit already, having done breakfast telly and then 19 local and regional radio interviews, all in the interests of publicicing a book which, if my twitter friends are anything to go by, is not in all the right places yet and has already sold out on Amazon .... Grrrrrr, market economics my foot!.

These mass interviews are organised by something called BBC GNS, and it works like this - you (or in this case the publisher) tell GNS that you're available on such and such a date between x and y o'clock. They send out an advisory to the dozens of local stations who come back to say if they want you or not. Then you pitch up in the studio and a nice man called Pete links you up one by one to all the stations who got through first.

It's amazing what you learn along the way ... I didn't know Anne Diamond was on Radio Berkshire. What's more, she sounded like she had read the book (the same could be said for some though not all -- and I can always tell when they're busking it, no names no packdrill.)

Great to hear Ed Doolan on Radio WM still going strong. He asked me to go back on for a full hour in the studio. Happy to. Ed is something of a Midlands institution, and he also - I don't know if I ever told him this - was one of TB's favourite interviewers.

Fred Macauley at Radio Scotland is one of mine - I've probably just ruined a career there. He has a lovely languid style, and manages to ask needling questions without making you feel needled. Down at the other end of the country, Radio Cornwall was ruined by the admission of the producer that she was a Blackburn fan, and she couldn't resist taunting me about Burnley's relegation and Rovers' double over us. On air ... I wonder if I can get into BBC personnel on this computer?

Most of the interviews focused on fairly obvious questions - why now, what's new, TB-GB, what do I think of the coalition, Question Time row, etc - but I was surprised just how many mentioned Adam Boulton's on-air meltdown when he and I were talking to Jeremy Thompson a few weeks back.

One of them, I can't remember which, said something to the effect that 'everyone' was aware of it ... but that can't be right. Not many will have seen it live I wouldn't have thought. For obvious reasons I don't think Sky have shown it since. I'm not sure it made the Beeb or ITV, though it has been replayed to me once or twice in interviews since. And though it has been a bit of a hit on YouTube, I think we are still talking hundreds of thousands rather than millions.

One of the themes of my interviews, and indeed the book, is that I became a controversial figure in part because I was the one dealing with the media for TB at a time the media age became a reality, and with it the media became obsessed with itself, so that writing and talking about me the whole time was a way of discussing themselves. The focus on the Boulton spat is part of that really.

On Breakfast Time this morning, in the light of Boulton apparently apologising, or at least expressing regret for his meltdown, I was asked if I would like to say something similar. Like what? LIke I apologise for being there when big Adam loses the plot? What an odd question.

I did enjoy Bernie at BBC Northampton - first because he said he loved my novel, All In The Mind, but second because he said he was the founder of 'slap-a-journo-for-Christmas'. An entertainer by trade, he said he really didn't like what modern journalism had become. I ended up having to defend the media! I must be going native. Time to finish the tuna melt, get out of there, and get home.

But first, and finally for today, I have a meeting with Richard Bacon on Five Live. I've not seen him since election night, when he interviewed me at Labour HQ, just before I had an on-air spat with .... oh no .... Adam Boulton ...

Anything could happen now ...

*** Buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

As for Prelude to Power, go to Amazon if you like. I've stopped looking, because I'm worried my temper won't take the 'temporarily out of stock' sign that was there every time I looked yesterday. Waterstone's shoppers continue to let me know if you can't find. Have been assured gremlins are sorted.

This is not the first time, and will not be the last, that Israel finds itself at the centre of a raging storm, with words of condemnation from around the world heaped upon it.

It is precisely because of such experience that the Israelis will be thinking they can tough this one out, as they have toughed out so many storms before.

They have already had a victory of sorts, with the Americans blocking UN Security Council demands for an international inquiry into the assault on the Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza. Instead the US believes any such inquiry can he carried out by the Israelis. Cue widespread scoffing from all those who have condemned the action that led to the deaths on board the ship.

In any event, remember the Israelis' often dismissive and angry response to previous international inquiries - they hold the line whatever the outcome, it is fair to say - and remember that in Israel the pressure is as much about why the troops were put in harm's way without proper preparation than about the violence that led to nine deaths.

Much is made of the 'powerful pro-Israel lobby', and so it should be. But equally powerful is their media management.

As the condemnation mounted, they nonetheless managed to push out their version of events with real force, not least by incarcerating the Palestinian supporters on board, and then yesterday swamped the airwaves with articulate and unyielding spokesmen defending their actions, alongside hospital-visting pictures of Binyamin Netanyahu. This all helped consolidate public opinion at home while pumping out their message abroad. Pretty it is not, but the Israeli PR machine in crisis management mode does not do pretty. It does brutal, hard-headed, by its own lights effective.

Meanwhile the words from abroad cranked up and up and up, but within no time the sense was of a dialogue of the deaf. Up pops an Israeli to say the expected. Up pops a Palestinian. Up pops an outside politician with words blunted because they give the clear sense from the speaker that they are to a great extent going through motions. They are motions that have to be gone through, but motions nonetheless.

And therein lies the real damage; that every time a spark flies - and this is a big spark - Israelis and Palestinians alike retreat to well worn lines of hatred and misunderstanding, much of it deliberate, and the outside world has to say the same old same old again and again. .

Yet words are all the fabled 'international community' really have. The words of condemnation will fade. But ultimately the words of persuasion are those that have to be returned to again and again and again, in the hope that from every step back there might emerge the mood and the moment to engineer a step forward.

But it feels a long way from that today. And meanwhile none of the words on either side are doing much to improve life for the 1.5 million Palestinians living under the Israeli blockade.

*** The book rounds take me today to see Eamonn and the lovely Ruth on ITV's This Morning. They clearly have something unexpected lined up because when I tweeted last night that Philip Dodd of Radio 3's Nightwaves was a 'proper interviewer' - I think the interview goes out tonight - Eamonn tweeted up with a 'watch it' kind of message, as though my saying one interview was 'proper' meant all others weren't.

Not so ... just that Philip Dodd did that old fashioned thing of having interesting questions - some of which I had not been asked before - and then listening to answers before coming back with another interesting question. I've done so many briefings and interviews that it is always nice, even if some of the questions make you feel a bit uncomfortable, if you are made to think on the spot by being asked things you've not really been asked much before.

And so to two book plugs ... 1) Prelude to Power ... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Diaries-One-Prelude-1994-1997-Campbell/dp/0091797268

And 2) Signed copies of The Blair Years which raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Ps, JPHowarth came on with a message to celebrate his winning #neverhappenedunderlabour entry. But he did not leave an address where we can send his signed copy of Prelude to Power

And so, on this the day of publication of Prelude to Power, volume 1 of the AC diaries, covering 1994-1997, I bring you the news you have all being waiting for - the winner of the #neverhappendedunderlabour competition launched here yesterday.

First of all, may I thank those who persuaded me to do a hashtag, and second thank the squillions of tweeters, facebookers and blog-commenters who joined in the fun.

Serious point - it will not be long before not just tribalists like me, and some of the other #neverhappenedunderlabour-ites who commented, start to miss the Labour government and all the good things it did, now under threat from the coalition. So there are sound strategic reasons to keep reminding people all the things, funny and serious, that neverhappenedunderlabour.

But in the meantime, the exercise has shown that even in defeat, we can keep our chins up and smile. Indeed, it was odd how few of the coalition-supporting comments were witty, and how many of them were just plain sour. Ho hum.

There really were a lot of good comments, and the judgement as to which were best is inevitably subjective. But as I said yesterday, le juge c'est moi, et mon jugement est final.

Only one person can win the promised signed copy of Prelude to Power, but because I am a softy at heart, I do want to give some sort of prize to those who came close to winning.

So there are three runners-up and if they get in touch either through FB, twitter direct message or a message on the website, with their addresses, I can offer them the choice of a signed copy of either of my novels, All In The Mind or Maya, or a signed copy of The Blair Years trade paperback. The genersosity knows no bounds.

The runners-up, in no particular order, are --

twitterer LabourManDan who said that 'the government calling in Jeremy Kyle to sort out Cabinet ministers' private affairs #neverhappened underlabour'

Facebook friend Heather Jargus who pointed out that 'having a ventriloquist dummy as deputy PM never happened under Labour'

twitterer joncrouchend caught my eye by pointing out that it neverhappenedunderlabour that a minister could be judged 'excellent' on two weeks work and a neat haircut.

But successful tweeting is all about how much you can pack in and the winning tweet managed to pack in politics, commitment to public services, a reminder of David Laws' ConDem cuts plans and, crucially, a mention of my book.

For all those reasons, the winner is twitterer jphowarth with 'local library does not have budget to buy your new book #neverhappenedunderlabour'

Well done to JP (there's a coincidence) and a reminder to all others there are no grounds for appeal, but every reason to continue with #neverhappenderunderlabour tweeting. Not least because it seems to get a long way up Tory and Lib Dem nostrils.

For the unlucky ones, link to Amazon below. Now off to do an interview with Iain Dale. Steve Wright later. Top man.

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Diaries-One-Prelude-1994-1997-Campbell/dp/0091797268/ref=pd_ts_b_2?ie=UTF8&s=books

Of all the insults that appear in response to anything I say or do, my favourites are those essentially saying nobody cares. Because it begs the question - why do they bother reading or listening? Or, at the upper echelons of politics rather than the lower reaches of online life, why try to get me removed from TV debate programmes?

I liked the one recently from the 'Time for Change' logoed person saying I was a washed up hasbeen, which is why he never bothers reading anything I write - followed by a line by line rebuttal of what I had written.

Whether here, on twitter or on Facebook, fair to say the majority of commenters are probably of the Labour variety. But even though we are now in Opposition, with the coalition absorbing most of the political space, plenty of Tories like to come along and show off their humourlessness.

Yesterday was a good example as I started something of a trend with a couple of tweets pointing out that Frank Lampard never missed two successive penalties under Labour, and Bangladesh never saw an opening partnership of 140-plus against England under Labour. Statements of fact I think you'll find.

The Lampard tweet in particular - as I will try to point out to Christine Bleakley on The One Show on BBC1 tonight - prompted a bigger response than anything I have done since the TV debates and Adam Boulton's live toys-out-of-pram-tantrum.

This led first to my education by fellow twitterers, enabling me to create my first ever hashtag #neverhappenedunderlabour - something which did indeed never happen  under Labour.

This led to a major flurry of tweets through the evening and through the night and a very clear dividing line quickly emerged. The Labour-leaning tweets tended to be quite witty. The ConDem tweets tended to be rather sour and humourless. I'm not saying all the Tory tweets were devoid of humour, but that is where the centre of gravity lay.

It will be a terrible shame if humour is a victim of the coalition. As you may know, volume one of my diaries, Prelude to Power, is published tomorrow, and in it you will find plenty of examples of Tory wit, not least from my old muckers Alan Clark, Nick Soames and David Davis. Likewise I can look at the Lib Dems and think of plenty of moments of wit and wisdom provided by the likes of Ming Campbell, Charlie Kennedy and even dear old Alan Beith who speaks Norwegian and plays the trumpet.

And whilst I accept that losing your first minister overboard so soon after forming a government is no chuckling matter for the ConDems, there is something to be said for always looking on the bright side.

I think the problem for a lot of these Tories and Lib Dems is that they are convincing themselves they are really getting on, whereas deep down they sense this really is a marriage of convenience and unless you are very lucky, they are not the most stable or happiest of relationships. So the humourlessness, and the lashing out at hasbeens like me, is all about failing to confront that. Poor things.

I must confess that my sympathy for David Laws has somewhat diminished since reading the Hansard account of his speech in the Budget debate. Oh, how he was loving being the Tory axe-man of the moment, and trying to rub Alistair Darling's nose in the post-election dirt. With hindsight, hubris springs to mind.

It has been fun too to watch the Tory media, with the obvious exception of the Telegraph, trying so hard to go along with the Clamberon line that this is a story of a personal tragedy involving a brave, brilliant and honourable man. This sympathetic approach to non-Tory politicians certainly never happened under Labour, as Nick Clegg discovered briefly when the Sun and the Mail were trying, post TV debates and pre Rose Garden wedding to Dave, to do him in.

One final never happened under Labour that I need to clear up. Needless to say I am being inundated with questions about why I am not in the Soccer Aid line up this year. Well, when I say inundated I mean a couple of hacks, and a few family and friends who have enjoyed the hospitality of previous Soccer Aids.

Now the line - obviously - is that given I have a book out this week, the organisers must have realised I had a very busy schedule and therefore felt it highly unlikely that I would be able to take part. I am sure Zinedine Zidane is gutted that he will not be able to join Pele, Maradona, Figo, Zola, Desailly, Schmeichel, Romario, Dunga, Mattheus, Ginola on the list of players who have played with AC. But hey ZZ, life is tough.

I suppose there is the outside possibility that the organisers felt that at 53, I was maybe past my best, and that Hollywood stars Mike Myers, Woody Harrelson and Simon Baker, not to mention singers Ronan Keating and Shane Filan, or boxer Joe Calzaghe, might get more bums on seats than a former spin doctor. All I know is that a Soccer AId without me #neverhappenedunderlabour

Finally, I will give a signed copy of Prelude to Power to the author of the best #neverhappenedunderlabour tweet, FB comment or comment on here. The judge's decision is final. And le juge, c'est moi

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Diaries-One-Prelude-1994-1997-Campbell/dp/0091797268

Am about to leave for the Beeb to do my first broadcast interview on Prelude to Power, with Jon Sopel on The Politics Show.

So just a quick word or two on the David Laws fallout. As I tweeted last night, I feel some personal sympathy for Laws, (which didn't go down well with my followers) but none for David Cameron and Nick Clegg, who both milked the expenses scandal for all it was worth, Cameron getting four stars for sanctimoniousness, Clegg the full five. If there is one good thing to come out of this, it might make them feel less prone to mount a high horse whenever a bandwagon is passing.

As I said yesterday, it is hard to see much of a defence for what Mr Laws did, but the investigation will decide on that.

But in their words of praise for him last night, Cameron and Clegg were thinking far more about themselves than they were about their departing colleague. Cameron had found the man he felt had what it took to take the axe to public services, whilst sharing the political pain between two parties, and will be hoping the inquiry clears him and perhaps he can have him back at a later date. Clegg just wanted to prevent any lasting contamination of the Lib Dem brand.

But as I read Cameron's letter, and watched Clegg's Soviet-style doorstep to a single, seemingly unmanned camera, I couldn't help thinking of their previous contributions on expenses.

When we were preparing with GB for the leaders' debates, Clegg was played by GB aide Theo Bertram. As Clegg did through the campaign, Theo played the 'we're cleaner than the old parties' line brilliantly, never missing the chance to say they had had nobody getting their collar felt, and that they had been forced to pay back less than the other parties. Once, almost in unison, GB and I turned on him and yelled at him to stop being so f***ing sanctimonious (I did the f-bit of course, not GB)

So as they now try to turn this from a story of expenses to a story of a human tragedy - which it is - do not forget it is also a story about leadership. If Laws, in Cameron and Clegg's eyes, did nothing wrong - and their statements would suggest that is their basic take - and if he is so brilliant, then they might have put up more of a fight to keep him.

But where it is really a story of leadership is in what the whole expenses issue says about Cameron and the Tories. Both he and George Osborne had their issues with expenses, but had the media so far up their backsides most people have forgotten what they were.

We then saw how eagerly and how easily he was prepared to see some of his colleagues thrown to the wolves. They will be clocking the difference in his tone about them, and his tone about Laws.

But also just think back a few weeks to the day when it emerged Labour MPs charged over their expenses were seeking legal aid. Cameron, ever the opportunist, tore up his plans for the day, got a little event organised, and piled into the issue (carefully overlooking any 'innocent till proven guilty' type problems), saying Labour were a disgrace, and this kind of corruption and legal nonsense would never happen under him.

He soared to the top of the bulletins. The commentators spoke glowingly of how he had 'seized the initiative.' And I turned to Philip Gould and said 'he'll regret that one day.'

Little did I know that would be within a matter of weeks.

Their past sanctimoniousness explains why the Cameron Clegg statements sounded so hollow last night.

Clegg should use this to take stock. He came third in the election. He did not do as well as he or anyone else expected him to. Yet he is now deputy PM. That is beginning to rankle with a few people, and requires him to strike a slightly different tone.

So calm down a bit, Nick. Underclaim and over deliver. When you go around saying a ragbag of constitutional proposals - which in scale come nowhere near a Scottish Parliament, Welsh and NI Assemblies, elected mayors, FoI, Human Rights Act - represents the biggest change since the Great Reform Act (women's votes came after that by the way) people start to wonder whether you are not inhaling your own propaganda too much.

*** Amazon link to Prelude to Power below. Hope it works. Yell if not

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Diaries-One-Prelude-1994-1997-Campbell/dp/0091797268/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275208265&sr=8-1

I was rather hoping that we'd heard the last about MPs expenses. The election, and the huge influx of new members, alongside the new mood of 'new politics,' was a good break point.

So as well as being personally and politically difficult for David Laws and David Cameron, the revelations of the chief secretary's expenses payback is an early blow in the new Parliament to politics. 'They're all the same' is back in vogue rather too quickly.

I have not really looked into the detail and unlike my Christian namesake Sir Alistair Graham, who seems to pop up any time he's asked on the back of press allegation, I don't like piling in without knowing if all is genuinely as it seems.

So though I had my fun with Mr Laws (absence of) on Question Time, part of me is hoping there is some kind of explanation that will deny the press an early scalp, though it is hard to see what it may be.

There will be some sympathy for the notion that he did not want to be outed as gay, an open secret at Westminster but possibly something he did not want, and was entitled not to want, more widely known.

I remember when former Labour minister Nick Brown was outed by the News of the World, when 'telling my mum' was clearly as worrying as the political fallout. Gay rights activists may feel that people like Laws and Brown should have been open and campaigning, but I think on these really personal issues it is hard to judge without being in their shoes.

I think where Laws is in difficulty stems first from the feeling there will be that if he has given the money back, he must feel deep down he did something wrong; and even more so from the public posturing of his Prime Minister, including and indeed especially during the election campaign.

It has been hilarious to watch TweedleDave lecturing others about opportunism. The man who started yesterday making 'the most important speech yet' about the economy, and ended it diving into the news-leading story on the crossbow cannibal case.

The man who said his government would not be driven by the 24 hour news culture and whose comms team think they can dictate the make up of TV panels.

And the man - let us not forget this one - who in the midst of court case coverage of Labour MPs in trouble over their expenses applying for legal aid, ordered his campaign battlebus to stop, leapt off to tell a makeshift crowd (mainly of journalists) what a scandal it was and how if anything like this happened on his watch, he would deal with it prontissimo. Let's see.

So he has his first so-called 'scandal' to deal with. My hunch is that the ruthless streak will prevail, and that he won't mind too much, provided he can find a decent replacement for Laws, if people see that ruthless streak and he can present himself as a strong and decisive leader. He will see all too clearly the difficulties of two parallel tracks - a running investigation into millionaire banker Laws' expenses, alongside Laws telling the nation to tighten its belt. He will be hearing the mutterings of Tories not too keen on Liberals, and not too liberal on homosexuality, telling him this is what happens when you jump into bed too quickly with people you don't know too well.

A serious point here. The coalition government was put together pretty quickly. Can Cameron possibly have been aware of all the potential skeletons rattling around Lib Dem cupboards? Did TweedleNick tell him all he knew, or were the two of them just so excited to be walking down the aisle to the Downing Street rose garden?

Another problem for Laws is that he has slightly done the 'holier than thou' on expenses in the past; and that he looked too much like he was enjoying the hatchet role when he stood alongside George Osborne last Monday. Amid all the personal angst, over which I genuinely do sympathise, because it is horrible when personal life becomes political 'fairgame' he will also be feeling political hatchets being sharpened all around him.

These Tories are not the nicest people on the planet. If they judge he is damaging to their interests, he is gone. And if that is where Cameron thinks it will end, he'd be better getting on with it.

*** I've not read the Guardian coverage of my book yet but I do wonder why they've put that nine-year old Bond vilain photo on the front. It's the one taken on the day TB postponed the 2001 election and if the photograper gets a tenner for every time it has been used, he'll be living in Monaco by now. I imagine it has been so popular with editors because they think it makes me look a bit mean and devious. But interestingly both Fiona and my mum, without a mean or devious bone in her elderly body, rate it as one of their favourite pictures of me. I think they are better judges than most journos.

Anyway, I hope those who read it enjoy the Guardian and even more that those who get the book enjoy it too. Prelude to Power, on Amazon now, in the shops Tuesday. So they say. And am doing a slot on the Politics Show about it tomorrow.

I don't think Andy Coulson will be asking for me to get bounced this time.

Many thanks to the new coalition government for helping to make Question Time even more enjoyable.

Their idiotic decision to try to get me kicked off the panel by refusing to field a minister if I was 'the Labour voice' was stupid on so many levels it is hard to know where to start.

First, this is Queen's Speech week, and for the government not to be properly represented is a straightforward failure of communications management. It is also an insult to the programme, the audience of Gravesend, and to the much trumpted Clamberon notion that they are pursuing a new politics of engagement.

Second, it suggested that since becoming the government despite their failure to secure a majority, the Tories have gone all cocky and decided they can start to dictate the terms on which impartial broadcasters go about their business. I may be a bit of a control freak but the idea of saying you can only have x if y is axed was way beyond my understanding of the rules of the game.

Third, it suggests they're a bit frit, and unsure about defending the shifting sands of coalition politics. 

I sensed something was going on through the week, because whenever I tried to ascertain from the programme makers who else was on they were a bit vague. I knew that Piers Morgan was on, but that was it.

Then came word that they were hopeful of getting chief secretary David Laws. Good choice I thought, in the week of the cuts announcement and the centrality of the Treasury to the Queen's Speech. But they weren't sure about a Tory, and they thought they might get a Green but really it was not straightforward.

Two days later came word  that no, it seemed Laws couldn't do it after all. So who? They weren't sure.

It was only in the last 24 hours that I finally learned John Redwood, Susan Kramer and Max Hastings were on.

And I only learned as the programme started the reason why there was no minister. I thought I must be hallucinating at first. Did David Dimbleby just say the government would only field a minister if I was bounced? I think he did.

I thought there and then of pulling out the David Laws framed photo my daughter had suggested I take on to let people know who Mr Laws was, and remind them why I'd spent a few hours researching his views (though I wonder if he even knew of the ludicrous discussions being pursued on his behalf)

Instead I waited to the end and later we toasted him, and all the absent friends of the new Con-Dem government who exposed qualities governments in the first flush of youth ought not to be displaying - cowardice, incompetence and boneheadedness.

 * Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

When George Osborne announced the first public spending cuts today, he did at least have a mandate of sorts. While some of the detail may differ from the 'efficiency savings' claimed during the election to be able to deliver six billion pounds, he had been pretty clear about direction of travel, and though he did not get a Parliamentary majority, he is Chancellor and democratically entitled, with the support of his coalition partners, to push through the cuts.

It is the coalition partners who have trickier questions to answer. Everyone accepts that the reality of coalition government means compromise, some desired plans left on the shelf, some undesired plans having to be implemented.

But it really is not that long ago that Nick Clegg was defining new politics as politicians saying what they would do, then doing it. Around the same time that he was saying - and thereby largely chiming with Labour - that the recovery was too fragile for the axe yet to be wielded as the Tories would like.

So those who voted Tory are getting pretty much what the Tories promised. Those who voted Lib Dem as a way of stopping the Tories doing what they planned can feel a tad let down.

And whilst Nick Clegg is clearly loving being deputy PM, I think the Tories saw him coming when it came to Cabinet formulation. He could - and probably should - have insisted on one of the big departments, the Treasury, Foreign Office or Home Office, in addition to being DPM.

The Tories have all three of these, and they have (well protected) health and education. The latter despite the fact that Schools Secretary Michael Gove, when the negotiations were going on, said he would happily give up his position for a Lib Dem.

The former Lib Dem schools supremo David Laws says he actively wanted the chief secretary's job. Mmmm. And I bet David and George wanted him there too. Among the most Tory-leaning of the leading Lib Dems, his presence, and seeming relish for the task, locks him and his party into the political fallout. 'I'll let David answer in more detail' could soon replace 'I agree with Nick' as the best Lib Dem T-shirt slogan.

The remaining Lib Dems in the Cabinet are Vince Cable at the Business Department, ready to take a lion's share of cuts, Chris Huhne at energy where surely he will have to face up to the need for nuclear power to meet energy and climate change needs - a potential problem for his party - and finally Danny Alexander in the virtually Tory-free zone of Scotland.

I surprised some of my Labour colleagues during the campaign when I said I didn't quite buy into the 'Osborne the weak link' line of attack. It was as much worries about Cameron as Osborne that stopped them getting a majority and having to dive in with the Liberal Democrats.

But as he set out his plans today, Osborne had the Lib Dems pretty much where he wants them. It was the still campaigning Tory, rather than the now governing Chancellor, who let a big smile cross his face as he asked David to say how happy Vince was with the way things turned out.

He would have preferred a big majority. But this is a pretty good second best, to do what he wanted, with some of his erstwhile greatest critics cheering him on.

*Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Last week, in the - where else? - Mail, Janet Street-Porter wrote a piece suggesting depression was like the latest must have fashion accessory. The Daily Mirror today kindly gave me the space, as Mind Champion of the Year and a supporter of the Time to Change campaign, to reply to her ill-informed, silly and prejudice-reinforcing article. The Mirror piece is reprinted here 

Attention-seeking takes many forms, and a particularly virulent outbreak appeared under the name of Janet Street-Porter last week.

In a newspaper article she wrote about depression as some kind of trendy new illness, which many women now view as a must have accessory, like the latest handbag.

I assume, from the unsympathetic tone, she has never experienced depression. If she had, then even for the generous cheque she no doubt received, she would have thought twice before setting out an opinion as misguided as it is offensive to anyone who knows the reality of depression.

Much that appears in the media really doesn't matter. But people who suffer from mental health problems will often say the stigma attached to them is worse than the symptoms. Articles like hers reinforce that stigma and taboo, which in turn create shame and a sense that real problems cannot be addressed.

First, let me try to give her some insight into depression. I had a pretty heavy nervous breakdown in 1986, and I've had depression on-and-off ever since. With the help of friends and family, sympathetic bosses, a good GP, a psychiatrist, sometimes medication, I have learned to manage it better than I did once.

At its worst, it is like an invisible dark force that first approaches, then envelops, then appears to fill every waking thought. You can escape via sleep, but you wake and find your eyes won't open, you lack the energy to brush teeth, shave, speak, think anything other than thoughts of emptiness and despair.

When it's bad, my partner Fiona says it is like living with somebody from a different planet. When you get into that mode it's very dangerous and corrosive. People ask, "what's wrong?" and you don't really know. "What triggered it?" and you can't answer that either. One thing you do know, there is no way you would wish to have it.

Once you've had it, there are few worse experiences than knowing that dark cloud is coming back. The cause of Janet Street Porter's ire - whether real or synthetic - is the fact that women like TV presenter and Mirror columnist Fiona Phillips, actress Emma Thompson and writer Marian Keyes have spoken out about their experiences. Like them, I've chosen to "bare my soul", as Porter puts it, in print and on film because I feel that openness about psychosis and depression may help counteract the discrimination and stigma surrounding mental health.

When I had my breakdown, I took comfort from reading and hearing about others who had been through it and got out the other side. So when Mind, and later the Time to Change campaign asked me to speak out, I was pleased to.

Mental health problems can happen to anyone just as cancer can or a broken limb when you fall down the stairs. They don't respect status, wealth or profession. And, hopefully, we can make it easier for others to feel they don't have to hide that they've had mental health problems.

Men in particular find it tough to come forward. Big boys don't cry, and all that. It goes some way to explaining why men are just as likely to experience depression as women, but half as likely to seek support. So when Janet Street-Porter says: "The idea of feeling sorry for a bloke with low self-esteem is, frankly, risible," I wonder if the fact that out of every four suicides, three are men might cause her to reconsider. Probably not. But reasonable people might.

Frank Bruno, Marcus Trescothick and Ronnie O'Sullivan are all sportsmen who have reached the top of their chosen professions. They've also touched the depths of mental illness. And in being open about it, they are helping to change the way people think about men and mental health and undo the damage done by the likes of Janet Street-Porter. Far from jumping on a bandwagon or joining a trendy fad, people being open is essential to end a powerful and outdated taboo.

I know from my own recovery that it is possible to take strength and hope from the experience of others who've gone to what feels like hell and back and lived to tell the tale. My novel, All In The Mind, is based on my experiences of depression and psychosis. I also made a BBC documentary called Cracking Up. And I've been really grateful for the response to both. Barely a day has passed when someone hasn't said they related to something that happened to me or one of the characters in the book.

Depression is neither new nor trendy. It just is. Street-Porter's article is inconsistent, contradictory and very badly argued. It is the kind of journalism that merely serves to strengthen the damaging stereotypes around mental health problems that stop people with very real illnesses seeking help. Like the Daily Mirror, I've been supporting the Time to Change campaign, which is working hard to put this right.

But ill-informed articles like Street-Porter's risk leaving people confused and misinformed. Depression and stress are not the same, although it is true that sometimes one can lead to the other.

The truth is, anything more than mild to moderate depression can be seriously debilitating. Time to Change says that one in four of us will directly experience a mental health problem. What it means is that we all know someone who is affected but, as a society, we still tend to keep these things quiet.

If we could be more open, it would of course benefit people with mental health problems, but it would also benefit society and the economy.

Many talented people are kept out of the labour market because of employers' reluctance to hire someone who discloses they've had a mental health problem: only four out of 10 employers say they would employ someone with a mental health history.

That means six out of 10 wouldn't. Some of the most important figures in history had mental health issues - Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. What would the world be like if they had been denied opportunities because they'd had mental health problems?

When Street-Porter argued there is "virtually no stigma at all" attached to mental health problems, she clearly hadn't done even the most basic research. Nearly nine out of 10 people with mental health problems have been affected by stigma and discrimination.

Media coverage on mental illness is incredibly powerful. At its best it can help challenge stigma and at its worst it can help reinforce it. In a way, that has a direct impact upon the way people with mental health problems feel and are perceived.

The decision that people such as Marian Keyes and newspaper columnist Allison Pearson take when they speak out about it is a difficult one. I had no choice, because when I jumped from journalism to politics, the press started writing about my past troubles anyway. I have never regretted being open. I hope that by speaking out about our experiences, anyone with a mental health problem can play a role in educating and showing others in distress that they are not alone, help is out there and recovery possible.

Mental health problems can happen to any one of us and it's important people can speak out and seek help without fear of being criticised and ridiculed. The volume of complaints about Street-Porter's article suggests the public realises it is indeed Time to Change.

ALASTAIR'S FEE FOR THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN DONATED TO MENTAL HEALTH CHARITIES MIND AND RETHINK. HE IS ASKING JANET STREET-PORTER TO DONATE THE FEE FOR HER ARTICLE TO THE SAME CAUSE. WWW.TIME-TO-CHANGE.ORG.UK.

THE FIGURES

Mental health problems affect one in four.

Nearly nine out of 10 people with mental health problems have been affected by stigma and discrimination.

92% of the British public believe admitting to a mental illness would damage their career

Stigma stops people with mental health problems from doing everyday things - even reporting a crime.

MELINDA MESSENGER

"I thought to myself: 'If I crash the car, I will be free from all this.' It really does get as bad as that."

TRISHA GODDARD

"I was in danger of having my children taken away from me when I needed five weeks in psychiatric care."

EMMA THOMSPON

"I've certainly been there, in various depressions, when you never wash and wear the same things... you want to switch it off and stop."

JIM CARREY

"I tried dealing with depression by taking Prozac. It was good for a little bit for my life. But it didn't heal me."

HELENA BONHAM CARTER

"I've been depressed and don't like it. You find a way through it, but it is hard, still, to talk about it."

LENNY HENRY

"That's where depression hits you most - your home life."

JANET STREET-PORTER

"Along with the Sam Cam handbagthe latest must-have accessory is a big dose of depression."

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

As David Cameron and Nick Clegg prepare to set out agreed plans for their coalition government, I thought I would focus on another shiny new double act, and one which will become more not less endearing to the British public as time goes on.

I refer to Wenlock and Mandeville, the London 2012 mascots unveiled yesterday, complete with commendable TV hype - Yes, I watched The One Show - a splendid back story written by children's author Michael Morpurgo, and a lovely film of the story, all easily findable if you google the two names, chosen because of historic connections with Olympics and Paralympics.

Wenlock's name comes from the Shropshire village of Much Wenlock, which helped inspire the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, to create the Olympic Games. Mandeville's name is inspired by Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire, whose hospital Games  were a forerunner of the modern Paralympic movement.

When I tweeted last night that I was loving Clare Balding's enthusiasm for W and M on The One Show, some of you thought I was being ironic, or hiding my own negative view of the mascots. Au contraire, as the defeated Paris bid team might say. I totally share Clare's enthusiasm.

In any event, she and I, and the occasional cynic taking them apart in the papers today, are not really the target. Kids are. And the kids who first saw them yesterday appeared to love them. They will also be able to help shape the story of what happens to Wenlock and Mandeville as they travel around the country between now and the Games.

Assuming the coalition is still intact by then, and Cameron still PM, I won't pretend that it will be slightly galling to see him, Boris (if still mayor), Colin Moynihan and other assorted Tories presiding over the Games, given how hard TB's government worked to get them for London, and GB's to make sure they were delivered. (Seb Coe is uber-politics btw, despite having been William Hague's chief of staff, and so not to be lumped in the Tory list.)

But even I, just a week or two after the election, can put all that to one side amid the frisson of excitement that two little characters fashioned from droplets of steel can inspire. I can even, despite the treachery of Owen Coyle in departing Burnley, forgive them for coming from Bolton. Just call me big-hearted Al.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

People often say (rightly) there is not enough candour, and not enough humour, in politics. Why did Boris Johnson rise as he did? In part because of candour and a rare sense of humour. Why is someone like Dennis Skinner a living Labour legend - and one of the few MPs who came to hear GB's last words as leader at Party HQ last week btw? - because of his candour and his humour.

So what have we learned about the new Treasury Chief Secretary, Lib Dem (sic) David Laws? That he doesn't get candour and humour, which is why instead of taking the one-line note from his outgoing Labour predecessor Liam Byrne - which said there was no money left - in the spirit in which it was intended, he used it to grease even further up to new boss George Osborne (who, I suspect, will have been less impressed by Laws' stunt than Laws.)

Liam Byrne probably assumed his shadow Philip Hammond, with whom he will have established some kind of relationship, was going to be taking over in the Treasury Number 2 job if the Tories won. It is usual for ministers to leave some kind of personal and private note to their incoming successors. It is not unusual, especially after all the harsh things said in an election campaign, for such letters to err on the light side.

What poor Liam cannot have realised is that the Coalition we helped bring about by stopping the Tories from winning a majority would have someone quite as humourless as Laws in its midst.

I don't know the man so I may be doing him a great disservice. He may be a real bring-the-house-down merchant once he shakes off the politicospeak , the oddly scrunched-up forehead and the over-groomedness which is all I have ever really noticed about him until now.

But there is something close to nauseating about the speed with which he has moved from arguing during the election campaign that we should not be bringing forward planned cuts to the public sector until we get proper growth in the private sector going, to his position now, that he got it all wrong and Boy George was right all along.

Facing both ways is something of a Lib Dem speciality, but Laws is clearly a master of it. Even as he is nodding along in appreciation of the Osborne axe-polishing (at least George believes in it) he is sending out emails to worried Lib Dems saying that he is there to keep an eye on things, and put a brake on Osborne's excesses. It is the first sign that he is finding the rigours of government - where you have to make decisions and explain them rather than apologise for them - more difficult than he expected.

He will always put 'social justice' at the heart of any decisions he makes, he tells his Lib Dem colleagues. Well let's see how that squares with the cuts coming down the track for children, the disabled and the homeless, and let's see how Lib Dem voters feel when they realised that is what their much desired hung parliament is bringing.

My hunch is that when the pressures from within the Lib Dem party mount, as the reality of difficult decisions bites, some of the new ministers will find it too much to bear - Vince Cable is top of my list of predicted resigners - - and will peel back to the comfort of Oppostional criticism.

Laws has two big advantages. He is clearly perfectly at ease facing two ways. And he is close to being a Tory already. Indeed my other half, who knows more about policy than I do, says he is to the right of the Tories in some areas of public services policy.

Whatever course he chooses, though, he will find life in government a lot easier if he can get a sense of humour from somewhere.

The kind that can see the funny side when, in the same breath, George Osborne says cutting quangoes will be at the heart of their cuts plans; and announces the new Office for Budget Responsbility (er ... quango) to help him.

Meanwhile, nice to see one of the storylines from Yes Minister emerging as a central plank of the Tory strategy. You know the one - we spent the whole campaign saying the public finances would be a mess, and hey, they're actually less of a mess than we said, but we will say they're a bigger mess, and that means we can hopefully persuade people that the planned tax rises we had denied we would make are really Labour's tax rises not ours.

If they are Labour tax rises, bring back Darling, I say!

And where's Clegg and all his mania gone? I warned him he should get a department or disappear without trace. Buy hey, he and William Hague are sharing Chevening ... aw sweet!

It has been the great Liberal cry down the years, the thing they have fought and marched for ... What do we want? Country houses. When do we want them? Now!

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Despite a bit of post-general anaesthetic wooziness, nasal oozings of various colours (so what if it is too much detail?), and a big bandage that made the neighbours ask if I have had a nose job,  I can't let the day go by without a blog thanking the doctors, nurses, anaesthetists, caterers and administrators who got me in and out for a nose operation within a day.

There is something very special about the NHS, which is why decent Americans are so jealous of it, right-wing ideologues (ring a bell?) so wrong not to get it, and British people so fiercely proud of it.

I had the same operation almost 20 years ago, and back then, I was kept in for a while, and had to endure bandages packed into each nostril for a few days.

I'm not saying the NHS improvements since then are all down to a Labour government which believes in the NHS and has invested properly in it. But that government hasn't half made a difference.

Anyway, enough of the politics - I just want to make a straight-forward thanks to Mr Quiney, the surgeon at the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear hospital near King's Cross; the anaesthetist Dr Marks, Ivy, Kofi, and all the other nurses, the catering people - best omelette I have ever tasted - the porters, administrators and everyone else who makes something like a polypectomy take place.

When Fiona and Rory came to pick me up, I asked them to bring ten books of The Blair Years to sign and leave as thanks to the doctors, nurses etc. It turned out I had underestimated how many people had actually been in theatre when I was conked out, so Ivy has just been on asking for a few more. On the way, you wonderful people.

Oh ok, one more political point - just before May 1997, we said Labour would save the NHS. I think we did.

On the radio on the way home, George Osborne was warning of deeper public service cuts than feared, with the oldest trick in the book - claims that the finances are worse than feared - and billboards out of the car window were  proclaiming the Clamberon plan to pack the Lords with their donors, old schoolchums, hunting pals and the like. Very old politics, Nick.

Fill the Lords with Ivys, I say. If it has to exist that is.

** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

I thought I might start the week with some good news for the Clamberons.

Namely that the blogging and the tweeting may go a little quiet for a few days.

Because very shortly - perhaps this will cheer them even more - I will be under a general anaesthetic.

Nothing serious, just a bit of ENT that needs a bit of sorting, with an emphasis on the N (no, not drug-related, have never done that nonsense).

I was due to have the operation a few weeks ago but the election got in the way. It will probably be my final contact with the NHS before the change of government kicks in, so I am feeling safe in its hands.

Over and out.

* Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

For reasons to do with the fact that we spend a week each year in the Highlands, and that Charles Kennedy is a good bloke, we saw a bit of him and his wife Sarah shortly before the election campaign proper kicked off.

Now that the Lib Dem leadership has leapt into bed with a right-wing Tory Party, it surprises me not one bit that Charles has come out against the move. At the time of our holiday, if my life had depended on it and I was forced to place a bet, I would have probably said the Tories were on for a majority. I think Charles felt the same, though neither of us, perhaps out of reverse wishful thinking, expressed our fears outright.

It was Sarah, listening to our arguments about David Cameron's numerous strategic failings, and making her own observations about what people felt about the Tories, who seemed most convinced they could be stopped from winning.

Having been wrestling with myself somewhat about the extent to which I should get involved in the campaign, it was in part her conviction on the matter that decided me to scrap pretty much all other plans for the next few weeks, head home and go close to full time helping GB, Peter M, Douglas Alexander etc.

What she was saying was in keeping with what I had been saying here for a long time - that the Tories think they can cruise to an easy win, that they have not done the hard work we did in changing our Party, that parts of the country will have no truck with them whatever, that the posh boy thing is a problem, that Osborne is a problem, that inexperience is a problem, that they have some real off the wall loons in their ranks, that people will ultimately resent the media and financial backing, and so on and so on. She was right. They went from a big lead at the start of the campaign to a few nervous days at the end thinking they might not get into power at all.

The fact that Cameron is now PM means that despite the best efforts of some, eg Lord Ashcroft and blogger Tim Montgomerie, the inquest into their hopeless campaign, which saw that huge poll lead dwindle to a hung Parliament, is not taking place.

But the more Cameron says, as he said again in his cuddly little interview with Andrew Marr this morning, that his arrangement with the Clegg wing of the Lib Dems will last, the less convinced I am that he is right.

As so often, the media is missing the pulse of public opinion. A major company which tracks its own reputation via focus groups sent me last week's report yesterday. They always start with a general discussion. And the discussion was of the Cameron-Clegg partnership. The verbatims, especially from Tory and Lib Dem voters, were harsh. Extremely so.

So Cameron and Clegg continue to bathe in the warm praise of those (large) parts of the media that were desperate to see the back of us and so are now bumming up the new boys like there's no tomorrow.

But Charlie Kennedy speaks for a lot of Lib Dems in suggesting this marriage of convenience goes against everything every Lib Dem leader since Jo Grimond has stood for in working for a realignment of the left.

And once Parliament is back, just wait for the noise of the Tories once they spot a bit too much Cleggery on Europe, let alone this 55 per cent unconstitutional stitch up.

It is all so nice and easy when Marr is asking Cameron whether he and Samantha will have dinner parties with Nick and Miriam. But the tough questions will come before too long, and I am not sure the Lib Dems will hold on as tight and as hard as Dave might think. Nor am I so sure he will control his own side as easily as he might like to.

Not only Charles, but David Steel, Paddy Ashdown, Ming Campbell were all to greater not lesser degrees wanting Clegg to do more to steer his party left not right. So was Vince Cable. I hope someone has a record of his calls to GB. Indeed, I hope someone has a record of Clegg's.

Charles is the first to speak out but he won't be the last. Meanwhile Labour should use the leadership campaign to have a serious and positive debate about past, present and above all future. There will be a proper contest between several perfectly strong candidates, all of whom can offer something different so that a real direction for the future can be agreed.

It won't be easy for the brothers Miliband, let alone their Mum, but they are mature enough to ensure hopefully that blood can stay thicker than water whilst also projecting themselves in different ways to the public.

I would advise Ed against doing too much of the bashing of the past which marked out his launch and today's interview. Of course there has to be an assessment of why we lost support. But it is my strongly held view, as I have said here many times before, that one of the reasons our support fell is that we did not defend the record over 13 years well enough, and we allowed the Tory and media negativity about this wonderful country, and the many improvements, to take hold.

Being overly and needlessly critical of the past is not the best way to start an argument about the future. And don't forget that whilst Cameron may be PM, he is only there because Clegg helped him to get there. This is a progressive country, which is why the Milibands and whoever else joins them can go into this debate in a positive, forward-looking, agenda-setting way.

* Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Am back from Ireland, a bit tired after a late night after The Late Late Show. I do love the Irish, who seem to loathe the idea of a Tory government in Britain as much as I do, and most of whom seem to think Nick Clegg is a pseudoTory, as I do. So it was a nice little escape.

Too tired for too much original thought - or even unoriginal thought - so how about I just reprint the English version of the interview I did with La Repubblica. There might be one or two things in there people find moderately interesting. Have a nice weekend.

What do you think of the Cameron-Clegg government?

We will have to see how it develops, but the sense we got from the talks with the Lib Dems is that many of their activists and supporters did not want this arrangement. Of course Cameron and Clegg will try to make it work, but I fear the fundamental differences between their parties will become a big problem. They will have a honeymoon period - all new governments do - but I don't think it will last long. Neither of them won a mandate alone and this is like a marriage of convenience between two very different parties and philosophies. Personally I hear they get on very well - they both come from privileged, private schools backgrounds so they speak each other's language. That may help them as a relationship develops but the political differences and personal similarities could become a problem. Ultimately policy is the most important thing and one of the  reason the talks with us broke down is that the Liberal Democrats have some pretty crazy ideas and our sense is the Tories were so desperate for power they offered a lot more than we would have done.

Why the Labour-Libdem initiative failed? Mandelson says it's Clegg fault, but Clegg and several newspapers say it's also or completely Labour's fault. Was it Ed Balls and company thinking of their future?

As you know, it is not sensible to equate British newspapers with the truth. The reality is that by the time Clegg wanted to set up talks with us, his negotiating team were already wanting to recommend a deal with the Tories. I trust the word of the Labour people in the talks who tell me the claims by the Lib Dems that we did not take them seriously are nonsense. There was good mood music but there were big differences on policy on the economy, energy, the environment, crime and terrorism. But more importantly we had the sense they were going through the motions. Towards the end of the discussions, Clegg was asking for more and more time from Gordon but it was obvious he was just trying to delay the inevitable and use the Prime Minister to get more out of the Tories and buy more time with his Party. By then it was becoming discourteous to the Queen for Gordon to hang around unable to form a government and the country wanted clarity.

How will be GB be remembered?

As with all big figures, he will be remembered in different ways by different people. He was a key player in the development of New Labour. He was a brilliant Chancellor. As PM, he cemented the Northern Ireland deal won by TB. He brought the troops home from Iraq. He led Britain superbly through the worst global financial storm any of us can remember. As I have said before, there were times when he made our life very difficult when TB was PM, but for all the difficulties I would rather have him as PM than Cameron any day which is why I went back to help for the campaign and the handover. He is someone of enormous strengths and some frailties but he will be remembered as one of the giants of the most successful period in Labour's history

Brown called Blair before leaving, it must have been an emotional moment: how to sum up the relationship between these 2 men that you know so well?

I was there when they spoke and it was a very warm call. It is no secret they had a great relationship in the early years, which deteriorated in government. But even in the bad times they were a formidable team. I wish we had not had the bad times, but in the end politics is about human beings who believe things very strongly. It was a very odd moment when TB called because the other people in the room were Peter Mandelson and myself. All four of us have had enormous ups and downs and relationships have never been easy, but I felt an incredible sense of pride and privilege to have been part of the New Labour story from beginning to the end of this period of power - which is not incidentally the end of New Labour.

What role Murdoch and his medias played in the election? Did Sky try to push the negotiation toward a Cameron-Clegg agreement and, in doing, so, lost its pretence for impartiality? In retrospect, it looks like a leader who would go to battle without spin doctors, with such medias, would be dead before starting...

 I do believe the British media had a very bad election. We have a massive but unfortunately trivialised and sensationalist media. Unfortunately, my fears about the TV debates were borne out - they energised the campaign in many ways, but the media became obsessed with them almost to the exclusion of all else so there was very little policy debate outside the TV debates themselves. I am not convinced these debates are actually good for a Parliamentary democracy, at least not one for each week of the campaign. Ours is not a presidential system. As for the role of the press generally, they do not have the influence they did. People know they all - almost without exception - have their own agenda. Their impact comes from the influence they have on the broadcasters who are overly influenced by the papers. Most 24 hour news is two journalists talking to each other. In the last year in particular it means they have been reporting government, and particularly GB, through a negative prism, whereas Cameron had the media so far up his backside it is a wonder the journalists could breathe. Even with that, he could not secure a majority. My advice to the next Labour leader is not to worry too much about the media. You can get a message out these days with or without their support. Obama showed that. We managed to stop the Tories winning a majority with almost all of the media against us. As for Sky, I think if people google or youtube my encounter with their political editor which took place on Monday, they might get a sense that there was something of an agenda going on there. Online there was a lot of comparisons by British people between Sky and Fox News - not to Sky's reputational benefit I would say. There is also no doubt Murdoch stands to gain hugely if the Tories implement their media policies as set out in their policy plans before the coalition. If Clegg goes along with them, it will be a further sign he has totally sold out and there will be a further political price to pay for that.

Finally: what are your personal feelings at the end of such a long period for Labour in office?

I was sad that we were out of power, because I think the last thing Britain needs is a Tory government. But immensely proud to have been part of the team that helped TB get elected and begin 13 years of Labour government which has changed Britain massively for the better.

* Buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php. Apologies that we have not been able to get post election orders out as quickly as we would like. We have had record demand, many from former Lib Dems

Off to Dublin today to see a few old friends and do the Late Late Show. It'll be nice to be in a country where the majority will have no truck with the idea that a Conservative government could ever be a progressive government, even when propped up by someone as nicely turned out as Nick Clegg.

A word on the hugely enjoyable, and fantastically organised, Sport Industry Awards last night. The big awards went to Alex Ferguson and Brendan Foster, presented respectively by Fabio Capello and, in Brendan's case, Tanni Grey-Thompson and the legend that is Haile Gebreselassie.

Having been a judge on the awards panel, I was particularly pleased to see the pure joy brought by the award to the team from Everton FC for the work they do in mental health.

I presented the Leadership Award to Nick Fry, part of team that presided over the best comeback story in Formula One history which led to Jensen Button becoming world champion. He managed to slip into his speech that he voted Labour, and said afterwards he was really disappointed at what had happened.

Maybe I just attract anti-Tories but in what was a pretty affluent, black tie dinner, I was struck by how many people sought me out to say the same thing. Fergie, Brendan and Tanni are huge Labour supporters anyway, so they don't count! But plenty of others, including many in the business community, felt Cameron had failed to win a majority because he didn't really know how to lead, whilst Nick Clegg was being seen by some as an unprincipled opportunist.

And when I had a little dig at Clegg when being interviewed on stage before I presented the award, fair to say it went down better than I had been expecting. There was also a lot of suspicion around at the news that the Tories had refused to commit to ring-fencing Olympic Games budgets, and a big desire that Tessa Jowell should continue to have a role in the preparation of the Games.

Meanwhile, more and more ex Lib Dems come to Labour. Apologies if the books being asked for take a bit longer to get out than usual but we have been overwhelmed by the sudden surge asking to buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Meanwhile, here are just a few of the messages left on Labour's website by recent recruits.

Ruth from Cambridge
"I voted Lib Dem to keep the tories out. Now the LDs are with the tories, I'm coming back to Labour."

Craig from Newcastle upon Tyne
"Former member of Liberal Democrats - the idea of any discussions of supporting a Conservative Govt fills me with utter disgust"

Nick from London
"Having just voted Lib Dem at the election, wooed by the promise of a new kind of politics, I am alarmed at the prospect of a Lib/Con coalition. Have decided that I will never again desert Labour at an election and wanted to go a step further and join the party."

Pam from Newcastle upon Tyne
"Since the election, when I am ashamed to say I was persuaded to vote tactically for the LibDems, I have been dismayed about them talking to the Tories."

Simon from Watford
"Because the Liberal Democrats have completely let me down."

Stuart from London
"I feel totally betrayed by the libdem party who have formed an unnatural coalition with the Tories. "

Alex from Witney
"I believe in labour policies and beliefs,that they are best for this country, I voted Lib Dem as a protest vote against David Cameron in the election, a wasted vote!"

Maxwell from Basingstoke
"Until recently, I was a member of the Liberal Democrats, believing that they offered a radical and progressive agenda for British politics; I see now that I was mistaken, and Labour remains the home for the progressive, centre-left in the UK - our only hope for 'A Future Fair For All'"

Mark from Reading
"As an ex-lib dem'er, I feel sick I helped to get the tories in to ruin Britain again. Doing my bit to help the progressive cause in Britain"

Anne from Southport
"Labour's never going to win in this town. I thought about the local picture, not the bigger picture, and so I voted tactically (Lib Dems) :(  Never ever again will i vote tactically in my whole life. "

Scott from Manchester
"I made the mistake of voting for the Liberal Democrats, first, and last time."

James from Leamington Spa
"A week ago I was wondering about joining the Lib Dems, but they have just lost all credibility for a generation. Time to come back home to Labour."

Jane from Reading
"I voted Liberal Democrat to keep Gordon Brown and the Labour party in Government.  Bad Decision and never again.  I cried tears when Gordon Brown spoke following his resignation and again when David Cameron entered Number 10 - tears of sadness in the first case and fear in the second."

Elanor from London
"I am a former Liberal Democrat supporter who feels betrayed by their coalition with the Conservatives - I now feel Labour is the only viable progressive force in British politics."

Paul from Ripley
"I was very very stupid and got seduced by the empty promises of the Liberal Democrat party during the 2010 General Election campaign. Having previously been a Labour voter I shamelessly switched and voted Lib Dem.  Seeing a Tory Prime Minister has made me feel desperately disappointed with myself for getting sucked in.  From now on I'll live by the mantra that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  It's easy to say in hindsight, but I never felt right from the moment my hand parted with the ballot paper.  I wish to become an active member of the party and will look to get involved with any events/societies when I re-enter full-time education this coming September."

Isabelle from Bristol
"Because the Lib Dems just let me down."

Kate from Dorchester
"Thought about it for ages.  Voted 'tactically' for Lib Dems due to West Dorset constituency - first time I haven't voted Labour and felt utterly ashamed so wanted to make amends!  Feel awful sense of dread at new Government.  Want to raise tax to get rid of deficit so want to work within a party to do this.  Gordon Brown's resignation was so dignified it made me cry!"

Amy from London
"I voted lib dem and am disgusted and let down that they have joined with the Tories.  I agree with most of labour policies and I want to see a socialist government in the future."

Alex from Maidenhead
"i am a disgruntled liberal democrat supporter"

Felix from Holsworthy
"Previously having been a Liberal Democrat, I was disgusted to see them 'sell out' by allying with the Tories and would like to support the only major progressive party left"

Mark from Newport
"Frustrated at tactically voting Lib Dems who then form an alliance with the Tory party. Will never vote Lib Dem again and stick and support Labour."

Phil from Abingdon
"Tactically voted Lib Dem to keep tories out and feel betrayed to see Cameron walking in to No.10. Will only ever vote on principal from now on...not ever tactically. "

Christopher from Glossop
"I worked for the liberal democrats in the 2010 election and feel betrayed and let down by their actions."

Laura from High Wycombe
"I am 18 and just voted for the first time, Liberal Democrat. This was a tactical vote against the Conservatives and now that I've been let down, I want to show where my real allegiances lie. "

Kim from Hornchurch
"I am disgusted as a former Liberal Democrat that Nick Clegg has deicded to prop up a Tory regime. "

Rosemary from Berwick-upon-Tweed
"I flirted with the Lib Dems, but want to come back home to the Labour Party."

Sam from Tunbridge Wells
"I voted Liberal Democrat to stop the Conservatives, but was horrified to see them prop up the Conservatives. I will never vote for them again, regardless of labour's standing in my constituency."

Chris from Wednesbury
"Stood for Lib Dems in local elections and never have felt so let down as I do tonight.Stuff them and their Tory leader,lets fight for a left wing government. "

Daniel from Billingham
"'Conned by false ideology of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats has helped me decide to return to my first instincts that the Labour party had my best interests in mind and at heart."

Michael from London
"Always a Labour supporter, but sadly, this year seduced by Lib Dems. It seems voting Lib Dem got me Tories. Shame on them."

Callum from Bracknell
"Completely disillusioned with the Liberal Democrats. I preferred that a lot of their policies were geared towards helping students and the economic growth of our country, but i can't support a party that would ally themselves with someone who would seek to reduce the funding given to our public sector"

Catherine from Hull
"Labour is the party for a better future for the majority, not the minority who ruled for so many years in the past. They have made mistakes, of course, but it would be a much bigger one not to give them another chance. I will never vote Lib Dem again. "

Natalia from London
"I am so disgusted with the Lib Dems for forming an alliance with the Tories. I voted Lib Dem last week only because I perceive them to be to the left of Labour on some issues."

Susan from Otley
"so disappointed after election and in my area -Leeds North West I voted Lib-Dem- but would not have done so if I had known a vote for them would be a conservative vote."

Harry from New Malden
"Voted for liberal democrat, to stop the Tories but I have ended with a conservatives government. The liberals campaign that a vote for labour would not stop the conservatives, but it looks like a vote for the liberals was a vote for the conservatives. I want a modern progressive government and you will never get that with conservatives"

Vic from Bristol
"Having voted all my adult life I made the extremely dire mistake of tactically voting for the Liberal democrats. Disgusted with myself and full of remorse I have now decide to be a more active member of a party that i feel i have betrayed. sorry."

Carolyn from Dorking
"I have resigned my membership of the Liberal Democrats and wish to become a member (again) of a progressive party "

Karen from Newcastle upon Tyne
"I have supported the Liberal Democrats and been an active member for a number of years.  I now feel totally betrayed by the Liberal Democrats, I certainly did not give that support to get a Tory Government"

Malcolm from Wallasey
"The decision by the Liberal Democrats to get into bed with the Conservative Party has lost them my support for the next decade at the very least."

Dan from London
"I'm sure like many who are signing up today, I voted for the Liberal Democrats in the General Election. Won't get fooled again!"

Jessica from London
"Labour have done so much to imporove this country aqnd help the lives of ordinary people. Whilst I don't agree with every policy of the past, I do believe that Gordon Brown was a good PM and a decent man. I have left the Liberal Democrats to join the Labour party because it is only Labour that now represents the progressive left."

Mark from Illford
"Left the Liberal Democrats and returned to my natural home."

Adam from Rochester
"I made the mistake of voting for the lib dem's last time, not again. "

Richard from Gloucester
"Because my Lib Dem tactical vote was to keep the Tories out, not prop them up!"

Oliver from Winchester
"Sad to see Gordon Brown go. Wanting to stand up against the Murdoch press. My tactical Lib Dem vote resulted in a Tory prime minister."

Daniel from Oxford
"I thought by voting LibDem I was keeping the Tories out of power. I am so sorry!"

Jane from Colchester
"I accidently voted for a Conservative government by voting Lib Dem something i would not knowingly have done. "

Paran from Worcester
"I voted tactically for the Liberals and will never do so again."

Isobel from Tonbridge
" I have been campaigning against the conservative party for 30 years. For the past 10 years I have campaigned on and off for the LibDems for tactical reasons (I live in Tory stronghold, safe seat). I will now NEVER vote LibDem again (not even tactically). Nor will I support them locally. I would like to concentrate on helping my local Labour Party to raise its profile in this area.  Rejoining the Labour party after about twenty years is a demonstration of my commitment to this. Gordon Brown has been inspirational during this campaign; the only candidate with substance and (so it now seems) integrity. We have lost a good PM. "

Angela from East Grinstead
"I voted Lib Dem to try to keep out the Tories, never again. I want to support Labour for the fight back, they are the only party to have acted in line with their principles."

Katherine from Newcastle upon Tyne
"I've been a LibDem supporter for 15 years, despite being a  die-hard socialist.  I did not use my vote to vote Tory. Gordon Brown has been vilified in the press - yet he is one of the few politicians who genuinely empathised with low-income families.  I don't believe the Tories would have reacted any differently to the Iraq or Global Economic crises, and our country was in safe hands with GB at the helm. That no longer applies."

Nigel from London
"Gordon Brown's dignity, and the Lib Dems' betrayal, convinced me it's time for everyone who wants progress to come home to Labour."

Nicola from Kingston
"Former Labour voter who has voted Lib Dem this time, I didn't do that to put Cameron in power."

Claire from Wells
"to pledge my support for labour, i voted tactically in this election (lib-dem) what a mistake that was!"

Neil from Teddington
"I wish I had done more to keep the Conservatives out of office. I voted Lib-Dem at the election tactically and wish I had voted with my true social beliefs."

Sarah from Truro
"I have decided to join, because like many, I did a tactical vote last Thursday. I voted Lib Dem instead of Labour, to stop the Conservatives getting in.  What happened?  My constituency is now Tory, the Tories are in 10 Downing Street and Nick Clegg has turned himself into some kind of Tory lap dog. I am very disappointed. Also Gordon Brown has been blamed unfairly for all of the problems we have to face and I think we have lost an excellent leader. I look forward to see who becomes the new leader, make it a good one! "

Joanna from Buckfastleigh
"I am a Lib Dem member and voted Lib Dem to keep the tories out, I believed that Lib Dem were a party that stood for the progressive left, I am now gutted to see them prop up a tory government.Though I am grateful that tory policies and government will be watered down by Lib Dems, I now view Labour as the only voice of the progressive left. I can never trust Lib Dems again with my vote. I will be cancelling my Lib Dem membership as of today."

James from Bristol
"I feel I have been let down by my previous political party (The Lib Dems) after they joined in coalition with the most right-wing Conservative party in recent years. As such, they no longer represent my political beliefs."

Daniel from Southend
"I always voted Labour, this time i voted Lib Dem....What a mistake. We don't realize what an amazing job Gordon Brown and the Labour party were doing.....We will now!"

Jonathan from Holt
"I voted tactically for Lib Dems to keep the Tories out. I'm disappointed a vote for Lib Dems ended up a vote for Tories."

Tom from Birkinhead
"I was so angered that my vote for the Liberal Democrats was usurped by Nick Clegg propping up a Tory government that I have decided to put my full weight behind the Labour party, I guess you could say I am coming home"

Victoria from Gloucester
"Because I do not think Tories should be in power, I voted Lib Dem however I think my vote was wasted and would rather have a labour government then a Tory government"

Michael from Hull
"Previous Lib Dem voter disgusted at the coalition, Labour are the only party who can deliver social equality in Britain. "

Patricia from Kendal
"I Have supported Labour in the past and believe strongly in its aims.  I voted tactically in a mainly conservative constituency to support Lib Dems.  They have now handed my vote to the Tories and I am appalled. I must support Labour now."

Steve from Stoke on Trent
"I voted Lib Dem because I believed in their policies above all others.  I did not vote for them so that they could change them at the drop of a hat and form an alliance with the Conservatives.  Labour offers the only true alternative to a Conservative Government."

Sarah from Cambridge
"I feel let down by the Liberal Democrats who I previously supported and now feel that the Labour Party are the only viable option for a fair Britain."

Billie from London
"I voted Liberal Democrat and am outraged at the betrayal of the Tory/Lib coalition. If I had wanted David Cameron and his cabinet I would have voted for them. I never thought I would join a political party but the Liberal Democrat's decision has spurred me into action. I feel I have to join the Labour party to offer my support publicly to the only remaining progressive party. "

What was it Clegg said when we said voting for them meant 'vote Clegg, get Cameron'? That was Labour playing the old politics. Yeah right. 'Don't let anyone tell you Clegg is anything other than a psuedo-Tory, propping up a Tory government which couldn't win a majority despite the easiest playing field for an Opposition party ever.'

And to the guy who came up last night and said why don't I stop knocking the Tories and give it a rest, let me tell you what I told him -- because elections are won and lost in years not weeks and the next one is already under way. And it will come sooner rather than later, and people need to be reminded now, at a time the media kiss the buttocks of Dick Clameron, of the reality of the Cameron failings and the Clegg betrayal. I for one won't tire of setting that out.

It comes to something when it is a Guardian photographer, the splendid Martin Argles, who sets off the waterworks.

As readers of The Blair Years know, I am not averse to a bit of tearfulness as emotional release. Whether at the close of the Good Friday Agreement talks, finally getting sign off on TB Conference speeches after days without sleep, the Dunblane massacre, news of deaths in war, resignations, football matches, Olympic medals ... as my elder son Rory said after reading the book - 'Dad, do we have to have all this crying stuff?'

There will be plenty more when the full version comes (Prelude to Power out June 3 in case you hadn't heard - get onto Amazon while stocks last).

The line in The Blair Years that can still bring tears to my eyes when I think about it was when my second son, Calum, then aged eight, said to me on the phone on the night before the 97 election 'are we going to win?' There was something about the 'we' - to a father who had barely been home in months from a son who nonetheless felt part of what was happening - that unleashed all the pent up emotion of a rollercoaster campaign which, by then, I knew we were going to win. And by a bizarre coincidence, as I write this, Martin has just sent me a picture he took of me, GB and Calum - like all our kids active Labour campaigners - in Manchester the night before the election.

There is indeed something so special about kids and their insights into big moments of drama. And the thing that set me off today was Martin's picture in The Guardian of Gordon hugging his son as around them, staff and colleagues applaud the emotional speech GB had just made.

Behind them you can see Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Joe Irvin, Andrew Adonis, then Peter Mandelson and I standing together as we have done so often in the last twenty years and more. All people who have been part of each other's lives for so long. And now New Labour's first period in office was coming to the end with tears inspired by the speech and laughter inspired by John and Fraser's reactions. 'Come on Daddy, we're going,' said Fraser at one point. And there in the background, an ever present reminder of the way the 24 hour media has changed our political landscape (largely for the worse) a 'breaking news' whoosh on TV saying GB was about to resign. (And boy has the tone changed now they have their nice new shiny blue and yellow toys to play with).

Like a lot of Labour supporters I haven't bothered with The Guardian since it came out for the Lib Dems, an action which may have helped put the Tories back in power. But Martin Argles is a lovely man and a great photographer so today I made an exception.

He has taken my picture hundreds of times, TB's and GB's thousands and thousands of times. It is because of the trust and respect he has built up over the years that people felt so relaxed about him being around, even amid real tension and difficulty during the campaign. Everyone likes him. When his paper came out for the Lib Dems, it was the kind of short-sighted self-indulgence which made people think worse of the paper, but not of him. And today's pictures really are stunning, in particular the one which records the call Clegg made which was the final act of GB's Premiership inside Downing Street.

I should say, by the way, that whilst I understand why Clegg's spin doctors are briefing out to the BBC and others that he was asking GB for more time, it is false to say he was doing so as a way of keeping Labour-Liberal talks going. He was trying to buy more time from his Party, and screw more concessions from the Tories. As GB pointed out when Martin was snapping away, the wrangling - in which Labour were no longer involved - was becoming discourteous to the Queen, and damaging to the country. But the briefings do show that for all the talk of new politics, Clegg is not averse to the old, and they don't come much older than the kind of lovey-dovey stitch-up with DC that led to the back garden Trinny and Susannah show yesterday.

In addition to Argles' pictures, his words are also superb. As Stefan Stern of the FT says on Twitter today, better than anything the lobby turned up.

Martin's description of the atmosphere before during and after the Clegg call is remarkable. 'The atmosphere in the room (before the call) was surprisingly light-hearted but very, very tense. If you can imagine those two things hanging at the same time .... Then it (the call) came. And there was silence. The whole place felt completely silent'. It did. Indeed, at one point, the only sound I heard was the shutter of Martin's camera, followed by GB saying 'ok, Nick, thanks, goodbye,' then turning to the rest of us, and saying 'right, let's go.'

As my diaries reveal, I have had a lot of ups and downs with GB and his team. But I really do believe he behaved with incredible courage and dignity in the last days of his Premiership, and that whilst he may not have had all the roundedness of the TB political skillset, in particular his comms skills, he certainly had resilience and a deep belief in the power of politics to do good.

He also wrote a lovely letter to my daughter as one of his final acts. Why? Because once he knew he would be resigning (several hours before finally he did), he said he wanted to go straight from the Palace to the Labour Party to address staff, and he wanted to wear a red tie. I was the only one with a red tie, which my daughter Grace had chosen for me - she says I have no fashion sense at all and so have to be told what to wear by her. So after putting the tie on, he wrote to thank her for her style advice and wish her all the best for the future.

And if you think I'm now just burbling on because the sight of those Tories back in power, you might be right. But if you want to see some wonderful photos of a moment in history, go to Guardian Online.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for the Labour campaign against the Tory/Lib Dem party http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php. Join Labour at http://www.labour.org.uk

I thought you might be interested in the release going out from Random House this afternoon about my diaries. They also have pictures of the covers but I am useless at getting pictures up here without my trusty website expert  who is too depressed about the Cameron-Clegg love-in to work! I'm sure someone will find a way of getting them on here

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL'S FULL DIARIES TO BE PUBLISHED

Alastair Campbell's long-awaited diaries will be published in full following Gordon Brown's resignation as Prime Minister, Random House announced today.

Extracts from Mr Campbell's diaries were published as The Blair Years in 2007 and he always intended to publish the full diaries in chronological order. The first of the four volumes will be published on 3^rd June. Entitled Prelude to Power, it covers the period from John Smith's death in May 1994 to Tony Blair becoming Prime Minister in May 1997. It opens with forty pages of hitherto unpublished material recording the discussions that led to Tony Blair, rather than Gordon Brown, becoming leader of the Labour Party.

 In total, the period covered in Prelude to Power accounted for 180 pages of The Blair Years and at 744 pages long, 75% of the material in thisfirst volume of the diaries is previously unpublished.  Prelude to Power records in often intimate detail Labour's return to office after the Thatcher-Major years.  It was prepared for publication some time ago and is now being printed.

Hutchinson Publishing Director Caroline Gascoigne said: "With elections and campaigns so fresh in people's minds, and with so much focus on the legacy of the Blair-Brown governments, the timing of publication could not be better for us.  Prelude to Power is a truly riveting read.  I don't believe there has ever been a diary quite like this from someone so close to the centre of power, and who has remained there ever since.  I know that people have assumed the unpublished material is all about the Blair-Brown relationship, but it is about so much more than that."

Alastair Campbell said, "I am pleased that I published The Blair Years when I did, because it was part of the debate about Tony Blair's legacy.  Both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are aware that I am now publishing the full diaries, which I believe record in a way that no other document could, the ins and outs, ups and downs, the progress and the setbacks of an extraordinary period in UK political history. 

"Yesterday was a sad day for me, in that 13 years of Labour government came to an end.  It was also a reminder, despite difficulties along the way, of how much has been achieved and how much Britain has changed. Working with Gordon on his recent election campaign, and in the past few days as he has sought to steer Britain through the complex constitutional issues thrown up by the result, I have also been reminded once more that the New Labour team is a collection of very remarkable individuals. 

"It was particularly poignant for me that when Tony Blair telephoned Gordon Brown just before he announced his resignation, the two other people in the room were Peter Mandelson and myself.  We were all there at the beginning, and all there as Labour's period in office ended. A lot went right, and some things went wrong, along the way. But the New Labour story is one I am proud of, and privileged to have witnessed and participated in. Prelude to Power is the first volume of that story in full."

Notes for editors:

Prelude to Power by Alastair Campbell will be published in hardback on 3^rd June, priced £25

The Blair Years was a Sunday Times Number 1 bestseller and sold 230,000 copies

Future volumes of The Alastair Campbell Diaries are likely to be published at 6 monthly intervals:

Volume 2 - Power and the People

Volume 3 - Power and Responsibility

Volume 4 - The Pressures of Power

CONTACT:

Charlotte Bush, Publicity Director, Cornerstone, Random House

So there you go .. get on Amazon all you political junkies. And remember you can still get individually signed copies of The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour by visiting http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Part of politics is having to prepare for every eventuality. So even before a vote had been cast last week, Gordon Brown had several drafts of statements - win, lose or draw - that he would make once the result became clear.

Even the 'draw' drafts, as it turned out, did not really cover the unclear situation which developed, which is why a new statement had to be made, the one he made in Downing Street on Friday.

But it did mean that when it came to the words he spoke yesterday before heading to see The Queen to tender his resignation, he already had a draft he could work on. When it came to it, as is often the case with politicians and big moments, he sat at his own desk and wrote the final version himself. Even his biggest opponents would be hard pressed to say he did not capture the moment well.

Though he was leaving as Prime Minister, and knew it was a moment in history, he also set great store by the speech he made to Labour Party staff after returning to Party HQ from Buckingham Palace. I assume the Party have put out a transcript, and I know it was filmed. I hope people watch it.

Because it showed that even in that moment of defeat, there is within him, and within all Labour campaigners and activists, the knowledge that the political fight never ends, and a new one has just begun. As he reeled off the list of Labour achievements - and as you know I wish we had done more of that in the last year or two - then I defy anyone but the ideologically right and the cynically wrong to claim that Britain is not a better country by far after 13 years of Labour in power.

To well-paid journalists in the right-wing media, and indeed the left-wing media who went to the Liberal Democrats, it does not make that much difference who is in power (though the Murdoch Empire stands to gain hugely if the Lib-Dems allow the Tories to push through broadcasting changes promised when Cameron thought he was on for a big win). But we will very quickly find it makes a big difference to lower and middle income families.

If Cameron proves me wrong, good luck to him. I mean that. He has taken on an enormous job, with tremendous capacity to do good. But I do not believe his Party has the values or the understanding of the modern world to make the most of it, and certainly not for the benefit of people who most need an active government on their side. And I don't believe the Liberal Democrats can either. Otherwise they would not have shepherded a right-wing, unchanged Tory Party - that hates Europe, has crazy policies on schools, wanted to help the richest first, wants to bring back hunting and all the other paraphernalia of a backward-looking non progressive force - through the door in the first place.

The Liberal Democrats will pay a political price in the short term, for sure. It is up to real progressives to make sure both parties play a price in the long term - not least when they start to implement their shared desire to cut tax credits.

The next election campaign - which could come sooner rather than later whatever they say about fixed term Parliaments - starts now.

Last night, just going around the place, I recruited three former Lib Dems to join the Labour Party. If every party member recuited one today, we would double the membership. If you vote Labour, become an activist. Join the Party, get involved in the debate which a leadership election will spark, and which will hopefully help re-engergise the Party. If you didn't vote Labour, but didn't want a Tory government, then never forget what it has delivered - a Tory government led by a tradtional Tory who talked the talk on change and modernisation but failed to get a majority because people saw through it.

If you know someone who voted Lib Dem to keep the Tories out - including people who voted Labour in Tory/Lib marginals, try to sign them up too. I am always amazed how people who would never think of joining a political party will do so if you whip out a membership form. Or whip out a laptop and take them to http://www.labour.org.uk

Above all, as the changes flow, with a right-wing media desperate to put the best possible gloss on them all, just as they put the worst possible gloss on us, remember that elections are won and lost in years not weeks, even if we did manage to stop their overall majority in the final weeks. And never forget politics is not about what happens in the Westminster bubble, important though that is, but what happens in communities, families, workplaces, schools and hospitals around the country.

With every change that comes, Labour must remind people there was and is an alternative progressive route.

It is not a nice feeling to watch a Tory walk in to run the country after 13 years of Labour - an incredible achievement by the way given how many wrote us off in 1992. But as Gordon said last night, the fight continues. The Tories have had their wings clipped. Their pretensions to be the natural party of government are not quite as strong as they were.

We lost. But we can win again. And the chance could come a lot sooner than people think, whatever the spring in Tory steps today, the rise in the polls any new government gets, their satisfaction at getting us out after 13 years, and the joy for Liberal Democrat ministers in being taken seriously. (By the way - Clegg's first big mistake in government - he should have taken one of the big three departments - Treasury, FCO, Home Office - alongside a DPM role)

I have been saying consistently on here ever since I started this blog that I felt Cameron could be stopped because he would get found out. We failed to stop him becoming PM. But we stopped him getting a full mandate. He starts as a weak Prime Minister of a coalition government made up of partners who have little real time for each other, and who will always be looking over their shoulders at the politics in their own backyards.

At least Labour people, whatever the differences, believe in fundamentally the same things; and remain the only progressive force for fairness,capable of winning and exercising power, which is left in Britain today.

*** I had assumed I would stop my booksale fundraising offer on May 7. However, we have had a surge since the election, so I will keep it going. To be honest, we are down to the last few boxes of The Blair Years, but I will speak to the publishers today. I will also extend the scheme to my first novel, All In The Mind. But if you want to buy a signed copy of The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour, go to http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

My meeting with the publishers by the way is to discuss the launch of Prelude to Power, the first volume of my complete diaries, which is being published next month and covers 1994 to May 1997. I revealed this exclusively on Newsnight last night, apparently - even though it has been on Amazon for weeks!!

PS - and yes, Gordon knew about it.

Enjoy the sunshine. It won't last! Rainfall levels have been lower on average under Labour than Tory governments. Not a lot of people know that.

After all the drama and excitement of yesterday, some things have changed and some haven't. GB signalling his departure as Labour leader is a change, though one that should not have been hugely unexpected given the election result which was, in its own way, a rejection of all three leaders - GB who as PM could not secure a majority, David Cameron as the man who blew a huge lead, Nick Clegg who looked to be on for big gains which never materialised.

So that change means a new Labour leader by the autumn, though none of us know whether that will be in or out of office.

The other change is the establishment of formal talks between the Liberal Democrats and Labour. These began last night.

The thing which has not changed is the range of options still available - a minority Tory government, some kind of coalition or arrangement between Tories and Lib Dems, some kind of coalition or arrangement between Labour and Lib Dems.

I have no idea which of those three is currently likeliest to emerge.

It is less than a week since many were telling pollsters that they wanted the outcome of the election to be a hung Parliament. Many are now wondering, it would seem, whether in reality that is what they want now they see what it means.

But the politicians do have to respond to the verdict the electorate has given and that is what is happening.

I thought GB did well yesterday. As Nick Clegg said immediately afterwards, it cannot have been an easy statement to make but he made it well.

The way many in the media and public talk of politicians, all they see are self-serving plotters and schemers interested only in status, power and advancement. I think Gordon has genuinely been driven in politics by a deep belief in social justice, and in recent days by a clear commitment to seeking to make sense of the result in a way that serves the national interest.

None of that means he cannot be difficult or that there were not times when, in my time with TB, he made life more difficult than it should have been. But I think he conducted himself with real dignity and a rather inspiring nobility yesterday.

It was very odd for me to be back in Downing Street for a few days, once it was clear he wanted to keep some of the election team for political and strategic advice in the aftermath of the results. But when he came back into the office after delivering his statement, his staff applauded him, and he responded, in a way that was really moving.

As you may have seen, I went from there to do a number of interviews. Most posed this question about the process GB had started leading to a second 'unelected Prime Minister' if the Lib-Lab coalition materialises, and GB makes way for a successor.

It is worth remembering that this is a Parliamentary democracy not a Presidential system. There are many precedents - most recently of course GB but not long before that John Major, and before that Jim Callaghan - of PMs who became PM as the result of being elected leader by their parties not the public.

Of course in an ideal world any PM would first be elected by the public. That sense has perhaps been exacerbated by the TV debates. But for all the attention they got, people voted for candidates and our system says the PM comes from the grouping of candidates which forms a majority in government. So that is the other thing which has not changed - it will be either DC or GB, though GB will be gone by the autumn come what may, and before that of course if David Cameron becomes PM any time soon on his own or with the Liberals.

But I go back to the central point - nobody won. That was the public verdict.

It is entirely possible we will still have a Cameron Premiership but he did not win it on the results alone. And part of the reason for the Lib Dems also wanting to talk to Labour is the genuine anger many Lib Dem voters feel that they voted to stop Cameron not help him in.

I accept that many people voted against Labour. But many voted for progressive parties not conservative ones and it is worth a shot to see if they can build that progressive majority.

I was somewhat taken aback to be the only Labour figure trending on twitter an hour or so after the announcement and the reason - Adam Boulton - was trending all night. Justin Bieber eat your heart out.

Adam gets very touchy at any suggestion that he is anything other than an independent, hugely respected, totally impartial and very important journalist whose personal views never see the light of day, and who works for an organisation that is a superior form of public service than anything the BBC can deliver.

I leave you to make your own judgement what our interview yesterday says about that. I did not have time last night to read the hundreds of comments on here, Facebook and twitter, but the kindest seemed to suggest he needs a rest - we all do - but the bulk seemed to feel his ranting and raving might suggest I had a point, which I made - for me - rather calmly.

* Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

For reasons that will be known to some of you, I normally avoid pubs. But last night was a special occasion, as we went to the Richard Steel in Belsize Park to celebrate with the Labour team who had taken back Camden Council.

The results were stunning, as many of our council election results were. Normally even that would not be enough to get me over the threshold of a public house, with all its memories and temptations. But last night was special too because Philip Gould's daughter Georgia was among the new Labour councillors who had wiped the floor with the Lib Dems and the Tories.

It meant that despite shared exhaustion, Philip Gould and I were able to have the n billionth conversation about politics, campaigns, TB/GB, Peter M, elections, what just happened.

And Philip said something very interesting about the recent campaign - namely that 'in a way, I think we should be as proud of the 2010 campaign as any of the previous ones.'

At first glance, it seemed a ridiculous thing to say. 1997 was a landslide Labour win. 2001 ditto. 2005 a good Labour majority despite the Iraq war. 2010 - lots of seats lost, second in share of the vote, the Tories winning more seats.

But what he was referring to were the very different circumstances in which this campaign was fought. Thirteen years in power. A leader battered by an unrelentingly hostile media and a series of attempted coups. The loss of TB's strategic input on a regular basis; because GB was out campaigning the whole time, his role also different to that of previous elections; outspent by a huge factor to the extent that the Tories could put up millions of pounds worth of posters, whereas we had none; 80 per cent of the print media wholly committed to David Cameron, to the extent that he had the easiest ride of any political leader any of us could remember; fewer staff at Party HQ than in any previous campaign we had fought; a smaller leader's tour team; a tiny budget for outside help; the TV debates which were always going to give the third party a lift. Then, on the policy front, the recession and the impact on living standards; the expenses scandal which might have hit all parties but was bound to hit us more than the others because it happened on a Labour government watch; Iraq and Afghanistan never far from the headlines ... and so on and on and on as only Philip and I can when he is in full flow and I am in grumpy old man mode as we prop up a bar surrounding by celebrating Labour activists and pub regulars (most of whom, by the way - at least those who came up for a chat - were desperate for David Cameron not to be Prime Minister)

Apologies for the long paragraph but it is by way of introduction to my central point which is that despite the odds, despite the lack of resources, Labour fought a terrific campaign. I mean in particular that much diminished team at Party HQ, who worked tirelessly and despite all the ups and downs with extraordinary passion and enthusiasm. I certainly mean the politicians who were based at Victoria Street. Even during the campaign, there was a bit of briefing against them going on - it always happens if you're behind, alas, and often happens if you're in front - but they kept going, and kept the show on the road. I mean the brilliant team that made our election broadcasts which were way ahead of anything the other parties did. I mean the press office and the new media team, again outspent on every front by the Tories, but always more than holding their own. I mean our impoverished and shrunken regional offices.

I mean above all the foot soldiers of the party. I know a lot of Labour parties from the fundraising work I do. And I can always tell where there is good local party organisation with committed and energetic troops. And I could see it in some of the results as they came through on Friday morning.

Which is why, whatever the outcome of the current talks between the parties on who forms the next government, everyone involved in the campaign should be very proud that we stopped something that seemed an inevitability one year ago, when the Tories were 23 points ahead and looking at a three-figure majority, or a few weeks ago when virtually every commentator in the land was saying that David Cameron would be PM on May 7, or a couple of weeks ago when we were third in the polls.

Cameron may yet become Prime Minister. But even if he does, he will do so in circumstances which mean that the excesses of his right-wing ideological party will be curbed. And at the next election, whenever it comes, Labour will be in a very good position to fight it.

And a lot of that is down to the people in the pub last night, and people like them, young and old, all around Britain. Many will be feeling deflated and disappointed that we didn't win a fourth successive election, something only two parties have done in 200 years. But they should feel very proud that we stopped the Tories winning, and proud too that, thanks in part to the changes of the last 13 years, we live in a progressive not a Conservative country.

* Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labourhttp://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

If you took the value of the most expensive negative, personalised poster campaign of modern times, and added it to every pro-Tory, anti-Labour propaganda piece in a national media as biased as in any UK election I can recall, and converted the latter to ad-spend, the Tories have enjoyed superior resources to the tune of tens of millions of smackers.

It all makes a bit of a mockery of laws limiting spending on campaigns (not that Labour or the Lib Dems could raise the cash anyway) when the bulk of the papers spew out so much anti-GB bile, and Cameron mwah-mwahing, which in turn sets the tone for the broadcast media, which has had a bad campaign, despite (and because of) the TV debates, of which more another day.

It says something for GB and Labour's resilience, and also the good sense of the British people, that Labour have stayed in the race at all, faced with such a concerted attack on one party, and such little serious scrutiny on the other.

And what that says is that the public are far less influenced by the papers than they were in the days when people were able to assume a modicum of social responsibility and desire to be accurate among the country's journalists.

There have been some very famous election day front pages, but it is hard to see today's collection adding to them. The funniest - though not intentionally I suspect - is The Sun's, which tries to present David Cameron in the manner of the famous Barack Obama 'Hope' poster. Cameron as Obama? I know. Comical.

Lovely day here in North London. Kitchen converted to committee rooms, Fiona in charge, the kids out at polling stations or getting the vote out, turnout looking good (always is when people think it will be close) and people of all parties having a good laugh at the attempt to link a white, upper-class, right-wing, policy-light Tory with Barack Obama, whose election was one of the great moments of recent times.

One of my sons has just been told by the Tory teller that he was 'holding his nose' because he didn't much like his leader and he was worried about some of the more extreme candidates who might become MPs. This is not Obama. Nor is it May 1997. (It's TB's birthday by the way, and George Clooney's) Now maybe if they had done Cameron morphing into Clooney, that might have worked. It would certainly have been more convincing.

As with Cameron's airbrushed posters, the spoofs of the DC-Obama front page are so much better.

I will repeat one more time - he went into this election with a big lead and a playing field loaded massively in his favour. And still nobody can quite work out what is happening. But one thing is certain - Barack Obama, or even a pale imitation thereof, he ain't.

Vote Labour. I'm pretty sure Obama would.

*** Buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

When there are so many undecided voters, the last stages of the campaign matter more than any other.

I imagine most visitors to this site made their minds up some time ago. Since starting this blog, the majority of comments here, on Facebook and Twitter lead me to believe that most have decided to vote Labour. Hardly surprising.

The recent increase in Tory-supporting comments has given me heart though. Because it says not that my regulars are switching, but that the Tories are getting jittery.

No wonder. They had the best imaginable playing field going into an election. A parlous economic state. Politics reeling from an expenses scandal. A government that has been in power for 13 years. A Prime Minister with low ratings who has survived a series of coups against his leadership, and the batterings of a media so far up David Cameron's backside it is a wonder the nation's journalists can breathe, let alone live with themselves. The biggest negative poster campaign in modern electoral history which, allied to the media's slavishness, allows Cameron to pretend he is fighting a positive campaign. Ashcroft's millions pumping out direct mail into the home of every key voter in every key marginal. Two difficult and unpopular wars dominating the agenda in recent months (one of which, Iraq, the Tories are now seeking to exploit, despite supporting it at the time, in their desperate pitch to Lib Dem supporters).

I could go on and on. Suffice to say that if the Tories were any good at all, at policy, at strategy, at campaigns, they would have rested easy in their beds last night, rather than careering round the country annoying bakers and fishmongers.

They have seen a poll lead fritter away because they have been hopeless on policy, and because their campaign has been all about avoiding questions rather than answering them.

If there are any Labour supporters who know undecided voters out there, get onto BBC iplayer and sit down and let them hear David Cameron on the PM programme last night, or Michael Gove on the Today programme this morning. These people could be running the country by the day after tomorrow. They have had four years to think through answers to straight-forward questions. This was a double car crash, live on radio.

When you distil Cameron's message from his carefully staged, beautifully manicured pit stops, it is basically that he is going to roll up his sleeves. I am sitting at my desk. I have just rolled up my sleeves. It was easy. Running a country isn't.

He has had the wind blowing on his silken-skinned back every day of this campaign. Allegations of Andy Coulson involvement in criminal phonehacking. News blackout. Tory candidate praying to cure gay people of their disease. News blackout. Bizarre ramblings of Labour candidate in unwinnable seat. Sky/Sun/Mail multilple orgasm. Polls which show momentum to Cameron (including those conducted by the Aussies who ran the Michael Howard/DC campaign of five years ago) - lead the news with them. Polls showing momentum slipping back. Bottom of page 2.

And yet with all that, his message has weakened not strengthened. The question marks have grown not diminished.

Despite the battering over a period of months, despite the skewed polls claiming GB had lost TV debates he won, despite the awful day lost to his meetings with Mrs Duffy, despite everything that has been thrown at him, GB was not just standing last night, but standing tall and giving another brilliant and passionate speech, packed with reasons to vote Labour and stop the Tories.

I do not pretend to be as close to GB as I am to TB. Nor can I claim we have not had major disagreements down the years. We have. Nor can I say there have not been moments when I have willed him to do things he is not doing, or not do things that he does. And yes, there have been moments in the past few months when I have wished I could escape the political bubble for good instead of being drawn back in to the point where the campaign has been close to a full-time occupation again. All that is true. But the pull of Labour is strong, and this I know: if I had to choose between GB, David Cameron and Nick Clegg for PM, then it has to be Gordon every time. Heaven knows he has his faults - everyone does. But my God you have to admire the resilience and the depth of a man who just will not stop fighting for what he believes in.

The speech to Citizens UK, now one of the most viewed events of the campaign, and last night's to a party event in Manchester, were streets ahead of anything Cameron or Clegg have delivered. The recital of Labour achievements alone - not to mention the role the Tories played in trying to stop them from happening - should be enough to give people pause for thought. The forward agenda was strong. The attacks on the Tories were powerful because they were rooted in what we know about past Tory governments and current Tory policies. 

Nor should anyone forget the role he played in steering Britain from recession to a recovery which has the FT today reporting that whoever wins the election will inherit an economy already showing signs of strong recovery, with manufacturing and exports growing at the fastest rate for 15 years. Cue news blackout.

There has been the usual criticism of Labour's campaign, inevitable when we have been lagging in the polls. But when you compare the difference in resources, the biased media and all the rest of it, the voice of the leaders has been as important as anything else. GB is finding his voice superbly as the campaign closes. The campaign has shown there is a progressive majority in Britain today. With Nick Clegg fading, the last two days have shown that Labour remains the best option for ensuring Britain stays on the road to economic recovery, and the path of progressive politics.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php. 

Despite having more money than they know what to do with, the Tories' broadcasts have been dreadful. Despite having next to no money, Labour's have been terrific, for which thanks to Mark Lucas at Silverfish (I can even forgive him for designing my website in a way that means the blog can't be read on an iPhone) and all the presenters, producers, cameramen and women, actors, supporters and others who have given of their time and commitment.

Eddie Izzard's 'Brilliant Britain' film has been watched online more than any UK election broadcast ever. Tonight's from Ross Kemp will run it close. (BBC2 17.55, ITV1 18.25, BBC1 18.55, Five 19.25, C4 19.55)

There have also been some terrific viral films, and here is one inspired by David Cameron's Big Society 'Vision.' As you watch, remember TS Elliot's definition of wit - the alliance of levity and seriousness by which the seriousness is intensified. You can personalise this film here

Enjoy the film. You certainly won't enjoy the Tory vision of public services if they are elected on Thursday. 

Having seen the very warm reaction Nick Clegg got from his speech to the Citizens UK conference in Westminster Hall, I was a bit worried GB might not quite match the performance or the response. Oh me of little faith.

That was GB at his best. He was fired up with real passion, and the conviction of his politics came through. There was a depth to him that was lacking in David Cameron and Nick Clegg before him.

And the response of the audience showed that when GB can shake off the stultifying, negativising prism of the 24 hour media, and cut through direct to a big audience like that, he is head and shoulders above the other two when it comes to policy, values, conviction and ability to deliver.

He clearly enjoyed it. The people in the audience were an antidote to Cameron's so-called Broken Britain. Twce GB said they had inspired him.

We need to see more of that hope and passion between now and Thursday. Because this remains an election that is impossible to call. The Tories may be in the lead, but their lead is not big enough to suggest they are homw and dry, and the resistance to an overall majority is strong.

Clegg remains quite popular, but his policies are not, and as TB has just said on a campaign visit in the Midlands, it is ultimately the policies that count. He told the story of someone who had said they had heard Clegg speak and he spoke well. 'What did he say?' asked TB. 'Oh I don't know.'

So yes, for sure, a lot of people have doubts about Labour. But they have just as many doubts about the other two. And with more undecideds than in any election any of us can recall, it is all to play for.

I have no idea if people who missed today's three speeches will be able to watch them in full. They should. I don't doubt the news tonight may focus as much on a lone protester as on what GB said, and the phenomenal response he inspired. But it will be very hard to edit out the passion and the mutual inspiration.

As the BBC reporter said, if there had been a clapometer, he won it. Sky also said that was him at his best. More of the same tomorrow and Wednesday and who knows what can happen on Thursday?

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

So today's polls have the Tories at 33 and 34 per cent. This after a final debate which, thanks to skewed polls, the media gave (spuriously) to David Cameron; after the biggest poster campaign in modern electoral history; after a set of weekend papers and TV effectively annointing him as Prime Minister, topped by Andrew Marr telling Mr Home-and-Dry that he was 'on a roll.'

Mr Cameron's language, verbal and body, was all pointing in the same direction yesterday, talking about his first Queen's Speech, the tone of his government and so forth. One word screamed out from the screen - arrogance, entitlement, Downing Street here I come.

But is the very idea of a Cameron government that is stopping the momentum towards it. What's more, the resistance to the idea appears to be enhanced by the media coverage, which is becoming a bigger issue.

The Tories' entire strategy for the weekend was to create a sense of unstoppable momentum. After a few tough days for Labour, the Tory hope was that our activists would simply give up the fight. But the opposite seems to have happened. The desire to stop the Tories is strong. Canvassers all around the country report that people are asking how best to vote to stop a Cameron government. It means that in the Tory/Labour marginals that will decide the outcome, hopes remain high.

One other thing that is coming through is the sense that the Tories and the Lib Dems have totally underestimated the extent to which their threat to tax credits is beginning to cut through with the public, particularly women. Cameron has yet to be pressed properly on this, but there is still time.

The real narrative of this election is the poll lead Cameron had at the start, and its steady erosion. That is driven by people's memories of the Tories, and their fears of the unchanged party Cameron leads. The idea of cutting tax credits for ordinary families whilst giving an enormous inheritance tax cut to the wealthiest families in the country strikes most people as pretty crazy. But it is entirely in keeping with the sort of Tory he is and the sort of Tory party he leads.

GB showed yesterday, in his whistlestop tour of ten London seats yesterday, that he still has the fight in him to fight for the future. The Party remains up for it. The Tories' media-backed unstoppable momentum strategy has faltered badly.

All to play for. Recovery v risk. Substance v style. Fairness v unfairness. Keep knocking on them doors!! And make sure you see, and everyone sees, Labour's final election broadcast presented by Ross Kemp, which is on tomorrow evening. I thought we would be hard pressed to match the Eddie Izzard film, the most viewed UK election broadcast, but Ross has done a great job - matching passion for Labour with a hard-headed assessment of the risk of a Tory government.  

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Gosh, David Cameron must have reeled his way out of the BBC studio after that mauling from Andrew Marr.

That final question - tough or what? Hey, we can read the body language, said Marr ... 'you're on a roll!!'

Take that ... You're all bouncy-bouncy-bouncy, full of beans and on your way to Number 10!! Yaaaay!!! No need to ask if you're on anti-depressants eh Dave! 

As the news bulletin made clear,the weekend polls indicate that the outcome is likely to be in hung Parliament territory. Yet the tone of the coverage is all playing into the 'unstoppable momentum' strategy for Cameron, led by Murdoch papers and TV. It is sad to see parts of the Beeb fall in behind, especially bearing in mind what is going to happen to them if they end up with a Tory government whose media policy has been shaped to suit the Murdoch agenda. Best quote from his News of the World interview today is his product placement for Sky Plus.

The real story of this campaign remains that Cameron went into it with a big poll lead, which despite a massive poster campaign and the tamest media environment of any leader in our lifetime he has been unable to hold onto. But the impression given is that the media has decided the outcome already. Nice of the Marr people, too, to flash to newspaper headlines as the interview neared its end, with the Mail on Sunday on top, announcing that Gillian Duffy won't be voting for GB.

If there is one thing the sudden surge of Nick Clegg post-TV Debate 1 showed, it is that people will make up their own minds, and the numbers of undecideds have grown not shrunk in recent days, despite the near one-way traffic of the media debate.

That is why all the three parties still have everything to play for. I've just seen GB's schedule for the day, which has him visiting ten seats before rounding off with a bit of good old-fashioned telephone canvassing. That is not the itinerary of a man who has given up the fight.

I've done a bit of phone canvassing myself and I keep coming back to the same point - there just isn't the enthusiasm for a Cameron government that there was for change in 1997. Fiona was out canvassing yesterday, and found that whilst there is a lot of doubt about all politicians and parties at the moment, the strongest desire was the one to stop the Tories getting a majority.

They have most of the media pretty much signed up. But they're still struggling with large sections of the public. Which is why the 'fight for your future' GB will be leading today is one still very much worth having. And why in the key Tory/Labour marginals up and down the country, those who want to stop Cameron being PM should know that a vote for the Lib Dems, Greens, or any other party - not to mention a non-vote - is a vote to put Cameron into Number 10, with devastating consequences for jobs and public services.

** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

I am a bit confused about Nick Clegg. In his favourite paper, The Guardian, he cites Samuel Beckett as his hero. In another, The Telegraph, WB Yeats is named as his favourite poet.

Beckett may be best known as a playwright, but he was also a poet. I wonder if it is possible to have a hero who is not your favourite exponent of their chosen activity.

The Telegraph was writing about Mr Clegg's artistic tastes because they have unearthed a poem he wrote aged 17, which was published in The Elizabethan, the school magazine at Westminster, the slighty-less-well-known-but-just-as-posh-as-David's school that Clegg went to.

It is one of the pitfalls of high office and its pursuit that old lovers, habits, statements, exams, reports and even poems can be deemed fair game for a media suddenly fascinated by every angle of the person going for the top job.

This poem has come to light because when Mr Clegg was asked last week about his most embarrassing moment, he cited its publication, and revealed that it was an ode to adolescent infatuation.

But read it carefully. Once you get past the first line (I think it is fair to say Mr Clegg, in common with most of the country, does not love David Cameron) it could be a remarkable foretaste of what would happen in a Lib-Dem-supporting Tory coalition.

My love blasted you from my mind

Your skin too silken to be seen

Your voice slipping through my brain

Your movements fluttering from within.

But now. Yes, I can see you now,

Too dumb, squatted in my eyes,

Poisoned like a dying pearl,

A killer's vengeance - twisted.

Enjoy the cuts Nick.

For the rest of you, if you live in one of the 100-plus Tory/Labour marginals, just remember that if you go to bed with Nick next Thursday, you wake up with silken-skinned Dave on Friday morning, and that voice will be slipping through our brains for a few years, announcing change that will damage the economy, public services, and generally take our country backwards to the kind of Britain DC really believes in.

* Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.org

At the risk of ruining his career, I would like for the second time this campaign to commend the work of Channel 4 political editor Gary Gibbon.

He is one of the few remaining political reporters who is interested in politics as opposed to politics as a source of sub-showbiz, processology and gossip.

The reason for my latest salute is his blog of yesterday which explained in part the mystery of why the instant polls on TV debates seemed so dissonant with what actually happened.

The idea that 'Cameron won' the third debate, thanks in part to the 'unstoppable momentum' strategy of DC's many media tummyticklers was set largely because of the polls.

Now when you hear a poll has been conducted you might assume that they are polling a cross section of the public. Not so, Gary revealed.

The YouGov poll, for example, one of the earliest, was weighted to match what the pollsters believed would be the profile of the audience. So they included more prosperous voters than the national profile, more broadsheet as opposed to tabloid readers, and more older people. All of these groups tend to be more conservative.

ComRes do not weight according to imagined viewership but according to what they call voting population profile. The sample watched on Thursday lined up as follows.

Con 35, Labour 24, LibDem 36.

Now look at how they voted in terms of who 'won' the debate. Cameron 35 Brown 26 Clegg 33.

Get the picture? Indeed, based on that you could argue that GB 'won' (as indeed in my view he did) as he was the only one to score above his party rating. But in a campaign riddled with dishonest and disingenuous media reporting, this is the latest example. As I know from the mass of interviews I and other Labour people did in the 'spin room' after the debates, the polls are presented by the media, instantly, as snap judgements of the population. They are anything but. They are skewed. Yet I have yet to see or hear any caveat attached to them in the public presentation. Until Gary's blog.

I don't doubt a fair few politically interested Channel 4 viewers and others will see his blog. But what a shame the majority are unaware of the bent reporting of these 'polls' that 'gave the debate' to not so Wonderboy Dave.

It all confirms me in my belief that huge numbers remain undecided and they are the people Labour now has to reach out to in showing that the fight of the next few days really is a fight for Britain's future.

** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

I caught a snatch of a Five Live phone-in on the TV debates this morning, where the sense of the calls I heard was the clear dissonance between what people thought, and what the polls and pundits said.

As I tweeted in advance of last night's debate, the right-wing papers (ie the majority) were all going to give it to Cameron, just as last week they were all going to say he was the Comeback Kid after Nick Clegg outshone him as the Time for Change brand in round one. Likewise I think people are becoming very suspicious of these instant polls.

I would pay more attention if they were polls of undecided voters. Many people have made up their mind about GB. Those who know him, and have decided they are not going to vote for him are unlikely to give much credit to him for winning a debate, as in my opinion he did last night.

I know I am biased, tribal, can't stand the Tories and think Clegg is becoming too sanctimonious for his own good and says next to nothing on policy. But I totally agree with one of the callers who said that some people say they want substance in their leaders but too often go for the style. (TB was something of a rarity in having both, which is why it is good to have him back on the trail today). The caller said only one person up there appeared to have real mastery of detail, GB.

I was also struck by how many questions Cameron refused to answer - on his plan to give a six-figure tax cut to the 3000 richest estates in the country (five or six times), his immigration cap (two or three) his damaging policies on manufacturing (three or four).

GB pressed home the key points about this being the vital year to support the economy with continuing government investment to get growth going, and also about the unchanged nature of the same old Tories.

He also managed to tie Cameron and Clegg together on the coalition of cuts of tax credits for children.

The Clegg phenomenon has just about held up for the first two debates but if the online traffic was anything to go by, the act was wearing thin. 'Is there anyone he doesn't agree with?' asked one. As for his 'let's all work together,' it is one of those easy-to-say nonsenses which is a nonsense precisely because elections are where you thrash out different views and different policies. As someone pointed out on here last night, in one answer he said we have to get back to manufacturing, and in the next was scrapping Eurofighter, without a mention of the tens of thousands of jobs affected. As for Cameron's opening statement that we would have real change 'like not going in the Euro' ... er, that is non-change.

In the so called spin room afterwards, all sides were claiming victory for their man, which I accept is a bit tedious. But I really did and do believe GB was head and shoulders above the other two on substance, that Cameron let himself down by not answering questions, and that Clegg was already looking a bit same old same old.

The right-wing media is so desperate for a Cameron win that the headlines today are all part of trying to create an unstoppable momentum for him. The good news is that millions saw for themselves and will trust their own judgement and that of their friends, relatives and colleagues much more than a media that has become more biased in this election than at any I have ever been involved in.

The polls are not great for Labour. True. But the sheer number of undecideds is good news for Labour. It means despite all they have seen and heard, despite all the posters, despite Murdoch, the Mail and the rest, they are still holding out against a Cameron premiership. And last night GB did a very good job of giving them the very good reasons why they are right to hold out, and right to keep asking the questions Cameron and Clegg don't want to answer.

Everyone who believes in progressive causes, who believes in fairness, who believes in good schools and hospitals for the many not the few, and who believes that an unchanged, unprogressive, unmodernised, unfair Tory  government would be disastrous for Britain has to keep fighting to make sure it doesn't happen.

* Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/blog.php.

Someone texted me late last night to say I should take a look at Peter Hyman's performance on Newsnight discussing GB and Mrs Duffy with Danny Finkelstein (Tory) and Olly Grender (Lib Dem).

Oh no, I thought, don't tell me Peter has waded in against GB. If Peter wades in, he tends to do it in a way that is hard not to notice. So I watched - and I was reminded how lucky we were to have had him as a key member of the TB strategy and comms team.

He is not GB's biggest fan. And he has not exactly hidden that since leaving politics for teaching. But he is someone of independent mind not afraid to swim against a tide.

And with the media tide against GB gushing so hard it is a wonder the PM did not wake up with his 14th floor hotel bedroom flooded this morning, it was great to see Peter saying 'this is getting ridiculous.'

It was very late and I cannot claim to have taken notes but his main points seemed to be that there was a complete lack of perspective in the media now deciding this was literally the only election story they would cover. That we have all said things in what we believed to be private circumstances which would be hugely embarrassing if they emerged in public. (Indeed TB said exactly that on page something or other of The Blair Years, when he pointed out that if every conversation he and I had ever had had been recorded, we'd have been in real trouble ((see below for further fundraising opportunity))). But he was also insistent - and when Peter is insistent he can be very insistent - that the real story of this campaign was how David Cameron had blown the big lead he enjoyed going into the fight. Danny Finkelstein winced when he was reminded Cameron has led the Tories to exactly the same poll rating as enjoyed five years ago by Michael Howard.

He was right too that the media continue to give Cameron as easy a ride as imaginable. And even though he has seen one or two poll leads widen, and even if the latest brouhaha and its wipe-out of policy debate helps a bit more, Cameron is way short of where he needs to be and where he ought to be. And whilst Olly Grender was right that the Clegg surge from the first debate and the Mrs Duffy encounter were the two big unexpected 'moments' of the campaign, Peter was right that the Cameron failure was the real narrative of the campaign and the Tories are right to remain worried.

Gordon knows he has made a big mistake. But he also knows it has upped the stakes for tonight's debate. It has also probably done wonders for the ratings.

So with a massive audience he has the chance to show why he, with all the experience and expertise he has, is better placed to secure the economic recovery than Cameron or Clegg.

For all the media battering he has taken for months, and for all the problems in the economy, he retains a big advantage here. And tonight he has to press this home like his life depended on it. Because if he loses, the real losers will be the British people who, in part thanks to the nature of the campaign and the media protection DC has enjoyed, have a lot of nasty surprises in store if the Tories get back in.

They have not changed - scratch the surface and they are the same old Tories. Gordon has to remind the public of this. It is true and hurts them.

They also know Cameron is too much for the privileged - his inheritance tax cut for the rich is symbolic of that  - and for all his talk of change he will never serve the many.

Cameron's lack of judgement and substance has been exposed on Europe and on the banking crisis.

The Tories got the most important economic call of the last 60 years wrong

They would make future mistakes because their Europe and foreign policy would lose them alliances, their economic policy is driven by right wing dogma, and because no-one in the country believes Osborne is right for the job.

Mrs Duffy has dominated the campaign for the last day or so. But one year from now, it might be a double dip recession, cuts to frontline services and rising unemployment that plays out across our screens night after night.

And with all respect to all that happened yesterday, it will be largely forgotten.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

I was saying last night that we had yet to have our 'Joe the plumber' moment in the campaign. We had not even had the Sharon Storer moment, though David Cameron's encounter with the father of a disabled child had its moments.

Now enter the campaign Gillian Duffy.

It is of course manna from heaven for the media. A new character. An encounter that will be played again and again on TV, not just in Britain but around the world. And something which absorbs all the space in the debate that Labour had been hoping might move to policy, and moves the focus to questions of character.

Question marks about the ethics of Sky notwithstnding (in my day there was an agreement that the mikes were only live when cameras were running) I am not blaming the media for this. And nor is Gordon.

I saw him at his Manchester hotel, where we are preparing for tomorrow's debate, when he returned from Rochdale. To say he was mortified is an understatement. I don't think I have ever seen him so angry with himself. And he was angry less about the obvious frenzy he had unleashed than the fact that he said what he did. She was so clearly not a bigot, and he knew that.

There were some members of his team worried about him going to see Mrs Duffy face to face - he had already apologised on the telephone - because of how the media might interpret it and what she might say afterwards.

But he was determined to see her, because he knew he had hurt her, and wanted to attone for that, however humiliated others would say it made him.

I just heard a PR adviser, Phil Hall, saying he felt it was a bad thing for him to go to see her, that he had apologised and he should have moved on. He then gave all the pros and cons. But it overlooks the fact that in the end GB was reacting less as a calculating politician than a human being who knew he had done something wrong. GB felt a very human need, for himself and for Mrs Duffy, to go to see her. It really was as simple as that.

He knows millions of words will be devoted to this - they already have been. He also knew that until he went to see her, he would have nothing else on his mind at a time when the central choice in this campaign - the economy - is about to move centre stage.

It was a mistake. He knows that. But he also knows there is an election to fight, and hopefully he will be back in the hotel soon ready to resume that fight against a Tory Party that would damage the lives of people who live in places like Rochdale.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

I've gone back to my journalistic roots today with an interview in the Mirror with Alex Ferguson talking about his roots, and how he has never forgotten them despite all the success and wealth he has enjoyed.

He tells the story of how after the recent Manchester United win against Spurs, he and his wife Cathy had a night out with eight couples, the eight men being former team-mates from his time many decades ago playing with Govan Boys' Club.

What he said was remarkable was not just that all the couples were still together, but that 'every single one of them was staunch Labour then and staunch Labour now.'

He was making the point that it is the Tory view of Labour that says once someone has done well for themselves and their families, they somehow ought then to 'become' Tories, but that in fact a sense of aspiration is perfectly compatible with the commitment to public services or a belief that we have responsibilities to others.

I have not travelled as much in this campaign as when I was on the road with TB, but when I have been out on the road, as now, I have beeen struck by how different this campaign feels to the one I occasionally catch on the news. There is always something of a dissonance, but I do believe is more exaggerated this time.

The first thing to say is that whilst there is a residual anti-politics mood, a lot of it driven by expenses, I don't feel the visceral nature of some of the debates at the last election, particularly concerning Iraq. Nor do I detect any  hardening of hostility towards GB. On the contrary, I feel there is more respect for him than for some time, even if a lot of people don't warm to him.

And I feel of the Clegg phenomenon that people find it interesting, but that it is more of a media thing, which in turn drives the polls, than it is a real shift of the plates.

Meanwhile, I remain of the view that the real story of this campaign so far is the public reluctance, despite so much stacked in his favour, to go  for David Cameron as Prime Minister. It feels almost as though the country doesn't want to make a decision. But ultimately this is the time when the public has that responsibility, and over the next few days the many undecideds will choose to decide.

If the Clegg bubble bursts, what matters is where the air from it goes. It might go nowhere. It might go left to Labour or right to the Tories. But it is to a large extent there in the first place because people felt emotionally resistant to both. The question is to whom the resistance is greater.

GB is GB and everyone pretty much knows him. They know his strengths and hopefully they will be on full display in the final TV debate tomorrow. They  know Cameron a bit better than they did. But the Cameron who has come over in this campaign is not the Cameron who first burst on the scene with talk of radical change to the Tory Party. The one I keep seeing is a pretty standard right-wing Tory who as the campaign has gone on has become a bit exasperated that people are not quite buying him, and bemusement as to why he is not home and dry.

He is also getting posher and posher. We're all returning to our roots. 

* Buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Sometimes it is the little things that signal the kind of big change Britain will undergo if we get a Tory government.

When I say little, I mean not the driving issues of the economy and the future of schools and hospitals (safer under Labour on all counts) but the sometimes symbolic changes that indicate something deeper.

Like the news, which probably won't make the national media radar, that the Tories are backing the efforts of tobacco companies to overturn the ban on display of tobacco products.

If we are talking health grounds, the argument against is overwhelming. If we are talking economic groiunds, the case for change is minimal.

But what it signals is that when it comes to standing up to vested interests, Cameron and Co won't have what it takes, particularly if those vested interests are on the money side of the fence.

Oh, and there is the small matter of Ken Clarke's large salary enjoyed down the years courtesy of one of the world's leading tobacco giants.

If the Tories were serious about fighting cancer the last thing they would be doing is bowing down before the tobacco lobby, particularly after the hard won changes on this front made under Labour. (And before anyone shouts Ecclestone, let me remind you the tobacco advertising ban was implemented, and a large donation repaid).

But then whey should anyone think the Tories are serious about this issue when one of the first things they will do if elected is to scrap the cancer guarantee under Labour that cancer patients will see a specialist within a fortnight of being diagnosed.

It will not be the only change,  nor the only piece of Labour progress to be undone, but I thought it worth drawing to your attention.

Don't expect to see Mr Clarke chased around on it, or the marginalised Mr Lansley (he who would be health secretary in a Cameron government now you ask)

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Georgia Gould, a young Labour activist who sought to be a Labour candidate in Erith and Thamesmead, is standing for the party in Camden council elections.

After hearing some of her stories about the way the Tories and the Lib Dems work together, I asked her to write a guest blog. Here it is.

Who is Nick Clegg pulling in on his coat tails?

So Nick Clegg is prepared to back up a Conservative government. As a Camden activist where the Liberal Democrats have been in coalition with the Conservatives for the last four years this comes as no surprise. Campaigning yesterday one of my colleagues bumped into a Lib Dem councillor barely able to contain his excitement at the prospect of Nick Clegg's poll success translating to Liberal Democrat votes locally. But who is Nick Clegg pulling in on his coat tails? In Camden it is a coalition that's sold off council housing, hiked up prices for meals on wheels, privatised cleaning on estates, cut youth provision, summer play schemes, UK online centres and practically anything else that effects the most vulnerable. All that before the economic crisis constrained spending. This is a familiar story for residents in Leeds, Ipswich and Birmingham a few of the 18 councils run by a Liberal Conservative pact (only 8 are Lib-Lab coalitions)

At the moment the Liberal Democrats are providing a home for the collective frustrations of a country understandably disappointed in politics. However we can't let Nick Clegg get away with playing the role of outsider. The fact remains his party is in power across the country and time and time again his councils don't quite live up to Clegg's shiny rhetoric.

Nick Clegg's new buzzword is fairness but in the Labour Party we don't need anyone to remind us that fairness is at the heart of our politics. It's why we all joined in the first place. No one needs to tell my colleagues in Camden - new or old Labour - that cutting recycling on estates or online centres serving those without access to the Internet is a bad thing.  We may not always agree on the means but we all subscribe to a set of values that put public services and the needs of every person including the most vulnerable at their heart.

At the end of the day we have a huge amount to be proud of in the pursuit of a fairer country. It is only a Labour government that would ever have possessed the political will to bring in the minimum wage. No Conservative threats of economic decline we're going to get in the way of a policy Labour activists had been campaigning for since 1900! Record hospital building could only have come from the party that fought tooth and nail to give us a national healthcare system in the first place.  Labour have revolutionised childcare with Sure Start freeing millions from the burden of paying for private care and this started in the most economically deprived areas. Labour built a Britain where equal social rights started to become a reality. These changes came from a collective will of 1000s of committed MPs, councillors and activists and these are the people to protect them in difficult times.

Yes there is so much more we could have done. And yes we do need to reform our political system. I am looking to the new candidates in the Labour Party to offer those new ideas but with a clear set of values not a Liberal Democrat party struggling to work out exactly what they stand for. Over 100 Labour MPs stood down at this election leaving the door open for a new generation of candidates who if elected have the opportunity to create a different kind of parliament. Ed Miliband's green manifesto launched offers a radical new strategy to build a green economy while his brother David enjoys the respect of the rest of the world as he carves out a new approach to foreign affairs.

On the economy it is only Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling who have been brave enough to tell the country that yes unpopular decisions need to be made and they will have to put up national insurance. But in return they'll also ring fence spending on the NHS, education and policing. They won't promise pie in the sky election tax cuts but will fight like anything to ensure that the cuts we make don't affect your safety, your kid's education or your family's healthcare. The Conservative threat is real and they appear to have stopped even pretending to be progressive allying themselves with fringe parties in Europe, tax breaks for the most wealthy and cuts that could see thousands out of work.  Let's not forget that we're not voting for a president here - we're voting for a party. I want to be sure the person in charge of healthcare, education, childcare and local youth provision has a strong set of progressive values. Unfortunately with the Conservatives and the Liiberal Democrats it's a big risk.

At election time parties are very fond of constantly reminding you that there is a two horse race but this is one time that a vote for the Liberal democrats really might just mean you wake up with a Conservative government. And in Camden, we know what that means.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

I'm a bit confused about Tory tactics (as opposed to their non-existent or at least ever-changing strategy).

This morning the Tory talk was of a collapsing Labour vote which meant that they could extend their list of target seats long enough to be contemplating something close to the landslide type swing enjoyed by TB in '97.

So I fully expected then to see David Cameron blitzing a few Tory/Labour marginals to put a bit of campaigning money where their mouths are.

Instead of which he went to fight in a Lib/Tory marginal that two weeks ago the Tories had been confidently briefing was in the bag. Surely some mistake?

Meanwhile back in London, in yet another process-driven event at Tory Central Office, George Osborne was hosting a press conference on the dangers of a hung Parliament, with the screening of another last minute election broadcast cobbled together in place of the one they had been working on for weeks.

It all left a muddled impression of what they are up to. But one thing is for sure - it was another policy free day for Dave and George.

Meanwhile Nick Clegg was doing what he seems to spend all his time doing these days - talking about what he would and would allow after May 6.

Only one leader actually managed to talk about policy, and get some of that into the main BBC bulletin tonight, and that was GB. I watched his speech to the Royal College of Nursing live, and he got a terrific reception for an important and rounded message about the NHS past, present and future. He also managed to get in a clip on the news about nursery provision, and election co-ordinator Douglas Alexander was clipped saying that while Mr Clegg seemed obsessed with his own job (in the future) Labour were obsessed with the jobs of the British people.

This division between Labour talking policy and Clegg/Cameron obsessed with process/PR is a good one for GB. It plays to his strengths. Of the three parties, Labour is the one that has shown the greatest strategic consistency. I remain of the view that will pay dividends as the campaign goes on and the Clegg/Cameron processology, not to mention the arrogance of constantly assuming the result, will irritate and alienate far more than it attracts.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

I wonder if Nick Clegg is not beginning to over-reach himself in stepping up the kind of demands he would make in support of either a Tory or Labour Prime Minister.

It is of course in his interests to keep the focus as much on process as on policy, because it is the former that gave him his remarkable post TV Debate 1 boost; but the latter that is responsible for the apparent peaking (usually in my experience followed by a fall unless it comes right on voting day) of support.

It is difficult for him to avoid the process questions when, with the polls as they are, they point to his pivotal position within a possible hung Parliament. But what he has done in the past 24 hours is signal that far from being the more attractive alternative to David Cameron, he is now openly ruminating on the possibility of being the other side of the Cameron coin, whilst being far more agressive about the possibilities of working with Labour under Gordon Brown.

The Lib Dem activists I know are unlikely to be that keen on a Cameron-Clegg government. The Tories I know are unlikely to welcome the commitment to electoral reform Cameron would have to give, which would effectively mean John Major was the last Tory leader to get an overall majority. And members of the public I know who are flirting with Clegg are doing so in part because he did well in the first debate, but also because they see it as a cost-free way of getting change without getting Cameron.

But that is the problem. What you end up with is Cameron. And the reason the Tories are not home and dry already, despite such favourable weather for them, is that the country does not seem to want Cameron.

Meanwhile, in a piece of spinology worthy of the best, the Tories have managed to persuade the more gullible among the media that they are now able to extend their list of Labour target seats.

What their briefing actually indicates is that despite all the focus on Clegg, the real battle remains in Labour-Tory marginals, and the 'vote Clegg, get Cameron' approach is the one likeliest to work best for Labour in those seats.

It is partly, I admit, wishful thinking, but also my experience of observing David Cameron over the past four years, and Mr Clegg over the past few weeks, that leads me to believe Cameron is still struggling to break through with the voters he needs for an overall majority, and that the Clegg bubble may well burst in the next few days.

What matters then is where the air from that bubble goes, whether it falls left, right, up, down or to none of the above. One thing is for sure - the Tories' belief that it will all go their way, if Labour's weekend canvas returns are anything to go by, is mistaken.

This election has had many twists and turns already, of which Mr Clegg's rise has been the most dramatic. But there are plenty more to come.

** GB at the Royal College of Nursing at the moment. Storming it. Showing that when it comes to substance and policy, he beats the other two every time. Clegg/Cameron for PR, GB for PM. Powering through on substance. All to play for as economy moves even more centre stage.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

If ever anything showed the Tory and Lib Dem fear of having a serious debate on substance it is the outcome of three-party discussions about a joint plea to broadcasters to do more policy and less process. As of last night, senior people in the three parties agreed  there was considerable merit in the idea of approaching the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 to make the point that whilst the TV debates had energised the campaign, the public service broadcasters were not doing the traditional reporting of the different arguments of the parties in all areas of policy. The Lib Dems were keen. Senior shadow cabinet members said they had been having exactly the same discussions at Central Office and were keen to change the terms of the debate so that the TV debates did not absorb such vast quantities of the election oxygen.

This morning, it was all change. First the Lib Dems, then the Tories, decided to leave things as they are.

And I wonder why. The Tories were the first to suffer from scrutiny of policy which led to Mr Cameron's glide to power becoming a slow and rather directionless waltz. And now the Lib Dems are starting to stumble for precisely the same reason - Trident, DNA, immigration amnesties, cutting child tax credits. So just one party is left wanting a genuine debate focused on a serious policy debate. Ironically there are senior broadcasters arguing for the same thing. A united front from the parties might have helped them win the argument for more policy-based debate for the final stages of the campaign. It is a fascinating insight into the Tories and the Lib dems that they didn't want it and prefer all the blah-de-blah to a proper and detailed examination of policy.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

First of all many thanks to Mark Wright aka Elvis for putting a bit of life into the campaign coverage yesterday. 'Best pictures of the campaign so far,' said ITV's reporter, so we will live with that, especially as they got GB to the top of the news talking about the future of the NHS.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the squillions of tweets and Facebook messages getting all-of-a-twitter about who our megaceleb backer might be, and then watching the divide between those with a sense of humour and those who live up their own backside.

Meanwhile onwards and hopefully upwards. Lots of polls in the Sundays as usual and for me the most interesting element is the one that says 42 per cent of people who say they are voting Lib Dem also say they might change their mind. That is far higher than for those who say they will vote Labour or Tory.

It means the Lib Dem vote is soft, and that the scrutiny on policy since the first TV debate is beginning to have a real impact. It is also interesting how Vince Cable, until the Clegg surge the most visible Lib Dem face with a sage-like reputation for credibility, has vanished, and how also his economic observations are less respected than they were.

So for both Tory and Labour, there is an interest in stepping up the policy-based attacks. Trident, illegal immigrant amnesty, cutting tax credits, sums not adding up, there is a lot to go for. I would be very surprised if the Lib Dem ratings stay where they are.

Of course for some the election has already happened and another interesting stat is that one in five of us are voting by postal vote. I have always done so since working for TB because I spent the last few election days in Sedgefield and the habit has stuck with me. I can hereby reveal that, having thought carefully about all the policies being put forward by all the parties, I shall be voting Labour. So will Fiona and, voting in a general election for the first time, our two sons. So it's a bit of a landslide round here.

What of course the rise in postal voting means is that for many the post postal vote campaign becomes somewhat irrelevant. But I don't think I have ever known an election where there are so many undecideds at this stage of the race.

So for all the parties there really is everything to play for, and I am convinced that the more it is focused on policy, and really hard argument, the better it is for Labour.

I thought David Cameron looked small and a bit silly yesterday with his plan for a law that says anyone who becomes PM without a general election has to face one within six months. It was so obviously no more than a dig at GB, which is fair enough I suppose, but it was somewhat blind both to history and to the significance of such a constitutional change.

Pressed on it in The Observer, and asked why it wasn't in the manifesto, Mr Cameron, as ever talking through the PR man's lens, says 'I don't think there's any law against announcing plans in an election. Normally you guys are saying "Come on where's the news, where's the beef?"'

Indeed there is no law against announcing plans in an election. But there ought to be one about concealing them. We saw during the second debate, in a carefully prepared outburst of anger over Labour leaflets, Cameron announcing a policy and spending commitment on pensioners' eye tests and prescriptions that was not in his manifesto.

And today, we see another policy not in his manifesto, but this time one he would prefer not to talk about. Again, with thanks to Labour's media monitoring report. ‘Conservatives will end guarantee of free nursery places' (Observer p5) - The Tories will allow nurseries to charge parents of 3 & 4 yr olds millions of pounds in "supplementary fees" if they form a govt. The party has kept the policy out of its manifesto, but in a letter seen by Asthana shadow ministers have assured nursery providers that under a Tory govt they will be allowed to charge top-up fees - at least temporarily. The move wld require the party to suspend a code of practice put in place in 2006 that ruled out any additional fees. Charities have warned that it could lead to a two-tier system in nursery care.'

Happily, GB is making a speech later today on how so many Tory policies are not just wrong, but unfair. This is but the latest example, and of rather more significance than that piece of nonsense DC came out with yesterday.

Meanwhile, despite the rival attractions of a day of meetings, I have decided to head to Burnley v Liverpool. If we lose, we are down. But we fight to the end and where there is hope, there is everything to play for.

A lesson that might be learned by whichever ministers appear to think their or Labour's interests are served by briefing against the campaign in the Sunday papers. Will they ever learn?

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

One of the interesting things about moving in and out of the politico-media bubble is to see the extent to which though the world has changed since I was at it full-time, a lot of the political habits I came to reject have not.

David Cameron once described GB as an analog politician in a digital age. Like a lot that DC says, it is neat, makes a point for the media chatterati, but ultimately doesn't take the debate very far. What he is trying to say is 'I'm modern, he's not.'

But my impression of all of the parties, his included, is that the focus on old media remains fairly intense. When outside the bubble, I read the papers less, watch the news less than I did when I was full-time in it. Latterly, even when I was in it, I had reached the view that most time spent actually following the media twists and turns was wasted. Trends mattered. What individual commentators said and wrote did not.

Bill Clinton once said to me 'the force of the modern media is such that too many decision-makers define their reality according to that day's noise. It is almost always a mistake.' He was a great campaigner and like a lot that he said on campaigns, politicians of all the parties could do well to heed that statement as the election nears.

As I have said here several times, it is hugely frustrating that the media want to talk debates, process and polls, and post election tactics, almost to the exclusion of all else, particularly policy. Frustrating but not insurmountable - unless the politicians play into it.

I have just had a quick skim through Labour's morning media brief (best to know what's in them whilst not reading them). There are lots of briefings and interviews from leading figures in all the parties. And most play into the processology obsession. I cannot for the life of me work out why politicians meant to be fighting for a majority for their party get drawn, almost more commentator than politician, into playing the media's 'what happens if you lose?' speculation.

I thought GB dealt with hung parliament questions perfectly well at the press conference yesterday. So too did David Cameron on Newsnight when he said he is fighting to win and if he doesn't he will try to be responsible. Nick Clegg is also wise not to get too drawn on post election options, even if he has them in mind, which of course he does.

But the papers are littered with interviews and briefings from people who ought to know better answering all the 'what ifs?'and thereby absorbing space that should be given to 'why us?' It is utterly counterproductive, inside the beltway stuff at a time the parties should be reaching out to the public.

One exception is David Miliband's interview in The Guardian which gives reasons why that paper's readers should vote Labour if they want progressive politics to continue, and not vote Lib Dem. And before anyone asks, no, this is not me saying I would back David as next leader, it is me saying thank God someone did an interview that puts an argument that might make people think twice about flirting with Cleggery and vote Labour instead. 

Nick Clegg says he stands for new politics but the '65 years of failure' line that is on the opening pages of his manifesto is just a more epic version of running Britain down than the one Cameron does. Labour activists out campaigning on this lovely sunny day (here at least) would do well to take The Guardian with them - and it is not often you hear me say that. But David has given a very strong argument and that is what we need right now.

There is one golden rule that should be applied by all ministers, MPs, candidates and activists between now and May 6 -- 'is what I am saying and doing helping or hindering our efforts to add to the support we already have?'

Nothing else matters. In the Bristol spin room the other night I was struck by how many people from all the parties really did seem to think that media commentary was more important than public reaction. Of course to some extent they are linked. But if there is one lesson from Nick Clegg's rise during this campaign it is that the public can make their own minds up about what they see and hear. Of course you have to try to fill the space. But the only time that really mattered was the 90 minutes the leaders were up there, and the debates inspired instantly, in people's homes, workplaces and online.

Indeed the rubbishing Clegg has had in some quarters of the press has served to help nobody but him.

The analysis more likely to hurt him is the one that says that on policy he is less progressive than Labour, shown both by what we have delivered in the past and what we can deliver in the future.

Let the media focus on post-election processology. Yesterday showed - and so does the polling - that the economy remains the number one issue.

No wonder Cameron prefers to talk about the process of the campaign, or the Lib Dems to talk about the Clegg phenomenon. GB may be analog whatever that means. But he is winning on substance in this campaign. And that is where he, and all of his ministers, need to put all their efforts now, rather than worry overly what the papers or the broadcasters say on a day to day basis.

None of this means I won't keep banging on about the need for the media, especially the broadcasters, to do more on policy and less on process. That is because I believe when we are on policy, Labour are strongest. When we are on style, Cameron and Clegg get it. When we are on politician as commentator, the media win, and the politicians and public lose.

*** I feel a bit bad by tweeting last night that one of my biggest heroes would be coming out for Labour at our health rally today, and that he made Gary Barlow look like small fry. It sparked dozens of guesses as to who it was, and now apparently it is the subjct of phone-in speculation on Five Live. I so hope you won't be disappointed....

I gave one clue on twitter last night, namely that he was also John Lennon's hero. I will give another now. Regular visitors here and to my vlog may recall that I have met him at a campaign event in the past. Now sit back and enjoy the show.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

One of the broadcasters told one of GB's aides last night that David Cameron 'won' the second leaders' TV debate. Fine, you might think. The guy's entitled to his opinion, and that was what he thought.

The only problem is - he said it just after 6pm, well before the debate took place.

What he meant was that in the media bubble surrounding the debate, the press were telling themselves that a Cameron comeback would be the story. I would love to see the news schedules from yesterday's morning conferences at the Sun, Times, Mail, Express and Telegraph. I think we all know the story they wanted.

Cameron did better than a week ago, but not by much and from a low base.

Over on the Cleggmania wing of the media, they wanted a different sort of story ... Clegg wins again. The Guardian is leading the way on that one.

But buried in their reporting of last night's debate were some interesting findings in the ICM poll done after the debate. 
1.  Who would be best PM?  GB 35%, Cameron 33% and Clegg 26%.

2.  On the same question amongst C1's GB 39 v DC 27% and Clegg 26%, and C2s  GB 39, DC 33 and NC 22.

3.  On who would make the right decisions ins difficult times  GB 43%, DC 34% and NC, 18%.

4.  47% of all voters think DC is more spin than substance, 54% of C1 voters believe that.

5.  On decisiveness GB now leads DC 38 v33 and Clegg at 25.

What it says to me is that as this campaign goes on, substance can win over style.

I have just watched GB make a susbtantial serious speech on the future of the economy. I am now watching David Cameron kiss Philip Green's bum and trot out a few economic platitudes, and more hung parliament processology.

*** Buy The Blair Year online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php. 

As it was not the first, perhaps last night's TV debate was not as exciting as the one last week, but it was nonetheless an enjoyable and illuminating ninety minutes.

In the so-called spin room afterwards, as I declared GB the winner, Channel 4's highly intelligent political editor Gary Gibbon asked me whether, had I thought GB had been a clear loser, I would have said so. Fair point.

However, he most certainly was not. The question being asked last night was which of the three leaders is best equipped to meet the myriad foreign policy challenges on a Prime Minister's desk. And I really felt that the answer was Gordon.

His opening statement was the best of the three. It took on the fact that some people really don't like him, and that he lacks the PR skills and style of David Cameron and Nick Clegg. But I felt he showed a greater understanding of the threats and opportunities posed by the world of change, and that he commanded the entirety of the foreign policy debate.

The second half felt a bit same old, too much like last week, but interestingly I felt GB more than matched DC for energy, which is supposed to be his thing.

Clegg did ok, but the novelty factor has worn off and he was less compelling. More importantly, he has serious policy problems in areas like Trident and immigration and these will come under more scrutiny from now on.

Gary Gibbon, Andrew Gimson of the Telegraph (who really hates the way the debates are dominating the campaign, saying it is a "ludicrous" way to choose a PM) and I had a middle-aged fart type chat about our desire for the election to be much more focused on policy. We recalled the time when manifestos were launched and then for the rest of the campaign each of the parties did a policy area per day and the media covered it. Gary admitted that if Labour put out a press notice calling the media to a housing policy launch, turnout might be low.

But surely the debate has to turn to policy at some point. In one of the thousands of interviews Sky did yesterday to promote 'their' debate, Kay Burley told me that 'body language' is the key. No it is not, I said. It is all about policy.

I said after the Clegg surge last week that I hoped it would lead to all three parties coming under real scrutiny on policy. It hasn't really happened. Partly that is the fault of the media obsession with debate process, polls, and themselves, a trend continuing this morning. But also the parties have to up their game in engaging the electorate on policy. It is where Labour is strongest - so we have to do it most.

** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

As the Tories encourage the papers to savage Nick Clegg any which way they can, it is worth remembering that they have been doing much the same to Gordon Brown for months, backed by one of the biggest and most personal poster campaigns in history. Has it helped David Cameron? Not much. His and his party's ratings have been diving south, and not just since last week's TV debate.

I am not convinced that having the Mail, Telegraph and Murdoch titles do their worst against Clegg will have the impact they would imagine. It is part of the old politics that Clegg is seeking to exploit. Newspapers have shouted so loudly for so long that people don't hear them so much any more. Also, Cameron has tried to shed the 'nasty party' image. This is reminding people what they and their politics are all about. Indeed if I were him, I might think about coming out to condemn some of the more stringent attacks and call  for a proper media debate on policy.

It is right for the other parties to go for the Lib Dems, just as the Lib Dems are right to go for us and the Tories. Arguments are what elections are about. But I really believe the debate should be focused on policy. It is far more effective than the stuff being churned out through the papers. The problem is - and this benefits Clegg - it is drowning out the space where the policy debate should be.

I saw Newsnight's Kirsty Wark this morning, who said that at least tonight's debate will show up clear differences in foreign policy. Indeed it will. But then the question is where does the media take the debate thereafter - to  more polls, process, hung Parliament-ology, policy again drowned out.

Almost a week from the first debate, it is incredible the extent to which policy has been so absent from the debate. There has not really even been a discussion of the future of the electoral system, a change to which would be one of the biggest changes this country could ever make. Whether that would be the right thing or the wrong thing, it is almost as though we are sleepwalking towards it without any real debate as to what  it means.

That's why I think the line for all the parties should not be about process and so forth, but simply saying to the British people -- at this time, you are the boss, you are the decision-makers, and the best thing you can do is make a decision to decide, one way or the other, who you want as your PM and your government.

Kirsty was chairing an event where Michael Portillo and I were speaking and I was surprised to hear Michael say that he thought if we ended up  with a scenario where the price of a Cameron Premiership propped up by the Lib Dems was a commitment to  PR, the Tories would back that. I was genuinely shocked by that. Because it basically means the Tories giving up on ever forming a majority government again.

Perhaps they  have. On the basis of one TV debate? These really are strange times.

As I left the event to head for Bristol, someone who had been at the event said something really interesting ... 'Looks like Brown can't win, Cameron can't win, Clegg can't win ... but someone has to form a government. So what happens now?'

Good question. We may know a little more after tonight. It is a real shame, and actually something of a scandal, that the public service broadcasters are not taking the debate live, despite being offered it by Sky. When I said that to the audience at the event with Michael Portillo, people seemed rather shocked and disgruntled. I have been involved in a lot of elections, but none quite like this, and none being followed quite so closely.

It is why there should be more not less access to the debates for the public, and more not less policy debate in the press. The shrill shrieking of the Cameron-supporting papers helps nobody, least of all DC.

** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Just been for a run round Cardiff, looking fabulous in the sunshine (Cardiff, that is, not me; I looked a bit slow and knackered and felt relieved I am not doing the London Marathon on Sunday.)

I ran past the Welsh Assembly, which has done a lot to give Wales a greater confidence and sense of identity, past the lovely new opera house, out to the new Cardiff City stadium (alas could be back there all too soon if Burnley don't beat Liverpool on Saturday) and round some really nice new housing developments.

Nobody pretends that all that is good in this country, and all that is improved since 1997, is down to the Labour government. But a lot of it is. Even after the recession, it is possible to look back and see this as having been a period of advance and prosperity. And it is not just the partisan in me that worries we are going to throw a lot of that away on the back of David Cameron's vague 'time for a change' message, or a bout of so-called Cleggamania after a perfectly polished but hardly Obama-esque TV performance almost a week ago.

I have said many times before that our media are incapable of doing what I call in-between-ery. GB was brilliant in their eyes shortly after he became PM. He then went from hero to zero and in their eyes has stayed there. Cameron got the softest ride of any oppostion leader in history as they sought a new hero. But now Clegg is the new kid on the block, they are pushing him in the zero position, whilst hoping to be able to do the 'Comeback Kid' on the back of tomorrow night's debate.

As for Clegg, there is a touch of the Dianification going on, perfectly ludicrous for a politician at election time, even one who exploited the anti-politics mood quite well.

And the loss of his debate strategy note in the back of a cab does rather blow a hole in the 'I'm no ordinary politician, I'm honest and I tell it straight' approach.

AVOID UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT IMPLICATION, it says..

The Lib Dems want to scrap Trident, unilaterally, whilst allowing Iran and other rogue states to carry on regardless. But they don't want you to know that. That is not honest politics.

Nor are he and his party quite as clean on the expenses front as they would like you to believe.

Clegg must not be allowed to avoid proper debate on Trident and all the other policy positions which, when put before the public, leads to  many of them expressing their disapproval - an amnesty for illegal asylum seekers, scrapping the DNA database, cuttting child tax credits and child trust funds.

He is in many ways an attractive politician. But for heaven's sake let's have some proper debate about his policies.

And when he talks about the last 65 years being a failure, that is a nonsense statement of such epic proportions I wonder how he can say it with a straight face. It is a more grandiose version of the running down Britain Mr Cameron likes to do. But it is hardly new politics.

** Buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

There is a bit of a problem with the way the media, public service broadcasters included, now cover politics in general and elections in particular.

Back in my journalistic days, writes a middle-aged old fart, not only did the manifestoes get covered seriously and in full but so, on subsequent days, did specific policy issues that flowed from them. So it was perfectly possible, as it still is today, to wake up to the news that Labour would be focusing on x, the Tories on y, the Liberals/SDP or whatever on z.

The difference with today is that then through the day, and into the next day's papers, the media would report what it was the parties were proposing on x, y and z, and engage in a debate of sorts about it.

Today, the tone is more 'well, Labour wants to talk on a, the Tories on b and the Libs on c, but we the media have decided that what the public want to hear about is d.'  (currently speculation about May 7 and beyond)

The first election I was properly involved in was 1987. The phenomenon I describe above has developed step by step with each election, to the current position. It is one of the great ironies of our time that we have more media space for debate (24 hour news, radio station proliferation, bigger papers, the internet) but actually less policy coverage than ever.

I said after the first TV debate, in genuine hope, that there might now be a chance of getting the election onto policy, rather than Cameron curtain-measuring type stories. But instead of Cameron government processology and TV debate processology, the media have now moved to a mix of Cleggmania so-called and hung parliament processology.

At a time like this, surely the media has a responsibility to set out for the public, in detail, what the parties are actually putting forward. I caught a package on the news last night designed to show that the public don't know any of the Lib Dems' policies. I doubt many of them are much wiser about Labour's or the Tories' manifestoes.

Instead of doing pieces saying nobody knows what the policies are, I wonder if it might be an idea to set them out. Otherwise, we really are now into politics as beauty contests.

X Factor, Pop Idol and Britain's Got Talent are fine in so far as they go - light entertainment which makes a star or two. But the consequences for the country are not that great. General elections surely have to be about more than the stuff we are hearing, five days on from the debate, a lot of which is policy-less processological space-filling before the next one in two days' time.

With my usual indebtedness to the Labour Party media monitoring unit, may I commend for your attention a story on page 2 of the Financial Times, headlined 'Cameron to relax poise for TV' .

Now whenever you see an anonymous quote in a newspaper, you are entitled to assume there is a fair chance it is entirely made up. Note, for example, how many anonymous sources speak in the language of the paper's editorial style.

I make the point because the FT is one of a very small number of newspapers whose reporters I would trust not to make up anonymous quotes, and not to report such a quote unless it came from someone whose view was worth reporting.

So when political reporter Jean Eaglesham writes that Mr Cameron will change his 'body language rather than his rhetoric' for the second TV debate on Thursday, I believe she has been given an accurate insight into the Tories' debate debacle post mortem. When she reports a Cameron aide as saying ‘The problem was not with what David was saying, it was the way the presentation came across. You might see a different David who's much more relaxed,' I have no doubt it was said. And I then shake my head in wonder and ask: 'Are these people really as inept as they seem?'

They - i.e he - are utterly obsessed with presentation. Can they not see that was one of the reasons he came across so badly? The constant posing. The over-rehearsed hand movements. The attempts to look statesmanlike rather than be statesmanlike. It was screaming 'phoney'. And he was concentrating so much on all that stuff that he overlooked the rather more important question of having something to say that was worth hearing.

So yes, he should try to be more relaxed, and second time around maybe the nerves - a worrying sign in itself for someone who might soon be dealing with war, terrorism, nucelar proliferation and the like - will have abated somewhat. But what matters is what he says, not just how he says it.

There is no point either of the main parties complaining that Nick Clegg got a boost because he is the new kid on the X-Factor block and he can say what he likes because nobody assumes he will be Prime Minister on May 7. That is just the way it is. You now have to trust the British people not just to react warmly to an anti-politics message, as they did, or get caught up in a media frenzy, as some are, but also then to have the good sense to take a closer look at their policies. That is happening.

From the research I have seen, once people know that the Lib Dems want to scrap Trident whilst not wanting to do much about Iran's nukes, all but Lib Dem diehards tend to move away. And whilst Boris Johnson may support the Lib Dem idea of an amnesty for illegal immigrants, a lot of floating voters in Tory-Lib, Lib-Lab and three-way marginals do not. Nor are their road-pricing policies meeting with much favour. Ditto the anti-DNA database for the cops policy they share with the Tories, and their plans to cut child tax credits and the child trust fund.

I had rather hoped the media would return to more policy-focused coverage post TV debate. It is not happening, as now they have moved from TV debate tactics to post election hung Parliament process and speculation, hyping Cleggmania as much as they can as they go.

Interestingly, it is now the Lib Dems who seem most intent on playing along with that, keeping their heads down on policy, whereas Labour want to keep pounding on the economy, and the Tories seem genuinely at a loss to know how to react. But if they really believe it is about body language, they deserve the panic sweeping through their ranks.

-- One final point on Thursday's debate. I understand from Adam Boulton that Sky are making it available to all other broadcasters to show simultaneously. If, as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 keep saying, the first debate genuinely excited the British public and energised the campaign, why are they not changing their schedules to show this live? If it was a big football match, they would almost certainly do so if offered it by Sky. And even I, about as football-obsessed as it is possible to be, humbly suggest that the choice of government is more important even than a Burnley relegation battle. So let's hear it for public service broadcasting across the public serviuce broadcasting channels.

-- And one final point from my reading of the morning media brief. observation from my reading of the media monitoring report. If the Daily Telegraph had splashed on a story headlined 'Labour peerages for leaders of business attack on Tories', do you think the broadcasters might have picked up on it and made it a big story? Yes, so do I. So what happens when The Guardian leads with ‘Tory peerages for leaders of business attack on Labour' ? Precisely. Cameron remains a very lucky man to have such a tame media landscape.

** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

David Cameron has junked tonight's planned party election broadcast in favour of one that 'responds to the public mood.'

Now what does that remind me of? Where was I? Oh yes, Southampton, April 16, 1997 ... with TB, when news came through that John Major had junked that evening's planned party election broadcast in favour of one that responded to the public mood.

What do these two events have in common, beyond the obvious link of two not very good Tory leaders? The answer is strategic failure requiring a tactical shift which turns out to be a mistake.

All Cameron's current problems are rooted in strategic failure. So were Major's. But to be fair to the Tories' last (hopefully) Prime Minister, he was dealing with a party that was literally falling to bits, a media kicking him hard, and a powerful and attractive new political phenomenon in TB and New Labour.

David Cameron by contrast has a party longing for victory, a media willing him to win, against a Party that has now been in power for 13 years. Yet despite all that, precisely because he has not sorted his strategy, he is having to junk doubtless well laid plans (these broadcasts don't happen overnight and don't come cheap) in favour of what sounds like a rather desperate attempt to do the 'who I am' thing. Er. Again.

My guess is that the Tories had done a clunking great negative attack on Labour and GB, but the focus having shifted post TV debate to Nick Clegg, and George Osborne having claimed yesterday that they were going to go more positive, they have been forced to junk it. Needs must.

What it is all going to show is that you can have all the money Lord Ashcroft can give you. But if you don't have a strategy, and you don't know how to lead, you'll get found out soon enough.

Enjoy the broadcast

** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

There really is something quite unpleasant seeing the two big parties take lumps off each other. Come on, Nick and David, this is so old politics. The public are crying out for something more elevated than all this yah-boo blue-orange, orange-blue carping.

That's why I was so pleased to hear that the party put third in one of the polls this morning - Labour - is turning the focus back to the economy, setting out their plans for securing the recovery, protecting public services, and warning of the risk to the recovery from the one person other than GB who could be PM after May 7, namely David Cameron, not to mention his 'what a great week we had' shadow chancellor George Osborne.

So as Cameron and Clegg slug it out through the media over who has the nicest tie, the prettiest wife and the silliest policies, GB and Alistair Darling will be back where they belong - on the centrality of the economy, substance, big points of defence and attack. All after spending the first few hours of the day heading the government handling of the volcanic ash situation. Talk about government being full of the unexpected events that have to be dealt with.

But the campaign does have to go on, and it is at a very exciting stage. The anti-politics mood is still out there for sure. But the anti-Tory mood is growing.

*** http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Dear David,

First the good news. We had our wobbles too. No, not this week (and by the way perhaps I should send you the 'what Cameron will do' note I did pre-debate. Of my top ten that you should have done, you only did three and a half.) But enough of that. You want to know about our wobbles. Yes, in 1997, 2001 and 2005, there were some pretty bad moments. And we won them all well, so perhaps you can take a little comfort from that.

I suppose the manifesto launch 2001 has to rank close to the top among the wobbles. Launch goes well. Then TB gets monstered by Sharon Storer, Jack Straw gets slow-handclapped by the cops and finally JP decides to take literally our instruction that senior figures need to connect with the electorate.

Last time out too, fair to say there were what might be termed 'strategic tensions' (sound familiar) within the campaign.

Now, however, the bad news. It is that TB always knew what he stood for, and it was always well understood within the campaign. And the reason for that is that the strategic heavy lifting had been done long before the election campaigns were launched.

As you go on about Broken Britain (or are we back on Big Society today?) forgive me if I become a broken record ... but I have been saying for some time that unless you sorted the key policy and strategic positions before the campaign proper, there was a danger you would fall apart during the campaign itself.

All the briefing and back-biting going on within your campaign will only stop if you have a clear and consistent strategy that the key players all understand and, even if they continue to have reservations, sign up to. But as Peter M has pointed out in the Indpendent on Sunday today, you have one strain of advice going in one ear, a contradictory strain of advice in the other, and you appear to be trying to keep both sides happy.

It won't work. I assumed from your manifesto launch - The Big Society to the fore - that this would form a major part of your TV debate pitch. You just dropped it. Then when everyone pointed out that you had just dropped it, you came back to it, as per today's Observer article. But it is either a strategic building block or it isn't. If it is, keep on it. If it isn't, shut up. But decide for heaven's sake.

I'm not too sure either about your response to the Lib Dem surge. Look, the upside of the debates that you pressed so hard for is that millions of people tuned in to see them. The downside, for you, is that they gave Nick Clegg the chance to be a more attractive 'time for a change' candidate, and they gave GB the chance to expose you as a policy lightweight. Also, the format was so X-Factorish that a bit of X-Factor post-event media mania was inevitable too.

But your focus on the dangers of a hung Parliament was self-serving, and looked petulant, bad-loserish. You should focus much more on Lib Dem policy. But I can see why that is difficult. Because it takes you back to your basic strategic conundrum. But your response was too tactical, too obvious.

You have two weeks to sort your strategy. well no, you have two weeks to sort and implement. You have a couple of days to sort. If you don't sort it by then, you'll find the wobble may become something more serious.

Oh, and finally, the celeb thing is not really working for you. A bit of colour and glamour is fine for a campaign, but if people start to think it is a substitute for policy and focus on real issues, rather than an accompaniment, it becomes a problem for you. So with all due respect to Michael Caine, Gary Barlow and the like, I reckon they have been net losers for you. I hear Big Arnie is on his way to help you. At least he is a politician as well as a celeb. But I would be careful not to give the British people any sense that you're shipping in foreigners to tell us how to vote.

I hope that you will ignore this, as you have ignored all my previous suggestions that you sort your strategy out. Take care and enjoy the sunshine. Like your poll leads of recent years, it won't last forever

** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash to fight the Tories http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

The rise in Lib Dem support since the TV debate is the best thing that can happen to this election. Oh ok, a sudden ten point rise for Labour, matched by a Tory slide, would have been better, but it was never likely, so this is a good second best.

It means finally there is the chance of making it a policy based campaign in which the public get the chance to hear, from the parties talking about themselves and each other, and via the media, what the different policy positions are.

Surely even our trivialising, process-obsessed broadcasters can see that if they have any sense of public service left in them, this election now has to be about policy, policy, policy.

Because we have moved from everyone thinking David Cameron was home and dry, and so the talk was of what a Tory government would be like, to a position where anything can happen.

According to the bookies Cameron is still favourite to be PM. But the very thought is now, finally, unsettling people. GB can still do it. Or there could be a hung Parliament, with either Labour or Tory as the biggest party.

There was a touch of the X Factor to the leaders' debate set-up. And Nick Clegg very cleverly played the anti-politics card from the position of being there on equal terms but with nobody, him included, thinking he could be Prime Minister. But both Tory and Labour now have interest in openly recognising the hung parliament scenario. Because it is that which means that for once people really do have a right to know what Lib Dem policies are, and how close or distant they are from Labour and Tory. If they can be big time players, they have to be treated as such.

Of course on lots of things, Labour and the Lib Dems agree. On a few things, the Tories and the Lib Dems agree. I suspect many of those people who are now expressing support for Clegg based on his TV performance are unaware that he wants to cut child trust funds, child tax credits and winter fuel payments. Or that he wants to scrap the train to gain programme. Or that he wants an amnesty for illegal asylum seekers.

Traditionally third party leaders have not been exposed to anything like the policy scrutiny of the other two leaders. In the years leading to this election, the Tory leader has also not really been scrutinised.

What happened on Thursday is that the Tory leader stumbled badly under the weight of examination by the other two. Now Clegg, who struck people as a more attractive and younger 'time for a change' candidate than Cameron, has enjoyed a surge in support, which means his policies will get more attention.

We should all welcome that.  Because when we get to May 6, the issue for all the undecideds must surely be economic and policy credibility as we face an uncertain future. And I think Labour will be seen to score best there.

According to a former colleague of mine who advises the Lib Dems they did not expect to be in this position one week in.

It is bound to make the Tories nervous and so it should. It should not make Labour nervous. We should welcome it, and feel confident that just as we have begun to beat the Tories on the merits of arguments put and sustained over time, we can do the same with the Lib Dems, whilst all the time reminding people this shows the progressives outnumber the conservatives in Britain, by a long way.

That in itself is a measure of how much New Labour has changed Britain for the better.

*** Quote of the day from Cameron btw 'We all know that polls react to news cycles. It is a very depressing thing about politics: you do your manifesto launch or conference speech and you get a bounce and you think ‘fantastic, we are on our way' and then a few days later you think ‘hold on, what did we do all that for?'

So now we know why, within 24 hours of launching The Big Society, it became The Great Ignored - ignored, that is, by him. It is a very revealing statement, further confirmation that he thinks more about the news cycles than he does about having a clear vision based on clear prnciples and thought through policy positions ... which is why he came such a cropper on Thursday.

May I also point out to our still-biased media that if Kinnock, Blair or Brown had ever mistakenly slipped China into an answer on why we need nukes, they would by now be so stoking the frenzy that the UN would have to have an emergency Security Council meeting. He is still getting away with the tamest media environment of any Opposition leader in history with the possible exception, for a day or two, of Nick Clegg.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

My old mate Bruce Grocott, Tony Blair's parliamentary aide and a top top man, once said that if he and I ever wrote a book, we should call it 'why I was right all along.' It was a variation on the theme of 'they're all mad apart from you and me and even you are a little mad.'

In the end I went for 'The Blair Years' and Bruce has yet to pen one. But I did think of his title, I must confess, as I climbed into bed around 3am after getting back from the leaders' debate in Manchester. I was right Nick Clegg and GB would do well, and right that David Cameron would be less good at answers than questions, less good at sustained argument than slick pre-prepared soundbites for the news bulletins.

Not that this took genius level political interpretative skills. It was blindingly obvious Nick Clegg would do well. It is so tough for a third party leader, whose main public appearances are when he gets a third of the questions David Cameron gets at PMQs, and during both of which he is ritually shouted at by all sides.

So first, that has forced him to hone his vocal and comms skills and both were put to good effect last night. But the very fact of seeming to be a new and fresh face on the post-expenses scandal landscape was great news for him. Also, being the third party leader allows him to say pretty much anything he wants, because nobody really thinks he will become Prime Minister. I hadn't realised he was promising 17 billion quid's worth of tax cuts. Wow. And totally undeliverable.

He has yet to be put under the kind of scrutiny the Leader of the Opposition gets (albeit in Cameron's case of a tame nature) let alone the 24 hour intense scrutiny applied to the Government. A bit of it will now come. But I will admit he did very well on a big night for him.

What was great about last night - apart from the fact that Cameron was exposed as the lightweight that he is - was that it shook up the election landscape. From the whole media - not to mention the whole of the Tory Party - thinking Cameron was home and dry, they now have real doubts. That is because they now see the public have doubts.

I assume he is still the favourite. But GB is still in the game, and Clegg's performance has shaken up the whole debate in a way that makes the next three weeks more interesting.

I hope the media now start to understand that the debate really should be about policy and issues, as per the debate, and not the process and trivia that still tends to dominate a lot of the broadcast coverage. All three of the parties' policies now have to be put to sustained and serious scrutiny. I certainly hope that happens. Because if it does, I believe that will be to Labour's advantage.

** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

As I do a fair bit of media-whacking, let me start my post-debate analysis with a few words of praise for Alastair Stewart. The ITV chair of the first leaders' debate resisted the temptation to make himself a big part of the procedings and he moved events along at a good pace.

As a TV programme I thought it worked. I really hope that millions of people who don't normally engage too closely in the political debate watched, and that it made them really think about the issues in this election.

I thought Nick Clegg did well. Go back and read every blog I have written on these debates - oh ok, just take my word for it - and you'll find I have said from the start Clegg would do well. It was a fantastic opportunity for him, and he took it.

But of the three men up there, only two can be Prime Minister after May 6. And of those two, GB beat DC hands down. Gordon won the debate on substance. Cameron was the runaway winner on shallowness. He seemed to get shallower the longer it went on. Beneath the veneer there was more veneer. Penetrate the generalities and there were more generalities.

GB was strong, authoritative, energetic, policy and substance focused, but also with occasional nice light touches. He was the only one who led the audience to break the rule on clapping.

Cameron had a nicely written opening statement which he delivered perfectly well. But once they got into exchanges on policy, he seemed unsure of himself.

He was good at doing his usual - trotting out pre-scripted lines and slogans, but he was poor in the exchanges between the leaders. I have been saying for yonks that he is great at presentation but poor on policy and strategy, the stuff that really matters. This time he wasn't even that good at the presentation.

I have been inside Cameron's head, or trying to get inside it, for some time now as part of GB's preparations team for the debates. And I really did expect the Tory leader to do better than this. I have been giving Gordon a real pounding on some of his past statements and policy outcomes, but DC seemed not really to be up for it. It was also surprising that within a day of launching the Big Society as his big idea, he seemed to have dropped it already. He must have seen the polling I mentioned in my pre debate blog.

I was surprised too that he didn't push back harder - or indeed at all - on the charges from GB about the impact on public services of his economic plans. The Tory risk is going to become a bigger issue from now on in.

As for his inclusion of China in his answer about why we need to keep nukes, I'm sure that went down well in Beijing. Not.

The spin room afterwards reflected the general feeling I think. Vince Cable smiling. Alan Johnson spelling out the consequences of Cameron's failure to match Labour on police spending. Peter Mandelson enjoying winding up George Osborne who, a bit like Cameron earlier, looked like he would rather be anywhere else. Every campaign has an 'oh shit' moment. George looked like he had just had his.

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I think I have now read every word David Cameron has ever spoken (well, every word he has spoken which has been recorded). Heir to Blair he ain't. Go back and read TB speeches way back when, and then the last speeches he made as PM, and it is possible to discern the same big themes and priorities.

Cameron is a strategic jack in the box. I have lost count of the number of issues that he has described as his biggest priority. I had totally forgotten that little phase he had when it was all about the environment.

Most people tuning in to the first televised leaders' debate tonight will already feel they know GB. Some will have good impressions, some bad, but nobody will be unaware of who and what he is.

Yet after four years as leader of the Tories, DC still cuts an unsure figure in many ways. He is very good at presentation, but he has presented many different facets without a coherent whole coming through. He hoped his Big Society theme would do it, but if the polling I have seen is anything to go by, far from energising the public, it seems to have alarmed them, particularly this idea that in addition to doing jobs and raising children, people are also expected to run public services.

Anyway, not long to kick-off now. It seems so long ago that we almost agreed to these debates, in 1997, and now here they are finally upon us. I have not been over to the media centre here in Manchester but those who have tell me the circus is in full swing. I really hope we get the viewing figures, and the debate, to match.

If people really don't want to watch, they can tune in to BBC1. DIY SOS is on, which I assume is a Tory party political broadcast about the Big Society.

And while we're on the subject of politics and broadcasts, may I commend for your viewing something that normally has everyone reaching for the off button on the remote - tomorrow's Labour election broadcast fronted by Eddie Izzard. It is brilliant. Honest. Trust me, I'm a doctor. It is on BBC2 at 17.55, BBC1 at 18.55 and ITV at 18.25.

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Interesting observation from David Cameron about tomorrow's TV debate. Despite every single rule having been agreed by his team in discussions with Labour, the Lib Dems and the broadcasters, he cannot resist getting into a little process-ology 24 hours out.

An American friend of mine who has done a bit of work in US TV debates sent me a list of rules when we were negotiating the idea of a TV debate back in 1997. I can't remember them all, but I do remember the one that said 'the debater should never get into debating the debates.'

But what my Washington American does not know is DC (the Cameron version anyway). Process and presentation are what he does. So on the eve of the first one, what else would he talk about? The Big Society? Come off it. That was a line to get them through the manifesto launch, and out and under before the media got onto the fact that what it actully means is big cuts and DIY public services.

No, he and his team think a little whinge about the rules of the debate is in order. He was worried they would not really be debates at all, that because of the strict rules on timings, and the role of the moderator, the three leaders won't be able to get through enough questions. I wasn't involved in the negotiations this time, but I understand these were not complaints made terribly forcibly at the time.

In any event, as I said on the day they were finally agreed, all that matters is the debate itself, the performance of the leaders, the reaction of the watching public and the millions of conversations that will follow. The words of hype, including Cameron, including these of mine here, including the squillions on the airwaves and in the papers tomorrow, are irrelevant. It is like a football match. There is so much talk before, during and after. All that matters is the 90 minutes.

But what I think DC's intervention dictates is an early indication that he prefers debates which allow him short and snappy q and a, moving from one subject to the next before real debate can be enjoined.

From the polling I've seen done since the launch of the manifestoes, the idea that GB is substance and DC is style is firming up. I think Mr Cameron's comments cement the trend.

I also said when the debates were announced that Nick Clegg is the one with most to gain, purely because of the added profile it will bring. Back in 1997, even the Lib Dems were not asking for equal time for Paddy Ashdown with TB and John Major, so Mr Clegg's team really have done well in negotiating those rules to which Cameron and Co now object

The Tories certainly do go to great lengths to enjoy themselves and to create as realistic a sense as possible of the debate forum, however. I hear that when Michael Gove is pretending to be Adam Boulton, Sky's fashionably overweight presenter of the second debate next week, he puts a cushion up his jumper. Funny man that Gove, though DC didn't seem to see the funny side yesterday when his education spokesman took the floor and droned on beyond his allotted time.

All quite exciting though. I just hope the debate is good and the viewing figures high.

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So the Big Idea is that we can run our own lives. Apparently it is going to lead to a Big Society. And that is going to be really really nice. Not nasty like Thatcherism. Not nasty like the manifesto David Cameron wrote for Michael Howard in 2005.

Like a lot that David Cameron says, it sounds fine. But strip it away, and there are two very big holes.

One is the lack of a plan for securing the economic recovery. We should never tire of saying this - they got every major call on the recession wrong. Had we listened to them at the time of the crisis, it would have become a calamity. If we listen to them now, the recovery will be put at risk.

The second big hole is the one that will be created in the lives of people by the kind of DIY public services vision the Tory manifesto is putting forward.

There is no dispute about involving people in the running of public services. All three of the main parties are in favour of that. The greater involvement of the patient in the planning of healthcare, the parent in the running of schools, is one of the reasons schools and hospitals have improved under Labour. It is not just about the investment we put in and the Tories opposed. And yesterday Labour's manifesto had further proposals for taking on vested interests in the public services.

But the Tory plan for DIY public services will still have to rely on proper funding. And if the Tories are going to meet all their promises on cutting the deficit, cutting taxes for the very rich, and paying for their plan to recognise marriage in the tax system, then they are going to have to make some very deep cuts to get there.

The Big Society will always depend on a strong economy. Labour has shown it can manage the economy in the good times, and in the bad times that followed the economic crash.

Cameron is hoping that the anti-politics mood of the country will lead to people thinking anything which gets government out of their lives has to be a good thing. But where would Britain have been without a strong government when the economic crisis came? And where would we be now had we left it all to the markets as he and Mr Osborne wanted to do?

If you put together the economic black hole, with his sink-or-swim approach to public services, you have but the latest evidence that for all his talk, he has not changed his party from the one that stood on his first manifesto five years ago.

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We're at that stage of the football season players and managers call 'the business end'. In election campaigns, the business end comes earlier in the cycle, with the launch of the manifestoes, Labour's today, the Tories' tomorrow, then the Lib Dems.

It has been interesting to dip in and out of the papers and online and see the comments of undecided voters. Of course to political tribalists like me, the concept of an undecided voter is an odd one. Labour are so blindingly obviously better for the country than the Tories - what's not to decide about?

But there we are ... We are not all made the same way, and truth be told there are more undecideds than in any election I have ever been involved in.

That is why this week, with the manifestoes and the first leaders' debate, is more important than the last one with all the skirmishing that went on.

But if there is one over-riding impression from the undecideds' comments it is the sense that even if they're not as keen on Labour as they once were, they're really not sure about the Tories.

David Cameron, helped by the media, has made much of detoxifying (sic) the Tory brand. But I'm not sure he has succeeded.

Also, the nature of his campaign is exacerbating the doubts people have about him rather than easing them. The more he speaks, the less he seems to say. To quote a letter in The Guardian this morning on Cameron's words in that paper yesterday 'Our solution is to use the state to remake society, to build the Big Society, enabling people to come together to drive progress.' The letter writer, Tony Rhodes, said 'I read the statement several times and still find it utterly without any meaning. Am I alone in this?' No, Mr Rhodes, you are not. And remember this is not something said off the cuff. Cameron wrote this drivel.

I have every confidence in Labour's manifesto being serious, substantial and focussed on the big challenges facing Britain, and every expectation that the Tories' will be full of glitz and gloss and a few nice distractions to get them through another news cycle or two. I'm thinking something like an actor from Casualty appointed to run the NHS.

But I think people are beginning to notice that Cameron never actually says anything. So yesterday he goes for a walk with Ian Botham for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research (great charity) and goes all indignant about a perfectly accurate Labour leaflet on cancer. What he didn't do was deny that he will not keep Labour's cancer guarantee. But the picture was all that mattered. The same as his walk with Michael Caine was all that mattered. And tonight it is an emotional interview that matters. And on it goes, policy barely in sight, because he wants to make it all light and fluffy and hope the media don't press too hard with difficult questions.

But my last word as we reach the business end goes to 'blue-collar voter' Jeanne King, 64, one of the 'voters' verdict panel' in the Guardian.

'I think Gordon Brown is sincere bit he doesn't know how to get it across on television,' she says. 'I thought he was good when he announced the election ... I've always voted Conservative but I think David Cameron would wreck the place. He was jogging earlier this week - who is he trying to kid? He's trying too hard and he's just got a face you just want to hit. I'd love him to knock on my door, I'd give him what for.'

Is it only me that hears that kind of thing from people everywhere I go?

The Tories want to frame this election as 'do you really want five more years of Gordon Brown?' I think the idea of three more weeks of David Cameron is starting to push a lot more people than Jeanne King in GB's direction.

People know Britain is on the road to recovery, and worry he would wreck it. He hasn't sealed the deal ... because they sense he is not the real deal.

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What a joy to turn on the BBC this morning and see Michael Howard on the Andrew Marr sofa. More, more, more please.

Looking at twitter it's clear I was not alone in thinking that the former Tory leader is a good reminder of what Tories are really like as David Cameron poses round the place as being something different, nay 'pro-gress-ive.' Yeah right. And all that progressive blue blood was running through his veins five years ago when he was helping to write Nasty Mr Howard's Nasty Manifesto.

Howard - I saw Rory Bremner do him brilliantly as a Bond vilain recently - was on with Neil Kinnock and Paddy Ashdown for a former leaders' debate about this week's current leaders' debate on TV, which will be an important moment in the campaign.

They were asked how they thought their successors would do and, all of them being loyal party types, they all thought their men would do well. Howard was however the least convincing or credible, said a spokesman for Objective Observation.

Neil made much of GB's character and resilience and how that quality was required in abundance for the tough times we had been through, and now it will be needed even more as we seek to secure the recovery. I felt it was what we call a 'nod-along' point for the fair-minded viewer. Say what you like about GB but my God, he is resilient.

Paddy Ashdown, who I have always liked, and with whom I had a really interesting chat about the political scene at a conference in Germany a few weeks back, had some excellent observations to make on the Tory campaign.

Anyone who has ever heard my standard speech on strategy may have heard me cite my favourite examples of strategic failure. Close to the top of the list is the McCain-Palin moment. John McCain did not exactly articulate it this way but his basic strategy in the US Presidential elections was 'I am experienced unlike Obama and I am not George Bush.'. Worried by his position with his Republican base, he chose Palin as his running mate. True, she injected excitement into the debate and cheered up his troops. But at one stroke she took away any potency in the inexperience attacks on Obama, and she quickly emerged, political spectrum wise, as George Bush in a skirt.

It was as crass a clash of strategy and tactics as can be imagined and for all the attention she still attracts, the only winner out of it was Obama.

So when Paddy described  the Tories' sudden reversion to type, spraying round tax promises without a clue as to how to pay for them, as their 'Sarah Palin moment,' I found myself having my own nod-along moment.

The main question for this campaign is whether people think Cameron, Osborne et al are ready and able to govern Britain? McCain's Sarah Palin moment undermined his credibility. I continue to argue, as I have since they made the move in the first place, that the Tories' National Insurance gambit is having a similar effect, which is why Alistair Darling has moved back to the top of the 'best Chancellor' ratings. Roll on the real debates.

The Tories will also be getting a bit jittery that despite firing some of their biggest shots, and despite the more than fair wind given them by the media, they have not moved further ahead.

Deep down there is something that holds back decent fair-minded people from switching to the Tories. We should be grateful to Neil, Paddy and Michael Howard for reminding us why.

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An election free blog! How's that for variety? Oh ok, the Tories' plans on National Insurance Contributions are unravelling, and Brown and Darling have more economic credibility in their eyebrows than Cameron and Osborne possess in the entirety of their Bullingdon brains. But that is all I am saying on the election. Vote Labour to secure the recovery and protect frontline services.

Instead I want to come to the defence of the London Marathon, traduced in last night's Despatches programme on Channel 4. If I had to list my top ten experiences in life, completing the London Marathon 2003 would be in there somewhere. Partly it was the emotion of the day, which despite all the warnings from people who had done it before me took me by real surprise. It was also the fact that I managed to raise half a million quid for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, in memory of my best friend John Merritt. But it was also the fact that it was a superbly organised, fantastically managed event of which Britain should be incredibly proud.

Alas modern TV documentaries tend not to  do the 'of which Britain should be incredibly proud' thing. So Despatches did their worst trying to present the Marathon organisers as money-grubbing chancers taking charities along for a ride.

Since doing that run when I was still in Downing Street, I have become chairman of fundraising of LLR and done many sporting events in different parts of the world. Very few get even close to the Marathon in terms of scale or impact, and I know I am not alone in the charity world in being appalled at the misrepresentation of a fantastic event which is so important to so many good causes, and which raises cash for good causes itself.

I know Despatches have in the past tried to do over  Mother Theresa and Seb  Coe, so clearly they like to go for popular targets. There is something curiously British about the British media's desire to tear into really good things. The London Marathon is a really good thing. It is why virtually everyone who runs anywhere in the world wants to do it. It is why it is so hard to get into. It is why charities rushed to its defence last night.

It seems perverse to me to attack an institution that gives away all of its profits to charity and which in 30 years has helped to raise over half a billion

pounds.

The former journalist in me also wonders why there was no proper space within the programme for the Marathon to respond to the programme's claims.

The good news is that the event, in a few weeks' time, will be a great success. So will next year's, by which time Despatches will probably have moved on to exposing Santa Claus as a paedophile.

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One of my rules of political communications is that just as the politicians are getting tired of saying something, and the media are getting bored of hearing them say it, is the point at which you have to keep going with an argument.

That is where we are right now in relation to National Insurance Contributions and the Tories' claims to be able to fund tax cuts, deficit reduction and the protection of frontline public services by finding billions of pounds worth of largely unidentified waste.

I'm not quite sure why the charge is being made that they are back of envelope calculations. I think they were made on the front of an envelope, where most of the space was already taken up by stamps and an address, so they just had a tiny space left on which to squiggle a few words and letters like IT. Poor old IT. Always copping it and yet where would we be without it? And all these back offices they keep going on about. They can't all be bad. I've been in a few front offices in my time in need of a bit of a clearout.

The Labour pressure on this is beginning to tell. David Cameron is continuing to duck difficult questions and also starting to give slightly different answers to George Osborne. Sir Peter Gershon, one of the waste gurus Cameron keeps quoting, as though somehow saying a name again and again will substitute an explanation, has risen to the challenge to start explaining, and created more unanswered questions, not least about jobs. The markets have started to worry that the Tories have dropped any seriousness of intention on the deficit, in favour of tax cuts, and and all the while George Osborne keeps his heads down as DC tries to smile and charm his way through the minefield they have laid for themselves.

So though I can see and hear the media getting very bored with this one, the argument has some way to go before it is fully unravelled. Yes, that's the word I think.

** I see one or two of you were a bit alarmed to find I had counted the number of shots of BBC political editor Nick Robinson in his package on Nick Clegg last night, on which I tweeted after the 10 o'clock news. Fifteen! I can assure you I don't make a habit of counting cutaways to Robinson, but someone texted me after the 6 o'clock news to say he thought it might be a record. So I counted. (I didn't count the bits where only his hand was in shot.)

It does seem however, with every election, the focus on the reporters at the expense of the politicians appears to grow.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

For the nth time, I will point out the difference between strategy and tactics and suggest that David Cameron and George Osborne are rather better at the latter than the former.

Watching Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Peter Mandelson take apart the Tories' National Insurance deception - glad to see they were calling a spade a spade - was a reminder of that esssential Tory weakness.

They assume that if they get a good media hit out of something, they have won the day. And they think if they win enough days in the media war, they will win with the public.

Yet even with the media heavily loaded in their favour, and even with the hit they enjoyed with their NICs rabbit the other day, and the roll-out of business support, it does not appear to have had the desired efffect. And it is interesting that is they who want to move the debate away from this particular issue, and Labour and the Lib Dems who want to keep a focus upon it.

I had all but forgotten about the James Report until GB mentioned it this morning. It brought back awful memories of the last campaign in 2005 when this heavy tome was unleashed upon us, identifying all sorts of areas where government could save money and so fund the promises being made by the Tories.

It took a while, but bit by bit we pulled it apart until its credibility was gone. The same is now happening to the four page memo on which DC and GO appear to be basing their entire economic 'strategy.'

By happy coincidence, this morning's press conference took place against the backdrop of an OECD report suggesting the UK was better placed than other countries to emerge from the recession strongly.

That sense of recovery, and the government's role in it, is without doubt one of the reasons why the Tories are failing to pull away in the way they had hoped to by this stage of the campaign. But the inexperience and judgement of DC and GO are also factors, as is the sense many people have of their elitism and their lack of connection with most people's lives.

One of the most efffective parts of this morning's event was when Alistair Darling reminded people of the serial misjudgements Osborne and Cameron made at the time the global economic crisis struck. This latest misjudgement - a promise of a tax cut without real explanation as to its funding days after saying the deficit was priority number 1 - stands in a long line.

As GB mentioned a few times in PMQs exchanges in the last year or so, the Tories were wrong on the recession and wrong on the recovery.Tactics will only take you so far if your strategic response to the single most important event of the last Parliament, and the single most important issue for the next one, is wrong.

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I said on the day the first group of businessmen came out in favour of tackling waste over raising National Insurance that nobody should be remotely surprised that businessmen prefer tackling waste to raising National Insurance.

The deception of the businessmen, and of the British people, lies in the Tories' continued failure to spell out how their plan would be funded be funded. Waste? Fine, but where, what and how? David Cameron once called the use of 'efficiency savings' as justification for a planned public spending commitment 'the oldest trick in the book.'

Can any one of the businessmen who have signed the NICs letter explain whether they have had it explained to them, by Cameron or George Osborne, exactly where these savings are coming from, and with what impact and on what timetable? No, I thought not. The Tories have already been rumbled on their misuse of the timetable to make false claims about the funding of a bogus cancer pledge.

The whole fandango reminds me a little bit of a similar Tory campaign back in the 1997 campaign when businessmen were wheeled out to support the claim made by John Major et al that a minimum wage would cost a million jobs. It didn't. Now of course they say they support a minimum wage. They don't.

Cameron said his number one priority was tackling the deficit. Clearly it is number one priority no longer.

The risk to the recovery comes not just from taking six billion pounds out of the economy, but also  from making a whole series of promises today which if implemented would lead to economic calamity tomorrow. None of that negates the fact that businessmen prefer tackling waste to a rise in National Insurance.

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They may have been speaking without notes, but the first speeches after the official announcement of the campaign represented an important moment, and the party leaders will have thought long and hard about every word they said.

So what we can gather from those speeches are the key arguments, and also the tone, of the campaign to come. I did not make an exact count of 'five more years of Gordon Brown' but it was the single biggest theme that came from David Cameron. It was the only phrase to draw a cheer from party supporters gathered around him, apart from a message of support for the troops in Afghanistan, a sub-Kennedyesque reference to asking what we can do to make our society better, and the end.

There was a lot of talk of hope, optimism and change, and the projection of energy is clearly a a big thing for the Tories, but I would say if there was one driving message, it was a negative one about Labour rather than a positive one about the nature of the change they promise. I also noticed once more his glib reference to 'this regional  nonsense,' which I hope was spotted by every non-Tory candidate in the country. If anything shows up his near contempt for the idea that government, central or regional, can make a difference to economic or social success or failure, that was it.

All campaigns are a mix of positive about yourself, negative about your opponents, and record. The sense building of the two main party manifestoes is that there will be more substance and more content to the Labour one. I know I am biased, but I think that accurately reflects the way the policy debate has developed in recent weeks and months.I can only assume that the Tory pre-briefing, suggesting a marriage tax allowance is the centrepiece of the manifesto, is deliberately misleading and they have a lot more lined up for the day of the launch.

GB's main message on the economy can clearly be seen both as a positive or a negative. Only Labour can be trusted to secure the recovery - note the seniority given to Alistair Darling in his positioning in the grouping of ministers behind GB - or, put negatively, the Tories are a risk the country cannot afford.

But I felt that in both public services and political renewal, there is the scope for greater argument around more substantial proposals from Labour than the Tories. That will matter as the campaign unfolds.

The team element was important to the tone too. The Tories will say GB is presenting himself as the leader of a team because he lacks the qualities needed to carry the fight to Cameron alone. But whereas the leaders are hugely important, and even more so in this campaign because of the TV debates, the public know they are electing a government not just a PM. There was a lot of experience and judgement, as well as a few authors of bright ideas for the future, lined up behind him today.

Cameron is not as popular as he was but remains more popular than his party. When he talked about speaking for the 'great ignored', quite a few of the most ignored people in the country are in the shadow cabinet, and he is the one ignoring them because the less they are on TV the happier he is.

But if he wants to present the race as being all about him, not only does he risk the notion developing that they are a one-man band,  but it falls even more on him to spell out the detail of the change implied in all the words and slogans today.

I know this was not the time for that. Today was indeed about themes and tone, and the manifestoes will be the means by which the detail is set out.

But what I took from this morning is that Labour have more to gain from positive campaigning than the Tories, which is not a bad place to start, provided a bit of good old-fashioned Tory-bashing takes place alongside it.

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As people weigh up the relative experience of the party leaders, it is worth remembering that after Eton and Bullingdon College Oxford, David Cameron's experience has been as an advisor to Black Wednesday Chancellor Norman Lamont and a spin doctor to a TV station.

I will spare the Tories on here the need to ask 'who are you to go on about spin doctors' by pointing out that I am the last person to go on about spin doctors. But DC is not standing to be a government spokesman or strategist. He is standing to be Prime Minister.

But today, amid the latest batch of unfunded, uncosted, incoherent spending promises littered around the media, we see that the spin doctor takes precedence in his mind. Promising some huge sum to recognise marriage in the tax system, he is seemingly of the view that ''the message matters more than the money.'

That neatly encapsulates his whole approach to this campaign now that he has decided that being serious about the deficit is no longer his main economic priority.

The King's Fund has totally demolished the Tory claims to be able to fund a cancer treatment pledge from money that even under their own plans does not exist until later in the next Parliament, beyond the point at which they say they will spend it.

Watch out in the coming weeks for all manner of spending commitments which they will say can be funded by 'a portion of the savings they claim they will make by not implementing the planned National Insurance rise.'

When people wonder why Conservative begins with Con, the last few days have shown it. They cannot at one and the same time cut the deficit, protect spending and cut taxes, all by a few efficiency savings once described by DC as a 'trick.'

The King's Fund has done for the cancer pledge. Stand by now to watch the marriage tax allowance fall apart too. And when DC pipes up that the message matters more than the money, try telling that to the families who need the recovery to be secured to protect the jobs, living standards and public services on which they depend.

The message is not more important than the money. The economy matters more than anything and day by day the Tories are showing they would put the recovery at risk for the sake of a few catchy tunes to keep their media supporters singing for them.

i did not hear shadow home secretary Chris Grayling on the Today programme, though I hear he was dreadful. Already embroiled in his homophoia row, he too is littering the papers with spending commitments in his law and order area today. I hope they are being costed. I hope every word coming out of every Tory spokesman is being costed.

Because just as their cancer pledge lasted around a day, the rest of this nonsense will not survive the coming weeks. The King's Fund talked of 'smoke and mirrors' wafting around the cancer pledge. Stand by for a lot more of that when the campaign proper kicks off. And stand by for the public seeing through it as quickly as the King's Fund have.

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The central questions in the forthcoming election campaign remain the same, and so do the answers.

On the question of which party is best able to meet the challenges facing Britain, which party has the experience and the judgement and strength in depth to secure the recovery, which party has a policy agenda for the future that is rooted in values of fairness, which party will protect frontline services without making dogmatic and unfair cuts, then a good case can be made that the answer to all of those questions is Labour. Labour has to keep making that case with verve, vigour, guts and gusto.

The Tories scored a media hit with their national insurance non-rise, and it may in part have played through to the polls. But far from enhancing their economic and political credibility, over the course of a campaign, it can be shown to have further damaged it.

Easy politics does not make for sound economics. Making promises without having the first clue how to fund them - today's papers are littered with them - is simply evidence that they have given up on long-term credibility in the pursuit of what they hope will be short-term political popularity.

So far from removing from Labour's claim to be the best party to secure the recovery, as the Tories claim, the NICs move underlines it. Labour long term v Tory short term. Consistency v opportunism. Leadership v weakness. Sums that add up v sums that don't.

All the promises made today, if followed through, would lead to fresh economic calamity in a Tory tomorrow. We know the media like a lot of what the Tories are saying and doing because most of them back 'time for a change' either because they are bored with Labourafter three terms or because they are actively supporting the Tories. But over the remaining weeks of this campaign, there is a very good chance the public will think about some of these issues more deeply, see through the Tory strategy of making promises they cannot keep, and understand too that the same David Cameron who spoke of standing up to vested interests a short time ago, of facing up to tough choices and doing the right thing for the long-term, is now doing the exact opposite.

He and his colleagues will say anything, even if they know they will have to end up doing something very differently, and even if they know that their sums don't add up.

Labour has to stay focussed on those big questions and the big challenges facing the country. This was always going to be a tough campaign, for all of the parties. But at least GB has a record to point to, of taking difficult decisions and seeing them through. It part explains why we have a recovery at all. When the going looked like getting a bit tough for Cameron, politically, he chose the soft economic option and the easy road. He gave up on the deficit as his number one issue and reverted to where his party always wants him - promising tax cuts he won't be able to fulfil if he is to meet his other pledges. It has won him a short-term headline battle. But in the weeks ahead, it may not seem quite as clever ashe and George Osborne seem to think.

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Displaying the cockiness which perhaps goes with their background, and which could become more apparent as the campaign goes on, the Tories are claiming a near knock out blow.

George Osborne's people are busy making him the 'zero to hero' star of a clutch of articles, of which expect many more in the Sunday papers, suggesting his planned non-rise of National Insurance Contributions is a game-changing election winner.

There will be plenty of ups and downs in the coming weeks and it is good to see that Osborne himself understands that.

Pointing to the importance of the leaders' TV debates, he says election campaigns only work if they highlight work that has been underway for years. 'You cannot fatten a pig on market day. The change has to be real and the policy positions have to be strong.'

Exactly right. I know his words were meant as a dig at GB. But they encapsulate why 'sums don't add up' attacks on the Tories have a lot of a traction left in them, more so since the NICs plan was announced.

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The image of Britain presented by the Tories is of a country of wrecked communities filled with feckless individuals and all of it is the fault of the Labour government.

One of the best rebuttals of their broken Britain nonsense is the growing culture of volunteering, which will build and build towards one of the most important legacies of the Labour government - London 2012.

When Tony Blair went to Singapore to help swing a few final votes to defeat Paris for the right to host the Olympic Games, a big part of the promise made was about legacy. The pledge was that a London Games would leave behind a meaningful legacy of sport and infrastructure as well as a social legacy that would last well beyond 2012.

I've written here before about how construction and planning for London 2012 remains impressively on time and on plan - and about the media's near total blackout on good Olympic news. But what about the so called "social legacy" promised in Singapore? What does it mean and how will it work?

This week we started to see the answer to that question as a coalition of charities, government departments and voluntary bodies launched the 25th Hour campaign, inspired by London 2012.

www.the25thhour.org

One of the reasons Britain is far from broken is because of the commitment millions of people make to others, to helping out friends and neighbours, coaching kids in sports, working for local community groups.

There are as many ways to give time to others as there are seconds in the day.

The thinking behind the 25th Hour is to recognise the millions of people who already give time, in ways big and small, in every corner of the UK, and to inspire even more to do so.

People who register on the site as time-givers will be eligible to win Olympic rewards, including money-can't-buy experiences like access to the dress rehearsal of the Opening Ceremony.

The 25th Hour is designed  to build over the next two and a half years, with a major annual event in October on the day the clocks go back - when we literally have a 25th Hour in the day. Users of the website will get information about opportunities near them where they can give their time, or they can find out how to get a group of people together to pitch in on something they care about. It only takes a small amount of time to make a big difference.

Although this campaign isn't about games time volunteering, more than 300,000 people have already put themselves forward to be volunteers at the Olympic Games themselves. So it's clear that people are already excited about the chance to give their time, inspired by the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

This doesn't sound like a broken Britain to me, but a Britain up for the best Olympics with the best legacy.

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I rather enjoyed Peter Mandelson's description of George Osborne as a schoolboy charging round the sweetshop taking sweets from every jar without a clue as to how he is going to pay for them when he gets to the counter.

He intends to reduce the deficit dramatically, cut taxes and protect frontline services. Mmmm. Sounds fine. And the tax cut element is all going to be paid for by 'efficiency savings' which David Cameron once described as a 'trick' used by politicians making promises they didn't know how to fund.

Cameron, sounding more commentator than leader this morning, describes the intervention of a group of senior businessmen protesting at the planned National Insurance rise as a 'significant moment in the campaign.' I don't blame him for that. There are some big business names on the letter to the Daily Telegraph, and he knows they probably carry more economic credibility than he or George Osborne do. But is it that significant? I would be very surprised to find any businessman in the land who would say 'yes please' to a proposed rise in National Insurance Contributions. Likewise, the vast bulk of them, presented with the choice between a tax cut or wasteful public spending will go for the tax cut every time.

So what the Tories have persuaded them to sign up to is a letter which says they would prefer cuts in wasteful spending to a rise in NICs. So would I. The question then is whether Cameron and Osborne really can make the 'trick' savings they promise, on the timescale set out, whether they can reduce the deficit to the extent they say it needs to be reduced to prevent Britain becoming Greece, (the gap between problem as analysed and deficit reduction as announced is enormous), whether they can fund all the spending commitments they and their colleagues have made, (gap between promises made and cash allocated is similarly gigantic) and whether they can do so whilst still implementing their Number One tax priority - a cut in inheritance tax for the richest families in the country.

So would people vote for a NICs cut? Yes. Would they vote for the eradication of waste in the public sector? Yes. But the Tories have not convincingly set out how any of the above would happen.

And I suspect some of the names on the list would also agree with the proposition that the Brown-Darling approach to the international crisis was the right one, and to a great extent prevented a crisis from becoming a calamity.

Their letter starts at the here and now. Fair enough. But we would not be here now if Cameron and Osborne had been making the calls back then. GB and AD have shown steady economic management in good times and bad. There is a still a credibility gap the Tories have not filled.

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One of the great joys of continuing involvement in Labour campaigning is access to the Party's media monitoring brief, largely unchanged in format since we started it way back in the mid-90s.

It is hard not to feel for people whose job is to plough through all our papers, and listen to all that blather and drivel on the TV and radio, but they should know their work - reducing everything to a digestible ten-page report - is hugely appreciated by those who find reading the papers an often depressing chore and listening to the blatherers a 24-hour irritant.

'Too many decision-makers define their reality according to that days's media - it is almost always a mistake.' So said Bill Clinton in a TV interview I did with him when his book came out. In other words, you need to know what the media are saying and doing, but don't let them define your strategy.

It is yet one more lesson the Tories have failed to learn. They bob and weave fairly effectively from one day's papers to the next, exploiting a situation here, jumping on a bandwagon there. But they lack a strategic course and so the picture of them gets fuzzier at time it should be getting clearer.

I can see why they would want to dismiss TB's speech in Trimdon yesterday, but it actually contained what could be priceless strategic advice, were it not too late for them to take it on board. So let's hear it from The Guardian, as recorded in Labour's media monitoring report ...

'Back in his old constituency, and with all his usual brio, Stratton says TB sought to dismantle any notion that comparisons cld be drawn btwn the New Labour project that swept to victory in 1997, and the Conservatives under Cameron. TB never actually mentioned Cameron by name - instead, he concentrated on the message that the Tories were trying to send, why it was flawed, and why he believes Labour cld still secure a fourth term. The Conservatives' "time for a change" mantra, he argued, wld not wash. It left him, he said, ‘puzzled', ‘confused' and he described it as ‘vacuous'. Choosing half a dozen policy areas, TB: ‘Why the confusion? The benign explanation is that the policy-makers are confused, not just the policies. The less benign one is that one set of policies represents what they believe in; the other what they think they have to say to win. That's not a confusion, actually; that's a strategy and the British pple deserve to have that strategy exposed before polling day'. TB also criticised the Tories on law and order, sggstng they had gone too far to the left: ‘They've gone liberal when actually they shld have stuck with a traditional Conservative position. When it comes to the big policy issues, there is a puzzle, that has turned into a problem that has now become a long hard pause for thought: Where are they centred? Is there a core? Think of all the phrases you associate with their leadership and the phrase "you know where you are with them" is about the last description you wld think of. They seem like they haven't made up their mind about where they stand; and so the British public finds it hard to make up its mind about where it stands. In uncertain times, there is a lot to be said for certain leadership'.

TB being a former Labour leader, Tories might just mutter 'he would say that wouldn't he?' and sit tight waiting for the next bandwagon to roll in. But meanwhile they would do well to read Anatole Kaletsky in The Times, not a man to hold back from criticising Labour, but who today turns his attention to the Tories. Again, I am indebted to Labour's media monitors for this account too.

‘The two-faced Tories can't have it both ways' (Ti op-ed) - Kaletsky says the fundamental cause of the Tory malaise, from which all other symptoms follow, is that they are sending two opposing messages at the same time. In the chancellors' debate, Osborne inveighed against the supposedly ruinous debts run up by GB and promised to repay them faster than Labour. He then declared that public services wld be protected more reliably under the Tories than by Labour and that taxes wld be cut, adding NI to IHT and marriage benefits to the long list of top priorities for immediate tax reductions. If this inconsistency was a single lapse, it might have been ignored or forgiven. But it is not. Such blatantly contradictory messages appear to comprise his party's entire election strategy. The way to square this circle, they insist, is by eliminating unnecessary and inefficient spending. Except that last Friday Cameron added another £4bn of vital benefits, including bus passes, TV licences and winter fuel payments for retired bankers and millionaires, to the long list of priorities that the Tories wld protect come hell or high water.

'Kaletsky reckons the nightmare for the Tories as the elex approaches is that the inconsistencies long obvious in their economic thinking begin to infect their political image. That the Tories are Janus-faced on the most important issue facing the nation - the need to set responsible priorities for debt reduction through tax increases and spending cuts. And being two-faced translates into untrustworthy and contemptuous of the voters' intelligence. The Tories want to present themselves as potential saviours for a nation that, under GB's leadership, has suffered the economic equivalent of Dunkirk. But if they genuinely believe that Britain has suffered 13 years of shocking economic mismanagement since 1997, that reducing debt is an overriding moral obligation and that the country is now on the brink of bankruptcy, then Dunkirk-style sacrifices must be demanded. In that case the Tories are grossly irresponsible to promise tax cuts or protect spending programmes such as the NHS, not to mention foreign aid, bus passes and winter fuel payments. If, on the other hand, the Tories are trying to come to terms with modern Britain as it is, they must acknowledge that considerable economic, as well as social, progress has been achieved under Labour and must stop making silly comparisons with Greece. In that case, they shld admit that the all-out financial catastrophe that genuinely threatened the nation in the winter of 2008-09 has been avoided and that some credit should go to the sensible decisions made at the height of the crisis by GB and Darling. Kaletsky asserts that predictions of disaster are rarely useful or constructive, even at a time of crisis. Pple in Britain are suffering hardship but still looking forward to a brighter future. Yet the Tories appear to be running down the country either in the hope of securing electoral advantage or because they are still the nasty party which cannot bring itself to terms with modern Britain. This does neither the Tories nor the country any good. Although Churchill offered blood, toil, tears and sweat, he predicted ultimate victory. Since Britain is not facing an economic Dunkirk, the Tories wld be wise to emphasise the victory over the blood and tears (Ti).'

That's the other great thing about the media monitoring report. Sometimes it writes my blog for me. Thanks to them, and to Mr Kaletsky. The best news of all is that the Tories seem incapable of heeding good strategic advice.

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Tony Blair speaking in Trimdon Labour club in Sedgefield as an election campaign nears ... brings back a few memories. His constituency was always an important part of his politics, not just the place that selected him to be candidate, but also the place where he found the support and the confidence needed to push at the outer edges of modernisation.

Before TB became leader, Labour had never won two successive full terms. Today, there is the distinct possibility of a fourth, and a lot of that is down to the basic 'New Labour New Britain' approach under his leadership. .

Former leaders rarely fit easily into the political landscape. Ex-Tory leaders have tended to cause trouble for their successors, though David Cameron has fared better on that front.

One after another, Labour leaders on the other hand have shown pretty much constant support for those who follow them, a point brought into sharp relief at Michael Foot's funeral recently. Michael's politics was in many ways different to TB's, but I never heard him say a harsh word about TB, GB, Neil Kinnock or John Smith. It is no secret that TB and GB at times said harsh words not just about each other but to each other, amid what was otherwise in many ways an extraordinarily productive political relationship.

But TB knows enough about leadership to know that when it came to the economic crisis, GB provided it, and that his decisions helped prevent a crisis from become a disaster.

He knows enough about leadership and the importance of strategy in politics to know that David Cameron has been lacking in both.

The Tories like to say they have done what we did in 'modernising' their party. But they have done no such thing. They lack any sort of strategic clarity. On Europe, they have gone rightwards. On crime, they have gone leftwards. On the economy, as George Osborne's national insurance cut showed yesterday, they move all over the place according to what they detect to be the prevailing wind.

At least people have a fair idea what the Labour Party stands for. Nobody has a clue what today's Tories stand for, least of all themselves.

At a Labour fundraiser in Yorkshire last night, I asked the audience what a Tory pledge card would look like. It raised a laugh, unintentionally, which I would suggest is bad news for the Tories.

In Opposition, we worked hard to ensure the key questions about us were more or less answered by the time we got to polling day. It is an extraordinary indictment of Cameron's leadership that as the campaign starts, the question marks are growing bigger, and the answers becoming less clear.

Ps - another day, another Tory poster, this time with a picture of GB and an ironic slogan. Sometimes irony doesn't fly though. Hence the driver who picked me up yesterday saying 'I see you've got a new poster up. Gordon's looking good.'

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It was good to hear Gordon Brown restating that Labour are the 'people's party' when he launched the election pledge card at the weekend.

Good to see too that Labour are trying to ensure theirs is the 'people's campaign' .

The latest manifestation is the invitation to online supporters to design Labour's next poster.

The Party does not have Ashcroft-type money to fund the kind of enormous poster campaigns the Tories have been putting up since the New Year.

But digital poster boards have been booked in London and Manchester for next weekend, and they will be filled with what are judged to be the best ideas sent in by members of the public.

Even the most bright-eyed Tory strategist would have to recognise that their hugely expensive campaign has not produced the results they hoped for. The 'airbrushed' poster of a giant David Cameron was a disaster. The second wave highlighting first-time Tory voters was better, technically, but does not appear to have halted the narrowing of the polls. The latest wave, entirely focused on GB, smacks a little of desperation, whilst also reminding people the Tories are still the nasty party.

One of the most interesting political developments of recent weeks has been the extent to which the Tory posters have been subject to immediate and often effective online ridicule. 

The moment I knew the airbrushed posters represented Ashcroft money down the drain was when someone had defaced a real poster to turn David Cameron into Elvis Presley and changed the Tory slogan to 'we can't go on like this ... with suspicious minds.'

Likewise my favourite execution of the first-time voters idea was the one showing Robert Mugabe's backing for Cameron over GB. And the anti-GB poster is already being used by Labour supporters online to show genuine points of delivery, as opposed to the knocking stuff on the Tory versions.

Labour and their ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, have put out two briefs to supporters for the 'people's poster' that will go up next week. One focuses on Labour's pledge to protect frontline services, the second on David Cameron's lack of substance. Nice and easy.

I was sent a good idea over the weekend from a Facebook friend, Hamish Thompson, who suggested opening a Cameron supermarket in which empty tins and cartons covered in DC and his slogans are handed out. Hamish wants to go as far as opening a Cameron hospital, and showing there is nothing in there too. That might be a touch expensive to execute but there is definitely something in the empty tins and cartons, and again it shows, a bit like all the ideas which have flooded into mydavidcameron.com that people out there are already onto the lack of substance theme.

Both to see some of the Saatchi and Saatchi ideas, and to find out how to send in your own ideas, go to http://www.labour.org.uk/labours-new-ad

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The Labour pledge card has been an important part of every campaign since 1997.

The cards help set out priorities. In addition to attracting widespread media coverage, they are, more importantly, a useful basis for doorstep communications and further campaign materials.

Thirteen years on from the first one, they are also a reminder of what Labour has done in the past. I used to be able to recite the '97 pledges in my sleep, but had to look them up just now, having forgotten two of them

Halve the time it takes to get persistent young offenders to court  - a pledge met.

Cut class sizes to 30 or under for all 5-7 year olds - met.

Cut NHS waiting times - met.

Get 250,000 young people into work through the New Deal - met and exceeded.

No increase in income tax, cut VAT on heating to 5% and keep inflation and interest rates as low as possible.  

The pledge card 2010, launched by Gordon Brown today, is both more general and more specific than some of its predecessors.

More general in that the pledges on the front - secure the recovery, raise family living standards, build a high tech economy, protect frontline services and strengthen fairness in communities - speak mainly to broad themes on which Labour's campaign will be based.

But the reverse of the card (with variations for Scotland and Wales) has more policy detail than some of its earlier versions, showing another dividing line with the Tories - Labour policy-rich, the Tories policy-lite.

Secure the recovery and halve the deficit through economic growth, fair taxes and cuts to low priority spending

Raise family living standards keeping mortgage rates as low as possible; increasing tax credits for families with young children; providing new help for first-time buyers; and restoring the link between the state pension and earnings from 2012.

Build a high-tech economy, supporting business and industry to create 1 million more skilled jobs and modernising our infrastructure with High-Speed Rail, a Green Investment Bank, and broadband access for all.

Protect frontline investment in policing, schools, childcare and the NHS, with a new guarantee of cancer test results within a week.

Strengthen fairness in communities through an Australian style points-based system to control immigration; guaranteed education, apprenticeships and jobs for young people; and a crack down on anti-social behaviour.

It is no surprise that three of the pledges relate to the economy. This may be an attempt to win a fourth term. But this is actually the first post-economic crisis election, and the ramifications of that extraordinary global event frame the choice and make this perhaps the most significant election since '97.

In an interview in The Guardian today, GB seems to have rediscovered a lot of the confidence required for the fight ahead. Elections are gruelling, especially for the leaders, and confidence and momentum are key.

But whatever the criticism the pledges draw from the media and Oppositions that they are 'too vague' (I've been hearing it all morning), Labour can be confident that they are placing the right issues at the centre of the forthcoming campaign at the right time, with the manifesto itself still to come, and the Tories feeling the beginning of electoral heat on their lack of policy substance.

I would also love to know, if the Tories were similarly to do a pledge card, what they would go for. Do they have enough policy to stretch to five yet? And if they did, would they be able to agree on them?

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My old mucker Nick Watt has helped with another interesting insight into Tory tax policy formulation.

Buried in a Guardian story about the decision to hire M and C Saatchi to work alongside Airbrush Posters PLC in their interesting (ie fraught) new joint venture is a line related to the most elusive issue in UK politics - what the Tories would actually do.

It says that 'senior sources' have briefed the website ConservativeHome that shadow chancellor George Osborne has a 'wheeze' lined up to repeal the proposed National Insurance rise.

Two interesting things to comment upon here. One is the apparent new journalistic formulation that you can report 'senior sources' (never junior, you may have noticed) even if those unnamed voices are speaking anonymously to a rival media organisation, which means that in a secondary report you are unlikely to know their identity, and thus their reliability.

But more noteworthy is the 'wheeze' element.

I've often felt about David Cameron, George Osborne and the rest of their set that one day they were just sitting around at Dave's gaff, flicking through Smythson's posh products catalogues, a bit bored with their various roles in life, and one of them said 'listen chaps, don't you think it would be great to run a country? Think what fun we'd all have.'

According to junior and possibly totally unreliable sources, at a newspaper group lunch recently, DC said, in answer to the question why he wanted to be PM ... 'I think I'd be quite good at it.'

All fits the bill, n'est-ce pas? Wants the job, not quite sure what he wants to do with it though.

Quite a wheeze though. Golly, yes.

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As the Top Tory Spin Doctor said in his genius briefing to my new best friend Nick Watt of The Guardian earlier this week, authenticity is the key in modern communications.

It explains why, despite the extraordinarily tough hand Alistair Darling had to play yesterday, and despite (perhaps because of) the overshrill Tory response, personally he emerged well from the Budget. 

I have no idea whether the latest poll showing the Tory lead down to two is accurate or not. But I do know the polls have narrowed, and I do know that the choice of who people trust with the economy has been central to that.

Alistair has been around a long time, one of a tiny handful to have held ministerial positions since May 1997 to the present day.

The authentic AD is not dull, as often stated, but sober, serious, with a sometimes gloomy disposition often pepped up with self-deprecating humour.

He is also someone who finds much of politics, in particular factionalism and infighting, rather tiresome. He has spent most of his career being defined, when TB was in charge, as a Brownite. I would say he defied that easy separation. Rather than ever being a fully paid up member of any grouping, I always found him a fully paid up member of the Grown Up Tendency, a team player.

His credibility and authority, and his contrast with George Osborne, make him an absolutely key campaigner in the forthcoming election. Frankly the more we see of him the better.

Talking of people who defy easy Blairite-Brownite labelling, (these days at least) the same goes for Peter Mandelson. It is possible to detect in the Budget the development of some of his ideas for a new and exciting industrial strategy. And whereas I know there are still some who shout and scream every time he comes on the box, the people who like to see him least are the Tories. At his best, he reminds me a bit of Michael Heseltine in his pomp, and (technically speaking) I can't say fairer than that. The Mandelson-Ken Clarke debates of the coming weeks will be splendid.

On Monday we have a Channel 4 debate involving AD, Osborne and Vince Cable, which unfortunately I will miss as it coincides with a long-promised fundraiser in Yorkshire. A year ago, the prospect of such a three-way debate might not have filled Labour activists with glee, not least because of the chatterati's love-in with Vince Cable, and the Tories' sizeable lead in state of the parties polling as well as ratings on economic competence. Now the chances are it is an ace card, which Alistair is likely to play well.

Ps ... Nick Watt and I are loving the spin by TSD on their decision to hire a second ad agency, M and C Saatchi, to 'work alongside' Euro RSCG. Here are the explanations quoted by Campaign magazine...

A Tory spokesman said: 'We're delighted with the contribution Euro has made and will continue to make as we near the election.' Come on Nick, take it down ...

David Jones, the global chief executive of Euro RSCG, said: 'There are a lot of people in the ad industry who would like to see the end of Brown's regime. All great ideas that help us achieve that are welcome.' Aw sweet ... and so typical of the ad industry's non-competitive, teamwork-across-the-companies approach to advertising.

And absolutely nothing to do wih the airbrushed poster disaster/Belize dosh down the drain drama. No, not at all. Come on Nick, what about 'Poster wars -- Tory turmoil over how to waste Ashcroft cash.' Come on, just for me.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash to fight the Tories, Euro RSCG, M and C Saatchi and Lord Belize http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Like him or not, spare a sympathetic thought for David Cameron today. If he is anything like Tony Blair when Leader of the Opposition, he will have woken up this morning with the sense of a very big challenge ahead of him for the day.

He does that every Wednesday of course, because Prime Minister's Questions is always an important part of the Parliamentary week. But today the workload is doubled, tripled, quadrupled and more, because as well as doing PMQs, he has to respond to Alistair Darling's Budget. 'If there is a bigger nightmare than responding in these big set piece Parliamentary debates, I've yet to find it,' TB used to complain.

And whereas at PMQs, at least the Leader of the Opposition knows what he is going to ask, with the Budget it is the Chancellor who has the advantage, in knowing what it is to come.

The broad outlines of Cameron's response will already be written, but he does have to think on his feet, and respond to specific announcements.

A word of advice ... Ignore all the last minute speculation doing the rounds this morning, focus on big arguments and try to respond to what Alistair actually says. Also, try very hard not to think too much about the bumbling, stumbling, rambling, incoherent interview you gave with Gay Times, which looks set to become an instant Youtube hit.

All Budgets are important moments, but the proximity to the election makes this even more so.

The House of Commons is often the place where the dividing lines of the campaign are first laid down. Some of the arguments today will be familiar, some less so.

But though Cameron gets the first word, the heavy lifting will thereafter done by shadow chancellor George Osborne.

Spare a thought for him too. He appears to be unpopular with the public, unrated by the City and business leaders, and a bit of a whipping boy for Tory MPs and candidates forever reporting his unpopularity back from the doorsteps and businesses.

Alistair Darling on the other hand has emerged with his authority and credibility enhanced from the post economic crisis phase.

He has always been likeable. But in politics that is sometimes less important than respect. When he stands to deliver the Budget today, his basic economic credibility is not really an issue. The same cannot be said for DC and GO. George Osborne. Game On.

Here's more from Channel 4 on the Gay Times interview by the way.

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With our own news again dominated this morning by MPs doing and sayings things they shouldn't be, once again Barack Obama is able to remind us that politics at its best is always the pursuit of noble causes. 

As if he does not have enough riding on his back, President Obama's success or failure in office will have implications for politics around the world.

Few leaders come to power with the global goodwill and the energy of hope that propelled him into the White House. As in life, so in politics, the higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment if they are not fully met. It is therefore in the interests of democratic politics everywhere that he succeeds, sufficient to win again. One term will not be enough to deliver all the change he promised. But the healthcare reform bill is a start.

To British people raised on the NHS, one of the most popular 'brands' known to man, the bitterness of the US healthcare debate seems odd, even a bit scary, certainly a reminder that whatever binds our countries together, there remain very big differences too.

So as he signs the reforms into law today, nobody should underestimate the scale of change he has brought about with this bill, even if it does not do everything he set out to do before the poetry of his campaign was turned into the prose of government. (copyright Mario Cuomo).

But the real political significance may be in what it said about Obama's political character ... he just kept going.

Some of the disappointment there has been in some quarters about Obama stems from the fact that he appeared in government to be less strategic, less decisive, less of a leader than he had been on the campaign trail.

But his dogged determination on health, and the political and communications skills he showed along the way, have brought that original version of Obama back to the fore.

That now bodes well for some of the other huge challenges he has set himself, whether climate change, reform of Wall Street, peace in the Middle East.

Just as his Presidency has been energised by this victory, so of course have his opponents who now think they have an even bigger stick with which to beat the Democrats in the mid-term elections.

There may even be a negative impact upon his party's vote as a result. The good news is that he will just keep going, knowing that over time a good argument can beat even the rabble-rousing of the US Right, whatever the noise and the setbacks along the way.

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Apart from taking a sneaky look at the rather risque pictures of Samantha Cameron over someone's shoulder on the tube, the only paper I have seen today is The Guardian.

And every now and then, you just have to hold up your hands and say 'well done, well done' to someone from the other side of the political fence, no matter how much you want to persuade yourself in the interests of party tribalism that all your enemies are hopeless indiiduals of no merit whatever.

I refer to whichever Tory Spin Doctor (TSD) was responsible for the briefing to The Guardian's Nick Watt, which appears as a 'special report' (mmmm) on pages 12 and 13.

'Cameron unplugged ...' runs the headline across the top of both pages 'Tory plan to gain a head start over Brown.'

Now as we all know, a picture tells a thousand words and the picture beneath this headline was of David Cameron, with a big smile on his face, leading the way in yesterday's Sport Relief mile. He has both feet off the ground, suggesting he is really motoring.

So good headline, well done TSD. Good picture, ditto.

But it is in the briefing that I really detect the hand of a top notch TSD, not just an average bog-standard briefer.

Here are just some of the notions which Nick Watt managed to fall for, oops sorry, which the top-notch TSD managed to communicate in a highly strategic manner.

* Claiming the heckling by a young apprentice from Deptford led Cameron to think up a different kind of event for the forthcoming campaign.

* Thereby showing that Cameron is someone who can turn adversity to advantage (an important leadership attribute, you might subliminally be asked to think).

* Relating this 'turning point' to John Major's soap box, one of the few things anyone remembers about our last PM but two.

That is all just for starters. TSD's best work is yet to come. For he managed to persuade Mr Watt to take seriously that this carefull briefed set of points was all about Cameron playing to what Tory strategists see as his key strength - 'authenticity.'

I know, I know ... is that not just brilliant? Someone from Central Office gets on the phone to a left-leaning paper and says that Cameron is all about authenticity.

You can only say that kind of thing convincingly if you really believe it, so I can only imagine TSD has seen none of the polling which suggests that Cameron's main problem with the public is that people do not really know what or who he is and that in the absence of that clarity, they worry he is posing as something - an agent of change - that he is not.

Of course TSD is right that authenticity is key. That is their problem. But TSD is undeterred, and Watt untroubled, by any of that.

He goes on with a few more themes worthy of their own little starry points in this eulogy to the work of the great TSD.

* Cameron's authenticity works because the Tories are committed to devolution (come again) which 'lends itself to spontaneous debate with voters.'

* GB apparently can't do these kind of meetings, says TSD, duly reported by NW.

* But here comes the piece de resistance, the spin of all spins, the work of a genius ... 'Cameron's easy connection with voters only works thanks to the second reason why he can lay claim to authenticity. They claim that on the economy, the most important issue of the election, Cameron has a record to defend and even laud.'

I am now on my feet in spontaneous lauding of a briefing of such nerve that I want to find the man who did it and offer him to name his price to defect. One of my finest moments was when the former Chief of Defence Staff Charles Guthrie (before he started taking potshots at GB) called me 'the SAS of spin.' But TSD is a one man commando unit all of his own.

To do such a briefing, and get away with it, without anyone pointing out that Cameron and George Osborne opposed all the measures that stopped a crisis from becoming a calamity, is Order of Thatcher time for TSD. Northern Rock anyone?

If it had been me, so-called King of Spin blah, I'd have quit while I was ahead, but TSD goes on.

'We have had an unbelievable strategic success in winning the argument on debt.' Oh my!

Then this ... 'The Tories are very careful to say they are not turning negative.' How do we know? Because 'attacks will be made with a light touch!' Brilliant. NW then gives an example of DC's light touch. Again, get the TSD a bonus.

So all in all, says NW, 'Cameron's ease in front of audiences suggests he has found his stride after the party's recent wobble..' and the sentence is right by the picture - found his stride, get it? Magical.

Then TSD does a bit of dumping on George Osborne, their one 'key weakness.' I'm beginning to feel a bit sorry for George. The public don't like him. The City don't like him. And TSD doesn't like him; or at least he wants to make sure if the Budget goes well for Labour and badly for the Tories it is George not Dave who gets the blame.

Finally, a superb flourish. If the media say the manifesto is boring, we'll be happy, says TSD.

I don't know who he is. But I love his nerve. Almost as much as he must love Nick Watt when he reads his handiwork today.

Not had time to read any of the papers, not heard any of the news, but the debate that has suddenly kicked off on my Facebook page re William Hague and Lord Ashcroft tells me that one has some way to run yet. Labour supporters scenting blood, Tories kicking out in all sorts of different directions.

The debate was around my tweet on the subject of a headline in The Guardian - 'Tories rally round beleaguered Hague' - which I suggested it was not exactly the kind of headline you wanted for a key campaigner just before a key campaign.

Before going out to the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research dinner last night, where I shared the bill with Jeffrey Archer - one of the auction prizes was tea with the two of us at The Wolseley btw and someone paid several thousand for this dubious honour - I saw William Hague on the news talking about his role in the Ashcroft murk.

Hague's straight-forwardness and straight talking is one of his strengths but he looked distinctly uncomfortable. He managed to get away with a clip for the news, but the look on his face suggested to me he would not fancy ten rounds with Jeremy Paxman or a select committee on the subject. The tough questions are not going to go away on this.

It brings me to a different point though. Every campaign has a list of key campaigners and of course Hague, as a former leader and de facto deputy leader of the Tory Party, is one such. The Ashcroft murk could force him to be less active and engaged than has been planned. Cameron is of course THE key campaigner. With the economy central to the campaign, George Osborne is another, and is not very popular with the public or the City. Kenneth Clarke is popular but, as shown by his mis-speak on tax policy in debate with Peter Mandelson yesterday, marginalised. Tory HQ has decided Michael Gove is a secret weapon, but I have yet to decide in which direction he is being targeted. All in all, it is a thin list.

It is why Labour as a team has to be a central part of the election campaign. Alistair Darling has seen his authority and reputation enhanced. The Miliband brothers are both clever and attractive politicians. Alan Johnson has the kind of popular touch DC's public school toffs' party would give half of their inheritance tax cut for. Harriet Harman, Yvette Cooper and Tessa Jowell belie the claim there are no women at GB's top table. Ed Balls, Andy Burnham, Liam Byrne, Jim Murphy, Peter Hain, Jack Straw ... Bob Ainsworth is far more popular with the military than the press pretend. Shaun Woodward understands strategy and understands how to attack the Tories. Peter Mandelson and Douglas Alexander are class acts on the campaigns front.

Of course these elections are about electing individual MPs. But they are also about electing governments and the lack of strength in depth on the Tory side is a real problem for them. Here we are, a few weeks away, and the vast bulk of the team that could soon be running our country could walk down most of its streets without a soul knowing who the hell they are.

They banked on Cameron the one-man-band being enough. They were wrong.

* Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

There now follows an extract from this morning's media monitoring report by the Labour Party....

‘Conservatives left puzzled by policy pyramid' (Timesp4) - ‘Wired up but not fired up for IT elex' (Ti p4) - Conservative MPs are warning Cameron that the party's election campaign is too complicated and lacks clear messages says Coates. MPs and candidates were left baffled after being told at a private meeting to campaign on a combination of one slogan, three promises and six pledges. Letwin told MPs to think of a policy pyramid when talking to voters. The top of the pyramid has the slogan: ‘We can't go on like this. Vote for change.' The three promises - to change the economy, society and politics - have been criticised for being too negative. The six promises include to ‘Act now on debt', ‘Get Britain working', and ‘Make Britain the most family-friendly nation in Europe', and were called vague and random by MPs. Senior Tory MPs, including frontbenchers, said that Letwin had ‘over-intellectualised' the main message, which should have been simpler. Two said that they would ‘make it up on the doorstep', while several felt the lack of a specific reduction target for immigration was damaging. Senior figure: ‘Letwin personifies the mad professor ... You could have got colleagues to sit down and come up with something much simpler in a couple of weeks, but instead CCHQ researchers and think-tanks churn out over-complicated ideas.' Shadow ministers have admitted that if there was a Tory victory it would not come with the same enthusiasm that TB enjoyed. Clark: ‘If you considered today's circumstances, you've got an economy which is a major source or worry, people worrying if they will keep their jobs and the expenses scandal dealing a blow to people's confidence in politics and politicians. That combination means that I don't think for any party the same degree of euphoria is available.' - Manifesto commitments, background policy information and regional anti-Labour data will be available to all Tory candidates on a secure application on their BlackBerry or iPhone says Coates. It will accompany, but not replace, the Campaign Guide, which has been produced by the Conservative Research Department before each election since 1950. Several MPs barely hid their dismay when approached by The Times to discuss the new platform. One MP showed how the new software had frozen on his BlackBerry, displaying the message ‘Downloading Campaign Guide' for the past 24 hours. MP: ‘It doesn't bloody work.' Another admitted that he did not have a BlackBerry or iPhone. (Ti)'

.... All quite cheering really and among the reasons why, at a dinner for industry PRs I spoke at last night, so many people seemed to echo the view that the election had gone from being all over a few months ago to wide open now. From thinking not long ago that the Tories had a slick campaign machine headed by a supercommunicator in Cameron, the majority view seemed to be it had descended into something close to a shambles, propped up only by the media's continuing soft approach to matter Tory.

The lack of clarity is a real problem for them, and Oliver Letwin probably the last man you would want explaining message to nervy MPs and candidates. But the problem is of Cameron's making. He has not really had, or if he has he has not seen through, the difficult conversations about what the modern (sic) Tory Party really stands for. So even in their 'pyramid' they have an overflow of conflicting ideas and messages leaving candidates feeling they will have to 'make it up on the doorstep.'

'Vote for Change' is fine for an Opposition Party, indeed blindingly obvious. But it is limited. And unless people have the answer to the question 'change to what?' its limitations are even greater. If the MPs and candidates don't know the answer, and Central Office can't send it to a blackberry without clogging the damn thing up, what chance does the voter have?

* Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Like comments on blogs, sometimes the best 'Letters to the Editor' are the shortest ones, and I quote one such from today's Guardian, from Christopher Bell of Chorleywood, Hertfordshire.

'Thank you for Jonathan Freedland's moving account of Michael Foot's funeral. A shame, then, that the news on BBC1 failed to report the occasion. But then they had to find space for two David Beckham reports, plus coverage of Kate Winslet's separation.'

I had exactly the same thought watching Monday's main bulletin. Beckham's injury, its impact on the World Cup and his remarkable career - I buy that as a proper main bulletin story. Kate Winslet's separation - I'm not so sure.

To be fair to the BBC, and other media outlets, coverage of Michael's death was extensive and a lot kinder than the treatment he got from most when Labour leader. But like Mr Bell, I was surprised that the nation's public service broadcaster did not find a single moment's space to record an event at which a serving Prime Minister and a second former Labour leader spoke eloquently and movingly about their predecessor. Even the right-wing papers, broadsheet and tabloid alike, covered it properly.

In Maya, my novel about fame in the media age, one of my favourite scenes is when her marriage breaks up and the entire story is told through the mouths of journalists on Sky, which drops a planned 'special report on Robert Mugabe's finances' to keep the rolling news of a celebrity marriage break up going.

When I was at Sky to do an interview, one of the producers told me he would love to be able to say my description of the meltdown that occurs when a big celeb story breaks was over the top 'I'm afraid it was pretty much spot on,' he said.

So the worrying thing is less that the BBC bulletin editors did not cover Michael's funeral but that, once the Becks and Kate stories had broken, they probably didn't even consider it.

Ps. Good piece in the FT today on how Cameron is failing to win the support he needs up North, whilst he and his Party have given up on Scotland. As I keep saying to Fiona and our London-born and bred children, the further North you go, the brighter shine the lights inside.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

If I say 'Gordon Brown/Piers Morgan interview' the chances are it will trigger some kind of response, that a memory either of the event or of the coverage will come to mind.

It showed a more human side to GB than is normally on display, and therefore came as something of a surprise to people.

It took place some weeks ago. David Cameron's ITV profile by Sir Trevor McDonald was broadcast less than two days ago, and yet this morning Fiona pointed out she could remember next to nothing about it.

The pre-screening hype focused mainly on DC's wife Samantha, who was perfectly nice and said nice things about him as you would expect. But it is true you'd be hard pressed to say there were memorable moments. True also that despite the build-up, only 1.6 million tuned in, fewer than half the audience for GB/Piers.

I thought Cameron handled himself quite well with people, like the ones at the railway station ribbing him about expenses. But as I reflected on Fiona's observation, I realised the problem was Cameron really does avoid talking about substance. He loves to talk process - 'this is where George sits ... Here is Katie, she does the diary ... I like to run round there ... I like to get home to my own bed at night.' That kind of thing is inevitable in the style of programme this was, but for a full hour's transmission, he should have insisted that he was able to talk at least in part about policy and substance.

I hear he was recently asked at a newspaper editorial board why he wanted to be PM, and he said 'because I think I would be good at it.' It is an answer, in common with the impression of the programme, that suggests politics and his political career are all about him, not the people he hopes will elect him. Say what you like about Gordon Brown, but nobody could claim he is not driven by big issues and big causes.

Cameon looked energetic and lively on the news last night as he addressed a group of young people, but there seemed nonetheless quite a disconnect between him and them, and not just the one who was shouting at him about being 'the new boy.' His immediate response was to shout that 'this is the kind of campaigning you're going to get from me, open meetings, live debate' - in other words, another campaign process point, when he could have engaged on policy in a way to suggest relative inexperience was not the problem the young man felt it to be.

He is perfectly good at the process stuff. But his constant reference to it suggests a real weakness, which I think will become more apparent as the pressure mounts.

GB on Piers worked for GB because it showed a side of Gordon seen all too rarely. I think the problem for DC on Trevor is that it showed a side of him we have already seen too much. Rather than addressing his weakness - lack of substance - it exacerbated it.

* Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

A few months ago I wrote about a fundraiser I did with Jamie Redknapp, Eduardo and Simon Mayo to raise money for the Deloitte Street Child World Cup in South Africa. I return to the subject today because in a few hours' time the tournament kicks off when the host nation takes on India.

To get a flavour of what is going on, go to http://www.streetchildworldcup.org - teams of former street kids from eight countries are competing in their own version of the World Cup, and drawing attention to the problems of some of the most disadvantaged children in the world.

People in the more affluent parts of the world get asked to give to good causes the whole time, and there are plenty of them. But it is always nice to see that money raised is being used properly to deliver an event as promised, and I really hope people who helped us raise the cash that night will follow the tournament through to the Final on Sunday.

Looking at the first film of the event on the website I am really beginning to regret that because of other commitments I was unable to accept the invitation of the organisers to get out there. My son Rory did his own fundraising to get to Durban as a volunteer, helping coach the South African team, and I felt a really warm paternal glow reading his blog on the website last night, especially when he said:

The best part of the experience for me so far has been something that has happened gradually over the few days I've been here in getting to know the South African team. I have been so impressed by their confidence and energy in social situations, both with me and the other teams (even when there is a significant language barrier to overcome). They genuinely do defy any negative stereotypes that many may have of street kids in South Africa. They are bright, funny, courageous and wonderfully outgoing.

The main reason for me volunteering was that I strongly believe in the ability of sport to create positive social change and everything about the attitudes of the South African kids has reaffirmed this belief in me. The whole team has used the focus of this competition to instil great discipline, confidence and belief in themselves. All five of the children I spoke to in detail today are planning to return to education as soon as the competition is over and the whole project along with the amazing work done by Umthombo has given them great ambition and belief. Vincent, 15, is amazingly bright, perceptive and eloquent and told me today he wants to be an engineer and really take his studying seriously when he goes back to school. The way he said it along with his general manner and attitude since I have been here only adds to my confidence that one day he will be able to fulfil his ambition.

Also, when so much attention is focused on the bad side of football and footballers, take a look at the interview with tournament ambassador Gary Mabbutt, the former Spurs and England player. The sincerity of a man putting something back in to a game that gave him so much comes through.

The event is getting enormous coverage in South Africa, while there are film crews from all eight countries making a mix of news and documentaries. I hear Blue Peter are there, and that Gabby Logan will be doing a piece on her Five Live programme today.

The UK team is also in action today and Rory reckons they start as tournament favourites because despite their tough background, they seem to be physically bigger and stronger than the other teams. But if you take a look at the video, you'll see the signs of some good footballers. All I know is I wish I was there, and I wish them luck as the big kick-off nears.

** Buy The Blair Years and raise money for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

I really hope Peter Mandelson is not too downhearted by the news doing the rounds on twitter and elsewhere that I attracted a bigger crowd to my Manchester fundraiser on Saturday night than Peter did on Friday.

If he were, the disappointment must surely be exacerbated by the fact that his event was free, whilst mine required payment by all guests direct to the campaign to get the splendid Lucy Powell elected as a Labour MP.

One of the auction items was a copy of the Minimum Wage Act signed by TB and GB, to which Peter mischeviously added the words 'They didn't do it ... I did.' It allowed me to tell my favourite Peter story, of the time I suggested he show more humility in an interview and he called me afterwards to say 'I thought I did the humility rather well.'

For the second time in a week, however, I was able to doctor his contribution, by adding beneath his 'I did' claim: 'As a student of Machiavelli, Peter should know that it is always wise to have the last word ... Tony did it. AC'

All good harmless fun, and it raised well into four figures. As at Dulwich last week, these delivery documents really do raise good money, as well as remind people of the great things the Labour government has done.

I did a dinner for Lucy a year or so ago. The mood tonight was of a different order. Back then, it was hard to find people who thought she or Labour could win at the next election. That has all changed. Activists who had been out canvassing today said they met plenty of people who were against the government, but plenty who were voting Labour, and precious few who were going to the Tories. Nor are the Lib Dems doing as well as they need to. It was the same story in Sheffield on Friday night.

I hear there is another set of narrowing polls. There are two reasons why they are narrowing. The Tories. And Labour. Them and Us.  People are looking at them more closely, and thinking they do not stack up. They are also  looking at us more closely, and thinking we might not be nearly as bad as painted by the media; that the economy is in safer hands with GB and Alistair Darling then DC and George Osborne, and that the Tory Party talks the talk on change but hasn't actually delivered it.

And one of the most applauded parts of my speech was the section devoted to saying how terrific Peter is at saying it when he is out in Tory-bashing, Ashcroft-bashing, Labour-defending, Labour-promoting form.

** Buy The Blair Years online to raise money for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

It was inevitable that the sight of three Labour MPs and a Tory peer walking into court would dominate the news agenda yesterday. Of course it was a real story, but of far greater lasting significance to Britain's future was the announcement of the plans for a high-speed rail network.

Meet virtually anyone in the transport sector, and they will tell you that Andrew Adonis has been a terrific transport secretary, and his enthusiasm for this project for very sound economic and environmental reasons has been one of its principal drivers.

We are way behind the likes of France and Japan with regards to rail, but anyone who ever sits in traffic on the M1, and watches the trains (even at today's pace) whizzing by, must surely realise rail is the future, rather than building more and more motorway capacity.

Eurostar, for all the difficulties of a few months ago, has been a fantastic example of how a good service can transform people's perceptions and behaviour. I would no more think of driving or flying to Paris or Brussels now than I would think of voting Tory.

Talking of which, I understand Andrew and Tory transport spokeswoman Theresa Villiers recently did a debate together in front of an audience which was asked to give their views on the two parties' policies before the debate, and after. By the time the arguments had been heard, a Tory lead had changed to a big Labour lead. Andrew may not be the most classically telegenic politician, and alas he is in the Lords not the Commons. But he really knows his stuff whereas it seems Theresa Villiers did not, and resorted to platitudes and attack lines.

Across the policy board, Labour has nothing to fear from such debates and ministers should be challenging their oppos to them left, right and centre, and encouraging the broadcasters to cover as many as they can fit in.

Due to a scheduling balls-up, I was last night at a Labour fundraiser in Greenwhich when I would rather have been at Burnley's re-arranged home match against Stoke.

Of the fundraiser, more later, but it meant for one night only I was like Bob and Terry from that brilliant episode of The Likely Lads, when they were trying to avoid knowing the result of a match because the highlights were on telly later. Ours was the only Premier League match on last night so we were guaranteed to be the main game for once on Sky's half ten football special.

It is harder to avoid results in the modern age with mobile phones, blackberries and omnipresent TV sets. I turned off all my contraptions to avoid the 'what a goal' 'oh no' 'here we go again' 'never a penalty' type texts that are part of the modern football experience. 

Someone came to the fundraiser with a shiny new iphone telling me they could get me minute by minute updates as I spoke. I had to begin my speech with a genuine plea not to tell me any news from Turf Moor, should it filter through. My son, at the match, was similarly under silence instructions. The only tricky moment was at a pub by a set of traffic lights on the way home, when I could see our manager Brian Laws being interviewed on Sky Sports News. I looked away quickly in case smile or grimace gave the game away.

Anyway, I made it, and was home just in time to see the kick-off followed by a one all draw.

As for the fundraiser, as with other recent such events, definitely a change of mood to report, with a sense of hope that people are turning against the Tories and starting to look more favourably on Labour.

Two interesting points from the floor during the q and a. One, which I echoed whole-heartedly, that we need to talk up the record more as a way of pushing back on the negativity in the media and showing how politics has delivered real change. Local MP Nick Raynsford pointed out that even after all the problems of the global economic crisis, unemployment in his area was 40 per cent down on 1997.

Going on about the record is not about getting pats on the back. It is the means by which you make real the prospect that changes planned for the future can and will happen. 

The second point concerned the economy, and the insight that campaigning in times of economic difficulty is not as straightforward as campaigning in times of economic strength. The issue then becomes which party can best be trusted to secure the recovery. One  speaker from the floor rightly said that he would like to see and hear more from the many economists who reject the Tories' plans to choke the investment going in to help secure that recovery.

Again, the record is important here - ours and the Tories. I think one of the reasons the polls are narrowing is that GB and Alistair Darling are getting some of the respect they deserve for their handling of the economic crisis when it erupted. The Tories would have let things take their course, with potentially catastrophic consequences, because their instinct is always to see government as the problem not the solution. We cannot let them forget they made the wrong calls then, because it indicates to the public they would make the wrong calls now. With the date for the Budget now set, Alistair Darling's calm and ability to tell it as it is will come in handy up against George Osborne. 

*** Buy The Blair Years here and raise money for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

I must say that David Cameron is coming along rather well as a comic character. Take a look at this from page 2 of today's Financial Times ...  'Mr Cameron sought yesterday to attempt a return to business as usual by announcing a voter-friendly policy to ensure greater transparency in local government. Any council worker earning £58000 or more would see their pay details published under a Tory government, he promised.'

Do you get it? Lord Ashcroft can buy a whacking great chunk of his party, pay for a whacking great chunk of the campaign to make him PM, and he will not ask questions or give answers, and when the public demands to know more, he will stamp his little feet and say it is none of your damned business and the matter is jolly well closed. But if you're on just over a grand a week, we'll slap you all over the internet.

Put to one side the piddlingological nature of it, reflected in the fact that most media outlets ignored this shiny new policy, and the FT included it inside a story headlined 'Embattled Cameron fails to draw line under Ashcroft affair.'

The real point is that he and his jittery advisers cannot see the irony.  And that is because for all his talk of detoxing the Tory brand, a line swallowed so easily by most of the media for most of his leadership, Cameron has not fundamentally changed his party at all.

Which is why Tory candidates and activists have been flocking to get media and political training from the Young Britons' Foundation, a group which echoes the view of the Tory Right that the NHS is a waste of money, global warming is a scam, and we should liberalise our gun laws, not least so that environmental trespassers can be shot. 

These are views so extreme you'd think a detoxing brand manager like DC would want to distance his party. But this week party chairman Eric Pickles and defence spokesman Liam Fox spoke at the YBF parliamentary rally at the Houses of Parliament. It doesn't mean they endorse all their views. But it does show where many Tory hearts lie, and that their Right wing continues to hold considerable sway.

It has been a bad week for Cameron. The good news for Labour is he seems unable to see how to get back in the groove. Could that be because politics is about the things he doesn't do well, policy and strategy, and not the things he does do well, which are all in the short term communications department?

** Buy The Blair Years online and raise money to help fight the Tories http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

PS ... lovely sunny day in North London. Will be nice to be able to walk to a match for once, rather than spend four hours in a car. Arsenal away. I'd like to say I have good vibes. However ...  

Of course one of the problems with a blog is that people read it, and can use it to try to embarrass you.

So there I was, at a Labour fundraiser in Dulwich last night, and local MP Tessa Jowell introduced me by reading my blog of Wednesday in which I admitted I sometimes found these events a chore.

Quite clever reverse psychology really because it meant I suddenly felt extra pressure to look like I was enjoying it, and to put more into the speech, the q and a and then - bane of the life of a Labour after dinner guest speaker - the auction. To remind you, the reason I was writing about the chore of some was because of the special enjoyment of the one I did in Thurrock with Elvis aka Mark Wright on Tuesday.

But Tessa can be assured last night's was also in the 'better than most' category. And the reason was not Elvis, alas absent, but the combination of the changed political mood (a trend developing here) a passionate question from the floor about 'why didn't we do more to talk up the record?' and, psychologically related to that, the fact that the top earners in the auction were signed pieces of legislation, with four figures top price going to a framed copy of the Minimum Wage Act, signed by TB, JP and the current Cabinet. Good money too for the Belfast Agreement signed by TB and the Olympic Act 2006, which paved the way for London 2012, signed by TB, GB and Tessa.

Three great achievements of a Labour government being used to raise the money needed to fight Ashcroft's millions and ensure further great achievements in the future.

There was definitely the feeling not only that some voters were coming back to Labour, but signs of activism were growing too.

With the Tories spending millions on a fairly traditional campaign - posters, emphasis on media management, direct mail in marginals (very New Labour '97) - Labour need to rely far more on face to face campaigning, social networking, liberating and empowering activists to run their own campaigns. Four times as many people say they are influenced by friends and family in their choices as by advertising.

I emphasised that it was still going to be an incredibly tough fight to win a fourth term, and that the Tories still had a lot stacked in their favour.

However ... was it Theodore Roosevelt who said 'believe you can, and you're half way there' ?A few months back, it was not that easy to detect the belief that we could. Last night, it was there in plenty. The 'half way there' moment, at a time the Tories suddenly feel they are moving backwards not forward.

Ps, We also raised a few hundred quid from a copy of Machiavelli's 'The Prince,' in which Peter M signed himself as 'the REAL' Prince. But how silly of Peter, so not Machiavellian at all, to sign a book that I was auctionining. Suffice to say I had the last word.

** whilst on books, buy The Blair Years here and raise money to help the Labour campaign http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday Lord Ashcroft, happy birthday to you.

Yes, the Great Man of Mystery celebrates his 64th birthday today. But three problems may be casting a cloud over the cake-cutting. First, he is being talked about in the media, which he seems not to like. Second, despite David Cameron's best efforts to say 'the matter is closed,' it most certainly is not. And third, what on earth will Dave, George, William et al get for the GMM as a present ... I mean what do you give to a man who has everything, including a fair chunk of his own political party?

What they could all do with is some half-decent political judgement. One of the reasons we had a reasonably smooth election campaign in 1997 (admittedly with a lot of paddling beneath the surface) was that in the years leading up to it, not just TB, but JP, GB, Peter Mandelson and I were determined that come the campaign, we had to have an answer to all the difficult questions that might boil up during the final weeks. Melon-sized brains like those belonging to Derry Irvine and Charlie Falconer were employed with the specific task of pinning us down on the loose ends and the difficult questions that arose as those ends were unpicked.

Cameron needs some Melons!

As my diaries record, there were some pretty bruising debates and exchanges along the way as we sought to resolve difficult political, policy and personnel issues. But it was far better to have that than to risk sudden explosions to our disadvantage during the campaign, as had happened for example in the 1987 and1992 campaigns when unanswered tax and spending tensions flared open under Tory pressure.

The Tories' handling of the Ashcroft issue strikes me as the worst kind of political management - 'turn the other way and hopefully it will go away' . 

Watching interviews with Cameron, Hague, Osborne and many other senior Tories in recent months, I have constantly been thinking - why have they not dealt with this? Why can't they see it is going to become a problem for them, and that the size of the problem will grow as they prevaricate? Then it became fairly clear that either they had asked the right questions, but because they didn't like the answers they decided to go into heads down, 'let's not talk about it 'mode, or they had not asked the right questions at all, out of some fear of Ashcroft and his financial muscle, which is so important to their campaign.

Whichever it is, it has made Ashcroft an issue of Cameron's judgement and Hague's judgement, as well as an issue of their arrogance in thinking this would not become the problem it is becoming.

It will reinforce doubts people have about whether they have what it takes to be effective at the top of government. As I look at David Miliband as Foreign Secretary, at least I have no doubt of his competence and his ability to ask the right questions and keep asking until he gets the answers. I now look at William Hague and think that for all his Northern wit and charm, the poor judgement that put paid to his leadership of his Party has not improved with time, even if his image has. His credibility could take a battering on this. He could also find himself disabled within the campaign itself, meaning more reliance on Cameron and Osborne.

Which might make it Happy Birthday Labour.

** Buy The Blair Years online and raise a few quid to help fight the Ashcroft millions http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

The tributes will focus on Michael Foot the politician, the minister, the leader, the wonderful orator.

They will highlight too his journalism and his writing, and the great causes he supported.

I hope that what also comes through is what a lovely man he was, right to the end of a life so well lived.

The sadness I feel at his death is exacerbated by the fact I was away when Fiona went with Neil Kinnock to see him recently. She  came away sensing he did not have that long to live.

But at least he was still in his own home, the one he shared for so long with his wife Jill Craigie, and still surrounded by his books and his memories.

His friends had worried that he would not really be able to cope after Jill died. They were close, and mutually dependent. She was always the one I thought would live forever. But somehow he was able to continue to pursue his interests and his passions.

He was a very old friend of Fiona's parents, Bob and Audrey Millar, but she and I really got to know him best after he had stopped being Labour leader.

He and Jill invited us over to dinner at their home on the edge of Hampstead Heath regularly, often with the Kinnocks and Salman Rushdie. The author found in the Foots a passionate supporter when 'Satanic Verses' made him the target of such hatred that he required round the clock protection. Michael's home was one of his sanctuaries. Michael was an engaging companion because nothing passed him by, he was well read, on top of every detail of every major debate, full of strong views but also an understanding of the views of others.

On the Old-New Labour-ometer, fair to say that Michael might be placed closer to the old than the new. But he was a phenomenal support. He took as much pride in the three election wins under Tony Blair as anyone and was delighted to celebrate his 90th birthday in 2003 at a party in Downing Street garden surrounded by family and friends from across the political spectrum. And whenever we were under the cosh, Michael would always be on with a word of support, advice or encouragement.

The last time he came to our house for lunch, he was barely able to walk. Yet he sat and gave his views on all the big issues of the day, illustrated by colourful tales of the past. 'Was there really as much division in the Wilson Cabinets as the books suggest?' I asked him. 'Oh far more,' he said.

Whenever we spoke, there were always three regulars in the conversation. First, his determination that we should go to one final Plymouth-Burnley game. Second, if I had a pound for every time he thanked me for helping him get a large cheque from a newspaper which suggested he had been a Russian spy, I'd be a lot wealthier. 'Welcome to the kitchen,' he used to say. 'You helped pay for it.'

Third, and most importantly, his desire that Labour should win another General Election. He did not agree with everything the Labour government did. But he delighted in so much of the change made under first Tony and now Gordon, two men of whom I never heard him say a bad word, even when disagreeing with some of their actions. And to the end, the very end, he would argue with anyone who cared to engage that in the choice between Tory and Labour about who should run Britain, there wasn't really a choice at all.

Even as his health failed, his eyesight virtually gone, his legs weak, he was still able to engage in debate. Last summer Fiona got in touch with him to ask if he would have some time for a 16 year old pupil from a local school. He wanted to discuss George Orwell with Michael for an essay he was writing. Michael invited them both to tea and spent over an hour with the boy in his garden, reminiscing about Orwell and the rise of fascism. When they left he gave the young man one of his precious books. It was typical of Michael, his mind and memory as sharp as ever, gracious and decent to the end.

A confession ... I sometimes find speaking at Labour Party fundraisers a real chore. There, I've said it. Most are fine, some are terrific, but sometimes you're just not in the mood, there is no energy and organisation when you get there and despite doing your best, you sometimes leave a bit deflated. The people at the many events I have done will just have to decide for themselves whether their event was one of those that made me feel like that.

But last night I did one which I left with a spring in my step and a song in my heart. It was at the Thameside theatre in Grays, Essex ('give us a mention love,' one of the lovely women working there said as I left, so there you go.)

The spring in the step was because of the mood among the party supporters who had turned out, and the song because I had shared the bill with something every campaign needs - a Labour-supporting Elvis Presley impersonator.

'The King of Rock meet the King of Spin' had evolved as an idea born on Facebook where Elvis (aka Mark Wright, regular commenter on this blog), Val Morris (wife of the Labour candidate in Thurrock Carl Morris) and I are friends. Elvis not only had the songs and the moves, but he had four wonderful Vegas showgirls too. I felt like a World Title heavyweight boxer being marched into the ring as they escorted me on stage to thumping music. I hope someone took some pictures.

But it was more than the showgirls' high kicks or Mark's superb impersonations of one of the greatest singers of all time that made for a happy night. People who are out campaigning really do feel something is shifting out there. At one point in the q and a, when at times I felt the questions were more rooted in 'when' we win than 'if,' I had to say ... hold on, this is going to be the fight of all fights, and let's not kid ourselves that a few narrowing polls means people can sit back and relax. Far from it.

But it was good to feel that energy and excitement coming back into Labour politics. Someone asked why I thought it was happening. I said I felt there were two reasons, one about us, one about the Tories. The economy was beginning to pick up a little and I think there was a kind of grudging respect for Gordon and Alistair Darling's handling of what was a quite extraordinary crisis. But I felt the other reason, as I have been saying here for ages, was that the public were ahead of the media in asking tough questions of the Tories, who were found wanting.

David Cameron is not going down as well as he did earlier in his leadership. George Osborne has never gone down terribly well with people outside of his own elitist circles. William Hague goes down better than he did when leader, but I suspect he is going to be severely disabled by his connections to the Ashcroft saga. Ken Clarke is quite popular but pretty much invisible. And the rest are largely unknown, as are their plans and policies for the country.

There was also a feeling, expressed to me by a Labour member at the book-signing I did afterwards (we raised several hundred pounds for the party by selling The Blair Years as at http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php ) that people feel GB has been tested, and a lot of the coverage about him way over the top, whereas DC has not really been tested at all. That testing is now under way.

There was a lot of interest in the leaders' TV debates, for which the ground rules have finally been agreed. I said the media expectation seems to be that Cameron will 'win'. That is because he is considered to be a good media performer. But these debates will require substance in greater abundance than style, which is why they may in fact suit GB. They are also a huge bonus for Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg. But the debates are another reason to be excited about the weeks ahead.

Perhaps it was the magic of Elvis that got me going, but I made a prediction that turnout will be considerably up on last time ... partly because people think it will be close, partly because of the debates hopefully engaging more people.

Four per cent of people think Elvis is alive. Last night, via Mark Wright, he was. And close to 100 per cent left the theatre thinking Labour was back in with a chance.

I find myself once again in the position of having to rebut the accusations of my partner. No, this is not some kind of John Terry/Wayne Bridge drama about to unfold before your eyes, but a response to the sheeer volume of items on twitter re my domestic uselessness.

Not satisfied with revealing said DU in her book about working wimmin, Fiona has now gone and done a piece for the Radio Times on the same theme, reciting old stories about me refusing to mow lawns and not knowing how to cook - all true - amid a 'new one' about my deliberate breaking of a Hoover so that she never again asked me to clean.

I know memory plays tricks on people, and this Hoovergate incident took place almost 30 years ago. But I did NOT repeat NOT break the Hoover deliberately, as claimed by her. It genuinely broke down all on its own, on the one occasion when I was using it. There, that is my defence. The fact that she decided to see it as a deliberate act, one which made her decide never to ask me to clean again, is just a small bonus for me, which has served me well for 30 non-dusting, non-Hoovering years.

I am not proud of my DU, and I confess to feeling I may have set a bad example to our sons in particular. But the fact that our daughter seems more naturally disposed to helping Fiona around the house suggests, does it not, a genetic divide overlooked in her otherwise excellent book. (And before the angry comments come in ... tongue is moderately in cheek here)

I have just had a meeting in the Wolseley in central London and was made aware of my domestic failings by, variously, readers of The Guardian, The Telegraph and a few online junkies, so I decided the rebuttal had to be instant. I'm now off to meet Nancy for a cup of tea. What do you mean which Nancy? There is only one Nancy. And like so many other people, she is telling me the mood has changed and Labour can win a fourth term. Plenty said the same at The Wolseley.

'Not been so excited in years,' one guy said to me. I said if we won I would be so happy I would Hoover the whole house, and make sure I didn't break the damned thing.

** Looking forward to performing with Elvis at Thameside Theatre in Grays tonight. Elvis impersonators for Labour ... the mood is good.

*** Buy The Blair Years here and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.  

Sketchwriter Matthew Engel gets all the big gigs. He was the one who outed me as a Britney fan when I felt a tap on my shoulder as she shimmied on stage at Wembley, and Mr Engel was there, to say he was 'doing a piece on Britney crowds' and would I like to say what I was doing at one of her concerts? I did wonder myself sometimes, especially once the miming got into full swing.

Yesterday Mr Engel, then of The Guardian, now of the FT, had another performance to cover, and this time the performer was allowing real noise to come from his mouth.

But whilst Britney left thousands of (mainly) young fans screaming in delight, the headline on Mr Engel's account of David Cameron's performance at his spring conference suggests it was not A List stuff: 'Party trick falls flat amid subdued faithful.'

I wasn't there, having spent the morning travelling back from Burnley, Saturday's sad defeat followed by a happy testimonial dinner for Jimmy McIlroy, and the afternoon at the Carling Cup Final watching Fergie win again, having earlier heard Mr Cameron say he was supporting Aston Villa.

But the key point in Mr Engel's piece seems to this. '"I've got to do a speech without any notes," he [Cameron] said. Got to? This was not a novelty act. If he had spent less intellectual energy on memorising the speech, he might have remembered to say something fresh and inspiring. Oh, it was well crafted, and well delivered too. He just didn't have anything to say. And the whole occasion was strangely subdued.'

Subdued, I imagine, because of the shrinking poll lead. Having read a transcript of the speech this morning, I think Mr Cameron was trying to answer the doubts about him that are being raised in focus groups. The main one, raised again and again, is whether he has substance, whether he is more than the super-salesman he sees himself as.

His weakness in the speech seemed to be that he was merely raising the questions people had, rather than giving clear answers to them.

He says he is not complacent and told his Party that he always expected this to be a close fight. I'm not so sure about that. I remember seeing George Osborne shortly after GB took over from TB and my strong sense was of a man who thought with Gordon at the helm, it was game over for the Tories. But they have banked too much on media hostility to Labour, and not enough on the public's ability to care less about what is occupying the Westminster village, and more about decisions that affect their lives.

They are also prepared to recognise GB's workrate and resilience, qualities required of modern leaders. Nobody can say Gordon has not been tested. They want to see Cameron tested too, which is why there is considerable irritation out there at the generally one-sided anti-Labour tone of the media debate. There is also a big opening for Labour in Cameron saying he wants a greater focus on the Labour record, which he intends to 'take apart piece by piece.'

I have been saying for a long time that the three planks of any campaign are record, forward agenda and attacks on opponents. Labour have struggled to get over the scope and scale of the record, and Cameron's intervention provides an opportunity to do so which should be seized.

Cameron does have energy, and the high profile morning runs are designed to underline that. But the big question is not 'can he run down the beach?' but can he run the country, and does he have the clear vision to take Britain in a new direction, and the policies that will make that happen?

The energy question was confirmed in the affirmative yesterday. The bigger questions were not, and therein lies the problem which, according to the FT's main report above the sketch, cast a 'pall' over the conference.

When Britney sang, we knew what to expect, and if we were so minded we could sing along.

When Cameron speaks, some of the individual notes sound fine, but he has yet to write a complete song, and the minute the performance was over, I suspect even the party faithful didn't really know what to hum as they left the hall. 

*** With the game most definitely on, raise money for Labour by buying individually signed copies of The Blair Years at http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

With the Tories doing enough damage on their own, and the polls continuing to narrow as they happily  ignore all the free advice I give them here, I thought I'd do a rare blog free of Tory bashing.

Instead a return to two of my favourite themes - the UK media's refusal to accept that good news can be news at all, and the great success story I have always believed London 2012 will be.

Consider this - if a report by the National Audit Office had said last week that preparations for the London Olympics were behind schedule and costing way more than planned, do you think you might have heard about it?

So why, when the NAO issued a report saying the preparations were on schedule and on budget, is this deemed worthy of no coverage whatsoever?

Well, I say none with apologies to the FT editor who decided it was worth one paragraph highlighting what the report said about future challenges of co-ordination, and the BBC London team who gave it what it called a 'wipe' - one sentence.

The media are constantly in hand-wringing mode as to why they are in such a mess. The belief that 'good news is no news' is one of the reasons.

It comes to something when I can write this a few days after the event and virtually claim what papers are fond of calling a 'world exclusive' in setting out some of the report's findings.

We can start with the opening line of the NAO's ignored press release.

'Venues and infrastructure for 2012 are on track to be delivered on time for the Games and the cost is currently forecast to be within budget, according to a  progress report to Parliament by the National Audit Office'.

It is worth pointing out that this report comes not from government or London 2012 but Parliament's independent watchdog. To get this sort of endorsement is the holy grail for a project like this.

Now think back to the huge media cynicism, first that we would never beat Paris for the Games and, when we won, that we couldn't deliver a project on this scale.

An Olympic Games obviously presents the ultimate fixed deadline. Worth remembering too that the completion dates are not summer 2012 but in the most part summer 2011 so our athletes can get a chance to use the facilities in advance and the organisers can hold test events - so on time means in reality a year early.

As the Winter Olympics close this weekend, there are now fewer than 1000 days to go. When I was asked on the radio the other day for my favourite view in London, I said currently it was the sight of the Olympic stadium rising up.

The Games present the biggest construction project in Europe - at a cost of £8bn with 10,000 people working at Stratford and thousands more in companies up and down the country. It represents a remarkable logistical challenge to manage multiple contractors on one very constrained site in East London. It is  changing the nature of the construction industry by setting new standards for sustainability which are attracting global interest. And it is being done with an exemplary health and safety record.

I am an unashamed cheerleader for a Games whose legacy will not just  be a regenerated East London and a great sports legacy but UK plc winning billions of pounds of contracts abroad on the back of this success at home.

It is also turning into a proud symbol of the best of Britain  - multiculturalism, innovation, optimism, volunteering.

If only we had a media that could see it this would be an even better country than it already is.

Ps. Oh ok, just a bit of Tory-bashing. Well not bashing so much as strategic reflection. It comes to you in the form of the email I sent to Kate Silverton's Five Live programme when she asked for questions for David Cameron.

I asked 'does he recall a conversation we had at Matthew Freud's party two years ago? He was well ahead in the polls. I said unless he came up with a thought through policy programme which showed real change in his party his lead was unsustainable even if Labour became less popular. He said he was far from complacent but he believed he was doing what we did under TB - presenting well, building media support and keeping powder dry. I pointed out TB led a fundamental overhaul of the party - strategy, policy, constitution. He needed a similar scale of change.... He hasn't done it and despite a benign environment he is now paying a political price.'

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise money for Labour (a political price worth paying) http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Every so often someone sends you one of those 'you must see this' video clips which you're really glad you didn't immediately consign to the electronic dustbin.  One such arrived in my inbox yesterday, and though eight minutes is a long time to be taking a punt on someone's assumptions about how I like to spend my time, this was worth every second.

I tried it on my daughter, who is studying the Second World War at the moment for a school play she is involved in, and she too was blown away by it. I have added it below so that visitors here can see if they share our enthusiasm, and that of the person who sent it to.

I must admit, I never imagined I would be blogging on the winner of 'Ukraine's Got Talent' but it really is a fabulous piece of live art. It shows a young woman, Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures with her fingers on an illuminated sand table. Bear with me.

It is mesmerising. She 'paints' pictures that tell the story of how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II.The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about £75,000. I have to say I would put her ahead of any act I ever saw on the British or American 'Got Talent' versions.

She begins with a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is replaced by a woman's face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman's face appears. 
She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier. This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house. In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside as a man stands outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye. The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine , resulted in an estimated one in four of the population being killed.

Kseniya Simonova says: "I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me.' No it's not. She is brilliant. You will see panellists and audience members reduced to tears as she paints these different scenes. I hope you appreciate it as much as I did, and enjoy the fact that I've got through a whole blog without mentioning that the Tories don't have a thought through policy programme for Britain. Oh damn, it just sneaked in at the end.

Enjoy the winner of Ukraine's Got Talent. She really has.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise money for Labour (Labour's got talent too) http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

In a piece for The Times earlier this week, about how social networking was changing the way many people consume media and interact with the political debate, I referred to the TV debates between the party leaders, which will be a genuinely new development in the forthcoming campaign.

I said the relative spending power of the parties, so far as the debates were concerned, would be irrelevant. So would the millions of words of hype. All that mattered was the performance of the leaders and the reactions of the public watching live, then talking to each other.

If I may add a few more words to the hype, I would like to draw attention to the Telegraph's coverage of its own poll today.

The state of the parties standing confirms the recent narrowing of the gap between the Tories and Labour. But it is a reference to the TV debates that interests me. I quote here not from the paper itself but from Labour's media monitoring department's account of it in their report on the morning papers. 'Despite an advertising blitz, an attempted Labour coup to remove the PM & the desperate state of the economy Labour has managed to close the gap. Conservative strategists hope that the turmoil created by allegations of bullying against GB coupled with Darling's unexpectedly forthright attack on the PM will have a beneficial impact in the polls over the coming days. The poll, which was conducted this week, suggests that there was no immediate effect from the bullying accusations. Cameron will also take comfort from the news that 60% of voters believe the television election debates will play an important part in helping them decide which way to vote. The Conservative leader is widely expected to perform the best in the first ever British general election debates. 53% think Cameron will gain most public support as a result of the three live broadcasts, compared to 20% for GB & 12% Clegg.'

I highlight the words 'Cameron will also take comfort' to underline the widespread media expectation, underlined by the figures in the poll, that the Tory leader will outperform GB in these debates, which today's survey, rightly I think, suggests will be an important factor in determining the final election outcome.

I suppose it gives us some inkling of the volume of hype the debates will generate that pollsters are asking for views on who will win this far off.

But the 'Cameron sure to win' mindset could turn out to be a problem for him. It is generally acknowledged that he is a better communicator than many of his predecessors, like Iain Duncan-Smith and Michael Howard. That would not be hard. It is also widely acknowledged - not least by GB - that the Prime Minister is not totally at ease with all the realities of operating in topflight politics in the media age.

But these debates will be more than a sparring of soundbites. They will require substance, policy detail, and real arguments about the future direction of the country. And that combination may well play to GB's strengths rather than DC's. The events are also a huge bonus for Nick Clegg, who remains little known outside those who follow closely the ins and outs of the political debate.

So far from taking comfort from the expectations on the debates, I think Team Dave should worry about them. One of the reasons the poll gap has narrowed is that people are beginning to think there is not much substance to the Tory leader, and not much depth to his team. A polished performance, from a pure communications perspective, will not on its own help him in the debates. Indeed it could exacerbate the sense that PR is all he really cares about, and that he lacks the sense of mission for the country that a would-be PM must have.

Elsewhere in the polling jungle today, a survey of Tory members shows them urging a rightward lurch focusing on immigration, as the hopeless Howard campaign did last time. This survey too is good news for Labour. It shows up another of the reasons why Cameron has stalled - he talks a lot about how the Party has changed, but scratch beneath the surface a little, and it's pretty much the same old Tory Party.

And more cheering survey fare from The Times which reports on a poll of 100 Tory candidates in winnable seats who named Mrs Thatcher as the runaway first choice as political hero, ahead of Sir Winston Churchill. William Wilberforce and Benjamin Disraeli. Thatcher's world view is also evident when likely new MPs are asked about the European Union. Two candidates nominated Cameron as their political hero, whilst five named William Hague, including one whose admiration did not extend to knowing how to spell his name.

All in all, rather a cheering media monitoring report this morning. And in the FT, the one actual paper I've read, nice to see the word 'wibbly-wobbliness' entering the language, from the lips of Peter Mandelson, on the subject of Mr Cameron.

A call from the lady who might be termed my common law mother-in-law this morning, Audrey, who is aware of my aversion to listening to the news in the morning, and therefore acts as an occasional voluntary media monitoring service.

She often calls to tell me what people have said about me, always delighting in delivering mild expletives about critics, and warm words of support for supporters. She is as tribal as they come.

There were two stories she thought I might find interesting this morning, both of which she had heard on LBC. The first concerned David Cameron, who wants to be Prime Minister. The second concerned Clarke Carlisle, who wants Burnley to beat Portsmouth on Saturday, because he is our centre back.

He was in the news however, for something very different, namely his triumph yesterday when he fulfilled a lifelong ambition by being a contestant on Countdown.

Audrey is not yet on Twitter - give it time - so was unaware that I had tweeted about Clarke's win yesterday. Then having seen the volume of traffic on Twitter about him, and all the texts I got, I thought I should take a look to see if he was as good as everyone was saying. He was. Not just good with the numbers and even better with the words, but polite and charming, and everything Premier League footballers are reckoned not to be.

When I was on Alan Titchmarsh's programme recently, amid the John Terry/Ashley Cole fandangoes, I tried to mount a defence of footballers, saying that they were not all bad and the majority were actually decent characters who just happened to be good at football during the era it became a global multi-billion dollar sport.

The 'thick footballer' image is fairly well out there. But Clarke has gone a fair way to correcting it. I texted him last night to say that 'Burnley player wins Countdown' was running as the seventh most viewed story on the BBC website, ahead of the Westminster bubble's latest mini frenzy about GB and Alistair Darling. As was obvious on the programme yesterday, he was a proud and happy man. Equally happy will be Channel 4 who will doubtless have a boost in ratings as Clarke defends his title today.

As for the Cameron story which tickled Audrey's fancy, it was the revelation that he was a bit of a dunce when he was at Heatherdown prep school in his pre-Eton days. Bottom in Latin and Maths. Second bottom in Geography and French. Worst overall performer in his class by the year-end.

The poor Maths performance obviously explains why he and George cannot come up with an economic policy that withstands more than two minutes scrutiny. His woeful record on Geography and French is perhaps the reason why he has devised a policy on Europe that would take us to the exit door of the European Union. And bottom in Latin? ... no wonder he is so jealous of Boris.

Anyway, Audrey thought I would be tickled by the thought that Burnley players are cleverer than the man who would be PM. I kind of knew it of Clarke anyway, but it is good to have it confirmed.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise money for Labour (yesterday's Electoral Commission report underlined once more the uphill battle against the Tories' spending power) http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

When The Guardian reported last year on the scale of alleged phone-hacking by the News of the World under then editor Andy Coulson, there was considerable broadcast media coverage, but within 24 hours, it all went fairly quiet. A print media normally keen to fuel any high octane frenzy (recent events concerning the so-called bullying row give a good example of that) decided this one was not really for them.

That may well be because, just as it was always doubtful that the News of the World's jailed Royal reporter Clive Goodman was alone at the paper in knowing what was going on, so it is doubtful that News International was alone among newspaper groups in hiring private detectives licensed, in the eyes of the press at least, to break the law.

The latest Parliamentary report into the issue confirms suspicions that the phone-hacking practice was more widespread than has been admitted, that knowledge of it went beyond one reporter and one private detective, and that News International have gone to considerable lengths, and cost, to ensure the full story is not exposed to the kind of public gaze they expect for other parts of our national life.

Phrases like ‘collective amnesia ... deliberate obfuscation ... conceal the truth ...'  suggestions that the real scale of the scandal ‘will never be known' because the silence of key players was ‘effectively bought,' the view that it is ‘inconceivable' that Mr Goodman was the  lone ‘rogue reporter' claimed by News, the criticisms of the lack of rigorous inquiry, not just by News but also by the police and the Press Complaints Commission, combine to make the Culture Committee report about as scathing as they come, with serious questions not just for Rupert Murdoch's executives, but also for the police and the PCC.

But it is Mr Coulson's role that takes this more directly to the political and electoral arena. He was editor of the News of the World back then, but is communications director for David Cameron now.

Just as Mr Cameron commands considerable press support, so does Mr Coulson, which is why even though the media has recently been dominated by the issue of bullying, there has been scant reference to his role in the record payout for a bullying case, which also happened on his watch and where he was more directly implicated. It is evidence of Mr Cameron's confidence that the media is basically on his side that he could intervene in the ‘bullying' debate without any sense of embarrassment that the man writing his scripts was accused by a tribunal of presiding over a culture of bullying which led one former employee of his to be awarded £800,000. When a woman from a helpline makes vague and changing claims of bullying inside Number 10, Mr Cameron calls for an inquiry. Mr Coulson's bullying, by contrast, he sees as being acceptable enough for him to be his right-hand man.

But despite the blackout on his role in much of the press, it may be that Mr Coulson may yet become a bigger issue than he and much of the media would like. Because his centrality in Mr Cameron's bid to become Prime Minister is an issue of the Tory leader's judgement and modus operandi as much as it is an issue of what Mr Coulson did as a newspaper editor.

The Tories are currently struggling to work out why the polls have narrowed. It strikes me as being fairly obvious. For a considerable proportion of Mr Cameron's leadership, he has escaped serious scrutiny. He continues in many parts of the media to do so. But the public want more from a would be Prime Minister than to be told that it is time for a change and to be told by newspapers that they should vote for him. So they are looking more closely, and they are not as impressed as the papers by what they see. They are ahead of the press in asking tough questions of Mr Cameron, and in seeing through the thin and ever changing policy platform.

I know that Mr Cameron thinks that the Ashcroft funding issue is not being talked about in the pubs and factories, and so is unlikely to damage his campaign. He will probably think the same about Mr Coulson.

But these are exactly the kind of issues that can explode, a bit like the bullying row did, during a campaign, particularly if, as is the case with the Tories, a Party does not have a clear, consistent and thought through policy agenda to promote. 

When The Guardian last reported on these issues, the Tories were well ahead in the polls, and within a day the sense out there was that nobody much cared. I reckon they'll care a bit more now. The election is nearer, the economy is improving a little, the polls are closer and the mood inside Tory HQ is not as cheery as it ought to be for a Party that until recently thought it was home and dry.

* An edited version of this appears in today's Guardian

*** buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour. http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

I thought David Steel was rather good on Newsnight last night. I was half asleep, if woken by the shouting match between JP and Andrew Rawnsley, but Steel's main point seemed to be a lament that this is the kind of thing that now dominates political debate.

There is always a danger, once you hit the back nine of life, as I did a few years ago, of old fartism setting in, sufficient to make you imagine things were different and better 'back in my day.'

But, thinking back to the time I was a journalist covering Steel as leader of the Liberal Party, and his fellow panellist Roy Hattersley as deputy leader of the Labour Party, I don't think my memory is playing tricks in recalling that debates really were much more about policy.

Yes, it is true that his predecessor Jeremy Thorpe's career and legacy were destroyed by a sex scandal, and that personality issues between Steel and David Owen were the source of considerable strain and media comment, culminating in the Spitting Image depiction of Steel as a puppet inside Owen's pocket.  It is also true that 'tabloid tales' were always there or thereabouts, though the difference is that the divisions between tabloids, broadsheets and broadcast media as to what constitutes a 'story' are pretty much gone now.True too that with the Cold War forming the geopolitical backdrop to politics in most democracies, the differences between the parties back then were perhaps greater than now.

None of that negates the central notion that policy debates do tend more quickly to get drowned out now if a personality issue comes along. And whilst Steel mentioned changes at PMQs as being partly responsible, so is the changed nature of the media landscape.

There is not much point raging at Andrew Rawnsley for writing a book. He is a journalist not a politician, albeit for a paper that likes to put itself on the side of the progressives; and his book having been written, it would be odd to expect him not to want to promote it.

Hattersley also had quite an interesting take - that he had no evidence of the kind of behaviour GB is accused of, but felt that even if he did have what were being called 'temper tantrums', it did not make him any less fit to do his job. Steel echoed the point in what I thought was rather a good overall defence of the prime minister.

It also seems to me - and this often happens when a frenzy kicks off - that as emotions rise and positions harden, some fairly obvious truths get lost.

That GB is capable of getting angry is no secret to anyone who has worked with him down the years. I have seen him in a rage with TB, with JP, with Peter Mandelson, with me, with others. But I have never seen him grab staff by the lapels, hit anyone or throw inanimate objects around the place, which is the general impression created in recent days, especially since Mrs Pratt from the bullying helpline got involved, even if she has since said none of the alleged complaints from Number 10 concerned GB.

I have also seen GB be charming and funny. Above all I have seen him, in many different situations, be driven and determined and passionate about his beliefs and the policies he thinks Britain needs to embrace.

We are all complicated people, every single one of us, and as with any other high profile figure, there are many different aspects to GB's character. As he said himself at the weekend, he is not perfect. Nobody is. He is strong-willed, impatient, can be grumpy, and could do with chilling out a bit more from time to time.

But having seen him and other leaders up close, I am in no doubt he is a better leader for this country, particularly in times like these, than David Cameron would be. Indeed, the last 48 hours, and the Tory leader's handling of the issue, has made me more not less convinced about that. There is something pretty shameful about the extent to which Cameron's Tories want to make the debate about anything but serious, thought through policies to which they might stick for more than a day or two.

GB won't be enjoying the current brouhaha, which is why the Tories and a media which has invested too much in saying he has to go, are driving it for all it's worth.

But he has seen off far worse than this and can be confident that when the debate does return to policy, which it will, his strengths and Cameron's weaknesses -  the likeliest reasons for recent narrowing of the polls - will be back on parade.

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise cash for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Interesting moment at BBC London - I was there to be interviewed by Robert Elms about my book and my views on matters London - when the 'news' was announced that David Cameron had 'called for an inquiry' into GB and bullying.

Interesting because of the rolling eyes and the 'inquiry into what?' shouts from those who heard this 'news'.

There is always a moment in media frenzies when the media knows that it is reporting a frenzy but can't do much to stop it(self). . This was that moment. It said as much about Cameron as it did about GB.

As he clearly has nothing better to do with his time, Cameron could perhaps draw up the terms of reference for the inquiry, and maybe give some indication as to how much public money he thinks should be spent on it. Then realise he was wasting his breath, and making himself look silly in the meantime.

Rule 1. Only call for resignations if you think there really should be resignations. Variant on the rule - only call for inquiries if you really think there should be one.

Of course the Andrew Rawnsley book, and the resultant mini frenzy, is meat and drink to the Tories not for what it says about Gordon but because it removes the threat they fear most - the prospect that policy might be on the politico-media agenda.

There were two ways for Team Dave to approach today. He could have said ... well there goes GB in a bit of a pother about this Rawnsley book, and that Pratt woman has rather helped push it along in our direction so let's leave it and instead I'll go out and say something about the economy, or public services, maybe outline one or two things I would do if I was Prime Minister.

Or he could 'call for an inquiry.'

Pathetic really.

The Tories seemingly can't work out why the polls are closing.

It is because people are starting to look at them more closely, and realise what a second-rate bunch they are.

Doubtless Andy Coulson was at Dave's right hand as this 'strategy' was put together. That would be the same Coulson whose bullying culture at the News of the World led to the biggest tribunal payout on record. No calls for an inquiry then, eh Dave?

*** Buy The Blair Years online and raise money for Labour http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

There is some fantastic stuff in The Observer today. As I am heading to Villa to see Burnley later today, forgive me if I am a bit rushed and so only point out four things.

1. is the final paragraph of the lead story. I will quote it - the final paragraph that is - in full. 'A YouGov poll published today by the Sunday Times, meanwhile, reveals that the gap between Labour and the Conservatives has shrunk to just six points - the closest position in more than a year.' (What did I say yesterday about the Tories wobbling if they go beneath 40 per cent? ... you watch)

2. is on page 32, a piece headlined 'The weekend Brown saved the banks from the abyss', with a sub-heading 'The prime minister's qualities were to the fore on the weekend in October 2008 when financial calamity was so close.'

Methinks 1 and 2 may be linked.

3. is an interview with Alex Ferguson on the sports pages, particularly enjoyable for the enthusiasm he continues to show for the game, and in particular the joy he gets from helping turn Wayne Rooney into a world-class player. It's a pity the interviewer didn't get Fergie going on politics. Had he done so, he would have heard the views of a man who is convinced Labour not only can but will win the next election, not least because young people in particular see little in David Cameron to relate to.

Which brings me to 4, the main cartoon on page 37, 'Riddell's view.' As many of the nation's cartoonists know, I am something of a sucker for good political cartoons, not least for the funds they can raise for party and charity, as well as the joy they can bring to a toilet or a landing wall.

Today's has a pot-bellied Cameron playing darts - he 'confessed' to a love of darts in a recent interview, in which he also cited cans of Guinness as one of the great inventions of our time. The speech bubble has him saying 'I say, Jeeves, open me another can of Guinness, there's a good fellow...'

In the foreground, meanwhile, which we assume to be Jeeves's quarters, is a box marked 'fragile' with 'Tory policies' in it, a Maggie handbag, a portrait of a swivel-eyed Cameron older generation lookalike, and an axe. Subtle it ain't. But telling it most certainly is.

For all I know, Cameron likes to chuck the odd arrow, and likes to down the odd can of Guinness. But whereas there is an argument that the country might like to know a little more about GB the man, given we know an awful lot about GB the policy-obsessed politician, I wonder if Team Dave might reflect on whether we need to know a little less about Cameron's pastimes and habits, and a little more about what he would be if elected. I enjoyed darts commentator Sid Waddell's rebuff of Dave's professed admiration for him.

Just as his airbrushed posters missed the public mood, so do his continuing efforts to portray himself as an ordinary kind of guy. The more he tries to conceal his silver spoon background, the more he will open the door for it to become an issue. I for one felt Labour got far too defensive in the wake of the Tories and their media friends crying 'class war' when GB suggested Tory policies on inheritance tax and non-doms were dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton.

Nobody is saying that going to Eton disqualifies someone from being PM, any more than an education at Fettes disqualified TB from becoming a Labour leader and PM. But when your background and upbringing so clearly dictate your policy agenda - and the inheritance tax cut for 3000 of his closest friends is the best example of that - then it becomes an issue.

It is interesting that on the weekend The Observer is providing plenty of cartoon material from its coverage of GB,  the resident satirist should be focusing on Dave's efforts at getting down with the hoi polloi.

*** Buy The Blair Years and raise cash for Labour. http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bokshop.php.

Good speech by GB, good interview by Douglas Alexander in The Guardian, and a few more narrowing polls may well see Tory jitters becoming a fullscale wobble.

The pundits are being pretty dismissive of 'a future fair for all' as a slogan, on the grounds that it is a bit same old same old. On one level they're right - back in 1997 'future not the past' and 'many not the few' were central to Labour's fight.

But the consistency of 'a future fair for all' is among its strengths. It underlines Labour's enduring values. It allows scope to draw attention to the Tories' enduring values - in particular 'few not the many' policies like inheritance tax cuts for Dave and George's 3000 closest mates. And it reminds people this election, like all elections, is about the future.

If Labour can win the argument about the kind of future Britain needs - especially in relation to 'securing the economic recovery' and creating the jobs of the future - and can win the argument on fairness, the closing of the gap will continue.

The Tories really should be doing so much better, and must be getting worried as to why they're not. An economy that has gone through a period of genuine crisis. Politics dominated by expenses. A current war becoming more unpopular and a recent unpopular war returning to the centre of the political debate. A tame media that fails to pursue them on difficult questions. A huge spending imbalance in their favour which is allowing them to put up expensive posters all over Britain, and fire millions of letters to voters in marginal seats.

Yet as their spending has increased, their lead has not increased with it.

Douglas was right, in his Guardian interview, to point out that the Tories are fighting a TV campaign in a more networked age. Right too that the lesson from Barack Obama's use of the internet is about building on the most trusted form of political communication - word of mouth. People believe and trust both politicians and media less than they did. They believe each other more. It means face to face campaigning, and its online modern equivalent, matter more than ever.

GB seemed comfortable with the message he put to his audience of party activists today. That is important, because the main message carriers have to be at ease with what they're saying. As Douglas points out in The Guardian, Cameron is 'caught between his branding and his beliefs.'

For a large part of his term as leader, Cameron has had a free run from the media. The public however have started to look at him more closely, and have been less impressed than his media supporters suggest they should be.

It all means that though Labour remain the underdog, there is a fight on now. When Andrew Rawnsley was putting the finishing touches to his book, out soon, 'The End of the Party' seemed a fair enough title as Labour limped towards oblivion.

There will be some who think it is the title, rather than Labour, that looks a bit outdated as the serialisation starts tomorrow.

 *** Buy books and raise cash for Labour. http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

'Preying on young children before they have wised up to what is being sold to them isn't right.' So says David Cameron on the issue of 'sexualising' of children through marketing and advertising. Hear hear.

But delete 'young chldren' in the opening sentence above, insert 'the electorate', and we have DC's Tories in a nutshell. I have started a new game, asking people I meet to name a Tory policy. Some of the answers are below ...

Movie industry marketing men, provided they had an A list cast and a big advertising budget, were once guaranteed a minimum of three days' major takings at the box office.

The sheer weight of such a campaign would guarantee busy cinemas on the first Friday, Saturday and Sunday of release. Through the week, word of mouth would then help dictate takings for the next weekend. Two weekends of large takings heralded a success. A big dip between the two meant the film was in trouble.

Now however, according to a communications colleague who works in film PR, there is only one guaranteed pay day, the first Friday. The change is largely down to social networking sites which allow instant and, when communicated en masse, very powerful judgements to be made. 'If people come out of a film on a Friday night and say on twitter or Facebook in big numbers that they hated it, it's dead,' says my colleague. 'If they love it, we know we have a hit.'

It is the most human of reactions, as familiar to centuries old village squares as today's ‘water cooler' equivalents - you see something, you want to tell friends what you thought. So on leaving Nine - early - I tweeted that I got as far as Three. In leaving Invictus, I tweeted that I didn't care about all the snotty reviews, I loved it. And when I wandered online to see if I was alone, on both films I discovered I was not.

There are lessons in this for politics. One of the unexpected consequences of the media age and the digital revolution has been to give people the power to shape their own media landscape, and to shape it with others. Barack Obama's use of the web in his campaign to become US President is sometimes misunderstood. It is true that he used it to raise huge sums in small amounts. Every bit as important, he used it to create a mood, to help turn sympathisers into supporters, supporters into activists, then galvanise and empower those activists to run their own events and mini-campaigns under his strategic umbrella.

This shift was brought home to me at the Labour fundraiser in Lancashire I mentioned recently where a student activist told me she came from a non-political family, and had largely unpolitical friends, but she was confident most would vote Labour 'because every time I see them, I give them a reason to.' That is the campaign mindset required for today. It is virtually impossible for Labour to get media coverage for success stories in public services. The mainstream media just aren't interested. So people are posting their own, and sharing them. Similarly, campaign materials, strategic planning documents and policy handbooks which were once closely guarded at the centre are likely to be posted online for networks within networks to use as they want.

These are changes which benefit Labour and the Lib Dems, bereft as they are of the kind of money available to David Cameron's Tory Party with backing from Lord Ashcroft and other wealthy donors. How the parties adapt to these changes won't necessarily mean the difference between winning and losing. But it will help.

 *** Buy books and raise cash for Labour. Go to http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php. Half of money raised in online sales of The Blair Years, individually signed by AC, goes to the Labour Party.

It is as a statement of fact, rather than with any pride, that I confess to a certain phobia about online shopping.

True, I am not that big a shopper anyway, and tend to come out in something of a rash on my annual supermarket visit, on the second day of our summer holiday. But the online variety brings out in me even greater anxiety and purchasophobia.

We did have something of a minor celebration in the house recently when I successfully booked my own train tickets online. Well, I kind of did. I used the traintracker service to find out which trains I wanted, but when it came to the actual purchase I got on the phone and had a nice chat with a man in Bangalore who took down my credit card details.

But my latest experience of the online shopping market has been as a seller rather than a purchaser, and it has been a fascinating experience, not least for the politeness of people when they are served properly.

A fair proportion of online chatter is of the abusive and insulting variety. Feed in any footballer or showbiz celebrity's name, let alone a politician or a banker, and you will see what I mean. So much of our media discourse also operates only at the level of fury and rage.

And I sense from the response to the service we have been running that people have a lot of bad experiences of shopping online. Because the response has been characterised by an extraordinary politesse and thankfulness that something is ordered, paid for, and arrives as promised within a day or two. I'd love to know whether this really is out of the ordinary, but it has been nice to get the emails, tweets, direct messages and letters thanking us simply for doing what we said we would.

We have a good little system going here. My son monitors the site overnight, grabs me at some point in the day to sign any books that need signing, with the message as directed, then he gets them out the next day. I'm glad it seems to be working, and raising a bit of money for the party as we go.

Remember, it is the trade paperback of The Blair Years we are selling, at £15, with £7.50 going to the party. Go to http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php.

Meanwhile, feel free to share online shopping horror stories or otherwise.

So the Tories' New Big Idea (NBI) is the Co-op. They say.

Interesting though that the Newsnight report on the NBI  used as part of its explanation a film report  showing where Labour already does it, and some old shots of Dave making a speech saying much the same thing as he was setting out as the NBI in front of some nice new posters yesterday.

In the old footage he was wearing a poppy, as was Iain Duncan Smith (the renowned Tory explorer who has seemingly made the incredible in-touch discovery of inner city poverty, and the link between sport and health). So it was some time in late October or early November.

After the film there was a discussion between a right-wing think tank person who needs to wash his hair and a left-wing think tank person with a polo neck sweater and a nice manner.

At the end of the programme I was none the wiser as to what the NBI really is.

But it must be great to have the media so in your thrall that you just have to say something is the equivalent of Maggie's council house sales and, even when it isn't, you get lots of coverage for it.

There are so many unanswered questions to his latest NBI that had it been a Labour NBI, ministers would be run ragged trying to fill in the holes.

You watch though. He'll have another NBI soon. It'll be the equivalent of the Big Bang privatisation programme. For at least two bulletins anyway.

In the absence of thought through policies that stand up to scrutiny it is nice to see he is still coming up with new posters as a way of spending some of Ashcroft's dosh. Even nicer to see 'I've never voted Tory before' trending on twitter with hundreds of reasons not to vote Tory.

Yesterday was another one.

*** Buy books and raise cash for Labour. Go to http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php. Half of money raised in online sales of The Blair Years, individually signed by AC, goes to the Labour Party.

As expected, fairly mixed reviews for the GB interview with Piers Morgan. Some can't get beyond their loathing of Piers. Others can't get beyond their negativity about GB. But it is always important to differentiate between media opinion and public opinion. Based on nothing more than instinct, a few conversations and a trawl online, I would say media opinion is somewhere between lukewarm and negative, public opinion between lukewarm and warm.

One of the reasons for the media negativity is frustration at their inability to shape the reaction to an event like this. I made a point of tracking twitter, and some of the message boards, as the interview was going out. In a way, the advance hype, and the media commentary afterwards, don't really matter. The hype probably helps with ratings, which suits both Piers/ITV and, provided it goes well, GB too. The aftermath commentary is less significant, because the opinions that matter are those of viewers, reacting in real time as the thing is broadcast.

Twitter in particular has changed the balance of power in the relationship between 'expert' and 'people.' I don't know how many people were watching last night, nor how many were tweeting as they did so, but when I saw the tweet 'why the fuck is Piers Morgan trending on twitter?' I realised the answers were respectively ... a lot, and quite a few.

Piers is one of those people who provokes strong reactions anyway, but it is also possible to detect in some of the media commentary today a certain jealousy - how many political pundits would love to get the kind of attention for an interview with GB that Piers managed to get? Answer, all of them.

Piers has taken a bit of a kicking for being so obviously friendly to the PM, but it was in fact very close to his usual interviewing style. It was in both his and Gordon's interests for a different side to GB to be shown, and that certainly emerged. Gordon is never going to be the touchiest-feeliest politician on the planet, but it does him no harm at all for people to be reminded that beneath the politician's image is a human being with a backstory made up of the usual mix of good and bad, low and high, tragic and joyous.

I think if there is any lasting impact from the interview it is that in the conversation it has generated, people will at least think that conversation has more than the single 'GB bad' dimension so much of the media has been putting over in recent months.

It has helped clear the air a bit for Gordon, at a time people are finally realising the choice is not GB or TB, or GB or perfection, but GB or David Cameron who, under the slightest pressure, is beginning to look a bit flaky.

A few weeks ago, the Tories saw the leaders' debates, for example, as a guaranteed win-win-win for DC. I'm not sure they are feeling quite so confident now. When it comes to the debates, GB will of course be more on the political than the personal. But the revealing of the more personal last night may mean that some are more willing to listen to the political than they were a few days ago. The mood is changing, in all sorts of ways.

 *** Buy books and raise cash for Labour. Go to http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php. Half of money raised in online sales of The Blair Years, individually signed by AC, goes to the Labour Party

First of all, thank you to everyone who has sent me Valentine's Day messages and cards on Facebook. As I tweeted earlier this morning, it must be all the nice press I get that makes me so popular and loved.

So what can I give in return? Answer ... the lyrics, first in French and then my amateur English translation, of one of the greatest love songs ever written (IMHO) - namely Quand on n'a que l'amour, by the francophone world's greatest ever singer (IMHO2), Jacques Brel.

To those poor people who have never heard Brel sing, I strongly urge you to take a little Valentine's Day venture around Youtube. His best known song, Ne Me Quitte Pas, is a bit too sad for Valentine's Day, so I've gone for this one, which I have also picked as the song I would like to leave to my kids as my 'inheritance track' on Radio 4, and which I also want played at my funeral, hopefully not too soon.

When I did a programme for the BBC on Brel a while back, I learned that he wrote this whilst taking part in a conference on the economy! Hence the message, that if all we had was love, the world would be a better place.

Enjoy ...

Quand on n'a que l'amour, A s'offrir en partage
Au jour du grand voyage, Qu'est notre grand amour

Quand on n'a que l'amour, Mon amour toi et moi
Pour qu'éclatent de joie, Chaque heure et chaque jour

Quand on n'a que l'amour, Pour vivre nos promesses
Sans nulle autre richesse, Que d'y croire toujours

Quand on n'a que l'amour, Pour meubler de merveilles
Et couvrir de soleil, La laideur des faubourgs

Quand on n'a que l'amour, Pour unique raison
Pour unique chanson, Et unique secours

Quand on n'a que l'amour, Pour habiller matin
Pauvres et malandrins, De manteaux de velours

Quand on n'a que l'amour, A offrir en prière
Pour les maux de la terre, En simple troubadour

Quand on n'a que l'amour, A offrir à ceux-là
Dont l'unique combat, Est de chercher le jour

Quand on n'a que l'amour, Pour tracer un chemin
Et forcer le destin, A chaque carrefour

Quand on n'a que l'amour, Pour parler aux canons
Et rien qu'une chanson, Pour convaincre un tambour

Alors sans avoir rien, Que la force d'aimer
Nous aurons dans nos mains, Amis, le monde entier

And here is my go at a translation of one of the most untranslateable (because so brilliant) writers around

When we have only love, to offer each other for sharing

On the day of the great journey, that is our great love

When we have only love, my love, you and me,

To erupt in joy, every hour, every day

When we have only love, to live out our promises,

Without any other wealth, than to believe in it always 

When we have only love, to furnish with marvels

And cover with sun, the ugliness of the suburbs

When we only have love, as our only reason

As our only song, as our only help

When we have only love, to dress in the morning

The poor and the little bandits, in velvet coats

When we only have love, to offer in prayer

For the bad things on earth, as a simple troubador 
When we only have love, to offer to those

Whose sole fight is to look for the day

When we have only love, to trace a path,

And force the destiny at each crossroad

When we have only love, to speak to the cannons

And nothing more than a song to convince a drummer
Then, without having anything but the strength to love

We will have in our hands, friends of all the world.

.... If something is lost in the translation, all the more reason to go and find him singing the real thing. As Mel Smith said when I interviewed him about Brel, he doesn't speak any French but when he sees him sing, he knows what he's on about. Happy Valentine's Day.

*** Buy books and raise cash for Labour. Go to http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php. Half of money raised in online sales of The Blair Years, individually signed by AC, goes to the Labour Party

With Burnley out of the Cup, a spare Saturday has emerged which has allowed my book publicist to crowbar in a bit more culture, and book-plugging.

As I am more Radio 5 than Radio 4, especially on Saturdays, I have never listened to Loose Ends, so any tips welcome. We record soon.

I am less worried about the mickey-taking Clive Anderson than the charms of Emma Freud, who is on that short list of people who could make me do just about anything. Like when I said no, no and no again to doing the Comic Relief version of The Apprentice, and Emma called round with sweets and chocolates, coinciding her arrival with the return of my daughter and her friends from school. Together they talked me into it.

Which brings me to Piers Morgan. If you want to know why, google me, him and The Apprentice and enjoy seeing him get 'fired' when it came to a shoot out between the two of us.

Piers has been getting lots of coverage for his interview with GB but in my experience all that matters is the actual reaction of people who watch the whole interview.

It is happening at a good time for GB. Finally, he is getting some of the credit he deserves for the tough calls he took in leading Britain through the global economic crisis. Perhaps just as important though, people are looking more closely at David Cameron and not liking what they see.

I have been in all sorts of places this week and have heard a lot more negativity about Cameron. There has been a shift from a studied 'seems allright' neutrality to something closer to 'I can't stand that man.' They were the exact words of Angela Griffin, the actress who presents Angela and Friends on Sky One. On air, she horrified me, given the history of women and voting, by saying she had never voted. Off air she said she would this time 'because I can't stand that man Cameron.' I got plenty more of the same at the speaking events I did this week. And I particularly liked the encounter with a hospital porter who stopped me when I was visiting a friend, and said 'If you do one more thing in your life, help stop the Tories getting their hands on the NHS - because I remember.'

Enough of politics, back to culture. I picked The Hurt Locker as my film of the year on Newsnight Review last night. I hope they kept in the bit where I described Kevin Spacey as the greatest American living in Britain, not least because I'm on his case for a Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research gig.

I'll spend the afternoon in the company of Sky, not Jeff Stelling's genius programme, but a new sports comedy quiz show, A League of their Own, presented by James Corden. It sounds like a mix of Question of Sport and They Think It's All Over. Team captains are Jamie Redknapp and Freddie Flintoff. I'm on Freddie's team with Georgie Thompson who, as Sky Sports News viewers know, is Britain's chirpiest and best looking newsreader.

I will struggle to get in a mention of Maya. But try stopping me talking about the time I played with Maradona.

Finally, on Maya, pretty good review, once you get through all the stuff about it being a book about me and TB - I must say that all passed me by when I was writing it - from Mark Lawson (proper culture vulture) in The Guardian.

'... Campbell has always been an accomplished writer. ... And although it will pain large ­numbers of people to hear this, Campbell has written a book which is well plotted and suspenseful. Few who can bring themselves to start will be able to force themselves not to finish.' (Sounds like one for the paperback cover)

'Maya should clearly be played by Keira Knightley if Campbell gets the movie deal - which, on the basis of the story's twists and grip, should not be ruled out.' (I like the sound of that)

'The basic plot is borrowed from Othello, with Steve as Iago, and the tone and prose style from the novels of Tony Parsons.' (Like that too)

'The joke waiting to be made is that Campbell saves his best fiction for public inquiries - but much of Maya ruins that gag.' (Excellent. Thank you Mark.)

Now go to Amazon and buy it. Then go to http://www.alastaircampbell.org/bookshop.php. and buy The Blair Years. Half of the money goes to doing exactly what the hospital porter wants us to do. Have a nice weekend

I'm pleased to see Home Secretary Alan Johnson hitting back at the media coverage of the Security Service, and supporting a similarly spirited defence of MI5 by its head Jonathan Evans.

The coverage is a very good example of how the modern media works. A judge makes a judgement which the British government has sought to resist. It concerned a case of alleged US torture of Binyam Mohamed. From that two plus two is made any number some in the media like to imagine.

What might be legitimate criticisms made of the Security Service are then lost in a welter of what Johnson calls 'baseless, groundless accusations' and, further, 'ludicrous lies'.

He is right to resist what is now a kneejerk call on anything that dominates the news for more than a day or two, namely an independent inquiry.

Johnson said: "The security services in our country do not practice torture, they do not endorse torture, they don't encourage others to torture on our behalf, they don't collude in torture. Full stop.

"What we have to get back to is ensuring that our security services are treated fairly. People can make their arguments and their