Alastair Campbell, former director of communications of then prime minister Tony Blair, has revealed that he considered suicide for a “fleeting moment” after the death of David Kelly, senior adviser on biological warfare for the UN in Iraq.
In his diary published on Tuesday, Mr Campbell also dwelt at length on the bitter rows between Gordon Brown (then Chancellor) and Tony Blair.
Mr Blair’s relations with Mr Brown were so poor that the two men even had heated words on the day of Labour’s historic election victory in 1997, Mr Campbell said.
The former No 10 director of communications has said that he has left out the most damaging revelations about the rows between Mr Blair and his eventual successor, in order not to hand a “gold mine” to the Opposition parties.
But political analysts reading the 800-page book said that enough detail remained for the dire state of relations between the two, then the most powerful men in the land, to be apparent.
Bitter talks
At what should have been the two men’s most euphoric moment, the victory day when Labour came to power on May 1, 1997 after 18 years of Conservative rule, there were “bad-tempered conversations” between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown over the reshuffle of the front-bench team into ministerial positions, Mr Campbell recorded.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday however said that he would not read the diary.
Among the disclosures by Mr Campbell in the book are: Mr Campbell considered suicide for a “fleeting moment” after the death of scientist David Kelly, a caretaker government led by John Prescott was secretly planned in case Tony Blair was forced to resign over the Iraq war vote, Tony Blair was partly in the dark about his wife’s purchase of two flats in Bristol.
It also says that Mrs Cherie Blair constantly rowed with her husband’s advisers and nursed a grudge when Alastair Campbell tried to expel Cherie Blair’s image guru, Carole Caplin.