Buying a ticket to go backstage at the circus of political life

ALISTAIR CAMPBELL, in person, is taller, funnier and infinitely more charming than he is in print.

His book about being Tony Blair’s spindoctor makes Campbell seem a depressed, negative-thinking little guy filled to overflowing with a boiling hatred for almost everybody.

This weekend’s Trim Swift Festival, on the other hand, revealed him to be a tall, good looking guy who not only attracts people to him in droves, but turns them into fawning, flirting, fans, aching for his attention, lusting to hear him use their first name, thrilled to be part of the allusive witty conspiracy he creates around himself.