Blair spin-doctor Campbell publishes first volume of diaries

The much-anticipated diaries of Downing Street spin chief Alastair Campbell will be published today – less than two weeks after Tony Blair left Downing Street.

However, politics watchers hoping that the book would prove an explosive exposé of life behind the scenes of New Labour will probably be disappointed.

The former journalist – a central figure in the formation of New Labour – has ensured the extracts selected for the book are not damaging to Gordon Brown.

Although the new British prime minister has said he will not read the book, Mr Campbell said yesterday he was determined it would not provide a “gold mine” for Labour’s opponents.

The nearly 800-page volume contains less than a fifth of the two million-plus words Mr Campbell recorded during his time at Mr Blair’s side.

Among extracts revealed yesterday was a revelation that Mr Blair wanted to quit Downing Street years earlier than he eventually did.

In July 2002, amid pressure over the build up to the Iraq war, he is recorded to have canvassed key aides about his plans to quit as PM without fighting a third general election.

“In truth I’ve never really wanted to do more than two full terms,” he is quoted by Mr Campbell as revealing to him at the time.

Mr Blair did eventually make a statement about his future in 2004 – but by then was ruling out a fourth term and months later did secure a third general election win.

Other selected passages gave a flavour of the tensions within the Cabinet in the run-up to the crucial vote on the Iraq war as well as negotiations with US President George Bush.

After Mr Bush agreed to seek another UN Resolution before invading, Mr Campbell said the President joked to him: “I suppose you can tell the story of how Tony flew in and pulled the crazed unilateralist back from the brink”.

Mr Campbell’s account also covers crucial negotiations over the peace process in the North, noting how Mr Blair asked Sinn Féin leaders at Downing Street “whether they would be able to sign up to a settlement that did not explicitly commit to a united Ireland”.

“(Gerry) Adams was OK, but (Martin) McGuinness was not. Adams said the prize of a lasting peace justifies the risks,” he wrote.

In an echo of Mr Brown’s recent attempts to woo the ex-Liberal Democrat leader, there is also a record of Mr Campbell’s response to a similar idea from Mr Blair in 1997.

“I loved the boldness of it, but doubted he could get it through the key players. He had the Clause 4 glint in his eye.

“He’d hinted at it a few times in the past, but this sounded like a plan. He was making a cup of tea, and chuckling: ’We could put the Tories out of business for a generation.’”

Mr Campbell said it was not he but Mr Blair himself who came up with the famous description of Diana as the “people’s princess” in the wake of her death.

In the diary he recounts a meeting with Diana, who he described as “absolutely, spellbindingly, drop-dead gorgeous, in a way that the millions of photos didn’t quite get”.

Mr Campbell defended the decision to leave out many examples of Mr Blair’s “pretty tense” relations with Mr Brown.

“What I’m not going to do is publish a book that allows David Cameron to think he’s got a goldmine to use against the new Labour prime minister,” he told the BBC.

And he hit back at critics who said he should not publish any insider account: “It is an attempt to say to people: forget all the stuff you have read and you hear and the rest of it – some of it is accurate and some of it is not; this is my perspective on what it was like while I was there.”

Readers will undoubtedly read with interest passages relating to probably the most controversial period of Mr Campbell’s time at Number 10 – the row with the BBC over allegations that evidence for the Iraq war was “sexed up”, after which government weapons expert Dr David Kelly killed himself.

Some were submitted as evidence to the Lord Hutton’s subsequent inquiry but yesterday’s extracts made no reference to the episode.

Mr Campbell told the BBC that “with the possible exception of family deaths and possibly my own breakdown in the 80s it was the worst period of my life without any shadow of a doubt”.

“I was a player in a series of events that somehow or other led to a man deciding he should kill himself,” he added.

But he insisted he had acted entirely properly throughout.

“I can defend everything single thing that I said and every single thing that I did but we all of us have to accept that as that was happening there was stuff going on that was leading that particular individual to feel despair.”

Mr Campbell is planning eventually to release the full version of his diaries - on top of the first 700-page tome – which will run into millions of words.