Twenty years on Harrowdown Hill

What's the time limit on anger? And why should Alastair Campbell have a media career?

Previously: In search of a DMZ (DeMurdochized Zone)
British history took a turn for the even worse in January 1969.

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My pitch to direct Celebrity Gogglebox:

INT. living room that absolutely isn’t Alastair Campbell’s actual living room — DAY

Grace and Alastair Campbell laugh about Naked Attraction or whatever… 

CUT TO: 

INT. Another living room; an empty sofa. The caption reads ‘Dr David Kelly’.

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I made a variant of that joke on Twitter earlier and instantly received an aggro-centrist reply demanding to know why people won’t just leave Campbell alone; it was a long time ago, etc. That person should look up how long the effects of leaving depleted uranium scattered everywhere last or how long it takes to deal with the grief of a lost child or a dead parent.

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the opening of the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, who was found on Harrowdown Hill on 18 July 2003. Only three people resigned after Hutton’s report was published: the BBC chairman Gavyn Davies, the BBC director-general Greg Dyke, and the Today programme’s defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan.

Davies went on to make out like a bandit in the hedge fund world; Dyke became the chancellor of York University, joined the boards of Manchester United and Brentford, and led the FA for a time; Gilligan being an expert in dubious storytelling became a key advisor to Boris Johnson. But not one of those men has been so thoroughly rewarded or rehabilitated as Alastair Campbell.

His podcast The Rest Is Politics, co-presented by Rory Stewart (an ex-Tory MP who is part amiable animatronic bear and part ’ex’ spook), is a huge success and has expanded to a run of sold-out live shows. He is never off the TV, being asked for his views on current affairs, and he has a regular column and editor-at-large position with The New European.

Before this reinvention, he regenerated as a mental health ‘campaigner’ and motivational speaker; I’d feel shit too if I was complicit in an illegal war.

A section from The Guardian’s recent profile of Campbell and Stewart is instructive:

Earlier, Campbell told me that in a forthcoming podcast in which they interview Jonathan Powell, Blair’s former chief of staff, Stewart can be heard losing his temper over Iraq (he has come to believe the invasion was a catastrophic error). “I could see his body start to shake,” he said. So why isn’t the matter a problem between Campbell and Stewart? (Campbell was involved in the preparation of the Iraq dossier, the briefing document that was ultimately used to justify Britain’s participation in the war.) “Well, we did two hours on it on the podcast for the 20th anniversary. We did it in real depth, and he managed to keep his cool then. But he does still mention it, yes.”

If Stewart truly thought the invasion was “a catastrophic error” and was actually that angry, he wouldn’t be in a loving commercial embrace with Campbell.

The demand of the aggro centrists is that ‘we’ should move on and that ‘we’ should listen to Campbell’s “reasonable points” about things. No. Even when he’s right, there are better voices who could be given the time and space. 2

Twenty years after Hutton — his lordship’s report was greeted by The Independent with a tundra of empty space on its front page and the word “whitewash?” in red — it is a damning indictment of the British media that Alastair Campbell has such an easy life beyond some difficult tweets and the impotent rage of the wettest of Tory wets.

I’d say they should be ashamed but it’s not an emotion they experience.

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