Spin doctor sets date for diaries

Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's long-time spin doctor, is set to unveil his diaries within days of the prime minister's departure from Downing Street. 字串9

Mr Blair's former director of communications and his right-hand man for nine years yesterday announced he had struck a publication deal for what will be the first account of the Blair premiership by a senior member of his inner circle.

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Mr Campbell said The Blair Years, edited extracts of his diaries from 1994 to 2003, would contribute to the "first historical judgment" on the Blair era. 字串2

Mr Campbell had promised not to publish his eagerly-awaited chronicle until after Mr Blair had gone. But the book could be serialised and on sale shortly after a handover to a new prime minister, probably Gordon Brown, expected in late June or early July. 字串5

The blow-by-blow account of life alongside Mr Blair could destabilise the early days of Mr Brown's premiership if it included revelations about the often fraught Blair-Brown relationship. 字串9

Random House declined to reveal how much Mr Campbell was being paid for his book. But the former chief spin doctor has referred to his 2m-word diaries as his "pension", and together with newspaper serialisation rights, it could net him well over 拢1m. 字串1

Mr Campbell said the book would "paint a rounded picture of a man of enormous drive and vision" but would also relate "moments of disagreement as well as moments of harmony and accord". 字串4

But Blairites hoping that Mr Campbell might settle some scores on their behalf could be disappointed. Although one of the prime minister's closest collaborators, Mr Campbell is also a Labour loyalist.

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One Downing Street insider said Mr Campbell's diaries had been "expurgated, so no dirt on Gordon".

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They could also prove a challenging read. Mr Campbell was an accomplished tabloid writer and possesses a neat turn of phrase, but the extracts of his diaries submitted as evidence to the Hutton inquiry into the death of David Kelly, the weapons expert, were staccato in style, dry and occasionally boorish in content. 字串7

Nonetheless, Random House's claim that the book would be "the political publishing event of the decade" may well turn out to be true, at least in Westminster. 字串1

Caroline Gascoigne, publishing director of the Hutchinson imprint of Random House, said: "The small number of people who have read The Blair Years are unanimous in saying that never before have they read so gripping a record of political power and the pressures of life under the spotlight of a voracious 24-hour media."

Devils in the diary details 字串8

*The Crossman Diaries

Published posthumously from 1975, Richard Crossman's blow-by-blow chronicle of cabinet government under Harold Wilson opened the floodgates to similar inside accounts and inspired the television comedy 'Yes, Minister'

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*Alan Clark Diaries 字串3

In hilariously scurrilous memoirs the Tory MP charted the 'assassination' of the Iron Lady, pouring salt into Conservative wounds