Placeman without a place

One of the chief characteristics of New Labour, Blairism or the Project — they amount to the same phenomenon — is that many of the cheer-leaders began their careers not just on the far left of the Labour Party but so far to the left as to be outside the party completely. Peter Mandelson and John Reid belonged to the latter group; Charles Clarke, Patricia Hewitt and Jack Straw to the former. They then went on to serve Neil Kinnock with varying degrees of devotion. By and large, they had an unhappy time under John Smith, who tended to prefer old-fashioned Croslandite revisionists. But they return- ed to prosper under Tony Blair, whose most forceful critics were themselves in- clined to be old revisionists such as Roy Hattersley.

Into this pattern Alastair Campbell fitted quite snugly. His politics were formed by the treatment of Mr Kinnock by the predominantly Tory or, at any rate, Thatcher-supporting press.