'Gordon needs a few big hitters around'

Alastair Campbell says Lord Mandelson's return will be good for the government - despite questions about his links with Oleg Deripaska.

Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

ANDREW MARR: First time novelists are often advised to write about what they know, and that's certainly the case with Alastair Campbell. But it's not his years as a journalist, spin doctor, prime ministerial spokesman which are the subject of his debut novel 'All In The Mind'. Instead his theme is mental trauma, psychotherapy, all driven by his own experience 20 years ago of mental breakdown.

FILM CLIP: CRACKING UP

CAMPBELL: You feel your mind is like a plate of glass and you're desperately trying to hold it together. You're conscious of something being wrong. Everything that you do to try to get it back onto what you imagine is an even keel is just making it worse and then it just sort of cracks. It just shatters and inside your head you feel this kind of just explosion goes off.

ANDREW MARR: Well Alastair Campbell quit Downing Street before Tony Blair did and he's been out of front line politics for some time. But he's back, we're told - at least part-time. So welcome and let's start with the book. It's a dark book, isn't it? It's a dark book about men under stress.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: And women.

ANDREW MARR: And women.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: I think it is fairly dark, yeah. But I think also there's a, there's a lot of hope in it because I mean for me the arc of the book is a psychiatrist who's trying to help people who've got a whole range of really difficult problems that they're trying to deal with and he is kind of helping them, but because he's got his own problems he can't quite see it.

ANDREW MARR: Or help himself, yeah, yeah.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Yeah.

ANDREW MARR: Throughout the book there are people who are coping with stress, with alcohol. I mean there's an alcoholic minister, a very sort of powerful bit in the book, and his life is unravelling very, very, very fast. Now, presumably, that's based on your own experience way back in the early 80s?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Well I'd say there are, there are three areas that I guess come from what I know best on this side of things. One is depression. One of his main patients is a really serious depressive and I occasionally get depression, so I know a bit about that. There's the alcoholic politician who's not one of the biggest characters, but is in there and again I know a little bit about drink problems.

And there's also a psychotic breakdown in there, which, as you just saw from the clip, I've also had. So to that extent, it's kind of quotes -autobiographical-end quotes, but the people are all very different to the sort of person that I am. And I think actually with the characters that I � I mean there's a rape victim in there, there's a fire victim, there's a prostitute who's been forced into sex trafficking. Now that's the sort of thing that I had to go away and kind of research. But also I think some of the thought processes that they have, some of the therapies they undergo, I do know about those.

So there's quite a lot of me in there, but I think there's a lot of, a lot of people � And it's been interesting actually. Kind of quite a lot of people have read it because I wanted to be sure that you know it kind of felt right as a novel and that people could relate to it in some way and it is amazing the extent to which people who read it will say, "Actually, I know somebody like so and so" or "I actually had this ten, fifteen, twenty years ago as well."

So you know I think it's one of the reasons why I did the film, one of the reasons I've done the book - is I think there is still a huge taboo out there about mental health issues.

ANDREW MARR: Do you think that when you were doing the No. 10 job, you were too angry; that you were, inside you were an angry man and that quite a lot of the things that happened around that were because of that anger?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: I don't think so. Look, I think that there were times - you will know - when I got very, very angry, but I think I can � if you take the other book, the Diaries, I kind of set out the reasons sometimes why I became very, very angry.

ANDREW MARR: One of which is accusing the media of psychobabble a lot of the time and yet in the book...

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Did I used to say that?

ANDREW MARR: You used to say "Oh, it's all psychobabble."

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Oh did I? Did I say that? Oh dear! I don't think this is psychobabble. I think this is a, this is a novel which is about a psychiatrist and his relationships with his patients and with his family. And look, I think I look back on my time in No. 10 and think sometimes I might have gone over the top, but equally I can, I can rationalise why given the sort of environment I was having to deal with all the time.

ANDREW MARR: Given people like me you were having to deal with on the other side.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL You � I have to say, Andrew, you were not one of the worst.

ANDREW MARR: Okay. What about something you said in those diaries. You said that, I have to ask you about this, when David Kelly killed himself, you thought about topping yourself. Is that true?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: It is true in that there was a... I mean it was when I...

ANDREW MARR: You wrote about suicide.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Well you see I think this thing about... Look, I didn't... I think everybody in their time, in their life at some point thinks you know god, would life be better, would the world be better if you just kind of disappeared because in the time, the stress that everybody was under - somebody had taken their life, the inquiry was proceeding in a way that frankly if it had gone in a different direction not just I was finished but Tony Blair, the government was finished - and that sort of sense of pressure and the responsibility that you feel upon you.

And what I wrote in the diaries. I was driving down to Marseille Airport to collect my diaries, having been told I had to submit them to the judge, and I just �you know it was a momentary thought. I mean at no point did I think...

ANDREW MARR: Take it seriously.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: � actively about killing myself. But I, I kind of at that moment knew what a suicidal thought was. Put it that way.

ANDREW MARR: And do you think that it was, it was fair to Kelly's family, Dr Kelly's family to talk about that afterwards because you were criticised for that?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Well, look, you get criticised for everything and I've always been very, very conscious in the way that I talk about that episode, the way that I talk about the whole period. I never, ever forget the fact that somebody felt so under pressure about their own position that they took their life and I have nothing but respect for him and sympathy for his family. But I mean, look, if I hadn't � The other thing I was criticised for in relation to the diaries was not putting everything in there, so what I tried to do was to give an authentic account of a very difficult period in everybody's life.

ANDREW MARR: This is, as I say, I mean I felt it was quite a dark book. Do you think that it represents something about people in power or at the top of organisations; that frankly quite a lot of people there are borderline nuts because of the pressures on them?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: I don't know about that. I mean, look, the central character is a psychiatrist rather than a politician. I mean look �

ANDREW MARR: It's about drink and it's about sex and it's about pressure breaking people.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: And also I mean I do think that � I mean what I said earlier about there's a sort of terrible taboo about this. If you talk to the mental health organisations, they say one in four people - and there's about ten people around us now - so that's two and a half, roughly, two and a quarter will have some sort of mental health problem directly.

Now there's no reason why the political clash should be any different to that. And I do think sometimes that actually the pressures of public life - and not just in politics but people who are at the top level in sport and in business and in any organisation - that I think sometimes there could be a little bit more understanding of the pressures that they're under. I mean I don't know if you remember this, but it was the Norwegian Prime Minister once stepped aside because he was suffering from chronic depression...

ANDREW MARR: Yes, I do remember that.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: � and he took a sabbatical and his poll rate kind of went stratospheric because there was a basic understanding. I'm not sure you'd get that basic understanding if a top flight politician were to do that here.

ANDREW MARR: Okay. Let's try and clear up exactly what your role is in the current government set up now. You are advising Gordon Brown, you're speaking to him regularly.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Yeah, I mean look I think because Peter came back in the way that he did, I think it's been rather overstated the extent to which I am kind of back.

ANDREW MARR: Was there ever a discussion about you coming back in a role as Lord Campbell and ...

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: I, I have � I've never stopped talking to Gordon and to other people in the government and the Labour Party. And, look, I do � I'm not going back to anything like my old job - I've been absolutely clear about that - but equally as an election gets nearer, I just cannot stand the sight of seeing these Tories getting terribly smug about the idea that without doing the things that a political party in my view needs to do to deserve to win they're just going to waltz back to power. So I will help, but I am not going to go back to anything like my old job. I don't want a full-time position. I will help as it were from the outside.

ANDREW MARR: Right. Were you asked to join the government?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: I am not going to go into what I was or was not asked by Gordon Brown.

ANDREW MARR: Sounds like yes to me. But you decided not to. Are you going to be paid, can I ask, for it?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Not as far as I'm aware.

ANDREW MARR: So it's an unpaid regular advice. On the subject of advice, when you looked at yesterday's papers, today's papers and so on and you saw your old friend Peter Mandelson again being photographed beside some fairly iffy characters with a lot of money, did you think here we go again; he can't stop himself?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Well one of the joys of my life, Andrew, is I don't read the papers, so other than what I've just seen Jonathan and Amanda discussing...

ANDREW MARR: There's a lot of it about, there's a lot of it about.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: There is a lot of it about and I'm aware of the kind of the basic facts...

ANDREW MARR: The story.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: But I thought it was interesting, for example �

ANDREW MARR: But what about the story? I mean surely the business of being close to very, very rich men you don't know a lot about is something that politicians should have learned to avoid by now?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Yeah, but equally Peter Mandelson as European Union Trade Commissioner has to deal with all sorts of people who have all sorts of all legitimate vested interests that they're trying to lobby and argue for...

ANDREW MARR: He doesn't have to have kebabs on their yachts though, does he?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: No, but look, can I just say I thought it was interesting watching the paper review and the way that Amanda just sort of picks up papers and throws out a few headlines, most of which have question marks at the end of them. And you kind of have to sort of struggle your way through to find any facts.

ANDREW MARR: But you have been here before.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Possibly. And I also happen to think that Peter's return to government I think is a good thing for the government. I think Gordon needs a few big hitters around and Peter, whatever else he is, is a big hitter.

And I think that � Look, this story you were saying it's kind of still running and it's got legs yet. Well, fine, eventually it will run out and the political debate will come back to the fundamentals and that's about who actually is best equipped and best able to take the country forward in a very difficult period.

ANDREW MARR: When you were, when you were working for Tony Blair, as you well remember month after month there were stories about party funding...

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Yeah.

ANDREW MARR: ... and was this dodgy or was that dodgy, and it's still the same.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: It is still the same.

ANDREW MARR: Nothing could be worse for politics, could it?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: I agree with that, but let me just say this. There's a kind of, there's a real difficulty here because on the one hand you've got the media kind of 24/7 sort of knocking politicians left, right and centre; you've got the public thinking oh they're all the same, blah-blah-blah-blah. Equally people saying you know democracy's important and you have to have political parties, you have to have prime ministers and MP's and so forth, and it is � in the modern age it is not cheap running a political campaign.

ANDREW MARR: So do you not say to Gordon Brown, "Actually we have to find a new way of funding the parties?"

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: But I think politically that is very, very difficult when there's all the other pressures on a government for its legislative programme and so forth. So I think the government actually has tried to get this into a better place. But equally I think until you get all the parties basically signed up to a different sort of system I think it's going to be very difficult to change it and very difficult to win support from the public to say actually some of our money should go into paying more to the parties.

ANDREW MARR: Okay. What do you think went wrong for Gordon Brown so dramatically and so profoundly in the course of the last 12 months?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: I'm not sure it was that dramatic. I mean I think that...

ANDREW MARR: The slide was huge!

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Yeah, but I think the first thing that happened was the - and I've said this before - the on-off election business. I think that was the point at which the public that had been giving him a very fair hearing up till then suddenly decided, no, we're thinking about this in kind of a different way.

But I think it's interesting. The last few weeks - and again I thought it was ludicrous Amanda sort of saying that you know Gordon must be loving this Peter Mandelson stuff because it takes the focus off him and the economy - Gordon dealing with the global economic crisis is a round peg in a round hole and actually I think the public are seeing that what he called � what was described at the party conference as "serious man for serious times" against the novice in Cameron, I think that actually is beginning to get through to the public.

Do the Tories, have the Tories really thought through their policy positions? Do they really look like a group of people who could take Britain at a very difficult period for the economy in the right direction?

ANDREW MARR: Well, as you know from the polls, the majority of people say yes they do.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Listen mid-term in the middle of a crisis like this, it is not that gigantic a poll lead let me tell you and I think if the Labour Party rediscovers a bit of fight, it can close it.

ANDREW MARR: Do you think? So what has to change over the next 12 months or whatever? I mean a) do you think there should be a relatively early election; b) what do you think Gordon Brown has to do differently?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: I think that the, I think the Labour Party from top to bottom has got to rediscover a bit of fight. I think there's not been nearly enough robust enough defence of the record because if you don't defend your own record, nobody else is going to do it for you.

And even with what's happening in the economy now, the Labour government's got a very good record to defend. I think the policy agenda for the future has got to be put forward in a really vigorous, coordinated, concerted way and the fight has got to be taken out of the Tories.

I mean they get away with murder. I look at some of the stuff that Cameron comes out with and it is the kind of stuff that if Tony Blair had come out with in opposition, we would have been lacerated. And I think that there's got to be a real sense of look they're back in a fight, it's Labour against Tory ...

ANDREW MARR: This is what you're saying to Gordon Brown in private?

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: I'm saying it to you in public.

ANDREW MARR: We've heard it now in public. For now, Alastair Campbell, thank you very much...

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Thank you very much indeed.

ANDREW MARR: ...thank you very much indeed.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

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