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Failure, it is thought, is what sells, and what people want to hear and read about. I am not so sure.

Alastair Campbell

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Alastair Campbell
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: May 25
Diarist
Journalist
Novelist
Politician
Keighley
West Yorkshire
Alastair John Campbell
Sells
Failure
Hear
Sure
Read
Thought
People

More quotes by Alastair Campbell

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So here is one of my theories on happiness: we cannot know if we have lived a truly happy life until the very end. This view of life and death was reinforced by my close witnessing of the buildup to the death of Philip Gould. Philip was without doubt my closest friend in politics. When he died, I felt like I had lost a limb.
Alastair Campbell
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We should confine booing in sports arenas to sport. I love a good boo as much as the next football fan.
Alastair Campbell
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Paul Keating told us before we were elected that you can do deals with [Rupert] Murdoch without saying you were doing a deal. Did we do that kind of thing? Maybe. But from around about the turn of the century, I felt strongly that we had to do something about media ownership and self-regulation. Tony [Blair] disagreed.
Alastair Campbell
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For all that the papers would say I was a liar, I took the words I was saying at briefings as seriously as Tony Blair took what he would say at the Despatch Box. I find it very difficult not to tell the truth. I felt I was accountable for what I said.
Alastair Campbell
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Like most meaningful activities, campaigns are team games.
Alastair Campbell
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To me, marriage is partly a religious thing and I'm not religious.
Alastair Campbell
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The junk food of political journalism...all reshuffle stories are crap.
Alastair Campbell
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My dad, Donald, was a vet and had a practice in Yorkshire. Cats and dogs were his bread and butter, but his greatest love was large animals.
Alastair Campbell
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Jeremy, are we going to play your games?
Alastair Campbell
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I do think it's strange that I get associated with Iraq more than the people who were Foreign Secretary or Defence Secretary. It's because of my closeness to Tony [Blair], which I don't regret at all. I think that was a privilege.
Alastair Campbell
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I hold no candle for George Osborne whatsoever. He has no strategic skills, is a hopeless chancellor, has no idea how most people have to live and his policies are failing and hurting millions.
Alastair Campbell
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The media are obsessed with spin doctors and with portraying them as a bad thing, yet seem addicted to our medicine.
Alastair Campbell
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I will continue to help the political causes I believe in in any way I can.
Alastair Campbell
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If you look at the other people around at the time - Charles Clarke, Alistair Darling, Jack Straw - they've all gone. And they're not old. What's happened is that someone who is quite old - Jeremy Corbyn - is now leader. We have to take some responsibility for that.
Alastair Campbell
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The day of the daredevil reporter who refuses to see obstacles to getting the truth, and seeing it with his or her own eyes, seems to have died.
Alastair Campbell
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The royal family's existence is a constant reminder of the hollowness of John Major's rhetoric, and idiotic statements by its leading members a constant boost to the republican cause. They're fine opening hospitals. It's when they open their mouths they get into trouble.
Alastair Campbell
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I'm certainly driven, I hate losing, I can be ruthless and short-tempered and terribly competitive.
Alastair Campbell
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Greg Dyke is on record as saying that once the BBC was attacked, it was their job to defend themselves. But that is not their job.
Alastair Campbell
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As Tony [Blair] said in his book, Gordon [Brown] was brilliant and impossible. If he'd just been one of those things, the options are obvious.
Alastair Campbell
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I have always been driven. I have always believed in what I believe very deeply.
Alastair Campbell