Alastair campbell

This brightened the day. Alastair Campbell, courtesy of his complete diaries, on Ed Balls: “Ed Balls spoke drivel, a never-ending collection of words that just ran into each other and became devoid of meaning.

All kinds of hoohah about last night's Question Time, for which Downing St refused to put up a panellist because of Alastair Campbell's involvement.  If he was replaced with a shadow minister, they said, they would happily get involved.  But, as the excutive editor of Question Time explains here, the Beeb wasn't prepared to go along with that.  So Campbell got to lord it up in front of the cameras. For the reasons outlined by Guido and Iain Dale, it was probably a slight mis-step by the coalition – but not one, in itself, that will have any important rammifications for them or the public.  For while it's not the government's prerogative to decide on the entire Question Time panel, it is their prerogative to choose whether or not they join it.

One striking aspect to this evening's brouhaha is how senior Labour figures are going out of their way not to endorse anyone as Gordon Brown's successor.  Brown himself has said that he won't back an "individual candidate," and Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell have made similar noises in television interviews. There are, I imagine, two main reasons for this.  First, it's all too soon: Labour won't want to engage in full internecine combat while there's still the chance of a deal with the Lib Dems.  And, second, they will want to create the impression that – contrary to Gordon Brown's ascension to power in 2007 – the next Labour leader has been chosen in an open and clean contest.

I just took a quick stroll around the block from Old Queen St, to check out the situation on the ground outside the Chilcot Inquiry.  The most striking thing is how few protestors there are – about ten at most, I'd say, and a fraction of the number that marched out against Blair a few weeks ago.  Brown doesn't even make one placard's list of – and I quote – "Lying R. Soles," which includes Blair, Campbell, Straw and Goldsmith. It's all rather suggestive of how Brown has managed, over the years, to separate himself from those who made the political and moral case for war.  But there lies the problem.  In distancing himself from Blair et al, Brown has emphasised how he – as Chancellor – did little more than control the purse strings.

Brown is very lucky to have a friend in Piers Morgan. He did him a great service in the ITV interview tonight - and while it would have made CoffeeHousers nauseous (if they watched it), it will be the best television the PM will get this year and probably ever. Mark my words: the Labour Party will not produce anything that shows Brown in such a sympathetic light. It was powerful, I'd say, because it was not party political propaganda: Morgan genuinely likes Brown and did his utmost to project the human side of him. Those hours of coaching from Alastair Campbell paid off. He kept smiling in a credible way - telling anecdotes in exactly the way that he does, in private, when he's trying to charm people.

So there we have it, straight from the horse’s mouth, and to round off a sentence of tired clichés all that needs to be said is that Clare Short was “conned”. Everyone was in fact: “We were in a bit of a lunatic asylum… I noticed Tony Blair in his evidence to you kept saying, ‘I had to decide, I had to decide.’ And indeed that’s how he behaved. But that is not meant to be our system of government.” The sofa was barred to all except Bush and the Cabinet exercised collective ignorance. Even Brown was left to brood over cups of coffee and macaroons with Clare Short. Short’s evidence must not be entirely discounted.

It's only a small thing, but does anyone else find this detail from today's Times interview with Alastair Campbell a little, erm, peculiar: "On the [Campbell] fridge is a Christmas card from David Miliband, a clipped photo of George Osborne in the Bullingdon Club shooting pheasant, a GCSE revision schedule. It is the type of handsome but unostentatious London professionals’ house that the Blairs once owned in Islington." I mean, it's no secret that the Labour hierarchy loathes the shadow Chancellor – but putting what I assume is this photo on your fridge?  Armchair psychologists, the comments section is yours...

How do politicians achieve that "unspun" look?  Why, by emulating the spin of a soft drinks company, of course.  This from Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian: '[The Labour campaign team have] taken a look at the branding of Innocent smoothies, hoping the authentic, unspun look might fit their own 'unairbrushable' product, G Brown. They were heartened by the reaction to the retouched Cameron poster, which suggests people are sick of the slick trickery associated with the age of Blair.' In which case, here's the Innocent website so you can get an insight into the Brown brand (although I doubt he'll provide two of your five-a-day).

Labour lost the first week of the long election campaign. The Hoon and Hewitt plot and the late and tepid endorsements of Brown from key members of the Cabinet have highlighted the divisions within the Labour party. Hoon and Hewitt were right that stories about these decisions will not go away. They will run and run right up to polling day. The weekend papers will also not be good for Labour. To compound Labour’s woes, it looks like the big political story of early next week will be Alastair Campbell’s testimony to the Iraq inquiry, which threatens to dredge up memories of spin and Iraq. It should be remembered, though, that Campbell is a formidable performer and could come out of this appearance far better than expected.

If you'd like a step-by-step preview of Labour's next election campaign, then do read Alastair Campbell's latest blog post.  All of Brown's attacks from PMQs are in there, and then some: "tax cuts for the rich"; a lack of "policy heavy lifting" on Cameron's part; the Tories "haven't really changed", etc. etc.  The spinmeister has been in closer contact with Downing Street recently, and it shows.  It's all gone a bit bar-brawling. The Tories now face a choice between, broadly speaking, three different responses: i) Ignore Campbell.