Alistair Campbell says about UK politics ‘you have got to believe that things can get better – and I think they will’
“You have got to believe that things can get better,” is one of the messages Alistair Campbell wants to deliver at one of the most important business gatherings in the region this evening.
Famous for being one of Tony Blair’s top advisors but now better known as an author, podcaster and mental health advocate, Mr Campbell is in Inverness as the main speaker at the Inverness Chamber of Commerce’s Highland Business Dinner.
He is certain to get a warm reception if anyone operating businesses on Loch Ness attends after he defended Nessie on the podcast The Rest is Politics which he hosts with former MP Rory Stewart.
A relaxed Mr Campbell spoke to The Inverness Courier about the state of UK politics and what he might say this evening and revealed he was going to find out himself on the night because much of it is up to the audience.
“Well, I don't know,” he said. “I don't know because what we are doing is they are going to put postcards for questions on the tables so it depends on the questions, on what I'm being asked.”
It should not be a surprise politics will come up as he has been prominent in frontline British politics since the 1990s and before that as a journalist, and now as an author and podcast host.
Though careful to dispel parallels with 1997, what is interesting is how the message that he helped craft for the famous Labour landslide then - ‘things can only get better’ - echoes what he hopes for now.
“But what it has to do, in general, my basic message on politics is going to be that the Conservatives have had about 14 years in government and there is nothing that has gotten better in the country,” he said.
“There's got to be change but it's going to need more than a change of government to get the country going a little bit more. I'm just trying to get things better, get everyone together.
“You have to stay positive, you have got to believe that things can get better and I think they will so I am hoping to see change and I am hoping the change is going to deliver something that is much, much better.”
That positivity may have worked already as he said he had finished the last chapter of a new book he was writing just this morning in Inverness. It is a book to help children understand politics.
