Alastair Campbell – författare

Become a little expert in how the country is run! Understand why politics matters and how you can get involved with ALASTAIR CAMPBELL – writer, podcaster and strategist best known for his work as former PM Tony Blair’s spokesman. What links schools, transport and hospitals? POLITICS! Discover how and why politics is part of everything we do with writer, podcaster and strategist ALASTAIR CAMPBELL. Who is in charge? How are decisions made? What can children do to get involved? Find out all this and more – alongside accessible introductions to parliament, government, voting and debating. Packed with fun, facts and challenges – perfect for readers aged 6 to 9. Welcome to LITTLE EXPERTS – inspiring the next generation of experts! • Written by expert authors, famous for their passion and expertise• Must-read introductions to key non-fiction topics with colour illustrations throughout• Created to empower and inspire!Also available in the series: Why Money Matters by DEBORAH MEADEN, entrepreneur, Dragons' Den investor and host of the BBC Radio 5 Live’s The Big Green Money Show podcast.Marvellous Vehicles by JAMES MAY, a writer and broadcaster who is best known for co-presenting Top Gear and The Grand Tour.Amazing Bodies and How to Save a Life by DR RONX, award-winning trans non-binary emergency doctor and TV presenter.How Families Are Made by DR AMIR KHAN, an award-winning full-time GP and resident doctor on Lorraine and Good Morning Britain.How to Build a Home by GEORGE CLARKE, an architect, writer, lecturer and TV presenter.Superhero Animals by CHRIS PACKHAM CBE, one of the UK’s leading naturalists and an award-winning conservationist, who began his TV career presenting children’s series The Really Wild Show.

Become a little expert in how the country is run! Understand why politics matters and how you can get involved with ALASTAIR CAMPBELL – writer, podcaster and strategist best known for his work as former PM Tony Blair’s spokesman.What links schools, transport and hospitals? POLITICS! Discover how and why politics is part of everything we do with writer, podcaster and strategist ALASTAIR CAMPBELL. Who is in charge? How are decisions made? What can children do to get involved? Find out all this and more – alongside accessible introductions to parliament, government, voting and debating.Packed with fun, facts and challenges – perfect for readers aged 6 to 9.Welcome to LITTLE EXPERTS – inspiring the next generation of experts!• Written by expert authors, famous for their passion and expertise• Must-read introductions to key non-fiction topics with colour illustrations throughout• Created to empower and inspire!Also available in the series:Why Money Matters by DEBORAH MEADEN, entrepreneur, Dragons'' Den investor and host of the BBC Radio 5 Live’s The Big Green Money Show podcast.Marvellous Vehicles by JAMES MAY, a writer and broadcaster who is best known for co-presenting Top Gear and The Grand Tour.Amazing Bodies and How to Save a Life by DR RONX, award-winning trans non-binary emergency doctor and TV presenter.How Families Are Made by DR AMIR KHAN, an award-winning full-time GP and resident doctor on Lorraine and Good Morning Britain.How to Build a Home by GEORGE CLARKE, an architect, writer, lecturer and TV presenter.Superhero Animals by CHRIS PACKHAM CBE, one of the UK’s leading naturalists and an award-winning conservationist, who began his TV career presenting children’s series The Really Wild Show.

Become a little expert in how the country is run! Understand why politics matters and how you can get involved with ALASTAIR CAMPBELL – writer, podcaster and strategist best known for his work as former PM Tony Blair’s spokesman. What links schools, transport and hospitals? POLITICS! Discover how and why politics is part of everything we do with writer, podcaster and strategist ALASTAIR CAMPBELL. Who is in charge? How are decisions made? What can children do to get involved? Find out all this and more – alongside accessible introductions to parliament, government, voting and debating. Packed with fun, facts and challenges – perfect for readers aged 6 to 9. Welcome to LITTLE EXPERTS – inspiring the next generation of experts! • Written by expert authors, famous for their passion and expertise• Must-read introductions to key non-fiction topics with colour illustrations throughout• Created to empower and inspire!Also available in the series: Why Money Matters by DEBORAH MEADEN, entrepreneur, Dragons' Den investor and host of the BBC Radio 5 Live’s The Big Green Money Show podcast.Marvellous Vehicles by JAMES MAY, a writer and broadcaster who is best known for co-presenting Top Gear and The Grand Tour.Amazing Bodies and How to Save a Life by DR RONX, award-winning trans non-binary emergency doctor and TV presenter.How Families Are Made by DR AMIR KHAN, an award-winning full-time GP and resident doctor on Lorraine and Good Morning Britain.How to Build a Home by GEORGE CLARKE, an architect, writer, lecturer and TV presenter.Superhero Animals by CHRIS PACKHAM CBE, one of the UK’s leading naturalists and an award-winning conservationist, who began his TV career presenting children’s series The Really Wild Show.

THE empowering intro to politics that EVERY young person needs right now from writer, podcaster and strategist ALASTAIR CAMPBELL. **Longlisted for the SLA Information Book Award 2025** Politics made fun? YES, REALLY! Writer, podcaster and strategist, Alastair Campbell, makes politics exciting, relatable and personal – AT LAST! Alastair shares his incredible knowledge and passion to empower young people and give them the skills and confidence they need to understand how the country is run, how they can get involved, encourage them to have a view, or take a stand, give them tips about how to debate, and so much more!EVERYONE should have a copy of this brilliant guide to understanding the world of politics, which is bursting with Q&As, quizzes, tips, challenges, plus quotes and interviews from a range of people, including KEIR STARMER, RORY STEWART, KEIRA KNIGHTLEY and LINDSAY HOYLE.Also available in the series:• Deborah Meaden Talks Money – ‎978-0008651527

THE empowering intro to politics that EVERY young person needs right now from writer, podcaster and strategist ALASTAIR CAMPBELL. Politics made fun? YES, REALLY! Writer, podcaster and strategist, Alastair Campbell, makes politics exciting, relatable and personal – AT LAST! Alastair shares his incredible knowledge and passion to empower young people and give them the skills and confidence they need to understand how the country is run, how they can get involved, encourage them to have a view, or take a stand, give them tips about how to debate, and so much more!EVERYONE should have a copy of this brilliant guide to understanding the world of politics, which is bursting with Q&As, quizzes, tips, challenges, plus quotes and interviews from a range of people, including KEIR STARMER, RORY STEWART, KEIRA KNIGHTLEY and LINDSAY HOYLE.Also available in the series:• Deborah Meaden Talks Money – ‎978-0008651527

THE empowering intro to politics that EVERY young person needs right now from writer, podcaster and strategist ALASTAIR CAMPBELL.Politics made fun? YES, REALLY!Writer, podcaster and strategist, Alastair Campbell, makes politics exciting, relatable and personal – AT LAST!Alastair shares his incredible knowledge and passion to empower young people and give them the skills and confidence they need to understand how the country is run, how they can get involved, encourage them to have a view, or take a stand, give them tips about how to debate, and so much more!EVERYONE should have a copy of this brilliant guide to understanding the world of politics, which is bursting with Q&As, quizzes, tips, challenges, plus quotes and interviews from a range of people, including KEIR STARMER, RORY STEWART, KEIRA KNIGHTLEY and LINDSAY HOYLE.Also available in the series:• Deborah Meaden Talks Money – ‎978-0008651527

As Alastair Campbell said in the introduction to The Blair Years, it was always his intention to publish the full version, covering his time as spokesman and chief strategist to Tony Blair. Prelude to Power is the first of four volumes, and covers the early days of New Labour, culminating in their victory at the polls in 1997.Volume 1 details the extraordinary tensions between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as they resolved the question as to which one should stand to become Labour leader. It shows that right from the start, relations at the top were prone to enormous strain, suspicions and accusations of betrayal. Yet it also shows the political and personal bonds that tied them together, and which made them one of the most feared and respected electoral machines anywhere in the world. A story of politics in the raw, Prelude to Power is above all an intimate, detailed portrait of the people who have done so much to shape modern history.

Power & the People covers the first two years of the New Labour government, beginning with their landslide victory at the polls in 1997. This second voume of Campbell's unexpurgated diaries details the initial challenges faced by Labour as they come to power and settle into running the country. It covers an astonishing array of events and personalities, progress and setbacks, crises and scandals, as Blair and his party make the transition from opposition to office.

POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY is the third volume of Alastair Campbell's unique daily account of life at the centre of the Blair government. It begins amid conflict in Kosovo, and ends on September 11, 2001, a day which immediately wrote itself into the history books, changing the course of both the Bush presidency and the Blair premiership. In this volume, we see that New Labour's honeymoon is well and truly over. In addition to detailing the continuing tensions at the top, here we find graphic accounts of a variety of domestic crises: foot-and-mouth disease and protests over fuel prices which almost brought Britain to a halt. Volume Three includes Peter Mandelson's second resignation, the agonies of the Millennium Dome, and the most unexpected slow-handclapping in memory, when the Women's Institute turned against Tony Blair. Yet despite all the problems - not least the most accident-prone manifesto launch in history, complete with deputy prime minister John Prescott punching a voter - Labour won a second successive landslide election victory. That triumph is intimately recorded here, alongside the high points of this period, such as devolution to Northern Ireland and the fall of Milosevic.

The Burden of Power is the fourth volume of Alastair Campbell's diaries, and perhaps the most eagerly awaited given the ground it covers. It begins on September 11, 2001, a day which immediately wrote itself into the history books, and it ends on the day Campbell leaves Downing Street. In between there are two wars: first Afghanistan, and then, even more controversially, Iraq. It was the most difficult decision of Tony Blair's premiership, and almost certainly the most unpopular. Campbell describes in detail the discussions with President Bush and other world leaders as the steps to war are taken, and delivers a unique account of Blair as war leader. He records the enormous political difficulties at home, and the sense of crisis that engulfed the government after the suicide of weapons inspector David Kelly. And all the while, Blair continues to struggle with two issues that ran throughout his time in government - fighting for peace in Northern Ireland, and trying to make peace with Gordon Brown. And Campbell continues to struggle balancing the needs of his family with one of the most pressurised roles in politics. Riveting and revelatory, The Burden of Power is as raw and intimate a portrayal of political life as you are ever likely to read.

The Blair Years is the most compelling and revealing account of contemporary politics you will ever read. Taken from Alastair Campbell's daily diaries, it charts the rise of New Labour and the tumultuous years of Tony Blair's leadership, providing the first important record of a remarkable decade in our national life. Here are the defining events of our time, from Labour's new dawn to the war on terror, from the death of Diana to negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland, from Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, through to the Hutton Inquiry of 2003, the year Campbell resigned his position at No 10. But above all here is Tony Blair up close and personal, taking the decisions that affected the lives of millions, under relentless and often hostile pressure. Often described as the second most powerful figure in Britain, Alastair Campbell is no stranger to controversy. Feared and admired in equal measure, hated by some, he was pivotal to the founding of New Labour and the sensational election victory of 1997. As Blair's press secretary, strategist and trusted confidant, Campbell spent more waking hours alongside the Prime Minister than anyone. His diaires - at times brutally frank, often funny, always compelling - take the reader right to the heart of government. The Blair Years is a story of politics in the raw, of progress and setback, of reputations made and destroyed, under the relentless scrutiny of a 24-hour media. Unflinchingly told, it covers the crises and scandals, the rows and resignations, the ups and downs of Britain's hothouse politics. But amid the big events are insights and observations that make this a remarkably human portrayal of some of the most powerful people in the world. There has never been so riveting a book about life at the very top, nor a more human book about politics, told by a man who saw it all.

Martin Sturrock desperately needs a psychiatrist. The problem? He is one.Emily is a traumatised burns victim, Arta a Kosovan refugee recovering from a rape. David Temple is a longterm depressive, while the Rt Hon Ralph Hall MP lives in terror of his drink problem being exposed. Very different Londoners, but they share one thing: every week they spend an hour at the Prince Regent hospital, revealing the secrets of their psyche to Professor Martin Sturrock. Little do they know that Sturrock's own mind is not the reassuring place they believe it to be. For years he has hidden in his work, ignoring his demons. But now his life is falling apart, and as his ghosts come back to haunt him, the only person he can turn to is a patient. Set over a life-changing weekend, Alastair Campbell's astonishing first novel delves deep into the human mind to create a gripping portrait of the strange dependency between patient and doctor. Both a comedy and tragedy of ordinary lives, it is rich in compassion for those whose days are spent on the edge of the abyss.

Are you happy? Does it matter?Increasingly, governments seem to think so. As the UK government conducts its first happiness survey, Alastair Campbell looks at happiness as a political as well as a personal issue; what it should mean to us, what it means to him. Taking in economic and political theories, he questions how happiness can survive in a grossly negative media culture, and how it could inform social policy. But happiness is also deeply personal. Campbell, who suffers from depression, looks in the mirror and finds a bittersweet reflection, a life divided between the bad and not-so-bad days, where the highest achievements in his professional life could leave him numb, and he can somehow look back on a catastrophic breakdown twenty-five years ago as the best thing that happened to him. He writes too of what he has learned from the recent death of his best friend, further informing his view that the pursuit of happiness is a long game.Originally published as part of the Brain Shots series, the pre-eminent source for high-quality, short-form digital non-fiction.

Bioethics: The Basics is an introduction to the foundational principles, theories and issues in the study of medical and biological ethics. Readers are introduced to bioethics from the ground up before being invited to consider some of the most controversial but important questions facing us today. Topics addressed include:the range of moral theories underpinning bioethics arguments for the rights and wrongs of abortion, euthanasia and animal research health care ethics including the nature of the practitioner-patient relationship public policy ethics and the implications of global and public health‘3 parents’, enhancement, incidental findings and nudge approaches in health care. This thoroughly revised second edition provides a concise, readable and authoritative introduction for anyone interested in the study of bioethics.

Bioethics: The Basics is an introduction to the foundational principles, theories and issues in the study of medical and biological ethics. Readers are introduced to bioethics from the ground up before being invited to consider some of the most controversial but important questions facing us today. Topics addressed include:the range of moral theories underpinning bioethics arguments for the rights and wrongs of abortion, euthanasia and animal research health care ethics including the nature of the practitioner-patient relationship public policy ethics and the implications of global and public health‘3 parents’, enhancement, incidental findings and nudge approaches in health care. This thoroughly revised second edition provides a concise, readable and authoritative introduction for anyone interested in the study of bioethics.

Bioethics: The Basics is an introduction to the foundational principles, theories and issues in the study of medical and biological ethics. Readers are introduced to bioethics from the ground up before being invited to consider some of the most controversial but important questions facing us today. Topics addressed include:the range of moral theories underpinning bioethics arguments for the rights and wrongs of abortion, euthanasia and animal research health care ethics including the nature of the practitioner-patient relationship public policy ethics and the implications of global and public health‘3 parents’, enhancement, incidental findings and nudge approaches in health care. This thoroughly revised second edition provides a concise, readable and authoritative introduction for anyone interested in the study of bioethics.

Bioethics: The Basics is an introduction to the foundational principles, theories and issues in the study of medical and biological ethics. Readers are introduced to bioethics from the ground up before being invited to consider some of the most controversial but important questions facing us today. Topics addressed include:the range of moral theories underpinning bioethics arguments for the rights and wrongs of abortion, euthanasia and animal research health care ethics including the nature of the practitioner-patient relationship public policy ethics and the implications of global and public health‘3 parents’, enhancement, incidental findings and nudge approaches in health care. This thoroughly revised second edition provides a concise, readable and authoritative introduction for anyone interested in the study of bioethics.

"A clear, practical, and long-overdue guide to a powerful idea that the industry has largely overlooked.”Paul Cobban, ex Chief Transformation Officer, DBS"Healthy Money is a must-read for anyone serious about transforming financial services for the better." Simon McNamara ex-CIO RBS / NatWestHow-to guide for incumbent banks to use digital transformation to improve the financial lives of their customersHealthy Money serves as both a polemic and a practical handbook on upgrading banks to be future-relevant. It uniquely integrates customer, technology, and leadership perspectives to build a "Healthy Money"-oriented bank, focusing on how banks can transform, with the explicit goal of helping customers run their financial lives effectively.Written by Alastair Campbell, a seasoned executive with over 30 years of international experience in banking and banking advisory, this book delivers insights on: Thriving at a time when most growth is going on outside of the incumbent banksLeading a shift in focus to drive success through digital customer engagement, and perpetually giving customers more for lessLeveraging the new realities of the deflationary effect of digital technologyRedesigning the bank's architecture around a modular, layered and loosely coupled approach that emphasises rich customer IDs and networks, exchange assurance, fungible/configurable services and personalised experiencesRemaking services around supporting customers to build and sustain healthy financial livesHealthy Money is required reading for all executives and professionals at Incumbent banks seeking to reclaim centre stage by fundamentally addressing their most pressing issues in a unified way.

"e;A clear, practical, and long-overdue guide to a powerful idea that the industry has largely overlooked. Paul Cobban, ex Chief Transformation Officer, DBS "e;Healthy Money is a must-read for anyone serious about transforming financial services for the better."e; Simon McNamara ex-CIO RBS / NatWest How-to guide for incumbent banks to use digital transformation to improve the financial lives of their customers Healthy Money serves as both a polemic and a practical handbook on upgrading banks to be future-relevant. It uniquely integrates customer, technology, and leadership perspectives to build a "e;Healthy Money"e;-oriented bank, focusing on how banks can transform, with the explicit goal of helping customers run their financial lives effectively. Written by Alastair Campbell, a seasoned executive with over 30 years of international experience in banking and banking advisory, this book delivers insights on: Thriving at a time when most growth is going on outside of the incumbent banks Leading a shift in focus to drive success through digital customer engagement, and perpetually giving customers more for less Leveraging the new realities of the deflationary effect of digital technology Redesigning the bank's architecture around a modular, layered and loosely coupled approach that emphasises rich customer IDs and networks, exchange assurance, fungible/configurable services and personalised experiences Remaking services around supporting customers to build and sustain healthy financial lives Healthy Money is required reading for all executives and professionals at Incumbent banks seeking to reclaim centre stage by fundamentally addressing their most pressing issues in a unified way.

"e;A clear, practical, and long-overdue guide to a powerful idea that the industry has largely overlooked. Paul Cobban, ex Chief Transformation Officer, DBS "e;Healthy Money is a must-read for anyone serious about transforming financial services for the better."e; Simon McNamara ex-CIO RBS / NatWest How-to guide for incumbent banks to use digital transformation to improve the financial lives of their customers Healthy Money serves as both a polemic and a practical handbook on upgrading banks to be future-relevant. It uniquely integrates customer, technology, and leadership perspectives to build a "e;Healthy Money"e;-oriented bank, focusing on how banks can transform, with the explicit goal of helping customers run their financial lives effectively. Written by Alastair Campbell, a seasoned executive with over 30 years of international experience in banking and banking advisory, this book delivers insights on: Thriving at a time when most growth is going on outside of the incumbent banks Leading a shift in focus to drive success through digital customer engagement, and perpetually giving customers more for less Leveraging the new realities of the deflationary effect of digital technology Redesigning the bank's architecture around a modular, layered and loosely coupled approach that emphasises rich customer IDs and networks, exchange assurance, fungible/configurable services and personalised experiences Remaking services around supporting customers to build and sustain healthy financial lives Healthy Money is required reading for all executives and professionals at Incumbent banks seeking to reclaim centre stage by fundamentally addressing their most pressing issues in a unified way.

The Clan Campbell has long been among the largest of the Scottish Highland clans as well as arguably the most powerful. Apart from the intrinsic interest of the clan Campbell, its history is inseparable from the history of Scotland. This is the first of three volumes that tells the full history of the clan in depth. The book opens with an investigation of the myths and legends that surround the traditional accounts of the origin of the clan together with a description of the wild and beautiful land of Argyll in which they settled and built up their power-base. Although already of some substance elsewhere in Scotland, the Campbells had to work hard to establish themselves among more powerful neighbours. Chief among these were Somerled's descendants, the MacDougall Lords of Argyll by whom Sir Cailean Mor Campbell was slain at the String of Lorne in 1296. When Sir Cailean Mor's cousin Robert the Bruce rewarded his loyal Campbell followers he set them on the road to success. The road was by no means a direct one: after the King's death his enemies regained much of the land he transferred to the clan. But the Campbells were by now established as a counterweight to the increasingly wayward Lords of the Isles and over the years their loyalty to the Crown was rewarded by major grants of lands and offices. These allowed the clan to flourish and to extend itself over broad areas of Scotland. As this volume closes the house of Lochawe has emerged as the chiefly line while nearly all the major branches of the clan have become established, notably the Houses of Loudoun, Glenorchy (later Breadalbane) and Cawdor. Volume One ends with the defeat of the Scottish army at Flodden where the Campbell chief together with Campbell of Glenorchy and many of the leading Campbells fell alongside their King. The story of how the clan restored its position is the subject of Volume 2. Illustrated with ten maps, a genealogy, and twenty pages of images.

Volume 2 of A History of Clan Campbell continues the story, from the Campbells’ recovery after Flodden to cracks in Clan unity in the seventeenth century. It charts the Clan’s return to power and influence in the decades after Flodden and describes the background of devastating religious conflict in Scotland during the period. Within five years of Flodden, Colin, 3rd Earl, was Vice-Regent and Lieutenant of the Kingdom. Within five decades the Clan had extended their possessions to the Western Isles, reinforced their Highland dominance, and become the most powerful family in the nation and stayed that way for a century and a half, despite everything history could throw at them.Religious conflict in Scotland during almost the whole of the period was devastating. The Crown vacillated between Reformed, Episcopal, and Catholic doctrine whether it was based in Edinburgh or, after 1603, in London. The Campbell chiefs largely held firm to the Protestant Reformation, with one exception. Late in the sixteenth century, however, a crack appeared in the remarkable unity of the Clan: a nationwide conspiracy involving the Campbells of Glenorchy, Lochnell, and Ardkinglas, led to the death of the Bonnie Earl of Moray, the murder of Campbell of Cawdor, and two attempts on the life of 'Grim-faced Archie' the 7th Earl who subsequently turned Roman Catholic and in 1617 left to serve the King of Spain. Again, however, the Clan recovered. Alastair Campbell describes the onset of the religious and civil wars in the seventeenth century. The greatest figure in Scotland then was the first Marquess of Argyll, an ardent Protestant, who was pitted against the charismatic cavalier, the Marquess of Montrose. On behalf of church and crown in Scotland each led governments and armies against one another. Montrose was executed in 1650. Argyll was similarly rewarded in 1661, and here the story ends (until volume 3) with the Clan once more imperilled by the crown.

In the third and final volume of Alastair Campbell’s acclaimed account of the Campbells the story resumes at a high pace. Successive incidents include the 9th Earl’s part in the 1685 Rebellion and his eventual execution; the 10th Earl’s raising to a Dukedom; the Massacre of Glencoe; the 2nd Duke’s quashing of the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion at Sheriffmuir; the notable part played by the Clan in the 1745 Rebellion and in its aftermath the sorry tale of the Appin Murder.Following the defeat of the Jacobite armies at Culloden in1746 the old Clan system effectively came to an end. Succeeding chapters describe the break-up of the old order and the diaspora across the world together with details of the chiefly family and an account of the part played by the Clan in the British Army from its founding down to the war in Iraq. It is extraordinary to see how firmly the Campbells have left their imprint, how widely and in what a variety of ways.Appendices cover the heraldic history of Clan Campbell and the titles it has gained.The book is illustrated with maps expertly drawn by Kenneth Campbell and twenty pages of plates, four of them in colour. It includes appendices covering the Clan’s heraldic history and the titles it has gained over the centuries, and ends with a full bibliography and comprehensive index. Alistair Campbell's trilogy ranges over the histories of the West Highlands, Scotland, and the Scots overseas, in all of which Clan Campbell played a notable and often decisive part. His writing has combined depth and readability in a well-paced narrative. In recording the history of one remarkable family of people, he has made a significant contribution to the history of Scotland as a whole.

Martin Sturrock desperately needs a psychiatrist. The problem? He is one.Emily is a traumatised burns victim, Arta a Kosovan refugee recovering from a rape. David Temple is a longterm depressive, while the Rt Hon Ralph Hall MP lives in terror of his drink problem being exposed. Very different Londoners, but they share one thing: every week they spend an hour at the Prince Regent hospital, revealing the secrets of their psyche to Professor Martin Sturrock. Little do they know that Sturrock's own mind is not the reassuring place they believe it to be. For years he has hidden in his work, ignoring his demons. But now his life is falling apart, and as his ghosts come back to haunt him, the only person he can turn to is a patient. Set over a life-changing weekend, Alastair Campbell's astonishing first novel delves deep into the human mind to create a gripping portrait of the strange dependency between patient and doctor. Both a comedy and tragedy of ordinary lives, it is rich in compassion for those whose days are spent on the edge of the abyss.

Maya Lowe is one of the world's most beautiful film starsShe still thinks she can lead a normal life, despite the fame that has made her a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic. The twists and turns of her public and private life are observed by Steve Watkins, her friend since school-days. He, too, swears that their relationship hasn't changed since they were teenagers. But such a relationship becomes unbalanced. under threat. threatens survive a fame as great as Maya's? Can a man like Steve seriously remain part of her life? He certainly thinks so. But amid the twists and turns of Maya's public and private lives, the gulf between what Steve thinks and what is actually true gets ever wider. And in a world where the obsession with celebrity seems to make everyone want to be one, truth is hard to find. Set in modern-day Britain, America and France, Alastair Campbell's second novel is part psychological thriller, part exploration of the psychology of fame. Steve is a brilliantly ambiguous figure, narrating a story full of morally complex characters from the worlds of film, business, TV, journalism and private investigation. Whether through stars with a love-hate relationship with their public; agents milking the culture of celebrity; a media that cannot get enough because the public always want more, Campbell depicts a society feeding vainly on fame, and the dangerous consequences for those caught up in its frenzy.

As Alastair Campbell said in the introduction to The Blair Years, it was always his intention to publish the full version, covering his time as spokesman and chief strategist to Tony Blair. Prelude to Power is the first of four volumes, and covers the early days of New Labour, culminating in their victory at the polls in 1997.Volume 1 details the extraordinary tensions between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as they resolved the question as to which one should stand to become Labour leader. It shows that right from the start, relations at the top were prone to enormous strain, suspicions and accusations of betrayal. Yet it also shows the political and personal bonds that tied them together, and which made them one of the most feared and respected electoral machines anywhere in the world. A story of politics in the raw, Prelude to Power is above all an intimate, detailed portrait of the people who have done so much to shape modern history.

Power & the People covers the first two years of the New Labour government, beginning with their landslide victory at the polls in 1997. This second voume of Campbell's unexpurgated diaries details the initial challenges faced by Labour as they come to power and settle into running the country. It covers an astonishing array of events and personalities, progress and setbacks, crises and scandals, as Blair and his party make the transition from opposition to office.

POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY is the third volume of Alastair Campbell's unique daily account of life at the centre of the Blair government. It begins amid conflict in Kosovo, and ends on September 11, 2001, a day which immediately wrote itself into the history books, changing the course of both the Bush presidency and the Blair premiership. In this volume, we see that New Labour's honeymoon is well and truly over. In addition to detailing the continuing tensions at the top, here we find graphic accounts of a variety of domestic crises: foot-and-mouth disease and protests over fuel prices which almost brought Britain to a halt. Volume Three includes Peter Mandelson's second resignation, the agonies of the Millennium Dome, and the most unexpected slow-handclapping in memory, when the Women's Institute turned against Tony Blair. Yet despite all the problems - not least the most accident-prone manifesto launch in history, complete with deputy prime minister John Prescott punching a voter - Labour won a second successive landslide election victory. That triumph is intimately recorded here, alongside the high points of this period, such as devolution to Northern Ireland and the fall of Milosevic.

The Burden of Power is the fourth volume of Alastair Campbell's diaries, and perhaps the most eagerly awaited given the ground it covers. It begins on September 11, 2001, a day which immediately wrote itself into the history books, and it ends on the day Campbell leaves Downing Street. In between there are two wars: first Afghanistan, and then, even more controversially, Iraq. It was the most difficult decision of Tony Blair's premiership, and almost certainly the most unpopular. Campbell describes in detail the discussions with President Bush and other world leaders as the steps to war are taken, and delivers a unique account of Blair as war leader. He records the enormous political difficulties at home, and the sense of crisis that engulfed the government after the suicide of weapons inspector David Kelly. And all the while, Blair continues to struggle with two issues that ran throughout his time in government - fighting for peace in Northern Ireland, and trying to make peace with Gordon Brown. And Campbell continues to struggle balancing the needs of his family with one of the most pressurised roles in politics. Riveting and revelatory, The Burden of Power is as raw and intimate a portrayal of political life as you are ever likely to read.