I met Kellyanne Conway for the first time last week, when she and I were on a panel together, looking ahead to next month’s US midterm elections. She, you may recall, was the Trump senior aide who, on Term 1 Day 1, as the newly elected US president was falsely claiming more people attended his inauguration than Barack Obama’s, let us know we would have to get used to “alternative facts,” whatever truth photographic or any other evidence might reveal.
This was actually an important moment in the life of the Trump presidency, and in the history of the world’s richest and most powerful democracy – the point at which it was confirmed that the US was moving from 2Ps, populism and polarisation, to a fully-fledged, Putin-style 3P politics, adding post-truth to their mix.
Trump has treated us to many thousands of such alternative facts, better known as lies, myths, fake news and fantasies, ever since. They have come at us non-stop, through that first term, through the Joe Biden years that followed the election Trump falsely insists he never lost, through his third election and now the second term, in which the AFC (Alternative Fact Counter) has been busier than ever.
Things started out fine with Ms Conway. As I saw her arriving at the venue, being the polite British gent that I am, I walked over to introduce myself.
“I’m Alastair Campbell,” I said, offering my hand. “I know who you are,” she replied, and promptly curtseyed. Good start. Nice. Funny. Disarming. I do like a sense of humour.
It was when we got into the panel discussion that things got somewhat less cordial. I admire loyalty, but her continuing belief that Donald Trump is a great man doing great things, and broadly right about everything, grated a tad.
The grating became mutual when I said the Republicans were losing the midterms not, as she believed, despite Trump, but because of him. And she really did not like me pointing out that he had spectacularly failed to deliver on his promise to end the Ukraine war in a single day, just as he had failed on Iran, despite or possibly because of the antics of “clowns” (my word, not hers) Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
Part of her rebuttal was to say that Trump had developed a wonderful relationship with Volodymyr Zelensky. This was the same Zelensky, I replied, who was subjected to a total humiliation in the White House, in contrast to the treatment of Vladimir Putin, whose birthday Trump had asked the world to celebrate a day before our event, just as child-killing bombs were falling on Kyiv, and whose every encounter with Trump or the clowns coincides with the Kremlin killer having his shoes polished by their tongues.
By now, Conway had decided to inform the audience that I was a Level 5 Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer – I assured her I was Level 6 – and added for good measure that she had met Tony Blair last year and, unlike me, my old boss wasn’t rude.
I don’t feel I was rude at all. I just think there is a weird MAGA-Land universe, in which Trumpsters tell Trumpsters how absolutely marvellous he is, and how terribly silly, useless and unfortunate are those who fail to see his greatness as they do.
We later learned that, as we were talking, Trump was doing a huge deal with Putin to lift a ban on exports of Russian diesel, to help mitigate the economic hit caused by another of his failures, the one that led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz which, as I reminded his former counsellor, was precisely the feared consequence that had stopped his predecessors from making the same mistake with regard to Iran.
Fair to say, it was not a meeting of minds, and her goodbye was a lot cooler than the curtseying hello.
We were supposed to be interviewing Andy Burnham for The Rest Is Politics last Thursday, but the new PM had to go to Berlin for a meeting with Chancellor Friedrich Merz. We were offered a slot the following day, when he was due to be in No 10 North, up in Manchester.
The trouble was, Friday was the day I had agreed to head to a print factory in Chatham, to sign thousands of books and nameplates ahead of next week’s publication of Persevilience. I could have said no, but the thought of losing a signed book deal with Waterstones drained so much colour from my publisher’s complexion that in the end we made do with online for the Burnham interview.
He was on his way back from a speech when I logged on from Kent, and Rory Stewart did the same from London. Joining us from No 10 North to check the set-up was Lucy, one of the heavily female team, headed by Grace Pritchard and Sarah Brown, in charge of Burnham’s communications.
We enjoyed a bit of small talk about No 10 now, and No 10 in my time, during which Lucy revealed she was born in 1997, a few weeks after the first of New Labour’s three election wins. I suddenly felt very old indeed.
There were plenty of newsworthy elements from the interview, but to my mind none worthier than his candid admission that on becoming prime minister, Burnham had specifically sought an answer to the question – “did Russia interfere in the Brexit referendum?” – and had been told clearly, “yes”.
This came as little surprise to those of us who have thought since 2016 that successive prime ministers, a gaggle of Tories and then Labour’s Keir Starmer, have simply opted to look away from an unpalatable truth, one that is central to so many of the challenges facing Britain.
Now that a prime minister (the seventh since the referendum) has admitted this truth, there should be an inquiry not merely into the enormous damage Brexit has done, but also the cover-up of such damage, either from Tories who wanted to pretend all was going well, or from a Labour government that wanted us to believe we could “make Brexit work”.
“The truth will set you free.” John, Chapter 8, Verse 32. In deciding to tell the truth about Brexit, perhaps Burnham is opening the door to setting the country free once again.
There is something very nice about having kids who make me laugh, and in the case of my daughter, Grace, one who makes a living making lots of people laugh. If you don’t follow her on social media, I recommend you do… it is more entertaining than my usual feed of trees, links to podcast episodes, Burnley line-ups, and expressions of TDS Level 6.
Suggested Reading
Why is Farage so keen to protect Russia’s right to lie and cheat?
She did make me LOL, as we say when pretending we get young people, with an Instagram story she posted after reading an advance copy of the new book, the one TNW readers will get for free if they become a subscriber.
I warned her it might make her cry, because there is a chapter in there about persevilience in relationships, which is essentially a love letter cum apology-for-being-so-difficult-to-live-with to Fiona, her mum. Anyway, it did make her cry, as she admitted in her story, but then had me burst out laughing on a packed train, because she said she was using her fame to help me promote the book because I was a “nepo-dad”.
Nepo-dad! Brilliant. But I wonder… are there any real nepo-parents out there who use their children’s success to further their own career and interests? Asking for a comedian I know, who thinks she may have stumbled upon a rich vein.
