{"id":431,"date":"2010-01-15T11:01:07","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T11:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2010\/01\/15\/alastair-campbell-and-repressed-homosexuality\/"},"modified":"2010-01-15T11:01:07","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T11:01:07","slug":"alastair-campbell-and-repressed-homosexuality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2010\/01\/15\/alastair-campbell-and-repressed-homosexuality\/","title":{"rendered":"Alastair Campbell and Repressed Homosexuality"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other night I saw Dinner with Portillo <\/em>-a show whose conceit of filming members of the chattering classes eating lukewarm food and regurgitating received opinions I can assert with confidence would never occur to any commissioning editor from any other country on the planet. Unaware of the dangers of self-parody, the guests pontificated in between mouthfuls on the virtues and vices of political diaries. Julia Hartley Brewer of the Express <\/em>declared that Alastair Campbell\u2019s were dreadful. He was a useless journalist who could barely put pen to paper she said: a ranter not a writer. The flattering implication left hanging in the air was that she could deliver her stern verdict because she was a good journalist who could write. <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u201cWell, we\u2019ll be the judge of that, <\/em>Julia,\u201d I thought,\u201d and then turned to Campbell\u2019s blog <\/a>to read a discussion about whether Paul Dacre, Quentin Letts and Peter Oborne of the Daily Mail have been pushed by their unrequited passion for him into unreasoning hatred.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 Whether Campbell\u2019s astonishing allegation is true or not I am in no position to say. The piece is, however, very well written.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

As those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook will know, on Wednesday I had a call from a behavioural psychologist, to tell me he had come to the conclusion that Obergruppenfuehrer Paul Dacre is secretly in love with me.<\/p>\n

My tweet on this\u00a0led to a few complaints about the Nazi terminology,\u00a0 one or two saying it was unfair on Dacre, more suggesting that it was unfair on the Nazis, which even I thought was just a bit ott. Just a bit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So as a compromise position, I will for this much gentler, touchier-feelier blog make him a mere Kommandant of Die Mail<\/em> (those last two words have a ring to them).<\/p>\n

The psychologist, who was terribly serious by the way, felt it was highly likely that I figure in homoerotic fantasies which fill Dacre with terrible shame and guilt. There can be no other explanation, he said, for the scale of hatred expressed in his coverage of me over many years, which had another mini-Nagasaki explosion when I\u00a0gave evidence to the Iraq inquiry on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

I hardly knew what to say about my psychologist friend\u2019s call, but as I tweeted, I did feel\u00a0a rare if passing moment of\u00a0sympathy for this most hideous man. Poor poor Obergruppenfuehrer, I said (this was pre-Kommandant phase).<\/p>\n

It\u00b9s flattering to have people imagine that I might be appreciated sexually, particularly as I go on down the back nine of life. But just as I don\u00b9t do God,\u00a0I don\u00b9t do male. And I certainly don\u00b9t do Mail <\/em>scum. So, Paul Dacre, whatever is going on inside that troubled head as you toss and turn alongside your poor wife sleeping gently besides you, I am sorry, it is time for me to be frank with you \u2013 it can never be.<\/p>\n

Occasionally my path crosses with apologetic Mail<\/em> hacks (they usually quote the \u2018only obeying orders\u2019 Nuremberg defence for the stuff they write) who want to tell me chapter and verse about Dacre\u00b9s regime and his bouts of obsession with me. You can probably guess the sort of thing, but it must be said he seems to talk about me a lot, given I left Downing Street more than six years ago. .<\/p>\n

It was a well-known Mail<\/em> columnist who first told me he thought Dacre harboured a furtive passion for me, and because it is not returned, and he can never admit it, he must lash out. He compared it to \u2018the jealousy of the lonely public school fag who dreams of silent visits to the dorm, realises he can never catch the eye of the prefect, and becomes first lovingly bitter, then bitterly enraged, then out for vengeance. Hell hath no fury like a fag scorned, apparently.<\/p>\n

If you look at the content of Die Mail<\/em> (part of my job when I worked for TB, but it\u00b9s not allowed in the house now, in common wiith dogshit) you can see Dacre\u00b9s inner psyche screaming out from page after page. Just as good football teams reflect the character of the man at the top, so do evil newspapers. I\u00b9ve always imagined all the rage and angst and the scratching and the boils on his back must be because of some deep discontent within.<\/p>\n

But could it be, no, surely not, that it is all about confused feelings of sexuality? And about me? Gott im Himmel!!<\/p>\n

There\u00b9s also that old saying about birds of a feather flocking together. I\u00b9m not saying that everyone at Die Mail<\/em> is secretly in love with me. But look at the man I described on Tuesday as the faux posh tosser, Peter Oborne, who was drivelling away outside the QE2 in a vest and an old jacket. Also on the payroll of Die Mail<\/em>, he was ostensibly there to cover the inquiry, but my psychologist friend wondered whether he was not there just to catch a glimpse of me. He was dressed for play, not work.<\/p>\n

This is the Oborne who in earlier life wrote a book about me, in which many Mills and Boon flashes were shown \u2013 he described me as \u2018a tall, commanding, well-built man, ruggedly good-looking.\u00b9 Also \u2018he possessed that sexual confidence that some men have who know how to please women. He\u00a0was very good-looking in a dangerous sort of way.\u00b9 Well, well, well, we wonder, dangerous to whom? Him? Dacre? The queer-looking Quentin Quetts who had me (not in that way) fairly high up the list in his book on the people who \u2018buggered up Britain?\u2019\u00a0Interesting choice of word Quents. Something on your mind?<\/p>\n

When Oborne was writing his soft porn about me, he\u00a0was\u00a0on the Express<\/em>, but tried to flog his book to Die Mail<\/em>, a move the Express<\/em> blocked, saying he had to serialise it in his own paper. This drove the Kommandant into boil-erupting, shoulder-scratching\u00a0rage. He ordered a team of hacks to put together a \u2018book\u2019 (it never got published because it didn\u2019t really exist) so they could run a spoiler \u2013 \u2018the real Alastair Campbell\u2019<\/em> story.<\/p>\n

Day One included the revelation that the transforming event of my life was the death of my father in an accident when I was a child. This came as news to my Dad, then alive and well and living in retirement. Banged to rights as they say. Apology next day, and a nice cheque with which we bought new gates and playground equipment for the kids\u2019 primary school. (The only thing Dacre has ever done for State schools by the way. He chose Eton for his own kids –\u00a0 where else for the voice of middle England he claims to represent?)<\/p>\n

I caught sight of Die Mail\u00b9s<\/em> front page on Wednesday in the newsagent and when I\u00a0 saw the splash headline -\u2018Shameless unrepentant and still lying,\u2019 I assumed they were running an advert for themselves. It turned out to be a missive to me from my repressed secret admirer. Paulipoos my poppet, I know you love me. Scream it more gently and I might listen.<\/p>\n

So, if I may adopt that well-known question mark journalism so beloved by Dacre and his many minions \u2013 could he be hiding something? Is there a guilty secret that only he knows about?<\/p>\n

One that he dare not tell even Oborne, his fellow erotically charged obsessive who broods about the \u2018dangerous\u2019 attraction he sees in me?<\/p>\n

Why does Dacre never show his face in public? Does he fear there are people out there who might recognise him, and what they might say about what they know?<\/p>\n

And if the guilty secret were secret no more, does Dacre perhaps fear the kind of condemnation he metes out to others? How can we know when the man is so secretive about his own life whilst being so prurient and inquisitive about the lives of others?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure we all remember the recent post-death character assassination of Stephen Gately by Die Mail\u00b9s<\/em> Jan Moir.<\/p>\n

As I said at the time, nothing goes in that paper without Dacre\u2019s support and say so. If there is any\u00a0homophobia in there, it is his.\u00a0And who knows where it comes from? But if I have added to his derangement, I think I should just add this to my list of public service achievements, whilst simultaneously (with Mind Champion of the Year hat on), telling him if he needs help and counselling, thanks to Labour there is more of it now available.<\/p>\n

In my new novel (no, you\u2019re right,\u00a0there is nowhere I can\u2019t plug it with only two weeks to go) movie star Maya\u2019s agent talks about \u2018the Harold Shipman treatment\u2019 being meted out to a member of the public who dared to accuse Maya of attacking him.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t see\u00a0Die Mail <\/em>beyond the headline, but I gather it\u00a0 was in that mould. Piers Morgan sent me a text suggesting Idi Amin came off lightly by comparison. (He has given me the front cover endorsement for the novel by the way \u2013 Piers, that is, not Idi Amin).<\/p>\n

People ask why I don\u2019t get angry about\u00a0Die Mail\u2019s<\/em> coverage. Partly because it is beyond parody. But mainly because now I realise that, to quote Oscar Wilde (oh how Dacre would have relished covering him in his pomp) it is all just a manifestation of the love that dare not speak its name. I can come to terms with this. But can Paulipoos? I think we should be told.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

No related posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other night I saw Dinner with Portillo -a show whose conceit of filming members of the chattering classes eating lukewarm food and regurgitating received opinions I can assert with confidence would never occur to any commissioning editor from any other country on the planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}