Alastair Campbell

Alastair Campbell
Campbell speaking at Chatham House in 2012
Director of Communications and Strategy
In office 15 July 2000 – 29 August 2003
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	David Hill
Downing Street Press Secretary
In office 2 May 1997 – 15 July 2000
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Jonathan Haslam
Succeeded by	Godric Smith
Personal details
Born	Alastair John Campbell (1957-05-25) 25 May 1957 (age 59) Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Domestic partner	Fiona Millar
Children	3
Alma mater	Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Profession	Journalist Author Broadcaster
Signature

Alastair John Campbell (born 25 May 1957) is a British journalist, broadcaster, political aide and author, best known for his work as Downing Street Press Secretary (1997–2000), followed by Director of Communications and Strategy (2000–2003), for prime minister Tony Blair. He resigned in August 2003 during the Hutton Inquiry into the death of David Kelly.

Campbell was born on 25 May 1957 in Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire, son of a Scottish veterinary surgeon, Donald Campbell, and his wife Elizabeth. Campbell's parents had moved to Keighley when his father became a partner in a local veterinary practice. Donald was a Gaelic-speaker from the island of Tiree; his wife was from Ayrshire. Campbell has two elder brothers, Donald and Graeme, and a younger sister, Elizabeth. Alastair would go over the county border to Lancashire to watch Burnley F.C. with his father.

He attended Bradford Grammar School for a short period of time, followed by City of Leicester Boys' Grammar School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he studied modern languages, French and German, for which he received an upper second (2:1). He later claimed he wrote essays based solely on works of literary criticism, often rather than having read the works themselves. He spent a year in the south of France as part of his academic degree course.