Alastair Campbell: 'I didn’t want to identify myself as mentally ill' | 12
How Do You Cope?
Wondery
5 • 695 Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2025
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At what point do you accept that you need help?
John talks to political strategist, author and broadcaster Alastair Campbell about his battles with depression. Alastair has been very vocal about the after-effects of a psychotic episode that left him hospitalised in 1986, and seeing his brother Donald live with schizophrenia.
He talks about his resistance towards seeking help, how his spell in hospital has impacted his outlook, and how looking at a raisin helped calm his thoughts.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wonderry Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of How Do You Cope early and ad-free? |
| 0:04.7 | Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:09.2 | This advert is brought to you by Macmillan Cancer Support, a registered charity. |
| 0:14.1 | If you or someone you care about has been diagnosed with cancer, the Macmillan online community is here. |
| 0:19.6 | Macmillan's online community is open 24-7. |
| 0:23.0 | It's a free, safe space to connect with people who get what it's like to have cancer. |
| 0:27.6 | You can browse groups, ask questions to an expert, share your experience, or just see what |
| 0:32.6 | others have to say. On the online community, no question is too big, too small or too personal. Their members have all |
| 0:39.7 | been there too. Plus, it's completely anonymous. Search McMillan online community today. |
| 0:49.0 | Hello and welcome to How Do You Cope with me, John Robbins. |
| 0:57.3 | Each week I talk to fascinating people about the hardships they've overcome and together we explore |
| 1:02.4 | how they were able to cope. Today's guest is the journalist, political strategist, author and |
| 1:08.1 | broadcaster, Alistair Campbell. Alistair was born in Keely in Yorkshire to Scottish parents and attended Cambridge before going |
| 1:15.3 | on to pursue journalism as political editor of the Daily Mirror. In 1986, Alistair experienced a |
| 1:21.4 | nervous breakdown while in Scotland with Neil Kinnock, spending five days at an inpatient facility |
| 1:26.2 | in Glasgow, and this led him to address his |
| 1:28.7 | problem drinking. Alistair left journalism in 1994. He is perhaps best known for his work as Tony Blair's |
| 1:34.5 | campaign director. His time under Blair saw him become one of the most high profile and written |
| 1:39.3 | about figures in British politics. In 2022, Alistair launched the incredibly successful podcast The Rest |
| 1:45.2 | is Politics with former Conservative MP Rory Stewart. In our conversation, we spoke about his |
| 1:50.9 | experience of mental illness in his family. We also discussed the techniques he uses to deal |
| 1:55.2 | with depression since his journey into exploring his own mental health started 20 years ago. |
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