And now from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, the Act Files, with your host, David Axelrod.

Let me be honest, when we launched the Act Files a few weeks ago, I had no idea how it was going to go or how people would react.

I just want to have some good conversations and share them with you. And we've gotten off to a great start thanks to you.

Today I want to bring you another. If you're an American, you may not know the name Alistair Campbell, but if you're from Britain you surely do.

He's probably the best-known political strategist and commentator in that country having helped Tony Blair win three elections as a Prime Minister of the country.

But he's also a guy with an incredibly interesting background and a very gripping and riveting life story.

And he's also the author of 11 books including the newly released winners and how they succeed. Here's that conversation.

Alistair Campbell, journalist, political strategist, author, sports nut. You've stolen my identity and I'm very angry about it.

You might have still got hair.

Oh god, you know this is a podcast. They didn't know until this moment that I don't have hair. So now you've literally blown my cover.

But I'm interested in in your I know what my life's journey was. I'm interested in yours.

Tell me how in the first instance you ended up as a journalist. I want to talk by the way about your new book.

And we will do so at length because it's fascinating. But I want to talk about you first. How did you first enter journalism?

I actually can't remember. I'll tell you why. I left university. I went to Cambridge. I did languages. I didn't like Cambridge.

That is when my kind of very heavy drinking started to kick in. And I found along with qualify you as a journalist.

At the time it did. Yeah. Absolutely. But I then kind of bummed around for a year or so. I worked in a casino. I was a busker.

I worked in a light bulb factory and it all sorts of kind of just I don't know. I just didn't know what I wanted to do.

And I'd always been I always loved writing. I'd always love words. And we've got no journals meant my family at all. My father was a vet.

And I applied for this training scheme. And there were the Daily Mirror. I think there were 1200 applicants for nine places. It was something like that. It was really kind of competitive.

And I got on to that and it meant I had two years in local papers down in the west country, which is the best grounding anybody can have in my view still.

It's where I met Fiona and we're still together. And that was it. And the minute I started being a journalist I loved it.

I think one of the best things about being a journalist is you can just go up to anybody and start talking to them. And 99 times out of 100 they'll talk to you.

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