The Trawl Meets Alastair Campbell
The Trawl
Jemma Forte & Marina Purkiss
4.7 • 867 Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From the realities of political life today to looking back on the Blair years, Campbell is open, considered and surprisingly candid about the pressures, the mistakes, and why he thinks Starmer is getting it right, even if the public don't. Marina and Jemma cover everything from global politics to The Rest Is Politics.
There are thoughtful moments, a few laughs, and glimpses of the personal side you don’t always hear from family dynamics to podcast partnerships.
A fascinating deep dive but don't worry, no bagpipes
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'd like to go back to 97 if I may just speak. |
| 0:03.6 | Yeah, exactly. |
| 0:05.8 | So something has to be done. |
| 0:07.3 | What would you have done? |
| 0:08.0 | Or how would you've spun it differently? |
| 0:09.6 | I don't just spend. |
| 0:12.3 | But you know what, Alistair was a better defender than Paolo Maldini, isn't it? |
| 0:16.7 | Oh, Maldane was good. |
| 0:30.9 | Hello and welcome to The Trawmeats. |
| 0:32.1 | I'm Marina Perkins. |
| 0:33.3 | And I'm Gemma Forte. |
| 0:39.0 | And on the Trawle meets, Marina and I get to chat with someone we admire and who we'd like to give a good old probe to. |
| 0:44.5 | And today, the Trawl meets someone whose name is basically welded to British politics. |
| 0:56.7 | Former Downing Street comm's chief strategist, broadcaster, podcaster, cyclist, bagpiper and the man who spent years trying to keep Tony Blair out of trouble with mixed results. |
| 1:02.2 | One half of one of the biggest podcasts in the country, if not perhaps the world. |
| 1:04.9 | The biggest in the country, excuse me. The biggest. |
| 1:05.7 | And someone who still can't quite escape being asked about Blair wherever he goes. |
| 1:12.0 | Welcome to the pod, |
| 1:18.2 | Alistair Campbell. Pleasure. Love it. Thank you. Alistair, you have spent decades shaping narratives. Are you feeling okay about the fact that you don't get to shape this one? We do. |
| 1:21.9 | Oh, well, let's see, shall we? You can shape your narrative and I can check mine. |
| 1:26.3 | We're going to try to spin the spinner. |
| 1:28.0 | Exactly. |
... |
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