International

Sexed up Spin Doctor

The OBN section of Private Eye does through up some classics sometimes. This week’s pair are superb and topical:

Alastair Campbell’s performance in front of the select committee was bullish, forceful, passionate and executed with staggering conviction. If anything was sexed up it was the spin doctor in his crisp white shirt and macho charisma proving among Westminster’s hand-wringing, lily-livered apologists there’s at least one man prepared to say boo to a goose.
It’s widely alleged Campbell is really the man running the country. Thank God for that.

SUE CARROLL on her old colleague Alastair Campbell
Mirror

Unlike star correspondents and presenters such as Andrew Marr, John Humphrys and John Simpson, Richard Sambrook has built his career behind the scenes.
But in the last few days, he has shown he is their match in terms of courage under fire and robustness in the face of government pressure.
Attacked with almost unprecedented ferocity by the government’s director of communications, Mr Sambrook has not only withstood the blows but delivered some withering rejoinders of his own.

Torin Douglas in a “profile” of his boss, the BBC Director of News
BBC Online