But What Can I Do?: Why Politics Has Gone So Wrong, and How You Can Help Fix It

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I do know people who felt they couldn’t stay with partners once serious mental health issues threatened their own wellbeing, and it would be dishonest of me to say there haven’t been a few moments when I questioned if it was right to stay. But we now know it is possible to live better with depression, and that is what I would wish for anyone existing in the shadow of this terrible illness. How do you start that conversation to get to the truth? Where to get help when the behaviour spills over into something more dangerous and toxic? How do you persuade someone you love, but can also recoil from and resent, to accept that need? Mental ill-health is far less tangible than physical disease. How do you know it isn’t you that is deluded? I often find when people talk about their own mental health it can just be the most self involved thing ever. With no goal other than to talk about how hard one's life is. Though there is a lot of sadness and grief in what I am saying, I hope you also find… hope. The sub-title of my book is important – Living Better: How I Learned to Survive Depression. It is about how I survived depression. The thinking and exploring I have done in writing it has undoubtedly helped me add to the strategies I deploy to stay, most of the time, pretty well. But I also hope the book serves a broader purpose, to help change the lens on the way we think, speak and act in relation to mental illness. I wouldn't have bought this book, and only read it because my son passed it on to me after he'd read it.

Fiona Millar, Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson at the Labour party conference in Brighton in 2000. Photograph: Dan Chung/The GuardianMPs, he stresses, don’t have to be rotten, corrupt, self-serving; they can effect change. Wary of “dadsplaining”, he speaks to millennials for their perspective, and is admiring of Greta Thunberg, a lone young voice who spoke up against the global establishment. If she can, so can others. Our politics is a mess. We have leaders who can't or shouldn't be allowed to lead. We endure governments that lie, and seek to undermine our democratic values. And we are confronted with policies that serve the interests of the privileged few. It's no surprise that so many of us feel frustrated, let down and drawn to ask, 'But what can I do?' Ultimately real change will almost always involve the legislative process. And so I want to encourage those who feel the world needs to change to campaign for what they believe in but at least to consider going into politics itself because we must broaden the gene pool from which we take our politicians. I list in the book many campaigners who have made a real difference and their work should never be underestimated. But ultimately most power flows from the top. We might wish it were not so given some of the people who have been in charge in recent years. But it is.’

These are difficult questions to ask and to answer and I have agonised over them all, while blaming myself for not being able to help until Alastair agreed to see a psychiatrist rather than try to cure himself. This watershed moment followed a terrifying incident on Hampstead Heath when fear, anger, helplessness, loss of purpose, self-loathing – I will never know which – caused him to start punching himself in the face. From 1st July 2021, VAT will be applicable to those EU countries where VAT is applied to books - this additional charge will be collected by Fed Ex (or the Royal Mail) at the time of delivery. Shipments to the USA & Canada: Onstage at the Royal Hall, Harrogate, Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart view a clip from Newsnight when Campbell lost his temper with Alex Phillips, the former Brexit party MEP. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer Overall, a solid 4/5. Somehow, I still do allow the pessimism to triumph over my optimism and say, “it really is not that easy.” But more than anything, it is motivation - I am more than willing to put myself out there into the political ring. I even landed a new political job while in the midst of reading this book, which certainly sourced some of my courage to take it over another opportunity.When talking about his own experiences of mental illness whether his or through family, Campbell is frank and candid throughout without being harsh and I found the tone to be an easy one to 'listen' to and read. The Afterword written by Fiona Campbell matches in tone and though short is in itself an important read, and provides an understanding of what it's like to live with from another angle. Like The Happy Depressive I think this is one book that will stay with me, both on my shelf and as a supportive reminder. Aside from that, it's given me different perspectives to think about in relation to my own experiences of mental illness and how I've been attempting to approach it. I feel that there are enough people genuinely concerned and who want to make a difference and change the nature of political debate. Equally, I worry how many people are just switching off and turning away from the political debate altogether. That helps nobody but the charlatans. In a serious democracy where people took their role in the debate seriously there is no way in the world that a Johnson or a Trump would ever get to the most powerful positions in their countries. On a good day, I think it can never happen again. At other times I worry that defeating individual populists is not the same thing as defeating populism. The reason I have written the book is to try to encourage people – not just the young but anyone who is worried about the direction of travel – that we all do have some agency. The question is how we use it.’