Alastair Campbell's long-awaited and potentially explosive account of the nine years he spent at Tony Blair's side will be published this year shortly after the prime minister leaves office, the former Downing Street spokesman confirmed last night.
Edited extracts from his 2m-word diaries will run to around 800 pages - or 350,000 words. He hopes eventually to publish the diaries in full as a serious contribution to the history of the Blair years.
Reports have suggested the book might be worth more than £1m in publication and serialisation rights but Mr Campbell has told friends: "I am not in this for the money, what I want to do is a good book."
In waiting until Mr Blair has left No 10, Whitehall's most famous spin doctor has fulfilled a pledge not to embarrass his old boss. As a New Labour loyalist, he also moved quickly last night to reassure Gordon Brown and other ministers that - whatever his diaries about the turbulent Blair-Brown relationship - the premier-in-waiting "should not worry" either.
The Blair Years will be the most authoritative and informative insider's account yet of the Blair decade; at the peak of his powers in Labour's first term Mr Campbell saw Mr Blair as much as any official.
"I hope it helps paint a rounded picture of a man of enormous drive and vision, who has been determined to use his time in power to make a difference and has brought about a lot of change for the better," Mr Campbell said in a statement. "The diary records what I saw, said, heard, thought, felt and did during many of the key moments of his leadership. It records good days and bad days."
Mr Campbell witnessed battles over the euro, public spending, Kosovo, Bernie Ecclestone and Peter Mandelson's resignations, culminating in his own final row with the BBC over the "sexed-up" Iraq intelligence dossiers. Extracts from the diaries relating to BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, and David Kelly, the weapons expert who killed himself, were read to the Hutton inquiry.
The raw diaries, which Mr Campbell kept from 1994, when he joined the new Labour leader's staff, until his resignation in 2003, were last night dubbed "the £1m wages of spin". Neither Mr Campbell nor Random House, his publisher, would confirm the size of the contract.
Mr Campbell will "abide by the rules" governing the publication of memoirs by former high officials by submitting his book for approval by the Cabinet Office, whose head, Sir Gus O'Donnell, has sought to impose a firm line on retired civil servants. As a political appointee who had a dual contract, official and political, Mr Campbell can expect more latitude.
