Politicians now ‘decrease high quality’ resulting from ‘vile’ therapy says Alastair Campbell

Alastair Campbell says today’s politicians are “lower quality” than in previous years because of the “vile” treatment they face.

Tony Blair’s former spokesman said the country must “take ownership” for the abuse MPs face, and the effects that has. Mr Campbell pointed to the decision by former SNP MP Mhairi Black, who was just 20 when she was elected, to quit Parliament.

Mr Campbell said Ms Black had “given up” because of the “toxic” environment in Westminster. He told the Edinburgh Book Festival that while there are good quality MPs coming through, the abuse is having an impact.

He said: “I think in general, the quality is lower than it was, but again, I think we’ve all got to take ownership of that. I think one of the reasons is we are so vile to them.” He went on: “I put up with a lot of abuse, I get ‘war criminal’ every single day of my life on social media, very rarely to my face, but occasionally.

“And you do have to develop a thick skin, and you put your finger on it: developing your thick skin and remaining empathic to other people is hard, you have to think about how you do it.”

He said he was saddened by Ms Black’s decision to step down at the General Election aged 29. Mr Campbell said: “I did Channel 4 on election night, and Mhairi Black was on, and I was thinking, ‘there’s Mhairi Black, she’s still very, very young and she’s given up politics’, right?

“She’s great. I mean, I’m Labour, she’s SNP, but I just think she had something really special. She’s given up.”

Mr Campbell said the former SNP MP had told him she wasn’t standing for re-election because of the “toxic” environment in Westminster.

Announcing her decision to stand down last year after nearly a decade in Westminster, Ms Black described Parliament as “one of the most unhealthy workplaces that you could ever be in”. She also said she was alarmed with “what people can get away with”.

In 2018 Ms Black described the scale of misogynistic abuse she faces online with trolls regularly. She repeated the insults aimed at her during a speech in Parliament and said she felt uncomfortable reading them out but warned some people felt “comfortable flinging these words around every day”.