Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s press secretary and strategist, has just published his diaries, which tell the story of the rise to power of New Labour and the events of Blair’s period as British Prime Minister. The Labour Party had spent 18 years in opposition before winning a landslide victory in the 1997. Reading the diaries we discover that this may have all been down  to creative mastermind Pete Gatley, currently doing his creative masterminding at your very own Wieden + Kennedy London. Campbell is a controversial figure, "hated, feared and admired in equal measure’ it says on the book’s dust jacket. But though he’s renowned for his scathing criticism of certain individuals, Campbell wrote a valentine to Pete on Feb 14th 1997. Here’s an extract:

I met Pete Gatley from the ad agency at 2.45 and he showed me his latest idea for the last five days or even the whole campaign. It was just ‘New Labour, New Britain’ in a series of really bright colours. I liked it. It was fresh, clear, new, had a nice positive feel. But I felt if they were up with real weight they could add to a sense of mood changing, hope, energy, enthusiasm… Once I’d seen them at Millbank, I then went to the agency and we went through the charade of Pete presenting them to me again, and I had to react as if seeing them for the first time…Peter Mandelson arrived late and saw them for the first time. I didn’t give any indication of what I thought when I first saw them. He said he really liked them a lot. He went along with Pete Gatley that maybe they could be used for the whole campaign, not just the last five days. Whether the words were right or not did not matter for the time being. The idea was the bright colours, and it was brilliant. Simple and brilliant. Peter said he has never seen anything so fresh for a campaign. I knew he would like them and with the two of us signed up positively, we’d get it through.

Two and a half months later Labour swept to power with a huge majority and have governed the country ever since. Who knows what might have happened without Pete’s posters?