The last time Labour were heading into government, they knew which heavy hitter they wanted to grill their leader. Speaking at an Intelligence Squared event on Monday, the satirist Armando Iannucci recalled a bizarre phone call from Labour HQ. “Tony would like to be interviewed by Alan Partridge,” they said. Apparently this would go down well with the young at the party conference.
Iannucci drafted a script but Blair, who “deferred everything to Alastair Campbell”, seemed disengaged. When the leader arrived with Peter Mandelson, his strategist, they were introduced to Iannucci and Steve Coogan, who was in costume, and Mandelson asked where Alan Partridge was.
“It had to be explained to him that it was a fictional character,” Iannucci said. Coogan later said Campbell had
