There's wrong and there's right and there's Tony Blair

MAYBE we have always had celebrity politicians and it's not just a 21^st century phenomena, but it seems that you just can’t get away from them (and no I don’t mean George Lee).

The end of Britain's New Labour in government has heralded a flurry of publishing launches from our nearest neighbour as several former party insiders have rushed texts into print.

Former Director of Communications Alastair Campbell was first out of the blocks in 2007 with The Blair Years, a door-stopping diary tome that now has a sister publication launched in June called Diaries Volume One: Prelude to Power. These are supposedly the “uncut” ones and cover the years 1994 to 1997. Not sensing that we will see the Campbell case for war in Iraq “uncut” anytime soon, though. Campbell also has his own website and blog but that is tame at best.

Under orders from An Phoblacht’s editorial junta, I attended the 2007 Campbell launch in Dublin’s Merrion Hotel. Snacking on the canapés, sipping the wine, watching the unfolding mutual love in between Bertie Ahern (launching the diaries) and Campbell, I wondered where was the Irish (26-County) Labour Party in all of this as the blue-suited Fianna Fail hordes queued for a personalised signing.

Campbell was small beer compared to what came next.

The Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition Government was barely getting comfortable in Downing Steer when the London Times was serialising Peter Mandelson’s The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour. You can watch the TV ads on YouTube but the spoof versions are way funnier.

For weeks its gossipy narrative on the Blair/Brown split tussled with Peter Andre’s My World: In Pictures and Words for the top spot in the British hardback non-fiction market. Andre had sold 55,400 books in the last 13 weeks compared to 55,075 for Mandelson in his eight weeks in the top 10.

However, both have been blown away by the "hand of history" himself, Tony Blair, who sold a massive 92,060 books last week, according to Neilsen BookScan data.

Last week, the Sunday Tribune reported how Blair’s A Journey had sold 2,274 copies in its first five days in Irish bookshops slightly more than the first week of Bertie Ahern: The Autobiography. Yes, it was a startlingly boring title - enough said.

Blair’s book was the centre of controversy before publication, beginning with the disclosure that he was to donate the €4million fee and any other profits from the book to the Royal British Legion.

Then Blair chose Dublin’s Easons O'Connell Street 'flagship' store to launch his book, following a guest appearance on the Late Late Show with Ryan Tubridy (or “Tubbers” to me and Leinster rugby fans). The protests at the launch had an international impact and though relatively low-key soaked up huge media attention, particularly in the USA where pre-launch sales will put the biography at No 3 on next week's New York Times Best Seller List.

In Britain, Blair’s A Journey had even outsold the first week of the previous autobiography record holder, David Beckham. Blair has cancelled or scaled back many other signings so it will be interesting to see how his second week of sales has gone.

Considerable less focus has been on another Labour memoir, that of MP and Birmingham Six campaigner Chris Mullin, who has sold just over 2,000 copies in his first week. The DVD version of his novel, A Very British Coup, has been discounted in many video stores this year and is definitely worth a wet Saturday afternoon’s watching.

Frasier: Right and Wrong

AS BLAIR has become not just a politician but an international celebrity, other celebrities this week have been making the leap into politics. And so enter Kelsey Grammer, star of Frasier and Cheers, who is supporting the creation of Right Network, a right-wing conservative news channel.

Don’t take my word for it. Check it out on rightnetwork.com and hear Frasier’s musings on “There’s wrong and there’s right.”

I wonder will Tony Blair be popping up to sell his book on Mr Grammer's platform?