Blair 'wanted to quit by 2005'
Updated on 08 July 2007
Alistair Campbell reveals in his memoirs that Tony Blair wanted to quit number 10 before the 2005 election.
Tony Blair's popularity waned as a result of the bloody aftermath of the Iraq invasion.
But his former aide Alastair Campbell has now revealed that Mr Blair decided before the war that he would quit as prime minister ahead of the 2005 election.
This is one of the revelations in Mr Campbell's diaries, which are published tomorrow.
But readers should not expect juicy titbits about Mr Blair's relationship with his successor - Mr Campbell has removed references to Gordon Brown.
Over the 10 years Alistair Campbell spent at Tony Blair's side, he wrote a two and half million word diary.
But just one-seventh of that word count is being published tomorrow. The Blair Years is not a raw contemporary account of life in Downing Street. Rather, it is a carefully edited version.
Philip Gould (Tony Blair's pollster) briefed him on how his trust ratings had really dipped. He (Tony Blair) said, 'In truth, I've never really wanted to do more than two full terms.'Alistair Campbell, The Blair Years
There are revelations, such as the moment a year before the Iraq war when Tony Blair he told his advisers he wanted to quit.
What we do not yet know is what Alistair Campbell has written about those finger-jabbing days when he went to war with the BBC over its report that the government had "sexed up" intelligence in the run up to the Iraq war.
The accompanying report is by Zoe Conway.
