Alastair Campbell posts hilarious photo with ‘old friend’ Peter Capaldi

Former Labour Party strategist Alastair Campbell has shared a photo of himself with Peter Capaldi, making reference to the latter’s character in The Thick of It.

Campbell, 67, worked as Tony Blair and Labour’s spokesman and campaign manager from 1994 until 2003.

The former journalist has since crafted a successful career for himself as podcast host, presenting The Rest is Politics show alongside former Tory MP Rory Stewart, recently selling out London’s 02 Arena with their live show.

Campbell’s time in politics though earned him a reputation for liberalling using profanities in the workplace. This trait saw him become the inspiration for Malcolm Tucker in Armando Iannucci’s The Thick of It.

The political satire ran for four seasons from 2005 until 2012, largely revolving around Tucker, played by Capaldi, the foul-mouthed Scot at the heart of the government and opposition’s communications strategy.

Both Campbell and Capaldi had a chance encounter on Monday (16 December), with the former sharing the evidence on X/Twitter.

“Bumped into an old friend at the US Embassy Xmas party...” wrote Campbell, sharing a picture of the two at the event.

This is hardly the first time that Campbell has made reference to Tucker.

Back in 2012, Campbell mocked Iannucci for accepting an OBE, for joining the “establishment he claims to deride”. In a reference to his believed fictional alias, Campbell added: “Malcolm Tucker and I do not approve of honours system.”

But Iannucci was quick to respond, tweeting: “It’s probably more establishment to order your army to march into other countries for no reason. Swings and roundabouts,” an implied reference to Mr Campbell’s role in the Iraq war.

Capaldi, who also played Tucker in the 2009 film In The Loop, said in January that he believes The Thick of It would be too pertinent given the current climate of contemporary British politics.

Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, Capaldi told the host he is “not terribly keen” on a potential reboot of the series because the state of contemporary politics is “beyond a joke”.

Capaldi said: “Well, you know, the reason I’m not terribly keen on it is because I think it’s beyond a joke. And joking about it just in some way, takes the spotlight away from the problems. And I think that [the] problems are profound.”

“We’re in the middle of a climate crisis, we’re in the middle of a time when we can’t trust the government, there seems to be a level of corruption that’s going on that’s quite extraordinary.”

He continued: “Listen, we could do The Thick Of It, which was really funny, that would make jokes about all that, but I think it would be letting them off in some way.”

Asked if he believes a reboot of The Thick Of It would “trivialise” the current issues in contemporary politics, he replied: “Yeah, I think it’s too serious. These are hard times politically and we have to be responsible and aware.”