Alastair Campbell on embedding wellbeing into government and his own mental health journey

In this Season Three bonus episode, host Sarah Cunningham speaks with prominent political strategist, journalist, author, broadcaster and mental health campaigner, Alastair Campbell. Alastair is perhaps best known for his role in the historic 1997 UK election result which saw Tony Blair come to power, for his role as Director of Communications and Strategy throughout Blair’s time in office, and more recently as co-host of the hit podcast ‘The Rest is Politics’.

In the years following his time in government, Alastair has been increasingly open about his struggles with his own mental health. In this episode he speaks candidly about his experience with depression and alcoholism, revealing the actionable tips and tools he implements to cope with these challenges, as well as highlighting the continued benefit he also gets from medication and therapy.

Sarah and Alastair also unpack the current barriers to putting wellbeing first in public policy, with Alastair sharing his unique insight into the inner workings of the UK political system to suggest a hopeful way forward.

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Content Warning: This is a heartfelt discussion that goes to some emotionally difficult places, and there’s also the occasional strong word. Help and support is available from the links below.

Mind: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-s...
Samaritans: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can...
Befrienders: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can...

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We are all Working on our Wellbeing daily, but not everyone has access to the latest cutting-edge research into the science of wellbeing … until now. From our home at the World Wellbeing Movement, within the University of Oxford, we have created the Working on Wellbeing podcast so that you can be a fly on the wall during our conversations with the world’s leading wellbeing experts.