EDINBURGH, Scotland, July 10 (UPI) -- Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former press secretary, calls Scottish journalists "whingeing (sic) Jocks" in his diary, "The Blair Years."
Campbell was at Blair's side during his rise to British prime minister and his early years in office. In the movie "The Queen," he is credited with creating the phrase "the people's princess" for Blair's eulogy on Princess Diana.
In a 1995 entry, two years before Labor came to power, Campbell complains that the press describes both Blair and himself as "ultra-English" when they were both in many ways Scottish, The Scotsman reports.
"He was born there and his dad is a Scot," Campbell wrote. "My blood is 100 percent Scots, I play the bagpipes and followed the football team to World Cups."
Anticipating one visit, Campbell called Scotland "a disaster waiting to happen." In 1995, he complained to Gordon Brown, now the prime minister, about an upcoming trip.
"TB said to him he'd had a day full of whingeing (sic) Jock journos saying they wanted devolution and they wanted no tax and they wanted Scotland to get more money and they wanted to win the World Cup and why was I stopping them?"
Whinging, by the way, is a term meaning to complain or to whine.
