Alastair Campbell let the mask slip on Newsnight yesterday. During a segment on the future of Brexit, Bad Al lost his rag with co-panelist Alex Phillips. In the rare moments Campbell wasn’t interrupting Phillips, he could be heard huffing and puffing off camera. One patronising exchange came towards the end of the interview:

AP: It’s very rich a man who essentially was part of telling lies to invade a country to accuse me of dishonesty…

AC: I think you may have lost the argument there, my dear. If I may patronise you even more.

Alastair wasn’t going to let it end there, as he then turned on host Victoria Derbyshire for one final tirade. Victoria calmly responded, “I am not going to take that, with respect, from you Mr Campbell”.

In the aftermath of her appearance, Phillips took to Twitter to highlight Bad Al’s behaviour. After coming off air “shaking at his rudeness” she criticised him for “outright bullying, intimidation and frankly thinly veiled misogyny”.

I came off air shaking at his rudeness.

Quite astonishing.

Let’s have a political debate but this was outright bullying, intimidation and frankly thinly veiled misogyny.

I would feel quite ashamed of myself if I acted like that on air. It was not a good look https://t.co/UAaERZmnco

— Alex Phillips (@ThatAlexWoman) May 11, 2023

In a reply of his own, Campbell did accept “it was not exactly disagreeing agreeably”, though refused to apologise and instead doubled down on his argument. Raab lost his job for using “physical gestures” in an intimidating way; Campbell’s behaviour went beyond that… 

UPDATE: Campbell has now tweeted that he has apologised to Victoria Derbyshire.