At last 20 January has arrived. On this historic day the nation can drop everything and queue up at bookshops to buy copies of the latest volumes of Alastair Campbell's diaries.

The Guardian serialised extracts from Campbell's diaries last Saturday and on Monday. Editing a fine volume of 746 pages into around 4,000 words meant that, inevitably, we did not publish every interesting item.

So here, in the style of the Guardian's king of live blogging Andrew Sparrow, are ten interesting facts from the diaries:

1) Britain believes that Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is an "armour-plated bullshitter". Campbell writes that this was the foreign office description of Netanyahu in April 1998 during Tony Blair's first visit to the Middle East during as prime minister.

This is what Campbell wrote on 17 April 1998:

In the end a lot depended on Netanyahu, or the armour-plated bullshitter as some of the FCO guys called him.

2) Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister who recently left the Labour party to strengthen his coalition with Netanyahu, also believes the Israeli prime minister is a bullshitter.

This is what Campbell wrote on 20 April 1998:

We had a meeting with [Ehud] Barak [Labor Party leader], who was OK but not everything he had been cracked up to be. He said he was pessimistic because Bibi was a total bullshitter.

3) Tony Blair thought the Israelis bugged him during his first visit to the country.

This is what Campbell wrote on 19 April 1998 after a meeting with Netanyahu:

The three of us travelled back together, TB doing his little finger-whirl to indicate the assumption the car was bugged so we did the usual how well it had all gone blah.

4) Lord Levy, Labour's former fundraiser and Blair's envoy to the Middle East, had an irritating habit of popping up in pictures.

This is Campbell's description of a Blair question and answer session in Israeli on 21 April 1998 shortly after he had asked Levy to keep a low profile:

Also there, needless to say, was Michael, hiding behind [Derek] Plumbly [Middle East and North Africa director, FCO] and saying he was deliberately hiding. Then, as TB wound up, who should march straight up there and shake him by the hand and start making introductions but Michael. He was unbe-fucking-lievable.

5) Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein deputy first minister, warned in October 1998 that the then Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble faced a serious threat from the dissident Real IRA.

This is what Campbell wrote on 24 October 1998:

Bertie [Ahern, former Taoiseach], said his people thought the Real IRA were planning something, and it might be a hit on McGuinness. McGuinness meanwhile had told Bertie, with a view to him telling TB, that Trimble was at risk and needed to up his security. He seemed pretty serious.

6) Alastair Campbell received a blood-soaked death throat at home.

This is what he wrote on 5 January 1999:

I got a particularly unpleasant death threat through the post today, dripping with blood, which Fiona [Millar, AC's partner], took to the cops.

7) Downing Street's talk about Blair ushering in an age of "Cool Britannia" was garbage.

This is what Campbell wrote on 18 April 1998 about a briefing for journalists covering the Middle East trip:

They loved my Cool Britannia garbage, even though I freely said myself it was garbage purely designed to fill a hole in the Sundays.

8) Campbell thought Blair was cocky at his first EU summit and gave him a "monstering".

This is what Campbell wrote on 23 May 1997 at the Noordwijk summit:

I gave him a real monstering and on the way back I said he got in there with the big boys and they were taking him seriously, quite rightly, but that was no reason to get all cocky. He agreed, said he didn't quite know why he said what he did, and promised not to do it again.

9) Blair complained that he was surrounded by "weak vessels" in his cabinet.



This is what Campbell wrote on 9 January 1998 during a visit to Tokyo:

TB said to me and CB [Cherie Blair] 'I'm surrounded by these weak vessels who can bring the rest of us down. If ever there was an argument for a presidential system .. .'. He was half joking. CB [Cherie Blair] said if he was president, I could be his Goebbels. She was half joking too, I think.

10) Blair thought that his success in negotiating the 1998 Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland made him "big" and a great benefit to Britain.

This is what Campbell wrote on 16 April 1998 during a holiday in Spain after the successful negotiations: