Blair and Campbell pay tribute to strategist Philip Gould

PHILIP GOULD, one of the inner circle who helped New Labour win a landslide in 1997 and go on to win two further general elections, has died at the age of 61 from throat cancer.

He never made the headlines as often as Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell, but as Tony Blair's key strategist and polling expert he was just as important to Labour's new-found winning formula.

And with his wife Gail Rebuck, chief executive of the Random House Group, he was one half of one of London's most dynamic couples.

Gould came from a council estate and recognised, like Mandelson and Neil Kinnock, that the only way to win power was to reconnect Labour with the ordinary voters who had been turned off by Bennite left-wing extremism. Armed with sheafs of opinion poll findings, he helped Blair make that connection.

Paying tribute to him, both Blair and Campbell have called him a "rock" in times of political trouble.

Blair said: "Philip was such a huge part of the renaissance of the Labour party. To me he was my guide and mentor, a wise head, a brilliant mind and a total rock when a storm was raging.

"He became indispensable. He was always a constant advocate for the British people, their hopes and anxieties. So his political contribution was immense."

Campbell writes on his blog this morning: "He was a team player, and his team was Labour. 'Pollster' doesn't really say the half of it...

"He was not a speechwriter but he was the most brilliant analyst of speech drafts. His notes on them always improved the final product. He was also great in a crisis, and always able to lift people and campaigns when they were low. He was that rare thing in politics – someone who was strategic, tactical and empathetic all in one. He was a rock."

Gould, who was give a peerage in 2004, died at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, his wife Gael and their daughters Georgia and Grace at his side. ·