Depression appears to be the new must-have disease among those in the public eye. But could it be a convenient cover to excuse their appalling behaviour, Tom Leonard wonders
Only a level of self-absorption that blinds one to the most crass insensitivity can explain how Alastair Campbell could dare put himself and his mental welfare at the centre of the tragedy surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly.
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Depression, not really. Guilt, because if anybody ought to have felt some responsibility for the pressures that led to Dr Kelly's suicide it was most impartial observers believed those in the government PR machine. "The Hutton saga was one of those episodes where things were spiralling out of control," said Campbell in an interview at the weekend about his depression.
"The day he (Dr Kelly) killed himself was without doubt the worst day. It was about the sadness that someone felt driven to do this." At the time, a lot of us who covered the story expressed "sadness" that MoD press officers "felt driven" effectively to hand Dr Kelly over to the media, knowing that elements of it were rooting for the Government and likely to rip him to shreds.
Campbell admitted in his diary that he wanted to reveal the BBC's source and the MoD steered journalists in Dr Kelly's direction, dropping heavier and heavier hints until, for some reporters, they pretty much spelt it out. Days later, the scientist was dead. Suicides are often regarded as the ultimate in selfishness.
If only Dr Kelly had known what suffering he was going to cause poor Mr Campbell, would he have stayed his hand? Campbell and his former colleague, David Blunkett, are the latest sufferers from the new celebrity disease of depression, a diagnosis of which instantly whacks up the public sympathy levels and makes others wary of criticism.
The word is now firmly ensconced in the lexicon of secret celebrity language.
When you're in rehab, it's always because you're suffering from exhaustion; when you're addicted to anything it's always to pain-killers, and "charity work" means going to a lot of parties and being given free watches. And now, when you behave appallingly, you are depressed.
Or what the husband of Kimberly Quinn makes of David Blunkett's tear-soaked grizzling, in recent interviews and extracts from his diaries, about his inner turmoil as he fought to keep on top of his job and Mrs Quinn.
Chances are we will never know. Janice Kelly and Stephen Quinn have no books to flog or battered public profiles to resurrect by dragging us into their slough of despond.
We already know what Terry Lubbock thinks of the season's other big celebrity woe-is-me book, Michael Barrymore's Awight Now.
The book "sets the record straight" about the entertainer's rise, depression-hit fall and apparently remarkable comeback.
But Mr Lubbock turned up on the book publicity tour and made clear it was very much not awight now as he was still seeking answers to why his son, Stuart, was found dead in Barrymore's swimming pool.
Barrymore, who tries but fails to explain convincingly in the book why he immediately left the scene of the death and later refused to answer drug-related questions at the inquest, is clearly getting tired of Mr Lubbock Snr.
His refusal to go away and let Barrymore feel sorry for himself in peace has now prompted the former television presenter with surely unintentional irony to accuse him of trying to milk the tragedy.
Perish the thought anyone would do that.
After his unhelpful heckling at a book signing in central London last week, Mr Lubbock was ushered away by security staff.
Ordinary people are not supposed to get in the way when celebrities are trying to come clean about their shattered emotions.
I didn't need a publisher friend to tell me yesterday that the broken hearts of the famous are big business nowadays, but she did all the same.
In a celebrity-obsessed culture, everyone wants to read that it's not a bed of roses at the top, she said.
The effect is magnified by the fact that we also live in a victim culture. In a think tank report published this week, David Green, a criminologist, said that the spread of such a culture means that more than seven of out 10 people can claim to be oppressed.
Women, ethnic minority men and disabled men scored particularly highly. Mr Green provided no statistics for celebrities but it must be high.
All charities know the value of celebrity endorsements.
Celebrities affected by depression include Ulrika Jonsson, Stephen Fry, Stan Collymore, Sarah Lancashire, George Michael, Patsy Kensit, Melvyn Bragg and Ruby Wax the list goes on and on and all feature on mental health websites.
The message is clear this is an ailment from which everybody can suffer. But the danger of the readiness of some less deserving cases to identify themselves as clinically depressed is that it waters down the impact of what is clearly a serious modern disease, with hundreds of thousands of genuine sufferers.
It's probably inevitable that in an industry that is all about egos and self-belief, even the mildest knock to the boat can rock it violently. Even journalists, that sensitive breed, can act like their world has fallen apart just because a piece they wrote is spiked.
Fry, the celebrity depressive's depressive, has just made a BBC documentary about his suffering.
He reveals that the climax came when he considered suicide after getting bad reviews for a West End play.
Fry's suffering is clearly more serious than just getting bad reviews.
We know deprivation is relative and that one makes allowances for creative people, but it begs the question whether people who want to kill themselves over losing their arms and legs in a bomb blast, or perhaps their entire family in a car crash, will feel comfort or disdain at revelations such as these.
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