Waste of Time
Damien McBride, Gordon Brown's former attack dog and spin doctor, seems to be making something of a comeback in terms of Labour Party politics with this comment piece in The Times.
Although his ability to 'spill the beans' on internal issues, such as the reason for the ongoing animosity between Michael Dugher and Douglas Alexander, is likely to irritate Team Miliband to a huge degree along with his observation that this whole business is a terrible waste of time - nothing more than a glorified photo opportunity.
By Damian McBride - The Times
Instead of a photo-op with Obama, the Labour leader should go and look for the real America
It is five years since a Labour leader made an official visit to America. Ed Miliband, in Washington to meet Barack Obama today, will not want to dwell on the last time. Notoriously, Gordon Brown was snubbed five times in his requests for a private meeting with the president in New York, eventually settling for the indignity of a passing chat in the United Nations kitchen.
Mr Miliband’s inner circle remembers that debacle all too well. His campaign co-ordinator, Douglas Alexander, was present throughout. Mr Miliband’s top adviser, Stewart Wood, was in charge of White House relations. And Michael Dugher, now Labour’s communications chief, had the unenviable job of managing Brown’s media entourage.
Given that it was Alexander’s team who leaked the “five snubs” story, causing Dugher the worst week of his professional life, you can understand why the current relationship between the two men is so fraught. If Dugher does not trust Alexander one inch, he has good cause.
After the chaos of 2009, Team Miliband will have left nothing to chance before their man’s meeting at the White House today. For starters, they will have ensured he gets at least as much ceremony and time as David Cameron enjoyed in his first visit to President Bush as leader of the opposition. Aides will have their stopwatches out, ready to squash any suggestion that Mr Miliband was given less time than he was due. Warm words about their constructive dialogue on Ukraine and Gaza will be proposed by Miliband’s spin doctors to their American counterparts even before the meeting takes place.
They needn’t worry too much. The reality is that every presidential summit, visit, brush-by, drop-in, and walk-and-talk is nowadays so stage-managed that only someone as afflicted by bad luck as Gordon Brown could ever come a cropper. Provided Obama turns up and the White House doesn’t serve bacon sandwiches, today’s meeting will be the diplomatic equivalent of the speaking clock. So what is the point?
From Team Miliband’s perspective, it challenges the Tory notion that the Labour leader will never be taken seriously on the world stage. If Mr Cameron has mastered the furrowed brow and chopping hand of a prime minister doing statesmanlike things overseas, here is Mr Miliband’s chance to play the same part.
Ideally, a serious-faced Miliband will be pictured in intense discussion with the president; in a lighter week, he would aim for a big shared guffaw. As long as he doesn’t mix the two up, he’ll be fine, and the pictures will slot into “Miliband: The Movie”, coming to a TV screen near you in May.
But is this what we’ve come to: Mr Miliband rightly criticising Mr Cameron’s cabinet changes for putting image above substance, then shuffling off to Washington for what is essentially a photo opportunity, just because focus groups say he doesn’t look prime ministerial?
It’s a waste of everyone’s time, not least Mr Obama’s. More damagingly, every time a British party leader or prime minister goes through this charade, it just reinforces America’s superiority complex and shrinks our junior-partner status ever further.
Three years ago, when Miliband advisers were first mooting an official tour of the US, I urged one to ignore Washington and do something entirely different. I said they should visit state governors instead, and examine their policies on the economy, welfare, policing and public services.
Forget Obama. Compare notes with Utah’s Gary Herbert on devolution to local government. Discuss education with New Mexico’s Susana MartÃnez. Talk to Matt Mead in Wyoming about the balance between tax and spending; ask Colorado’s John Hickenlooper the secret of getting elected when you’re seen as a bit “weird”.
Compared with his stopover in Washington or his studies at Harvard, a tour like that would show Mr Miliband what makes the real America tick, and he’d find a lot less interest in interventionist foreign policies than he’ll hear in Obama’s White House. He wouldn’t return with many images for Labour’s election broadcasts, but, more importantly, he might come back with some ideas for his manifesto.
If he’s not persuaded, Ed Miliband should speak to his shadow chancellor. In 2010, when Ed Balls was trailing last in Labour’s leadership campaign, his family got in a camper-van in Massachusetts and went on a five-state tour of New England. What he saw fundamentally changed his outlook on the global economy and he returned to make a speech that correctly challenged the orthodoxy about whether Britain’s nascent recovery would be maintained.
For right or wrong, Mr Balls’ tour reversed the direction of Labour’s policies for this parliament and changed the terms of debate for next year’s election. Will Mr Miliband’s meeting today do anything like the same, whatever words he exchanges about Russia or Israel? Will it change one bit of how Mr Miliband sees Britain, or how Britain sees him? You’d get a million-to-one in Vegas.
Instead of a photo-op with Obama, the Labour leader should go and look for the real America
It is five years since a Labour leader made an official visit to America. Ed Miliband, in Washington to meet Barack Obama today, will not want to dwell on the last time. Notoriously, Gordon Brown was snubbed five times in his requests for a private meeting with the president in New York, eventually settling for the indignity of a passing chat in the United Nations kitchen.
Mr Miliband’s inner circle remembers that debacle all too well. His campaign co-ordinator, Douglas Alexander, was present throughout. Mr Miliband’s top adviser, Stewart Wood, was in charge of White House relations. And Michael Dugher, now Labour’s communications chief, had the unenviable job of managing Brown’s media entourage.
Given that it was Alexander’s team who leaked the “five snubs” story, causing Dugher the worst week of his professional life, you can understand why the current relationship between the two men is so fraught. If Dugher does not trust Alexander one inch, he has good cause.
After the chaos of 2009, Team Miliband will have left nothing to chance before their man’s meeting at the White House today. For starters, they will have ensured he gets at least as much ceremony and time as David Cameron enjoyed in his first visit to President Bush as leader of the opposition. Aides will have their stopwatches out, ready to squash any suggestion that Mr Miliband was given less time than he was due. Warm words about their constructive dialogue on Ukraine and Gaza will be proposed by Miliband’s spin doctors to their American counterparts even before the meeting takes place.
They needn’t worry too much. The reality is that every presidential summit, visit, brush-by, drop-in, and walk-and-talk is nowadays so stage-managed that only someone as afflicted by bad luck as Gordon Brown could ever come a cropper. Provided Obama turns up and the White House doesn’t serve bacon sandwiches, today’s meeting will be the diplomatic equivalent of the speaking clock. So what is the point?
From Team Miliband’s perspective, it challenges the Tory notion that the Labour leader will never be taken seriously on the world stage. If Mr Cameron has mastered the furrowed brow and chopping hand of a prime minister doing statesmanlike things overseas, here is Mr Miliband’s chance to play the same part.
Ideally, a serious-faced Miliband will be pictured in intense discussion with the president; in a lighter week, he would aim for a big shared guffaw. As long as he doesn’t mix the two up, he’ll be fine, and the pictures will slot into “Miliband: The Movie”, coming to a TV screen near you in May.
But is this what we’ve come to: Mr Miliband rightly criticising Mr Cameron’s cabinet changes for putting image above substance, then shuffling off to Washington for what is essentially a photo opportunity, just because focus groups say he doesn’t look prime ministerial?
It’s a waste of everyone’s time, not least Mr Obama’s. More damagingly, every time a British party leader or prime minister goes through this charade, it just reinforces America’s superiority complex and shrinks our junior-partner status ever further.
Three years ago, when Miliband advisers were first mooting an official tour of the US, I urged one to ignore Washington and do something entirely different. I said they should visit state governors instead, and examine their policies on the economy, welfare, policing and public services.
Forget Obama. Compare notes with Utah’s Gary Herbert on devolution to local government. Discuss education with New Mexico’s Susana MartÃnez. Talk to Matt Mead in Wyoming about the balance between tax and spending; ask Colorado’s John Hickenlooper the secret of getting elected when you’re seen as a bit “weird”.
Compared with his stopover in Washington or his studies at Harvard, a tour like that would show Mr Miliband what makes the real America tick, and he’d find a lot less interest in interventionist foreign policies than he’ll hear in Obama’s White House. He wouldn’t return with many images for Labour’s election broadcasts, but, more importantly, he might come back with some ideas for his manifesto.
If he’s not persuaded, Ed Miliband should speak to his shadow chancellor. In 2010, when Ed Balls was trailing last in Labour’s leadership campaign, his family got in a camper-van in Massachusetts and went on a five-state tour of New England. What he saw fundamentally changed his outlook on the global economy and he returned to make a speech that correctly challenged the orthodoxy about whether Britain’s nascent recovery would be maintained.
For right or wrong, Mr Balls’ tour reversed the direction of Labour’s policies for this parliament and changed the terms of debate for next year’s election. Will Mr Miliband’s meeting today do anything like the same, whatever words he exchanges about Russia or Israel? Will it change one bit of how Mr Miliband sees Britain, or how Britain sees him? You’d get a million-to-one in Vegas.
Desperate Politicians (20 July 2014)
Ed Miliband is 'peeing his pants' for a meeting with the American President, Barack Obama, apparently and if this report from The Times is correct the Labour leader is to be granted a 'brush-by' next week which means that the President will pop into a pre-arranged discussion between Team Miliband and White House officials.
Better than nothing, I suppose, but it does all sound a bit tacky and desperate.
Miliband to boost his image as Obama grants him a brush-by
Ed Miliband with Barack Obama in London in 2011
Stefan Rousseau/Getty
By David Taylor - The Times
It is known as a brush-by, far from the trappings reserved for an official visit and below the level of an Oval Office meeting reserved for national leaders.
When Ed Miliband goes to Washington DC next week, however, he will at least get a brief meeting with President Obama as he tries to boost his image in time for the general election next year.
The Labour leader, who has enlisted the help of Mr Obama’s former aide David Axelrod for his election campaign, is said to have been pushing hard for the White House meeting in the hope that it will give him the look of a prime-minister-in-waiting.
Labour has been extremely secretive about details of the trip, but three sources have confirmed that Mr Miliband will meet the President’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, in her White House office on Monday. He will then get what is known in White House jargon as a “brush by”, or a drop-in meeting with Mr Obama.
One former White House adviser said: “It is always sensitive to meet a foreign opposition leader. Decorum dictates that the president is not wanting to be seen tipping the scales.”
Some presidents have given British opposition leaders the benefit of an Oval Office meeting and official photograph. Tony Blair got a 20-minute morning meeting with Bill Clinton in 1996, a year before the general election.
As Conservative opposition leader, David Cameron got 30 minutes with George W Bush in 2008, but that, too, was only a “brush by”. Mr Cameron then went across the road to a hotel for a solo press conference where he declared the meeting “very positive”.
Mr Obama has met Mr Miliband before, spending 40 minutes with him at Buckingham Palace in 2011, but it is known that the Labour leader’s position on the Syria vote last summer caused alarm in Washington.
It led to a defeat in the House of Commons for the government, which caused President Obama to make a U-turn on seeking permission from Congress for airstrikes.
Mr Miliband will hope for a picture with the president, but may not get one. Previously secret documents from the Ronald Reagan era show that White House meetings with British opposition leaders have been fraught with diplomatic issues. President Reagan did not want to meet Neil Kinnock in 1984 because Labour had “increasingly taken positions inimical to our interests”, documents show.
The meeting went ahead only after the White House national security adviser checked with Britain to see whether Margaret Thatcher thought Mr Reagan should see her opponent. Mr Kinnock had 25 minutes with Mr Reagan, but documents reveal they spent most of that time arguing about Labour’s nuclear disarmament plan.
Mr Miliband is starting his day in Washington with a round-table at the Centre for American Progress. Matt Browne, senior fellow at the liberal think-tank, said that the session would be for up to 25 senior Washington people, including senators, governors and house representatives, who “want a chance to get to know Ed better”.
At the White House, Mr Obama’s team are understood to be interested to hear Mr Miliband’s views on Europe.
A source with knowledge of Mr Miliband’s visit said: “Should there be a brush-by, it is more than Mr Obama usually does with visiting opposition leaders, and it is exactly what Mr Cameron got with President Bush.”
How important are you? A guide to presidential meetings
State visit
Several days of festivities, including banquet at the White House with A-list guests. The Queen had her last state visit in 2007. British prime ministers, who are not heads of state, do not get the official state visit
Official visit
A visiting world leader gets the bilateral Oval Office meeting, complete with photocall, a joint press conference in the Rose Garden or East Room and a private lunch with the president. Angela Merkel had this level of visit in May, David Cameron got a more rushed version
Private bilateral
World leader meets president in the Oval Office, but has no joint press conference. Gordon Brown was apparently snubbed in 2009 when he got this meeting, but journalists’ questions in the Oval Office were permitted
Private meeting
A visiting leader of the opposition can meet the president and be photographed in the Oval Office. Tony Blair got 20 minutes with Bill Clinton in April 1996
Drop-in or brush-by
Visitor gets a meeting in the White House with senior advisers and the president drops in. David Cameron managed 30 minutes with George W Bush in 2007, but no picture
By David Taylor - The Times
It is known as a brush-by, far from the trappings reserved for an official visit and below the level of an Oval Office meeting reserved for national leaders.
When Ed Miliband goes to Washington DC next week, however, he will at least get a brief meeting with President Obama as he tries to boost his image in time for the general election next year.
The Labour leader, who has enlisted the help of Mr Obama’s former aide David Axelrod for his election campaign, is said to have been pushing hard for the White House meeting in the hope that it will give him the look of a prime-minister-in-waiting.
Labour has been extremely secretive about details of the trip, but three sources have confirmed that Mr Miliband will meet the President’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, in her White House office on Monday. He will then get what is known in White House jargon as a “brush by”, or a drop-in meeting with Mr Obama.
One former White House adviser said: “It is always sensitive to meet a foreign opposition leader. Decorum dictates that the president is not wanting to be seen tipping the scales.”
Some presidents have given British opposition leaders the benefit of an Oval Office meeting and official photograph. Tony Blair got a 20-minute morning meeting with Bill Clinton in 1996, a year before the general election.
As Conservative opposition leader, David Cameron got 30 minutes with George W Bush in 2008, but that, too, was only a “brush by”. Mr Cameron then went across the road to a hotel for a solo press conference where he declared the meeting “very positive”.
Mr Obama has met Mr Miliband before, spending 40 minutes with him at Buckingham Palace in 2011, but it is known that the Labour leader’s position on the Syria vote last summer caused alarm in Washington.
It led to a defeat in the House of Commons for the government, which caused President Obama to make a U-turn on seeking permission from Congress for airstrikes.
Mr Miliband will hope for a picture with the president, but may not get one. Previously secret documents from the Ronald Reagan era show that White House meetings with British opposition leaders have been fraught with diplomatic issues. President Reagan did not want to meet Neil Kinnock in 1984 because Labour had “increasingly taken positions inimical to our interests”, documents show.
The meeting went ahead only after the White House national security adviser checked with Britain to see whether Margaret Thatcher thought Mr Reagan should see her opponent. Mr Kinnock had 25 minutes with Mr Reagan, but documents reveal they spent most of that time arguing about Labour’s nuclear disarmament plan.
Mr Miliband is starting his day in Washington with a round-table at the Centre for American Progress. Matt Browne, senior fellow at the liberal think-tank, said that the session would be for up to 25 senior Washington people, including senators, governors and house representatives, who “want a chance to get to know Ed better”.
At the White House, Mr Obama’s team are understood to be interested to hear Mr Miliband’s views on Europe.
A source with knowledge of Mr Miliband’s visit said: “Should there be a brush-by, it is more than Mr Obama usually does with visiting opposition leaders, and it is exactly what Mr Cameron got with President Bush.”
How important are you? A guide to presidential meetings
State visit
Several days of festivities, including banquet at the White House with A-list guests. The Queen had her last state visit in 2007. British prime ministers, who are not heads of state, do not get the official state visit
Official visit
A visiting world leader gets the bilateral Oval Office meeting, complete with photocall, a joint press conference in the Rose Garden or East Room and a private lunch with the president. Angela Merkel had this level of visit in May, David Cameron got a more rushed version
Private bilateral
World leader meets president in the Oval Office, but has no joint press conference. Gordon Brown was apparently snubbed in 2009 when he got this meeting, but journalists’ questions in the Oval Office were permitted
Private meeting
A visiting leader of the opposition can meet the president and be photographed in the Oval Office. Tony Blair got 20 minutes with Bill Clinton in April 1996
Drop-in or brush-by
Visitor gets a meeting in the White House with senior advisers and the president drops in. David Cameron managed 30 minutes with George W Bush in 2007, but no picture
McPoison (20 September 2013)
A book by Gordon Brown's former attack dog and spin doctor - Damian McBride - is being serialised in the Daily Mail on the eve of the Labour Party conference.
I've never met the chap myself, but Damian seems like a nasty piece of work and strangely deluded if the following quote is anything to go by - in which Damian claims that his former boss was the 'greatest man I ever met'.
"The people passing on such information had varying motives.
Ambitious MPs or political advisers often wanted to destroy a rival without getting their hands dirty, while others were so outraged by a colleague’s behaviour that they just wanted to see him get his comeuppance.
As for me, in a roundabout way I was doing it to protect Gordon Brown.
Until I completely lost my way at the end, everything I did as Gordon’s spin doctor, I did out of devotion, out of loyalty and out of some degree of love for the greatest man I ever met."
Mad or what?
Mad or what?
But much more interesting that what Damian has to say about himself and the many smears he perpetrated on political friends and foes - is the following article by James Cusick in the Independent.
The funny thing is that these ghastly people were supposed to be helping to run the country and look after the economy - on huge public salaries - and at a time when they were busy plotting and planning against their enemies - ironically fellow members of the Labour Party, of course.
To my mind their behaviour was the political mirror image of irresponsible bankers and 'wide boys' in the city - who helped bring the financial system to its knees.
As Gordon Brown’s communications chief, he smeared and span with a savagery that eventually saw him drummed out of politics. Now he has written a tell-all memoir. James Cusick gets a preview
By JAMES CUSICK
Over the past few weeks Gordon Brown has telephoned some of his former aides and told them he’s now worried about “the book”. The assurances he’s been offered – that “everyone gets f***ed over except you, Sarah [Brown], Ed [Balls] and Damian himself of course” – haven’t been enough to calm the former prime minister down. The serialisation this weekend of Power Trip, the first insider account of life inside Brown’s Treasury and Downing Street courts, is expected to confirm his worst fear: that he made a mistake last year when he discussed with McBride, his former spin doctor, just who merited being attacked now that he was away from frontline politics.
Those who have known both men also expect the book to re-open old wounds, spark consequential revenge, and to engender retribution – according to a still-loyal Brownite – “worthy of Machiavelli and Don f***ing Corleone”.
One said: “Damian never carried out orders the way anyone expected. Remember the scene in Macbeth when the king privately orders the two henchmen to kill Banquo? One murderer says: ‘We shall, my lord, perform what you command us.’ Well, Damian didn’t need an order. He thought he knew best which enemies to take out.”
The comment rings true as you ask around. In 2007, soon after being appointed Labour leader, Brown appeared on the Andrew Marr programme to reveal that there would be no snap election later that year as everyone expected. Before the show, some had advised Brown to use a public meeting with “Free Burma” politicians to make the call-it-off formal. But that changed, and Marr was given the exclusive in a pre-record. The only trouble was that McBride had also decided to brief the Sunday papers of the decision. The secret hadn’t lasted until Marr’s morning broadcast and Brown ended up looking wounded, pathetic even.
In the immediate aftermath of the fiasco, McBride, operating on orders from Ed Balls, helped deliver the “culprits” who’d given the PM the “wrong advice”. Those then in Downing Street recall McBride discussing who to blame. “We’ll f*** over wee Dougie,” he’s alleged to have said. Douglas Alexander, along with Ed Miliband, were subsequently made to carry the can.
A year later, amid another crisis, the scenario repeated. According to more than one account, three people were in McBride’s office when one asked: “How we going to play this? I presume we’ll just blame wee Dougie again?”
Episodes like this are at the centre of Brown’s private worry: that Power Trip: A Decade of Policy, Plots and Spin, might be regarded as “Mad Dog” McBride continuing to carry out the orders of his sovereign, and deliver, by proxy, the attack on the Blairites and anyone that Brown has failed to target since he left Downing Street three years ago.
There’s also a strange panic among former Labour advisers in Brown’s government. One of the walking-worried told The Independent: “What if Damian praises us? That won’t go down well. None of us wants to be described positively in his f***ing book.”
McBride is the Cambridge-educated Whitehall civil servant who headed the Treasury’s communications team before he was talent-spotted by Brown as a worthy successor to Charlie Whelan and Ian Austin, his former spin-doctors-in-chief. In 2005, when Austin became an MP, McBride became Brown’s special adviser, a role he took into Number 10 when Tony Blair finally left in 2007.
Brown’s failed premiership is now widely regarded as being psychologically dysfunctional at its core. Blairites, still angry at the coup that ousted Tony, point to McBride. “He’s a symptom; part of the fear that Gordon used to attack vulnerable enemies, or knife those regarded as disloyal. They thought it was all necessary macho-politics. It wasn’t. It was Sicilian thuggery.”
McBride’s transformation from a slim, healthy, witty civil servant to the overweight, aggressive, heavy-drinking henchman, routinely nicknamed McPoison (and far worse) by the end of his time at Brown’s side, is put down by some to his being forced into a role that he didn’t quite fit.
Others are less inclined to be apologetic. “McBride was f***ing good at his job. Lethal, focused, loyal. You want to sell Gordon Brown? You can’t. That’s why he was effective.”
Those claim to have read some of Power Trip claim it deliberately blurs the real chain of command, especially in Number 10. “Damian never took orders from Gordon. It was always through Ed [Balls]. And he knew Gordon would always back him.”
The backing, according to an account shown to The Independent, started early. Andrew Turnbull was head of the Civil Service in 2005 when Brown, then still in the Treasury, signalled he wanted McBride as his adviser. Turnbull claimed McBride couldn’t be trusted and said an investigation had shown him operating outside his role as a neutral civil servant, leaking details of a private matter between John Major and Norman Lamont. Turnbull wanted McBride fired.
A Brown associate at the time says Brown was livid and lost it. “Ian Austin’s replacement had been lined up. Then, suddenly, McBride was in the frame. The reason? Brown wasn’t going to have Turnbull telling him who he could and couldn’t hire.”
Brown’s loyalty was again tested in 2008 when Harriet Harman, then Labour’s deputy leader, claimed she was being briefed against by Number 10. Brown denied it. But in Manchester during Labour’s annual conference, Harman is said to have overheard (some claim she used a tape recorder) McBride on the phone, in his room, doing exactly what she suspected. She went back to Brown. Regardless of the evidence, he refused to censure his communications chief.
At another conference a year later, when it was suspected that the Scottish minister, David Cairns – the former Roman Catholic priest who died in 2011 – was going to resign after walking out of the conference during the leader’s speech, McBride took action.
A last-minute intervention had changed Cairns’ mind, and he had decided to stay. But McBride had already leaked the story to the press and thrown in a bit of spice. Cairns was gay, and the report noted he’d used Air Miles, run up on ministerial trips, to take his “same-sex partner” on holiday. Cairns, leaving liturgical language behind, called Number 10, shouting: “Where is your moral compass now, you bunch of bastards?”
Others offer similar accounts of McBride’s “hitman” operations. Ivan Lewis, the Bury MP who publicly warned in 2008 that Brown’s government was “out of touch”, found his private text messages to a female aide splashed across the papers.
Power Trip, which offers a one-sided account of Brown’s inner court, is nevertheless said to be clear on who is responsible for the former PM’s eventual downfall. And it isn’t Brown himself.
Another former aide says : “Stephen Carter [brought in from the private sector in 2008 as Brown’s chief of staff] gets hammered, even though McBride helped make his life in Number 10 pure hell. Spencer Livermore gets hammered because of the 2007 election f***-up. Alistair Darling gets hammered because Gordon couldn’t bear anyone but him running the Treasury. Douglas Alexander, Ed Miliband… everybody, every Blairite, they all get hammered.”
But what gets left out? For another insider this is going to be the best bit. “People will head for the index first and search for ‘China’. There was a time when McBride was with Brown in Beijing and was in the hotel bar for the whole night and entire morning. Wonder if that’ll get a mention?”
Kevin Toolis, whose play The Confessions of Gordon Brown is currently at London’s Trafalgar Theatre, said he talked to McBride as part of his play’s research. “As a fanatical member of Brown’s inner circle, working for ‘the boss’ was all-consuming for Damian. He had to fend off enemies and conspire with so-called press friends to further Brown’s premiership. And it all took its toll on his health.”
Toolis thinks that ultimately McBride was “deadly effective”. But despite the menace of his reputation, “he never had a strategic view of how to handle the press – because he wasn’t a journalist like Alastair Campbell”.
McBride eventually resigned after a well-documented scandal in 2009 surrounding emails linked to a Labour website, Red Rag, that had McBride’s fingerprints all over them. These included plans to create false rumours about key Tory politicians, such as regarding their sexuality and fake allegations about their families.
McBride’s book contains no epitaph on his career. But if he needs one, Macbeth Act 3, scene 1, is an option. As the king’s henchman says: “I am reckless what I do to spite the world.”
‘Power Trip: A decade of Policy, Plots and Spin’, is published by Biteback Publishing on 23 September
Over the past few weeks Gordon Brown has telephoned some of his former aides and told them he’s now worried about “the book”. The assurances he’s been offered – that “everyone gets f***ed over except you, Sarah [Brown], Ed [Balls] and Damian himself of course” – haven’t been enough to calm the former prime minister down. The serialisation this weekend of Power Trip, the first insider account of life inside Brown’s Treasury and Downing Street courts, is expected to confirm his worst fear: that he made a mistake last year when he discussed with McBride, his former spin doctor, just who merited being attacked now that he was away from frontline politics.
Those who have known both men also expect the book to re-open old wounds, spark consequential revenge, and to engender retribution – according to a still-loyal Brownite – “worthy of Machiavelli and Don f***ing Corleone”.
One said: “Damian never carried out orders the way anyone expected. Remember the scene in Macbeth when the king privately orders the two henchmen to kill Banquo? One murderer says: ‘We shall, my lord, perform what you command us.’ Well, Damian didn’t need an order. He thought he knew best which enemies to take out.”
The comment rings true as you ask around. In 2007, soon after being appointed Labour leader, Brown appeared on the Andrew Marr programme to reveal that there would be no snap election later that year as everyone expected. Before the show, some had advised Brown to use a public meeting with “Free Burma” politicians to make the call-it-off formal. But that changed, and Marr was given the exclusive in a pre-record. The only trouble was that McBride had also decided to brief the Sunday papers of the decision. The secret hadn’t lasted until Marr’s morning broadcast and Brown ended up looking wounded, pathetic even.
In the immediate aftermath of the fiasco, McBride, operating on orders from Ed Balls, helped deliver the “culprits” who’d given the PM the “wrong advice”. Those then in Downing Street recall McBride discussing who to blame. “We’ll f*** over wee Dougie,” he’s alleged to have said. Douglas Alexander, along with Ed Miliband, were subsequently made to carry the can.
A year later, amid another crisis, the scenario repeated. According to more than one account, three people were in McBride’s office when one asked: “How we going to play this? I presume we’ll just blame wee Dougie again?”
Episodes like this are at the centre of Brown’s private worry: that Power Trip: A Decade of Policy, Plots and Spin, might be regarded as “Mad Dog” McBride continuing to carry out the orders of his sovereign, and deliver, by proxy, the attack on the Blairites and anyone that Brown has failed to target since he left Downing Street three years ago.
There’s also a strange panic among former Labour advisers in Brown’s government. One of the walking-worried told The Independent: “What if Damian praises us? That won’t go down well. None of us wants to be described positively in his f***ing book.”
McBride is the Cambridge-educated Whitehall civil servant who headed the Treasury’s communications team before he was talent-spotted by Brown as a worthy successor to Charlie Whelan and Ian Austin, his former spin-doctors-in-chief. In 2005, when Austin became an MP, McBride became Brown’s special adviser, a role he took into Number 10 when Tony Blair finally left in 2007.
Brown’s failed premiership is now widely regarded as being psychologically dysfunctional at its core. Blairites, still angry at the coup that ousted Tony, point to McBride. “He’s a symptom; part of the fear that Gordon used to attack vulnerable enemies, or knife those regarded as disloyal. They thought it was all necessary macho-politics. It wasn’t. It was Sicilian thuggery.”
McBride’s transformation from a slim, healthy, witty civil servant to the overweight, aggressive, heavy-drinking henchman, routinely nicknamed McPoison (and far worse) by the end of his time at Brown’s side, is put down by some to his being forced into a role that he didn’t quite fit.
Others are less inclined to be apologetic. “McBride was f***ing good at his job. Lethal, focused, loyal. You want to sell Gordon Brown? You can’t. That’s why he was effective.”
Those claim to have read some of Power Trip claim it deliberately blurs the real chain of command, especially in Number 10. “Damian never took orders from Gordon. It was always through Ed [Balls]. And he knew Gordon would always back him.”
The backing, according to an account shown to The Independent, started early. Andrew Turnbull was head of the Civil Service in 2005 when Brown, then still in the Treasury, signalled he wanted McBride as his adviser. Turnbull claimed McBride couldn’t be trusted and said an investigation had shown him operating outside his role as a neutral civil servant, leaking details of a private matter between John Major and Norman Lamont. Turnbull wanted McBride fired.
A Brown associate at the time says Brown was livid and lost it. “Ian Austin’s replacement had been lined up. Then, suddenly, McBride was in the frame. The reason? Brown wasn’t going to have Turnbull telling him who he could and couldn’t hire.”
Brown’s loyalty was again tested in 2008 when Harriet Harman, then Labour’s deputy leader, claimed she was being briefed against by Number 10. Brown denied it. But in Manchester during Labour’s annual conference, Harman is said to have overheard (some claim she used a tape recorder) McBride on the phone, in his room, doing exactly what she suspected. She went back to Brown. Regardless of the evidence, he refused to censure his communications chief.
At another conference a year later, when it was suspected that the Scottish minister, David Cairns – the former Roman Catholic priest who died in 2011 – was going to resign after walking out of the conference during the leader’s speech, McBride took action.
A last-minute intervention had changed Cairns’ mind, and he had decided to stay. But McBride had already leaked the story to the press and thrown in a bit of spice. Cairns was gay, and the report noted he’d used Air Miles, run up on ministerial trips, to take his “same-sex partner” on holiday. Cairns, leaving liturgical language behind, called Number 10, shouting: “Where is your moral compass now, you bunch of bastards?”
Others offer similar accounts of McBride’s “hitman” operations. Ivan Lewis, the Bury MP who publicly warned in 2008 that Brown’s government was “out of touch”, found his private text messages to a female aide splashed across the papers.
Power Trip, which offers a one-sided account of Brown’s inner court, is nevertheless said to be clear on who is responsible for the former PM’s eventual downfall. And it isn’t Brown himself.
Another former aide says : “Stephen Carter [brought in from the private sector in 2008 as Brown’s chief of staff] gets hammered, even though McBride helped make his life in Number 10 pure hell. Spencer Livermore gets hammered because of the 2007 election f***-up. Alistair Darling gets hammered because Gordon couldn’t bear anyone but him running the Treasury. Douglas Alexander, Ed Miliband… everybody, every Blairite, they all get hammered.”
But what gets left out? For another insider this is going to be the best bit. “People will head for the index first and search for ‘China’. There was a time when McBride was with Brown in Beijing and was in the hotel bar for the whole night and entire morning. Wonder if that’ll get a mention?”
Kevin Toolis, whose play The Confessions of Gordon Brown is currently at London’s Trafalgar Theatre, said he talked to McBride as part of his play’s research. “As a fanatical member of Brown’s inner circle, working for ‘the boss’ was all-consuming for Damian. He had to fend off enemies and conspire with so-called press friends to further Brown’s premiership. And it all took its toll on his health.”
Toolis thinks that ultimately McBride was “deadly effective”. But despite the menace of his reputation, “he never had a strategic view of how to handle the press – because he wasn’t a journalist like Alastair Campbell”.
McBride eventually resigned after a well-documented scandal in 2009 surrounding emails linked to a Labour website, Red Rag, that had McBride’s fingerprints all over them. These included plans to create false rumours about key Tory politicians, such as regarding their sexuality and fake allegations about their families.
McBride’s book contains no epitaph on his career. But if he needs one, Macbeth Act 3, scene 1, is an option. As the king’s henchman says: “I am reckless what I do to spite the world.”
‘Power Trip: A decade of Policy, Plots and Spin’, is published by Biteback Publishing on 23 September
