Monday, 20 July 2009





McBride: I've Never Attacked Anyone

Iain Dale 1:50 PM

I heard most of Damian McBride's interview on 5 Live earlier. What a shame it wasn't live, as I am sure 5 Live callers would have told him what they thought of him. Which was no doubt why he insisted on it being pre recorded. Alex Smith of LabourList called it "nauseating". Michael White was a little kinder and clearly wants to think the best of Mr McBride. But you get the sense that he can't quite bring himself to.

McBride put in a less than convincing performance, I thought. When he said that you could talk to any journalist in the lobby and they would tell you that he never threatened or indulged in attack dog politics I just laughed out loud. Virtually every lobby journalist I know, apart from his pets, would tell you that's exactly what he did. Yes, he also had another charming side. I wrote at the time about his kindness to my editor at Total Politics when he arranged for her to interview Gordon Brown for our launch issue. Indeed, I wrote a note to him thanking him for the professional way he had handled the whole thing. But that dies not excuse his other, darker side.