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In extracts of his memoir published in the Daily Mail, Gordon Brown's former communications chief, Damian McBride, confesses to leaking damaging stories about other Labour figures. Those below are among those he targeted.
John Reid
Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA
McBride recounts that Reid, home secretary at the end of Tony Blair's period in office, was a long-time rival of Brown and viewed as a possible threat for the succession. Reid, McBride writes, had formerly been a heavy drinker, and he fed stories about the home secretary's alcohol-fuelled past to newspapers. Reid then announced he would quit top-level politics when Blair stepped down, and passed the message to McBride that he could "call off the dogs now".
Charles Clarke
Photograph: ITN
McBride explains at length how he sought to undermine some ministers by trawling through ministerial schedules and documents connected to upcoming announcements and carefully briefing newspapers in advance, leaks which would puzzle the ministers concerned. Using this means, he says, in 2005 he "orchestrated what looked like a briefing war" between Clarke, the then home secretary who was opposed to Brown's succession, and Clarke's anti-social behaviour supremo, Louise Casey. McBride claims the ill-feeling contributed to Blair's decision to remove Clarke as home secretary in May 2006.
Ivan Lewis
Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
McBride recalls reprimanding the then junior health minister, Ivan Lewis, in 2008 for commenting on tax policy, only to be passed the message that Lewis would not be intimidated. Angered, McBride then fed to the News of the World a story about Lewis allegedly pestering a young female civil servant in his private office. McBride expresses deep remorse in retrospect, saying he had been "a cruel, vindictive, thoughtless bastard".
Douglas Alexander
Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian
Separately, the Independent has recounted some other episodes connected to McBride. It cites one in which Douglas Alexander, a junior cabinet minister under Blair who is now shadow foreign secretary, was blamed for a fiasco in which Brown's TV announcement that he would not call a snap general election in 2007 was leaked to the papers in advance. "We'll fuck over wee Dougie," McBride reportedly said.
The newspaper says Alexander was made the scapegoat for another crisis a year later, with a meeting in McBride's office being told: "How are we going to play this? I presume we'll just blame wee Dougie again?"
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