Inside Downing Street officials were putting the finishing touches to a £20
billion bailout package for struggling businesses, to be announced by the
prime minister the next day. Out in the real world, thousands of workers
were facing redundancy as Barclays and Jaguar Land Rover announced savage
job cuts.
But at 6.30pm on Tuesday, January 13, Damian McBride, Downing Street’s head of
strategy and planning, had other things on his mind. He was bent on a smear
campaign against the Tories on a proposed new website, Red Rag.
“Gents, a few ideas I have been working on for Red Rag,” he wrote, by way of
introduction to the plan he was about to send to Derek Draper, his old
friend and Labour blogger. “For ease, I’ve written all the below as I’d
write them for the site.”
Copying in Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown’s former spin doctor, McBride, who was
paid by the taxpayer, set out four possible stories to ensure the new Labour
website got off to a flying start.
He described the first – about a gay Tory MP promoting his companion’s
business interests in the Commons – as a “solid investigative story”,
suggesting that it “may be a good one to use early”.
The other three, he admits, “are gossipy and mainly intended to destabilise
the Tories”.
The scurrilous suggestions and lurid language in the e-mail triggered panic in
Downing Street yesterday but one person was clearly impressed.
“Absolutely totally brilliant Damian,” fired back Draper 20 minutes after
receiving McBride’s message in January. “I’ll think about timing and sort
out the technology this week so we can go as soon as possible.”
If the smear campaign being hatched by McBride had gone ahead, it would have
set the scene for one of the dirtiest general election campaigns in recent
history.
However, in a twist that would prove terminal for McBride, the e-mails fell
into the hands of Paul Staines, the right-wing Westminster blogger known as
“Guido Fawkes”. Yesterday copies of the e-mails were seen by The Sunday
Times.
McBride’s ideas are set out under a series of headings, the first relating to
a gay Tory MP. He suggests Red Rag circulates a story that the individual is
“routinely using his position in the House of Commons to offer free
publicity” to a large high street company for which the MP’s boyfriend
works. McBride alleges that the Tory MP “has never once declared his close
personal relationship” with the store executive and lists a series of
occasions on which the MP appears to have used Commons facilities to promote
the company; praised the firm in Commons debates and put down parliamentary
motions that could be favourable to it.
McBride’s second suggestion is to challenge David Cameron, the Conservative
leader, to publish his “full financial and medical records”, and to spread
gossip that he may have suffered from a sexually transmitted disease.
The slur appears to be based on nothing more than Cameron’s admission that,
when he was a student, he once attended a clinic for sexually transmitted
diseases at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. But McBride suggests
“inserting [a] picture of Dr Christian Jessen”, who appears on the Channel 4
programme Embarrassing Bodies. There is no suggestion that the two men know
each other.
Headlined “George’s photo album”, McBride’s third idea was to alarm the
Conservatives by falsely hinting at the existence of embarrassing
photographs of George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, from his university
days.
In a reference to pictures published in 2005 of Osborne with a prostitute,
Natalie Rowe, taken 12 years earlier, and the notorious Bullingdon Club
photograph of Osborne taken when he was at Oxford, McBride writes:
“Embarrassing photos have followed George Osborne around throughout his
career: posing in his Bullingdon Club uniform at Oxford, lying on the carpet
at home in his permed mullet playing Monopoly with his fellow viscounts and
standing in an . . . embrace with a prostitute at a party in London. But he
knows that the most embarrassing photos from his past have yet to emerge.”
McBride goes on to suggest that the website should spread rumours that
pictures exist of Osborne “posing in a bra, knickers and suspenders” and
“with his face ‘blacked up’ ”.
“He wouldn’t be the first student to do some cross-dressing at university. But
. . . why would a student in the late 1980s black up his face for the
amusement of friends in their private college rooms? This in the era when
young Tories wore ‘Hang Mandela’ T-shirts.”
In what is perhaps the most vicious section, McBride suggests spreading
entirely unfounded rumours about Frances, Osborne’s wife.
A second e-mail from McBride, which appears to have been sent later the same
month, offers “a couple more thoughts on stories”.
“If you think these work, let’s think about how to sequence them in with the
others,” McBride wrote. He admits that one of his ideas “is a bit of poetic
licence” but is based on “what we know” about the prostitute with whom
Osborne was pictured.
“It will put the fear of God into Osborne,” he added.
In his most lurid slur, McBride suggests that “secret tapes” exist containing
evidence that Osborne had sex with the prostitute. McBride makes obscene
allegations about the use of a sex aid and also claims that drugs were
taken. The shadow chancellor has always denied having any physical
relationship with Rowe or taking any drugs with her.
Finally, McBride suggests Red Rag concoct a tale about Nadine Dorries, a Tory
back-bench MP, having a one-night stand with a married colleague during a
party away day. McBride suggests Red Rag hint that a sex aid was
accidentally left in a hotel bedroom.
Dorries reacted to the unfounded allegation furiously yesterday, demanding an
apology from Brown: “The e-mail accusations regarding myself are 100% not
true. They are slanderous and therefore libellous.” McBride has known for
some days that Staines had obtained career-damaging evidence against him.
However, it was not until yesterday afternoon that the prime minister’s aide
discovered exactly what had fallen into the political blogger’s hands.
In characteristic style, before the content of the e-mails was in the public
domain, McBride and his supporters attempted to spin their way out of the
crisis, by characterising the messages as “banter between blokes”.
Even after the devastating material was revealed, Draper seemed reluctant to
accept the smear campaign was entirely a mistake, saying of the stories
McBride proposed: “In truth these were a bit juvenile and inappropriate and
some were in bad taste though I have to admit some were also brilliant and
rather funny.” He said his friend had paid a high price for a “silly
mistake” and insisted the proposed smears were simply “daft plans” that
“never made it off the drawing board”.
Liam Byrne, the Cabinet Office minister, was wheeled out to try to minimise
the political backlash. He sought to play down the significance of the
e-mails, pointing out that the proposed smears were not eventually
published. The Red Rag website is still dormant.
“Even their very author decided that actually there was no place in public
life or for public consumption for these e-mails; the right place for them
was the bin, “ Byrne said.
Draper has warned that he could call in police to investigate how the
“private” material was obtained.
Yesterday, there were rumours in Westminster circles that Downing Street
unsuccessfully attempted to marshal one or more Labour MPs loyal to the
party machine to issue quotes in support of McBride, but was rebuffed.
Brown’s controversial aide has alienated many in his own party over the years.
Last night his career at Downing Street was over after Brown accepted that
the e-mails could not be dismissed as a joke. While his role was political,
it was funded by the public purse, making his position untenable once the
details became clear. He appeared isolated as Labour figures disturbed by
his tactics joined the attacks.
Lord Campbell-Savours, a Labour peer, said he had raised concerns that McBride
had breached the code of conduct for special advisers: “He did nothing but
damage and I’m glad he’s gone, but it should have happened years ago.”
In a statement, McBride said he was “sickened” by Staines’s decision to put
the e-mails into the public domain. Bowing out, he said: “We all know that
when a backroom adviser becomes the story, their position becomes untenable,
so I have willingly offered my resignation. “
On kiss-and-tell stories:
'When you read a kiss & tell story in the paper, you're only ever reading
what the paper have [sic] negotiated to buy. There's always other stuff
which the paper's can't print...so lots of good material'
On a Tory MP’s gay relationship with a retail executive:
‘He invites MPs to a reception ... at the House of Commons (courtesy of the
taxpayer) to promote [the retailer’s] new fair trade range of products.’
On two Tory MPs said to have a one-night stand at an awayday:
'I'm told by a witness that both MPs received a carpeting.'
On David Cameron:
He could clear up exactly how much the Cameron's worth ... and he could make
clear that he’s not hiding any embarrassing illnesses.’
DAMIAN McBRIDE
Known as “McPoison” in the corridors of power, McBride was one of the prime
minister's most trusted allies. The magazine PR Week put him in the top 10
of the country’s spin doctors with the likes of Matthew Freud and Max
Clifford.
He started out as a Treasury civil servant but became Gordon Brown’s political
adviser while his mentor was still chancellor.
Credited with masterminding a guerrilla war to get his man into No 10,
McBride, 34, was at the heart of an operation to crush all opposition to
Brown’s succession. When Brown became prime minister, McBride became his
official political spokesman, one of the most powerful positions in Downing
Street.
Despite his high-profile new role, he proved reluctant to abandon the shadowy
tactics he used to such great effect before his boss came to power, and
continued to brief contacts over long lunches.
His enemies thought he was finished following the arrival at Downing Street of
Stephen Carter, the former lobbyist, as Brown’s strategy chief. The
appointment sparked a turf war. When Carter left months later, he was seen
as the victim of a campaign by the cabal of Brown’s “long marchers” at No
10.
Carter’s departure was a pyrrhic victory for McBride, who was simultaneously
moved to a backroom role as director of strategy and planning. It followed
disquiet among Labour MPs at his tactics.
DEREK DRAPER
Draper is a flamboyant northerner with a talent for self-promotion. He was a
top Labour spin doctor until he was embroiled in a lobbying scandal in 1998,
the year after Labour came to power.
He was caught on tape boasting to an undercover reporter that he could sell
access to government ministers. “There are 17 people who count,” he said.
“To say that I am intimate with every one of them is the understatement of
the century.”
He first rose to prominence as a bag carrier to Peter Mandelson, a job he did
alongside editing a left-wing magazine and writing a newspaper column. He
lost all three jobs when the lobbygate scandal broke.
Mandelson said of his friend at the time: “He has a fine intelligence, but
sometimes I am afraid he misuses that intelligence. He gets above himself."
A year later Draper was sacked from his job as political commentator at Talk
Radio after calling one of its phone-line programmes and claiming he was in
a brothel in Amsterdam. He subsequently had a breakdown. After a spell at
the Priory, he retrained as a psychotherapist and started writing self-help
books.
He remained out of the political limelight until a year ago, when he returned
to the Labour fold on a new mission to establish a political blog. As a
psychotherapist, he would be well qualified to smear an innocent woman about
her mental health. He is married to Kate Garraway, a GMTV presenter.
GUIDO FAWKES
Despite having no journalistic training, Paul Staines has become one of the
government’s most powerful critics under the pseudonym Guido Fawkes. One
cabinet minister, Hazel Blears, the local government secretary, has labelled
him an “antiEstablishment” pedlar of “vicious nihilism”.
Launched in 2004, Staines’s blog now attracts more than 120,000 visitors a
month with its cocktail of jokes, scoops, satire and tittle-tattle.
Born in Ealing, west London, in 1967, Staines joined the Young Conservatives
during the 1980s, when he was a leading force in the acid-house movement,
involved in organising raves. He founded his blog after being declared
bankrupt five years ago.
Staines’s caustic political commentary has led to clashes with political
journalists, who claim he trades in unsubstantiated rumour and innuendo.
In January 2008 Staines became the first blogger to claim the scalp of a
heavyweight politician when Peter Hain was forced to resign after Fawkes
published details of the way his campaign for Labour’s deputy leadership was
funded.
Labour party activists have claimed Staines is a Tory stooge, but the blogger
insists he will turn his ire on politicians of all parties. He has written
extensively on the saga of MPs’ expenses and revealed that Caroline Spelman,
the Conservative frontbencher, paid her nanny out of parliamentary expenses.
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