Ed Miliband is not the only person who wanted Gordon Brown to sack Damian McBride. At an IPPR fringe event this evening, Douglas Alexander told The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland he urged the Prime Minister to sack McBride over media briefings that his sister Wendy should be sacked; briefings which McBride claimed came from Douglas:
‘I did urge Gordon to dismiss someone, it was Damian McBride. That might explain the way he has briefed against me then and writes about me now.
‘Listen, I was always a supporter of my sister. The politics that he represents is destructive, divisive and ultimately, deeply damaging to our politics and our cause.
‘That was the view I held then — I expressed it on a number of occasions. It’s what he did and what he does. I’m glad it’s now a postscript on Labour’s history.’
McBride isn’t very happy about Alexander’s comments, and has taken to Twitter to respond:
RT: “@nicholaswatt: Douglas Alexander: I + others paid a price for opposing @dpmcbride destructive + divisive politics” >>> Some brass neck.
— Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) September 22, 2013
.@nicholaswatt How does Douglas feel about the destructive & divisive tale about GB’s desperation to secure a 1:1 meet with Obama in Sep 09?
— Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) September 22, 2013
.@JGForsyth I agree with most of them so no reason to attack. But when Douglas poses as the voice of probity and unity, I draw the line.
— Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) September 22, 2013
Such rows over anonymous briefings tend to either fizzle out, or run on and on. Journalists don’t reveal their sources, and so won’t reveal who it was who briefed them about certain embarrassing stories, so unless someone else finds themselves in the sort of confessional mood that led McBride to write his memoirs, we’ll likely never know for certain. But the party leadership will be hoping that the fizzling out will happen sooner rather than later.
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