McBride quits

So, it’s happened. The News of the World has confirmed that Damian McBride has quit – and I understand that it will tomorrow publish the emails at the centre of the storm. The logic for the resignation is clear. McBride broke two cardinal rules for spin doctors: 1) Never become the story, and 2) Never, ever screw up during a bank holiday because the story just mushrooms – there’s nothing else to fill the news pages*.

Damiangate had, through the course of today, taken on its own, awesome momentum. The options for No10 were clear: if McBride stayed, then tomorrow’s newspapers (and Monday’s, and Tuesday’s) would be choc full of grim stories about black arts, smear tactics, hit men – a real diet of super-ugly news. And it wouldn’t be Tories on the attack, but the likes of Charles Clarke and the many other Labour figures who have a score to settle with McBride.