Damian McBride and me

For those of us who intersect with the Downing Street Press Office from beyond the confines of the Westminster lobby, the revelations regarding Damian McBride came as little surprise.

Uncouth would be a kind description of the man, charmless would perhaps be more accurate. After all, he was seemingly known as Mad Dog to his friends, and McPoison to his enemies.

My own intersections with McBride, in the flesh, by text and by email, were mostly of a one way nature. He rarely replied.

In our limited correspondence he seemed to have no interest in promoting his “master’s” interest on our “outlet”, nor, so far as I am aware, on anyone else’s. McBride was one of those people you wondered about…

It was interesting to note that McBride made it to the higher reaches of the Labour party and at the right hand side of the prime minister. It was an ascent I was never able to resolve, and still cannot.

McBride’s unmasking speaks ill of the whole Westminster lobby correspondent system – a cosy club which both the Independent and the Guardian tried unsuccessfully to operate outside of.

It leads to the sustaining of special advisers, and it serves political hacks in government and beyond more generously than they would be served were there no such secret society meeting on “lobby terms” at regular intervals – about which readers, viewers and listeners are never told.

This is not to speak ill of my own colleagues or the many friends I have within the system… they are prisoners of it. It is in the prime minister’s hands to end it.