Ed Balls: Gordon Brown does not need to come clean about Damian McBride Mr Balls, who was one of Mr Brown's closest supporters, said: "Look, to be honest, nobody ever came to me to complain about Damian McBride. I didn't complain about Damian McBride. I don't think until we saw the revelations in this book we didn't know what was going on. I didn't know Damian McBride was doing personal briefings against ministers. He said the first he learnt of McBride's actions was when the emails revealing the "smeargate" plot to spread sexual slurs about leading Conservative MPs were released, forcing Mr McBride from Downing Street. "I said to Damian, "What have you done? How has it come to this? This is no way to do politics. It's shocking and hideous."" Labour leader Ed Miliband has claimed he urged Mr Brown to sack Mr McBride because he was briefing against colleagues. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary and Mr Ball's wife, has denied Mr McBride had ever visited their family home. Mr McBride revealed on Sunday that Mr Brown tried to make Mr Balls into his "First Secretary" in order to take the running of the economy out of the hands of Alastair Darling, the then chancellor. Mr Darling has previously claimed Mr Brown had "unleashed the forces of hell" against him after he claimed Britain was facing the worst economic crisis in 60 years.