Labour admits knowing about Damian McBride's smear campaign In a book, timed to cause maximum damage by being published during the Labour conference, Mr McBride has disclosed how he destroyed the careers of New Labour Cabinet ministers by using smears and lies, and disclosing details of their private lives. He also described "logging into" Mr Brown's government email account to access official secrets. On Saturday night Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former spin doctor, raised the prospect of a criminal investigation into his conduct. Mr McBride said he discredited the former prime minister's enemies by tipping off the media about drug use, spousal abuse, alcoholism and extramarital affairs. In one case, he disclosed that Tony Blair's wife was being investigated by Customs. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor and a close aide to Mr Brown before he was prime minister, described Mr McBride's dirty tricks operation as "vile," but insisted he knew nothing about it. He said: "He was a law unto himself, it now seems." Liam Byrne, the shadow work and pensions secretary, told The Sunday Telegraph that he thought that Mr McBride was immoral, that he was a "malevolent and bad" person, but claims he was a "lone wolf." The party is determined to put it "in the past" in an attempt to ensure that it does not distract from the conference, which begins today. However, Mr Bryant's comments in a column in The Independent raised further questions about whether the Cabinet turned a blind eye to Mr McBride's activities. Mr Bryant describes how, at Labour's conference in 2008, he was working on a speech for Miss Harman, with her special adviser Ayesha Hazarika. Ruth Kelly, then transport secretary, resigned from the Cabinet late that night. "At about midnight, we heard transport secretary Ruth Kelly had resigned, been sacked or had otherwise accidentally fallen out of the Cabinet, and we were facing a major rewrite of the speech," Mr Bryant said. In need of fresh air, we stepped out on to the balcony. Gordon Brown's office was nearby and from the terrace above us we could hear Damian's rasping tones ranting at some poor hack at three o'clock in the morning about the evils of his boss's deputy, our very own Harriet. We should have been scandalised, but to be honest we just laughed and teased him about it for weeks. Mr McBride's book has awakened the party's painful memory of the rift between disciples of Mr Brown and those MPs and activists who were loyal to Mr Blair. Mr McBride was a fanatically loyal supporter of Mr Brown, a man whom he says in some ways he "loved." Mr McBride left the government in disgrace in 2009 when it emerged that he sent a Labour colleague emails containing unfounded smears about Tory MPs for a website called Red Rag. He now claims that this colleague, Derek Draper, has suggested that Mr Miliband may also have sent compromising emails and would "have problems" if they ever came to light. Mr Draper was not available for comment on Saturday night. However, a Labour source who knew both men said: "You can criticise Ed Miliband for many things but running a Damian McBride-style smear operation isn't one of them." Mr Miliband has denied any involvement in attempts to smear opponents. On Saturday it emerged that Mr McBride was so loyal that he was prepared to "knife" Mrs Blair to attack her husband. In 2005, he leaked details of a Customs inquiry into pearls Mrs Blair brought from China in an attempt to discredit her. He decided that her support for her husband meant she posed a threat to Mr Brown's claim to the Labour leadership, and as such decided that she was "fair game." Mr McBride adds that she "gave as good as she got." A year later, during a speech in which Mr Brown praised Mr Blair, Mrs Blair stormed from the room saying "that was a bloody lie." Her comments led the news, leading Mr Brown to say: "She's killed us, she's bloody killed us." Mr McBride also admitted to ruining the careers of former home secretaries Charles Clarke and John Reid. He admitted that he helped force Mr Reid to quit the Cabinet by leaking details about his "drinking, fighting and carousing." Mr Byrne said that there is "no place" for Mr McBride's smears in modern democracy. He told The Sunday Telegraph: "From a moral point of view, there can be absolutely no excuse and no place for [such smears] in a democracy like ours. From what I have heard reported about Mr McBride's activities, there isn't a place for that kind of conduct. Damian very much was a lone wolf. We are not immune. No political party is immune to having bad individuals pop up every now and then. People profiting from the past does not do Labour any great service. Mr McBride's book, Power Trip, raised questions about exactly how much Mr Miliband and Mr Balls also knew of his activities. Both men now running the Labour Party were Brownites who worked closely with the spin doctor in government. However, in a newspaper interview on Saturday, Mr Balls denied this. He admitted that he was part of the "macho" cabal around Mr Brown's inner circle but condemned Mr McBride's "despicable smears" against colleagues, including other ministers inside the Labour Cabinet, and insisted he had no idea what was going on. No, I didn't know. He was a law unto himself, it now seems," Mr Balls told The Times. Mr Balls said that Mr McBride's decision to publish his memoir did not "help" the Labour Party's cause, echoing criticisms levelled by other party grandees including Alastair Campbell, who was Mr Blair's director of communications, and David Blunkett, a former Cabinet minister. On Saturday night Mr Miliband moved to ban Mr McBride from working for Labour ever again. At Labour's annual party conference in Brighton, activists said they feared the McBride disclosures would increase the general sense of cynicism among voters. Diane Johnson, a retired social worker and Labour councillor from Banbury, Oxfordshire, said: "It's disappointing. It's almost as if we all know it's going on but you don't want to know. To have it so explicitly in your face, you have got to get past it.