Gordon Brown considered sending in troops as banks faced collapse, Damian McBride claims Mr Brown said: "If the banks are shutting their doors, and the cashpoints aren't working, and people go to Tesco and their cards aren't being accepted, the whole thing will just explode. If you can't buy food or petrol or medicine for your kids, people will just start breaking the windows and helping themselves. And as soon as people see that on TV, that's the end, because everyone will think that's OK now, that's just what we all have to do. It'll be anarchy. In the latest serialisation of Mr McBride's memoirs in the Daily Mail, it also emerged that the spin doctor leaked details of a Customs probe into pearls Cherie Blair brought back from China. In the book, he admitted giving the Mail on Sunday "some assistance" with a splash that appeared in 2005 claiming that Customs had pursued Mrs Blair over unpaid VAT and customs duty on the jewels. In retaliation, Mrs Blair began storming out during a speech made by Mr Brown at Labour's 2006 conference. Just as she was leaving, Mr Brown started saying how great her husband was. She shouted back: "Well, that's a bloody lie." Mr McBride also discusses an incident in 2008 when Mr Cameron sent Mr Brown a furious Christmas card after the Labour leader accused him of using his children as "props." In the card, the word "props" was so heavily underlined, Mr McBride claimed, that you could see the deep indentation beneath.