A very brazen assassin: Blair's attack dog was Alastair Campbell Damian McBride says ambitious MPs or political advisers often had to destroy a rival without getting their hands dirty Toxic culture is exposed in spin doctor's political memoir He admits tipping off newspapers about 'drug use, spousal abuse, alcoholism and extra-marital affairs' Talk to Alan Milburn and he is convinced I had a role in spreading rumours about his private life that accompanied his resignation from the Cabinet back in 2003, before I even became Gordon Brown's press chief. Talk to David Miliband and - to my huge irritation - he apparently blames me for leaking his adoption of a second child from the U.S. and suggesting he was infertile. Both stories had absolutely nothing to do with me. But I've only myself to blame, given I had form for leaking scurrilous stories. At the centre of power: Damian McBride with Gordon Brown in 2008 It always irritated me when people would say: "Were you responsible for that News of the World splash last weekend?" No, I'd say, the person responsible was the bloke refusing to take "no" for an answer from a woman in the House of Commons bar; or the bloke who inveigled his way into a girl's house after she'd gone to sleep and got into bed with her naked. If I'd made the stories up, or exaggerated them, I'd have felt responsible. But I struggled with the concept of taking the blame when the only thing those politicians had to complain about was that the misdeeds they hoped would remain secret had seen the light of day. When you do the job I did, in the way that I did, you become some diabolical inversion of a priest in the confessional box; told other people's sins precisely in the hope that you'll expose them to the world. Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat; Ministers, MPs or advisers; if they'd ever shared their secrets with colleagues in Westminster, the chances were that I ended up being told about them, too. Drug use; spousal abuse; secret alcoholism; extra-marital affairs. I estimate I did nothing with 95 per cent of the stories I was told. But, yes, some of them ended up on the front pages of Sunday newspapers. The people passing on such information had varying motives. Ambitious MPs or political advisers often wanted to destroy a rival without getting their hands dirty, while others were so outraged by a colleague's behaviour that they just wanted to see him get his comeuppance. As for me, in a roundabout way I was doing it to protect Gordon Brown. Until I completely lost my way at the end, everything I did as Gordon's spin doctor, I did out of devotion, out of loyalty and out of some degree of love for the greatest man I ever met. Some people will undoubtedly wonder why - if Gordon knew I was guilty of misbehaviour - he never either formally reined me in or had me moved on. And my answer to that is simply that there was something unspoken between us. Not what people imagine, that he would mutter under his breath about turbulent priests and hope that I would do his bidding, but the opposite. The unspoken word was from me to him, and said: "Don't question my methods." I offered him the best press he could hope for, unrivalled intelligence about what was going on in the media and access to parts of the Press that no other Labour politician could reach. And my attack operations against his Labour rivals and Tory enemies were usually both effective and feared, with me willingly taking all the potential risk and blame. What I expected in return was simply to have the freedom to take the necessary steps to cultivate those media relationships, whatever that entailed. When I started writing this memoir, I was warned by an old colleague that - whatever I did - I should not admit to "doing in" any Labour MPs or Ministers, because: "Even though people know you did, confirming it will make you a pariah for life." I decided to ignore that advice precisely because I regret - or have retrospective reservations about - the vast majority of what I did. And as my old parish priest used to tell me when I went to confession, you can't expect forgiveness unless you speak your sins out loud. For several weeks in 2005 when Charles Clarke was Home Secretary, McBride orchestrated what looked like a briefing war between Charles and Tony Blair¿s anti-social behaviour guru, Louise Casey The art of leaking lies in knowing where to discover information, then deciding which bits can be made public for your own purposes without leaving any fingerprints. So how did this work? Sitting in my office in the Treasury, I'd scroll through "the grid" circulated each week by No. This was a calendar outlining in as little detail as possible the main announcements for the next fortnight: "Johnson, DoH - Liver Disease" and so on. The purpose of this being circulated was to avoid announcements clashing. After all, you didn't want Alan Johnson unveiling a hard-hitting campaign on liver disease on the same day Tessa Jowell announced the pilot schemes for 24-hour pubs. Sometimes, these little snippets would be enough for me to make a story. But usually busting the grid involved more work. So, next, I'd log into the Chancellor's office email system - not his personal email, but the official one used for receiving correspondence - and hunt through the folders for Cabinet papers or minutes of Cabinet meetings. I'd be looking for a proposal or discussion that might correspond to the upcoming announcement. This could take hours, but I'd usually crack it eventually. Now came the crucial stage. A reckless spin-doctor might just print off the relevant document and pass that to a journalist. That was the sort of thing that brought about leak enquiries, sackings and even prosecutions, because most of those documents were "Restricted," "Confidential" or "Secret." So, instead, I'd rewrite the document in entirely different language, as though it were a press briefing. Then I'd talk a journalist through the story. No matter how potentially controversial it was, I'd brief it in an apparently positive way so that, in print, it looked as though it had been officially briefed from that department. For the same reason, I'd ban the journalist from using the word "leak" so it didn't look unplanned. And that was it. The story would emerge in one paper or another, or - so it looked like a proper briefing operation - in two or three on the same day. The department concerned would be confused and hold internal inquests to find out who'd briefed it. But they'd eventually just shrug. Of course, sometimes there was a bit more mischief to the art. If I could simultaneously give out a good story and destabilise one of Gordon's internal rivals or critics, that was all the better. For several weeks in succession in 2005 when Charles Clarke was Home Secretary and a declared opponent of Gordon's succession to the premiership, I orchestrated what looked like a briefing war between Charles and Tony Blair's anti-social behaviour guru, Louise Casey. Each of them in turn appeared to goad the other by making some new announcement on the subject through the Sunday papers, or appearing to claim advance credit for something the other was planning to announce. There was already plenty of ill-feeling between them, but the briefings made it both public and self-fulfilling, contributing to Tony Blair's sacking of Charles in May 2006. At a drink with Charles's press team after the reshuffle, they were bitter about Louise's role in undermining their boss and so oblivious of my role that they happily supplied details of how Tony Blair had been in tears when he told Charles the news, a bit of colour I obviously then briefed to the papers. Our political system is set up to expose human frailties - even the ones you never knew you had. It's fuelled by the cut-throat competition to be selected, elected and promoted, and the macho bear-pit of parliamentary debate. At every stage, the system offers a new politician temptations to sin and shows them that their colleagues who succumb are all too often those who succeed. It encourages vanity, duplicity, greed, hypocrisy and cruelty. Just after the summer in 2008, Ivan Lewis made an unhelpful intervention on tax policy, says McBride It rewards those whose instincts are reactionary and ruthless. It preys on those with addictive personalities, whether it's alcohol or attention they crave. When I entered this world, I already suffered from a well-developed dark side. And I was sucked in like a concubine at a Roman orgy. The worst of it was that I had enough of a split personality to be able occasionally see what was happening to me, and to be aware what I was doing to others. But I never had the will-power to stop it. One story illustrates that above all others. Just after the summer in 2008, Ivan Lewis - then a junior Minister at the Department of Health - made an unhelpful intervention on tax policy. So I doled out the usual mild rebuke. Speaking as a No 10 source, I told the newspapers that Ivan should concentrate on his day job - or he might soon find himself without one. That should have been that. But I then received a surprising message from Ivan - via a mutual contact - telling me that he wasn't scared of my bullying and, if I tried those tactics again, I'd find that he could give just as good in return. Immediately, any sense of what was best for Gordon or the Labour Party or the country, any concept of right and wrong, all disappeared out of my head. The News of the World splashed a story about his supposed pestering of a young civil servant who used to work in the office of Ivan Lewis As far as I was concerned, Ivan had slapped me across the cheek with a white silk glove, and he was going to get an iron fist in his face in return. The following weekend, the News of the World duly splashed a story - quite obviously from me - about his supposed pestering of a young civil servant who used to work in his private office. Even when I heard afterwards that Gordon's adviser Sue Nye had reflected sadly that I could sometimes be very cruel, my only reaction was to wonder why she felt any sympathy for Ivan. A few days later, though, I picked up a copy of the News of the World and, for the first time, looked closely at the picture they'd used of the former civil servant. She'd obviously been surprised by a snapper on her doorstep and was turning round with a slightly bewildered expression. It dawned on me then that at no point had I stopped to think: "What about her?" I had dragged her through the wringer just so I could show Ivan that I could p*** higher up the wall than him. It wasn't going to protect Gordon, or promote his interests. It was just me being a bastard: a cruel, vindictive, thoughtless bastard. As I sat there staring at the picture, I asked myself: "What's happened to you? What kind of person have you become? I should have walked away that day and never come back. To my eternal regret, I did not. Instead, I did what I always did: I shrugged and carried on, becoming more and more depressed and detached, and losing all sense of judgment.