Damian McBride - his future

Mr. McBride has lost very much - a fair income and expenses, a job he evidently enjoys and a position of power in Downing Street.

Where does he go next with his particular powers and gifts?

What inducements will he be offered to reveal what he knows or to keep quiet about what he knows? If journalists like Alice Miles, in today's Times, knew what he was doing over months if not years, it seems impossible to believe that others in Downing Street did not know. Even if he actually did his sinister work of briefing against colleagues and opponents "off his own bat", was everyone else in Numbers 10 and 11 blissfully innocent?

He was party to "dirty secrets" because he was at the centre of power, and it seems quite possible that he could implicate many of the people around him then. As he was engaged in doubtful work, he could have kept incontrovertible evidence in order to protect himself. This would be natural.

So could his financial future come from revelations and evidence for which newspapers will pay?
(Of course , if G.Brown were literally a gangster, McBride could already have been gagged by being located in the concrete foundations of some construction project. But quite apart from the outcry at the disappearance of someone as well known as him, nobody would suggest that politics however dirty would stoop to this.)

The question is how G.Brown will ensure his silence. Fraser Nelson expects to see McBride back in Downing Street after a few months. Perhaps he will be proved right, but a few months will not be enough for the electorate to forget what has been revealed and what protested by G.Brown. A well paid Trade Union job, like that of Mr.Whelan, perhaps? Some PR agency might be willing to lose some reputation and customers by employing him?

Time will tell, but Labour cannot afford to be too closely involved with him openly or the whole affair could re-open.